WE ARE SUBJECTED TO THE WORKINGS OF NATURE There is no difference between body and mind, and the difference would be subtle; in other words, the body exists on a grosser level than the mind. The mind, which also matters, exists on a more subtle level. Being composed of matter, the mind and the body are necessarily governed by the three Gunas. The Sanskrit words for the three Gunas, or the three elements which govern all nature and natural existence, are Tamas, Rajas and Sattva. When we discuss nature, we will realise that there is birth, development, decay and death within the realms of nature. These aspects of life and death exist within nature, and embodied beings or realised men like Buddha, Ramakrishna, and Ramana Maharshi are subject to the laws of nature. In other words, their minds and bodies are subjected to the various workings of nature. As human beings, we who are embodied and have a bit of the mind, as far as we know it, are also subjected to the same things that the enlightened ones were subjected to. THE EXISTENCE OF THE ENLIGHTENED BEING IS BEYOND MIND AND BODY Regarding enlightenment, the reference is put more on the third aspect of man, the spiritual part. In other words, man has the body, he has the mind, and he has the Spirit. For the enlightened being, his residence, his entirety, is mainly based on the spiritual level, whereby he would not care to any significant degree about his mind or his body. He lives in a state of its own which we could call the transcendent state. One thing is sure the transcendent state, which is the Spirit, does permeate the mind and the body, but the permeation must go through these various facets of nature and the elements that govern nature. In our eyes, these enlightened people seem to neglect the gross body because they live on a much higher plane than the person living in the body itself. By that, we mean that when a person lives in the body only, he lives in the sensual body. The sensual body is the body which is expressed by the five senses we have – seeing, smelling, tasting, touching and hearing. But these enlightened beings do not care for the sensual self. The sensual selves of their beings are of no importance to them or assume no significance whatsoever. That is the difference between the ordinary average man and the enlightened man. The typical average man lives within his senses only, primarily on a finer level of the mind or on the physical level. The enlightened being has gone beyond the requirements of the senses and the workings of the senses. The existence of the enlightened being, is beyond mind and body. The enlightened person finds that the workings of nature are transient; they are temporary, while the life he lives in the transcendent, in the Spirit, is permanent. He has found within himself the calmness of the ocean, beneath the sea, deep down in the ocean, while the workings of nature are nothing but the turbulence which forms the waves on the sea. THE THREE GUNAS ARE THERE TO AID US IN OUR EVOLUTION He, too, has gone through the waves that are on the surface and has gone deeper down into the realm, or the depths, where the workings of the Gunas, Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva are not important. For us, they are essential because Tamas, Rajas and Sattva, the three elements which compose nature, have to be there for us and to aid us in our evolution. In evolution, we are not eradicating or destroying Tamas, which could be called inertia. We are not destroying Rajas, the activating factor, and we are not destroying Sattva either. We are trying to allow Sattva, the finer element of nature, in other words, the Light, to dominate our lives. By Light dominating the lives, the inertia or darkness, in other words, Tamas, is not destroyed but subdued. THE ENLIGHTENED MAN IS BEYOND THE THREE GUNAS That is the average man on his path to progression, on his path to reach his maker. This is the path the average man has to travel until he has reached the finest sattvic value, the finest light value, the finest relative value of his life. Then he goes beyond that finest relative to become one with the Absolute, which is his Spirit. The enlightened man typically lives in that plane beyond Tamas, Rajas and Sattva or somewhat beyond the workings of the laws of nature. He is beyond all nature. Sometimes, we call enlightened beings a law unto themselves. When a person becomes a law unto himself or beyond all laws that govern the physical or the material universe, he ceases to care for his body. From our eyes, Ramakrishna or Ramana Maharshi, who both suffered from cancer, might seem in great pain. Still, they might be experiencing the finest ecstasy or the most profound ecstasy, which we call Bliss. They were suffering from our point of view, but from their point of view, the suffering was just a play. They were the ocean, and the suffering was just waves upon the surface because they had transcended the surface waves and become one with the ocean’s depths, which is the core and true nature of every human being. THE NATURE OF MAN IS DIVINE I have always said that the nature of man is Divine. Those enlightened beings are called enlightened beings because they have reached Divinity and live in it. When you have tasted of supreme Bliss, when you have tasted nectar, which in Sanskrit is called Amrit, then these little teaspoonfuls of sugar do not matter because the teaspoonfuls of sugar also contain another element. To recognise the sweetness of sugar, you have to know something bitter. To know pleasure, one has to know pain. To understand what is white, one has to know what is black. To
The Essence of Dharma: Connecting to the Divine Within and Around Us
