THE BEAUTY WITHIN IN YOU REQUIRES NO INTRODUCTION BECAUSE YOU ARE IT!
The beauty within you requires no introduction because you are It. Only the three gunas by which this entire universe is run, created and dissolved cause these conflicts and do not allow your real Self to shine through. Through our systems of meditation, we rise above the three gunas. That is the only way. You cannot change them, and you cannot destroy them, for everything is indestructible. Nothing is ever destroyed. You cannot destroy the teeniest, tiniest atom. Even when we depart from this body, this body is not destroyed. It goes back into its original elements.
Everything in this universe is indestructible. You cannot add a single ounce of energy to it, nor can a single ounce of energy detract from it. In these circumstances, we have got to make some plans, and the only way, the royal way, the royal road of Love, Life and Truth, is to go beyond the three gunas, and we go beyond the three gunas by being established in the Self. That is achieved through meditation, where we observe all happening around us. It is as if we are sitting in a cinema and watching a film on the screen. You can do nothing to influence the action on the screen. You become an observer.
If you can be established in the Self through our practices, and I am happy to say that many, many of us are reaching there at quite a good speed, then you become an observer of all the happenings in the world. All this will go on and on and on, but you, as the observer, are non-affected.
This is not a question of believing or having faith. It is a question of experience. You are transcending the laws of nature and living in your real Self. You are transcending the small “I” that is you and living in the big “I” that is you too, for the small “I” is transient and illusory, while the big “I” is changeless and permanent. Here lies the calm.
Why do we only think of the world’s troubles, for they are but the turbulent waves on the ocean’s surface? Just dive deep, deeper through your spiritual practices. Dive deep into the ocean; when you go below the sea’s surface, it is so calm and at rest and peace.
Believing in things and having faith in things has value, but experiencing this has a different value.
WE ARE ONLY OBSERVING THE SURFACE
We only observe the surface when we look at the world’s problems, such as poverty and unemployment. I do not say that you should not observe the surface; by all means, be aware of it, and to satisfy your little mind, the little conscious level of the mind, do something about it if you can. Lend a helping hand. Why not? But do not lend a helping hand to inflate your ego. “Auntie Mary was sick, and I went to Auntie Mary’s home and looked after her for three weeks. Ah! What a wonderful person I am.”
Self-sacrificing? No, you are only boosting and strengthening your little ego, which is causing more trouble because when Auntie Mary dies and leaves you nothing in the will, you will start swearing at her. That is how it works.
If it were a selfless service with true mercy and compassion that Auntie Mary is ill and let me offer my services in whichever way I can to help her ease her dis-ease, then that would come from a spiritual level. It can only come from the deeper level if you have some integration between body, mind and spirit.
Everyone in this world would like to see this entire world at peace, the world as a whole joyful. That has even been promised by some so-called gurus: the age of enlightenment. That will never happen. Enlightenment on an individual basis, yes, and the more individuals that find greater and greater peace, the more slight changes can be brought about, but not total change.
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOURSELF
You are responsible for yourself, and at the same time, you are also your brother’s keeper. If you do not know what being responsible for oneself is, you can never be your brother’s keeper. To be your brother’s keeper, you would have to be able to love him: love thy neighbour as thyself. One of the world’s most extraordinary injunctions. But what do we know about it? How can we love our neighbour when we cannot even love ourselves? And that love for ourselves can only come from integration within ourselves by experiencing that love within ourselves. Very few people know what love is all about.
It is only the integrated man that would love his neighbour as himself because he knows very well that that which is within me is within him. My brother and I are non-apart. This separation seems to be there is no separation at all. A person sitting on this side of the room and another sitting on that side would think they are separate. But there are millions of atoms and molecules joining the two people. They are not separate even in the physical sense, and physics would prove this to you. In the spiritual sense, although there is apparent separation, one realises that we are both in the same pond, little bubbles containing the same energy and water floating in the same pond of Divinity.
When one comes to realise this through personal integration, then only could you genuinely say, “I love my brother as myself,” and then you can honestly say, “Do unto others as I expect it to be done unto me.”
EXPERIENCE THAT STILLNESS
How beautiful things are, but they are not understood. For it is only when man becomes integrated through spiritual practices, when man slowly goes through the layers of the small conscious mind through the various layers of the subconscious mind to that area of stillness, which I term the Superconscious Mind, that he experiences that stillness because the Superconscious Mind being uncluttered by the various experiences he might have had through so many lifetimes reflects that divine Light within in all its purity, for the pane of glass is clean and that Light is so bright that he does not even see the glass anymore.