WHAT IS OUR DHARMA? When a person is born, he is born with certain tendencies, tendencies which might go back into many previous lifetimes, if one believes in that, or even tendencies which he inherits from his parents. But the environment in which he is born also influences his tendencies, and it could be said that a person’s tendency is his dharma, which means duty. Say a young man is born in some slum, and the environment is such that it would be more conducive for him to develop negative qualities. By developing these negative qualities, could it be said that those are his tendencies? There is a difference between proper tendencies in a human being and assumed tendencies superimposed upon him. Really speaking, if one goes to the core of the human personality through various methods of meditation, one will find that the essential tendency of man is to reach back to the source from which he has come. That is the basic tendency of man. Man comes from, and through so many evolutionary processes, he wishes to return home, which is man’s basic tendency. But then, there are other tendencies which are superimposed upon this tendency, and it is the superimposition of lesser tendencies that create havoc or stress or suffering in man’s life. The first dharma, man’s first duty, would lie in finding the real, essential tendencies, and in trying to find the real tendencies in man, he has to overcome the lesser tendencies. The lesser tendencies might deviate him; he might find a detour instead of reaching his goal. Instead of meeting his Maker, he might drift away in the opposite direction. Through various meditational and spiritual practices, we have found that we do realise what our real tendencies are. To find what our real tendencies in life or our dharma should be, one has to delve deep within oneself through certain specific spiritual practices, whereby one can go beyond physical needs and the body’s requirements. One can go beyond the thinking animal called the mind, whereby one reaches the source or the core of oneself, the core of one’s personality. And this is what meditation does for us. CONSCIOUSLY OR UNCONSCIOUSLY, MAN HAS THE DESIRE TO REACH HOME Once we are in touch with the core of one’s personality, we intuitively feel that our path is there to lead us back home to our Maker. By mental analysis, there could be many pros and cons that the mind could bring forward to deny this. The mind could say, “Why must I return to my Maker? What an effort! Let me live in this life and just have a nice time.” The mind could say that. Yet, there is an innate desire in him, an innate compulsion in him that wants to drive him on to reach back home, and this he pursues. Consciously or unconsciously, man desires to reach home, which is proven by his quest for happiness, the core of the human personality, that which is within. The Bible says, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven that is within, and all else shall follow.” So, because man originates from something divine, he will always have the instinctive or intuitive desire to become one with the divine again. This will be a compelling force that will spur him on and on. That is the basic reason man is looking for happiness, because the nature of that which resides within one, that is, happiness, is bliss. So, when man strives for happiness, he is aiming for something within him and inspiring him. Never mind how much he tries to cover it, never mind which path he chooses, he still has to reach that Divinity to find happiness. ONENESS BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN IS FOUND THROUGH A UNION OF THEIR DIVINE SPIRITS We find human beings, and they are the same everywhere; they feel that happiness can be found by external means. So, they go chasing after money; they go chasing after a woman, they go chasing after various sensual pleasures, which they think will give them happiness. And we do know that the man that chases money, if he makes a million pounds, then he will have the desire to make two million. There will be no satisfaction; once he has two, he wants three, and like that, it will go on and on and on. He tries to find happiness with a woman. He thinks that by finding the right woman, he will find happiness. That is a good desire, but how does he approach it? What does he look for in the woman that will give him happiness? The real purpose is often lost because he might say he loves the woman, but does he love the real woman? He might like the woman’s pretty face, nose, and hair. He might want her very much as far as her external appearance goes. He might like her mode of thinking as far as her mind goes, but what has he discovered about the Spirit that resides in the woman? Because when a man loves a woman or a woman loves a man, genuine love can only come in totality. Otherwise, it is partial love, and any form of partial love that touches the physical and the mental only can last very, very temporarily. The nature of the mind and the nature of the body is forever and ever-changing. But there is that quality within the woman or the man that is never changing, that is always constant. So, in pursuing happiness, the man thinks he will find happiness by loving a woman. He can do this, but he has to find the Spirit in the woman first, the divine essence that is in the woman, because by seeing the divine nature that resides in the woman, he will find the divine spirit that resides in him, and that is where unity takes place. The union between man and woman could only
The Meaning of True Acceptance: Freedom Through Desireless Action
Acceptance, Buddha, Christ, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Enlightenment, Evolve, Force, Grace, Happiness, Heart, Impressions, Joy, Karma, Krishna, Law of Nature, Laws, Light, Love, Meditation, Mind, Philosophy, Samskaras, Self, Spiritual, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Subconscious, Surrender, Universe
NO ONE ON EARTH REMOVES ALL THEIR SAMSKARAS As we have discussed before, all the impressions that we have had form what is known as our ego. No one on earth, not even the greatest man that has ever lived, including Krishna, Christ or Buddha, could get rid of all their samskaras. They could only have clarity as far as 98 percent. The 2 percent has to be left to give them personality so they can be conscious of themselves. If anyone tells you that such and such a person is a perfect man, do not believe it because if you were an excellent man, then you would not have this body. To carry this body, you have to have that two percent imperfection. You have got to have that two percent sense of “I-ness”, and it is the ego self that carries this body. There has to be that two percent ego left in man to be able to live in this world. It is like 24 carats, but you could not make jewellery from pure gold. You could not make a ring or, necklace, or bracelet because it is too soft. You have got to add on two carats of some kind of alloy to give it firmness and strength. That which is called pure gold is only 22 carats and not 24 carats. YOU CAN GET RID OF KARMA IN ONE LIFETIME We have one factor, the greatest gift of Divinity: the gift of Grace. Here karma works hand in hand with Grace. If you have millions of years’ worth of karma, the impressions stored within you that make up your ego self, it does not mean you have to live millions and millions of lifetimes to get rid of them all. They can be got rid of in one lifetime. Man has the ability in him to reach enlightenment in one lifetime, not by getting rid of the karmas, but by shedding them. This is a new angle to Eastern philosophy. This is a new angle to the saying, “Whatever you sow, you must reap.” But let us try to understand it in a different context. How does one shed karma? The seeds are there, and the normal expression used by Sanskritists is that you burn the roots so that they cannot germinate. Spiritual practices play a significant part in igniting the seeds, and the proper mode of living and thinking plays an important role. But the more significant factor is played by action and by non-stagnation. I usually say that if you have killed ten people, it is unnecessary to be killed ten times. If you save 11 lives, you have one in the credit. So, the impressions and the karma formed by ten killings are automatically removed because it works on the balance sheet principle, forever balancing itself, and how much karma you have left on the credit side is what you are today. GOOD KARMA IS EQUALLY BINDING AS BAD KARMA As far as karma goes, good karma is equally binding as bad karma. We have talked a bit about angels, and I have said that angels are in the form of stagnation and do not evolve. When one reaches that plane, one experiences a kind of happiness. All the good that you have done, you have to be rewarded for, and you get rewarded for some of it in this lifetime, and if there is a credit balance, then after you leave this body, you enjoy the rewards of your action in another form which you could call angels. But that is all you do until that karmic law repays you for what you have done. In that state of being an angel, you are enjoying existence, but there is no progress. The meal has been cooked, and you are sitting down enjoying the dinner. Therefore, angels must be born once they have all their rewards. To learn and evolve further, they must be born again as men or a similar entity in the same range of existence. That is what goes on. Bad things do not affect your Spiritual Self because it cannot be touched by good or bad; it is above all. The spiritual life we talk about is above good and evil. But, if you have done things contrary to the laws of nature, you have to pay for that as well. That is what we call the concept of hell, where you are tortured for it and paid for it. Yet those very heavens and hells are here and now and can all be rewarded, paid for, or repented upon here in this lifetime. So, millions of years of build-ups can be done away with here in this lifetime. A cook or a mother spends hours and hours at the stove, but it only takes you ten minutes to finish the meal. According to karmic law, time is not a factor on that level. We measure time only here and now, but there is no such thing as time in the entire scheme of things. A million years might have passed in ordinary existence, on the relative or the grosser relative, but all of that can be wiped away in a few moments. The time it takes to prepare the candle and the match is far, far longer than just striking the game and creating Light, which is illumination. When that illumination occurs with certain realizations, then the darkness of all those samskaras disappears. But the lighting is so powerful that although you reap what you have sown, you are beyond the time factor. Darkness might exist in an old English castle for a few hundred years, yet you walk in there with a lighted lamp and the darkness of hundreds of years in this unoccupied castle vanishes immediately. It disappears because you are there with this Light, and spiritual practices light this Light. So, as the Force of the divine aspect of man is drawn forth
Living Grace: Combining Spirituality with Materiality
Belief, Divine, Divinity, Duality, Effort, Enlightenment, Eternal, God, Grace, Happiness, Integration, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Love, Mind, Omnipresent, One-pointedness, Oneness, Path, Relative World, Self, Self-Realization, Separation, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Spirituality
HOW TO RECEIVE GRACE? You could never become enlightened without the Grace of Divinity. You cannot even move a finger without the Grace of Divinity, and enlightenment itself is Grace. With the Grace from Divinity, which pours in you and through you, you become that Grace. How can you become that Grace or receive Grace if you do not do anything about it? If you are hungry, you have to eat food. If you are thirsty, you have to drink water, so action is involved in drawing Grace. The flower grows through the Grace of God, but you still have to nurture the flower. You have to use fertiliser and water it, and prune and all these things must be done for the flower to grow. You are all beautiful flowers. Some perhaps a bit wilted. Ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine percent of the human flowers in the world are wilted. We have to admit that. Because to have that infinite Grace and be filled with Grace, you are perfected in the relative sense. We have to nurture the flower of this human life through spiritual practices. We make ourselves ready, and then Grace automatically comes. Never aim for Grace or demand Grace. Then you will become a beggar. “O Lord, give me your Grace.” You are Divine. You do not need to be a beggar; you are a King. YOU HAVE TO PREPARE YOURSELF This beggar was a Sage, and the King heard so much about this poor man. The Sage was a beggar, but he was such a spiritual giant. The King heard about him and invited the beggar to his Palace. Very reluctantly, this beggar went to the Palace. As he was shown into the Palace, he had to wait in the Anteroom until the King was ready to receive him, but the door was slightly ajar, and he heard the King praying, “O Lord give me greater wealth in my treasury. O Lord, give me greater lands. Let my Empire grow more and more. O Lord, grant me this and give me that.” This beggar was listening to the King, and when the King came out, he spoke to the King a bit and started walking away. So, the King says, “Please, great Sage, do not walk away from the Palace; I will give you anything you ask for”. So, the beggar replied, “I do not beg from beggars”. You do not need to beg, but you have to prepare yourself. You do not need to pray for the fresh air to come into this hall, open the windows, and your spiritual practices will open the windows. The readiness must be within us; everything will come, and those deserving will receive more. The more you deserve, the more you will get. Never demand and never beg. It does not work. I have said