That filters back through the subconscious, the direct line, to the conscious mind, and you feel it in your analytical conscious mind. The brain’s right hemisphere sends this energy to the analytical left hemisphere, which analyses and verbalises. Here, the intuitive level is awakened to that degree from the superconscious level to the conscious level, where you know that peace.
Psychologists know so little about it; they are just scratching the surface. The subconscious mind contains layers upon layers upon layers. It includes the memories of all the happenings of this cycle of this universe since it began.
MAN KNOW THYSELF
All theologies have talked about that peace. They say, “Man know thyself.” No theologist says, “Man knows thy world.” The world be damned for the moment. Man, know thyself. But man does not know himself. Man knows only something about himself and thinks that he thinks, but he does not even know how to feel because thought is a creative process. You are not thinking. You are only gathering data and synthesising it. That is all what you are doing -things have been thrown upon you from all directions.
You use XYZ toothpaste. Why? Because you are bombarded all the time through press and TV, through advertising media: XYZ toothpaste is the best, never lets your teeth decay and blah, blah, blah, and that is why you start using XYZ toothpaste. You are not living. You are a puppet on the strings of economics. Regarding the clothes that you wear, why did you wear orange this year and blue the previous year? Because fashion magazines say that Christian Dior, Pierre de Laurens, and Pierre Cardin are the best. So, how much are you living by yourself? You go to a restaurant. You know nothing about the restaurant, but friends have told you, “Ah, it is a good restaurant.” Like that. Every aspect of your life can be analysed that you are not living your life. You are just a lifeless puppet pretending to be alive.
But when this integration dawns in such a simple way, then you start living. When awareness expands, and that knowingness comes to you, then you live, for that is the life, and that is the way, and that is the only truth. Let us start thinking more about self-integration rather than saving the world. As we know from history, many reformers have come throughout the ages, and the world has remained the same.
We had just as much strife during the times of Krishna and Jesus as we have today. In those times, people were killed by the sword, and today, the same thing is done with a gun. Same thing. They go on talking about morality. Thou shalt not kill. Very good. If you do it, you get hanged or electrocuted. But they can do it by millions, masses, by throwing down bombs. That is legal.
Sending up spaceships into the air, spending billions and billions of dollars, and then you talk of your unemployment and your poverty and people without food? What was more important? Scientific discoveries have their place. But charity begins at home and not in outer space. Feed the poor. Educate the children – bring them to a level of understanding. Give them spiritual food and food for the stomach. Then, by all means, what do you have left on those projects?
It is happening all over the world. What can you do? How can you redirect this thing set in motion by nature itself? The only way out is to jump off the bus, off the wheel of karma, find inner peace, and observe all these happenings as a must that the world is reaping for its karma.
THE THOUGHTS OF MEN CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE
A person emanates a certain vibration from him. You like some people instantly when you meet them, but you do not want others. You go into some homes and would like to stay there, so peaceful and pleasant. In other homes, you keep looking at the watch: when can I leave? An atmosphere is created. This is made at an individual level. Then, it is produced at the city level. Then, it is at the provincial level, the country level, and the world level. The thoughts of men create this atmosphere. It must burst when it becomes cumbersome and thick like the dark rain cloud. That is why those very influences of the thoughts of men worldwide influence the policymakers on a very subtle level to enter and create wars and strife.
Man can only do something individually, for if he could radiate peace within himself, he could make the world slightly better. The sun gives light to the whole world, but one little lamp can give light to a little room. So, let us think of giving light to this little room by feeding our flame with the oil of Divinity. Feed the little lifeless wick that we are only enlivened by that oil of Divinity.
We have to find that peace – there is no other way out. That peace is just within. It is there at hand, and you can grasp it anytime. As the awareness expands, your attitudes and perspectives change. Like my favourite saying, “Two men behind prison bars. One saw mud, and the other saw stars.” One can see only gloom, while the other sees glory. This is done on an individual basis. You have got to play solo, and that is what we teach.
I say this to the newcomers here: this is what we teach. By being or becoming a better person, you contribute something to this world. But never think of reforming the whole world. That is a pipe dream. We can bring this balance within ourselves, find greater peace and joy, and radiate that to others.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1981 – 41