this before, make your garden beautiful. You do not need to call the butterflies. If a garden is beautiful, the butterflies come on their own. You cannot demand or command the butterflies to come. So, we do our spiritual practices to integrate our bodies, minds and Spirits. WHERE IS GRACE? Grace is not outside you at all, and Grace is within you. Grace is another name for God, and another name for God is the Spirit, the Kingdom of Heaven within, the Spirit, that is, Grace. When our mind is concentrated through our spiritual practices, when our mind is one-pointed, and our bodies, through our practices, become calm and receptive. The contrary thoughts that lead us away from Divinity are no longer existent. That does not mean you blank out your mind. It means that through our every moment of the day, the remembrance of Divinity is there, and with practice, it becomes automatic. I drink this glass of water, and I am drinking God. I eat food; I am eating God. How can I, this little “I”, eat God? No, it is God combining himself with God himself. That only comes from the realisation within us that “I am Divine, and everything around me is also Divine.” It is just through concentration, and one-pointedness of the mind with the help of your Tratak practices, that you can become firm in the belief first and then the knowledge and then the realisation that no things are apart. There is nothing apart, and everything is in its oneness. The most extraordinary illusion man suffers from is the sense of his duality or his apartness. THE SENSE OF APARTNESS DEVELOPS FRICTION When that sense of apartness develops, friction develops. All problems in your home or with friends, or in the community or the country, or two countries warring against each other is because the Hindustani thinks he is different from the Pakistani, or the Arab thinks he is different from the Jew, or the Englishman believes he is different from the German. It is not true. This is the illusion that man has created with his mind. Yet that very mind taken to its proper height and subtler level can make one realise that this mind, too, in its imaginary relative form, is also Divine. Do not search for God somewhere up there. What is up there is down here? In actual realisation, a combination is formed of that up and that down. It is only a matter of vision; therefore, it is an illusion. If you are standing up, this will look down, and if you are standing down here, that will look up. But if the two are combined, there is no up and no down. It is just here and now as we breathe, and every breath you take is nothing else but the Grace of God. Every morsel of food you chew is the Grace of God. Every time you take a footstep, it is the Grace of God. SPIRITUAL PRACTICES ARE NECESSARY TO BECOME SELF-REALISED God can be defined in so many ways. To me, God is very subtle
The Universal and Individual Nature of Thought: Understanding the True Nature of Thought
Bliss, Brahman, Consciousness, Divine, Divinity, Eternity, Evolution, Force, Free Will, God, Harmony, Heart, I and my Father are one, Impressions, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Law of Nature, Law of opposites, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mind, Omnipresent, Peace, Purity, Scriptures, Self, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Universal, Universe
“FIRST WAS THE WORD AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD IS GOD” That which we know as evolution was created at the time of the big bang when billions and billions of articles flew through this vastness of the universe. The neutral energy or the impersonal God manifested itself, not by will but by its nature, like the nature of a flower giving fragrance or fire giving off heat. Without will and by its natural Self, the Manifestor manifested, so the unmanifest became manifested. The primal manifestation of the Manifestor was nothing else but vibration. Therefore, in the Scriptures, we discuss, “First was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word is God.” That Word is the primal manifestation described in different ways in all different theologies and Scriptures. When this manifestation took about or form, it had to become more condensed. That primal manifestation condensed itself into what we could call the mind. So that universal mind with the excellent currents of manifestation started activating itself. It woke up from that stillness, and the very process of manifestation started producing motion in the Universal Mind. When motion was produced in the Universal Mind, it had to concretise itself more. Although the essence that permeates it has always remained the same, like water vapour, water and a block of ice still have the principle of H2O. So, this Universal Mind was permeated by the unmanifest, and yet the unmanifest took on manifestation. We call it the Manifestor and his manifestation. When this motion occurs in the Universal Mind, it has to become further concretised. In the process of concretisation, the intermixing and the permutations of these various currents arise. That process creates a primal thought, and, most necessarily, the primal thought would have a will. When we say “God’s will”, it is true, but it is not a direct will of the impersonal God; it is the will of the manifestation, and the totality of that manifestation is the personal God and, therefore, what we worship is the personal God that willed. Will could never stay apart from thought, for wherever there is a will, there is a direction of energy and that very energy, that very direction is thought. So, the primal mind produced the primal will, and the primal will produced primal thought. That is where thought began. It goes right back to the Godhead. BEHIND THE SYMBOLISM IN THE SCRIPTURES IS DEEP MEANING Further condensations take place. This very well formed what creation is. When the Scriptures say that God created the universe in seven days, six days, it is true, but it has not been adequately understood. It could have been six seconds, as these cosmic explosions prove, where entire universes collapse within a matter of seconds and from which entire universes are recreated in a matter of seconds. So, all these things we read in the Scriptures are necessarily symbolic. But behind the symbolism, there is deep thought, deep meaning. When I say this universe, I mean our universe, for there are millions and millions and billions of universes that at this very moment are collapsing, and others are being recreated. So, in the entire scheme of things which is infinite, all these billions of universes are finding creation, and they are sustained, and then they are dissolved. The Hindus believe in the same thing; it is very symbolic as Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the dissolver. This process is taking place; it is going on all the time, even in the human body, where cells are being created and serve their purpose, are preserved for a while and then dissolved. This is the scheme of creation. But underlying this creation, that primal will still exist, and that primal will, which could also be called Life Force, is forever there to keep on the continuity or the eternity of this universe. ORIGINALLY THERE WAS ONLY ONE THOUGHT; ONE WILL When this incredible explosion took place, these particles could duplicate and replicate themselves and further intermingled with other particles, and there were a lot of permutations. Like that, the process went on for millions of years, and that very primal atom or sub-atomic matter or just that concretised will, now fragmented by itself, by the process of creation, for that very well recreates itself too. In that explosion of innovation and re-creation, it becomes fragmented. So here you have the individual sub-atomic particles which go through the process of the plant kingdom, animal kingdom and then, at last, we come to man. We say man is made in the image of God because man has the mechanism built in him to cognise that will or the primal thought, which is why we do meditation and spiritual practices. Because of the experiences that man has gone through, through this long process of evolution, thoughts differ from man to man. In this process of evolution, with the various individual experiences gained, man’s mind has become conditioned, and it is the very conditioning that has taken the primal thought or will. Man started interpreting it according to his conditioned mind. Initially, there was only one thought, the one will, like the sun reflected in millions of bubbles in this large pond of the universe. Every thought you think, be it positive or negative, is still propelled and still contains within itself the essence of that Divinity, that primal will. That is the true nature of thought, although, for each individual, the processes differ. Suppose something is happening, and you have five witnesses to describe the happening. In that case, each one will give his interpretation, and the interpretations might even be contrary to each other because of these various experiences man has gained, so he is interpreting through his experiences. In reality, the mind is a collection of all the impressions or samskaras, all the impressions gained over many lifetimes, and these impressions can only be expressed as thought.
Marriage as a Divine Dance: Growing in Love, Together as One
Acceptance, Attitude, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Eternal, Force, Freedom, God, Happiness, Harmony, Heart, Joy, Love, Meditation, Mind, Oneness, Peace, Relationships, Self, Separation, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Unity
LOVE AND MARRIAGE AS A BOND Although love is elevating, many people say they fall in love with each other, and when two people get together, they think that they formed a bond, but most times, what happens is that they have gone into bondage. Bond is something that brings about freedom and not bondage. Bondage is servitude; bondage is enclosing oneself by building walls within oneself, and you cannot hear what is happening outside and or what is happening inside. So, the most significant obstacle we find in marriages today is bondage instead of a bond. What is a bond? That is the question. Where does this bond come from, how far does it go back, and what are the causes of the bond? Bond means to bind. When two people are bound together in beauty, oneness and joy, bondage ceases because bondage is an encumbrance. However, the freedom one experiences in the bond between two people would be like two flowers growing in the same garden so close to each other. Yet, both are growing individually and similarly because of the same species. Usually, the bond starts with physical or mental attraction, but that is not where it should end because if it should just be a physical or psychological attraction, then definitely it would end. A man might seem very handsome to a woman, but in a few weeks, he will just be a man, and the same applies to the woman. She could be gorgeous, but in a few weeks or some months, when the honeymoon period is over, the attraction would cease; it is like buying a new motorcar and having the new motorcar you would enjoy it so, so much for a few weeks but then after that, you get tired of it. It is a car that takes you from point A to point B. When there is bondage, then definitely there is dependency, the man on the woman or the woman on the man, and dependency, of course, is a weakness where we use the spouse as a crutch; we use a spouse to vent our inner turmoil, the inner turbulences, job difficulties, communication difficulties and we take it out on the wife or the husband because bondage to repeat is dependence. But in the bond of love, there is independence, and I have said before that two people in love do not necessarily look into each other’s eyes, but two pairs of eyes look in the same direction. The bond might have roots in many past lives, perhaps where there has been a great love, a great bond. Then, in this life, because of the attraction, as a magnet would attract filings, they would come together even from opposite sides of the world; circumstance would happen by that supernatural force, that supernatural gravitational force, if you would like to call it that, that would bring those two people together. In the bond, you are bound with positive qualities. You become more responsible and caring; you put the other person before you and take a secondary place. That is what the man does and the same thing the woman does. The woman would say he is essential, and the man would say no, she is crucial, and when both have that attitude, it would be like climbing a ladder from two sides and meeting up at the centre where they stand equal. It might start with dependence, but one grows and outgrows the dependence and becomes interdependent, which one could not do without the other, not in the sense of a crutch but just by the sheer force of what is known to be love. But that is not where the story ends; even interdependence must cease. From dependence, you go to interdependence, then to independence, yet the deep love remains. The profound love to stay is a job you must work at. Self-sacrifice is not only from one party because people tend to demand more from the other party than they deserve. DESERVE AND THEN YOU CAN DEMAND The principle is this: deserve it, and then you can demand it. When that principle is applied to both parties, greater harmony exists between them. I have known many cases, for example, myself. I might just think of having a cup of tea, and here, the tea would be coming along, and she would be bringing it to me. A total closeness where even the thoughts are known before they are uttered. This is brought about by devotion, sacrifice and a total mergence into each other where you do not say, “I love you.” Love comes between the I and the you. The “I” and the “You” must vanish because that causes a separation. Love brings about a togetherness and not a separation. You do not say “I” because as soon as you say “I”, you are exerting your personality, your little ego self, your little selfishness, your little greed, your little lusts. And “You” means that I do not regard you as myself; you are a part of me. So, these words are used so much that the true context is not understood. I love you – in the “I” and “You”, there is separation. Only love must be there, and one would say, “I am you,” that is to be told by both so that her pains would be your pains, and your joys would be hers. In the initial stages, you share, but you still go further. You do not share anymore, for when your beloved is regarded as yourself, then with whom will you share? You can only share with someone that is apart from you. So, even the question of sharing disappears. The question of devotion disappears. The question of sacrifice disappears. We live in a relative life where these very relative qualities are necessary in the beginning stages, but that is not the ultimateness of the relationship between man and woman. “MY HUSBAND IS MY GOD”
Resolving Personal Conflicts: A Spiritual Approach to Conflict Resolution
SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, SELF-HELP AND GURUSHAKTI When one proceeds to the finer and finer levels of the ego, conflicts automatically resolve themselves. By trying to resolve a conflict, you are creating a more significant conflict. The very idea of resolving a conflict is the seed of another discord. Because two things are required to complete a conflict to create this friction, and the clash itself is a conflict. Firstly, two objects oppose each other, and the two objects coming in touch create friction. Friction is another conflict. The friction produces around itself or attracts round itself all the dust of the two pieces of wood that are rubbed together, engenders more and more conflicts. The only way out is to refine the ego through spiritual practices, through self-help, and then if those two things are done, Gurushakti is there, automatically on its own. It comes running without asking. Open the window; the fresh air just enters; you do not need to invite it. That is how conflicts are erased. THE UNIVERSE STRIVES FOR A BALANCE ALL THE TIME This means that to erase conflicts, it is not necessary to eradicate the ego because the ego is beyond the level of annihilation. And in the refinement of the ego, which is leading us to its finer levels, the grossness that was there is never destroyed, but it is discarded so that that grossness goes out and meets up with a similar kind of grossness. That is how the ego self purifies itself. Purification is the discarding of the grossness that is there. It is not a question of annihilation. Every wrong thought that a person thinks is never destroyed. It floats away in the atmosphere, and where there is similar negativity, it would go and attach itself to that. When a good thought emanates in a man’s mind, it is never destroyed. But when you come to a far finer thought, the previous good thought, forever existing in the universe, attaches itself to its similar kind. So, look at the help man receives when he brings his ego-self or mind-self to a far purer subtler level. For every pure thought you think, do know that the energy of ten other pure thoughts is being attracted to you and strengthens the purity you have brought upon yourself. This whole universe is so composed that everything helps everything. Even in the human body, if you cut your finger, you will find that various white corpuscles from the body will rush to the wound to help the injury, an automatic process. Your mind has not called upon the white corpuscles to come and heal, but without your knowing, they rush to the troubled spot and help. This is happening similarly in everything in the universe. The universe strives for balance all the time. RESOLVING PERSONAL CONFLICTS If you look superficially at the sea, you will find the waves moving from over to over, reaching the shore. That is not happening, you know. The waves are just there all the time; they are not moving. They are just going up and down, up and down, up and down, giving the illusion that that portion of water is moving from there to there. Similarly, that is what happens in this universe. There is motion all the time. The motion is there, but the motion is self-contained there on the spot, now and here. So, when it comes to resolving personal conflicts, one has to make an effort to take the ego or the mind to a subtler level, and the problem gets fixed. The best and the easiest way to take ourselves to the subtler level of the mind, to the refined section of the ego, is through our spiritual practices. That is the easiest way, and if a conscious effort backs that up, the process becomes smoother and more manageable. That is the royal road to getting rid of the conflict. FROM SILENCE WE COME, AND TO SILENCE WE REACH AGAIN It is the action of man that brings his consciousness to the troubled areas of conflict, and if a man tries consciously to get rid of his ego, he is strengthening the ego and deluding himself. What is deceiving? The ego is deluding because, like the mind, the ego has various sections. Divinity combined with relativity is nothing but a continuum from the grosser to the subtler, and so is the ego. The whole process of man or the universe is to reach the subtlest level of being, and when one reaches the most modest of relativity, he does not need to seek being. He is being. In other words, you will find that this journey has been no journey. From silence, we come, and to silence, we reach again. Where have you gone? Nowhere. From whence cometh thou my friend, and where goest thou? Nowhere. It is only the dross, the dirt accumulated over the centuries; as that atom progressed and swirled through the universe, it picked up all the dust because it combined itself with all the elements in the universe. And having free will, at that time, he could have discarded the parts that clouded his vision. But no, he did not. Some of them were very pleasurable. So, all the pleasure found has to be repaid in some way, in conflict. THE SECRET IS TO FIND AN EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN PAIN AND PLEASURE For every pain you have, remember that you will have equal pleasure in some way or another because pain cannot exist alone and must be accompanied by contentment. The rise of the wave will have its trough, it will always be there, and it is only the refined ego or the realisation of the deeper levels of the ego that will make us not feel all the pleasures and all the pains so intensely. So there, too, we come to an equilibrium. The secret is to find an equilibrium between pain and pleasure; when that equilibrium is found,
The River of Life: Living Joyfully in the Flow of Life
WHATEVER HAPPENED HAD TO HAPPEN We do not need to bother ourselves about past experiences and past karmas. The greatest disease man suffers today is the sense of guilt. That is the cause of most mental and physical ailments, for the mind translates into its physical equivalent, the purpose of guilt. What are you guilty about? Why create greater and greater conflicts in your mind because of what has happened in the past or might happen in the future? The past is gone. Some seeds have been sown, and who knows if they will grow in the future. There might be a drought. Create the drought by just working and not by thinking of what the future is going to bring or what the past has formulated for the future. Why feel guilty about whatever has been done in the past? How do you know you have done it? Are you sure that you, the real you, have performed a specific action? No. You have not performed any action. You are not the doer. You are just an instrument. The Great Doer knows why your little ego had to go through these processes; therefore, we stop condemning ourselves, and when we stop blaming ourselves, we stop condemning others. When we stop condemning ourselves, we do not feel guilty. The past is the past, and that was regulated within this process of evolution. Whatever you did, whatever happened, had to happen. You did not make it happen. You were instrumental in the happening, but a stronger will made it happen, a will far more significant than what you think is your little egoistic will. IF LIFE IS LIVED, WE JUST DO At that state, there is no karma. When Milarepa, the great Tibetan yogi, was a young man, he said, “I did black deeds and then when I got more knowledge, I did white deeds. But now I have risen above both. I do no deeds.” That area of no deeds is the most significant action area, the greatest inaction in action because the whole idea of doing is gone. “I do” has disappeared. It is just done. That is how you clean off the slate of those experiences and samskaras. You do not do. It is just done. If life is lived, we just do. I am speaking to you. Do you think I am doing anything? I am doing nothing, just sitting here enjoying myself, that is all. You might say, “Oh, Gururaj is lecturing. He is working.” No, I am not. I am having fun. I shut off the mind, let the inner Self flow, and look at the beauty of the flow. Look at the music of the bubbling brook that passes through this voice, the symphony, the melody. Listen carefully. It is not only the words. For who is uttering the words? Not I. I am just an instrument. All I have learned is how to tune this instrument to the greater I, to the real I, and let Him do the bloody work. Why must I work? And because He flows through me, I still enjoy it. That is my little fun. My little fun in this vast ecstasy of life. NEVER BE BOTHERED AND NEVER FEEL GUILTY That is how we get rid of all these samskaras. So never be bothered and never feel guilty. You have harmed no one in your life, and no one has ever hurt you. I am putting forward a lot of new thoughts to you. Man’s mind is running in grooves, which must be altered, for, in ages to come, that will be the salvation and consolation for man. In Indian villages where there are no tarred roads, you have these dirt tracks, and the ox carts go through them all the time, creating these grooves. The ox pulls the cart, and the driver can sleep because the wheels run in the tracks. We have to put a stone in the groove so the driver wakes up when the wheel hits it and jolts it. We have to wake up because we are sleeping in certain fallacious beliefs. Sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, what for! Is that the hope for man, or is that condemnation of man? The more guilty you feel, the more miserable you will feel. If He, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, is the doer, then who else could be the doer? He does, and because of the various mixtures and admixtures of the material you are made of, which includes the mind and body, specific patterns have been formed that make you experience life in a certain way. But if you experience life, not as the doer, if you have that idea, then whatever experiences you go through will not add to your karma. It will not, and that is how the ego is clarified. That is how this most significant disease in the world, guilt, can be eliminated. Do not feel guilty; that is the only way you will find the truth. Because guilt is like a whirlpool, you are always caught up in it. “Oh, God. I have done this.” All the organized religions include all the theologies: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, the lot, the works came in, and what did they do? They tried to hold us by fear when they could not capture us with love. Eternal damnation. It is not valid, and there can never be eternal damnation. If there were eternal damnation, then the Eternal God would also be damned, for there is only one eternity. YOU ARE THE FLOWING RIVER Live happily. Be of good cheer. Forget those samskaras. Forget those experiences, although they might be regulating your life today. Accept what is today and act accordingly. Put in changes wherever you can to make you flow more smoothly. Get rid of some of the boulders in this river of life, so the water flows more smoothly, and even if there are boulders in the river
The Absolute Beyond Consciousness: The Absolute just “Is”
EVEN THE AVATAR HAS EGO When it comes to a great teacher, an Avatar, an Incarnation who has come to teach the path for people to reach this level, he has taken upon himself an individuality. Suppose you can picture yourself an ice cream cone from the broad end where he exists. In that case, he brings himself to the narrow end of the cone to assume or to take this individuality, and individuality necessarily has an ego. Ego is a perfect word but so misunderstood. The ego that people usually talk about is the grosser ego and not the refined ego. The refined ego is on the level of Superconsciousness where its constituent is Sattvic force, pure force, the force of Light. That still does not alter the fact that it is ego. It is still ego, but at its subtlest level of the Superconscious Mind, it is in direct contact with the Absolute. In other words, it is the clearest reflector of the Absolute and that Light is reflected in the world. BECAUSE OF THE NEED OF THE UNIVERSE, THE AVATAR TAKES FORM The Avatar or the Incarnation can merge away into Unity by will, into the Absolute, where nothing remains of him. Still, he consciously assumes form because of the need for the universe and the world. That is why the great Sages have come in the forms of Christ and Krishna and Buddha etc., and that is why they have come. Just imagine coming from that universal vastness into the limited small body. There is the paradox, where a man can remain in a limited small body and yet be entirely universal, where he is here, there and everywhere, expressing himself in a very tangible form. That which is intangible becomes tangible. That which is Absolute becomes relative. That is the beauty of it. THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS FOREVER TRYING TO PRESERVE A BALANCE Do you know that there could never be more than seven self-realised people in this world? If there were more than seven self-realised people, this whole universe would go into imbalance. Too much good is also an imbalance, not in man himself but the universal self. So, the entire universe as the individual self is forever trying to preserve a balance, and that balance, in straightforward terms, is called tranquillity. In these tranquil waters, the waves and the ripples have subsided. And when the waves, the ripples subside, conflict ceases because the momentum of another wave creates one wave. They are there all the time. If you look superficially at the sea, you will find the waves moving from over there to over there, reaching the shore. That is not happening, you know. The waves are just there all the time; they are not moving. They are just going up and down, up and down, up and down, giving the illusion that that portion of water is moving from here to there. WHEN A SELF-REALISED PERSON DIES, HE MERGES AWAY INTO THE ABSOLUTE When a self-realised man dies, he merges away into the Absolute. To merge into the Absolute, there has to be no trace of the individual “I”, never mind how refined it is. In the heat of the Absolute – this is using the word poetically, of course – in the power and the heat of the Absolute, the finest trace of the ego disintegrates, and it disintegrates and joins itself up with the various other elements at its level. That is it. Because when the mergence takes place, He becomes the universe. THE ABSOLUTE JUST “IS” When we talk of the total refinement of the ego, that ego is so extended that it is as vast as the universe. When total mergence with the Absolute takes place, then to the Absolute, there has been no ego. The universe is a dream, but for relativity, the universe is real. When we reach the Absolute, nothing else exists but the Absolute. So, it depends on what angle we look at it. This can only be fully appreciated if one has reached the Absolute. Until then, we are still swimming around in the sea of relativity. Some people have reached finer levels or finer limits of it, but it is not the completeness of it. By refining the ego to that extent where one encompasses the entire universe, you have only reached the level of the totality of the universe. Some people call it the Personal God, some call it Christ Consciousness, and some call it Krishna Consciousness. Yet the impersonal God is beyond all consciousness because consciousness, too, is limiting. Consciousness, too, is within the realms of relativity, while the Absolute just is. Because even the purest consciousness requires to be conscious of itself, and immediately consciousness becomes conscious of itself, ripples start at the most refined level of the ego. THE ABSOLUTE IS EVEN BEYOND THE LEVEL OF CONSCIOUSNESS The Absolute is beyond the finest level of the refined ego and even beyond the level of consciousness where it does not need to be conscious of consciousness. It is just an “Isness.” The electricity current that burns in these lights is not conscious of itself as electricity. It is only the usage of it that tells us that these light burns because of electricity. It is a realm beyond human conception, and one that has not realised that can only know about it. And that is what the Universities do; they tell you about a thing, but not what it is because that “Isness” has to be experienced and shared by itself, without the experience. That is what is meant by “Isness.” You just are. I am that I am, no qualifications, no adjectives, and that is what it is. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1978 – 35
Stretching the Ego: Illuminating Individuality Through Our Spiritual Practices
STRETCHING THE EGO It is a misconception that one must get rid of one’s ego to fulfil one’s potential. That is not possible. If man remains an embodied being, there will be ego. In the grosser person, the ego would be expressed in a gross value, and in a more developed person, the ego would be expressed in a refined value. As practical householders with family commitments, we want to use that very same ego that constitutes us, that constitutes the entire human personality; we want to use that ego not only in a refined manner, not only in a sublimated manner but to use that ego until it is stretched to a specific limitation where a great clarity is observed in the ego. We could use the analogy of a balloon. As the balloon is stretched, the rubber that makes the balloon becomes fine. When it becomes fine, greater light penetrates it, which means that the ego is not sublimated. Sublimating an ego might mean pushing the ego aside or giving the ego a different value. We do not want to do that. We want the ego to have its original value and not transform it into different values. We do not want to take a particular item and convert it into a different substance altogether. The rubber of the balloon must remain the rubber of the balloon. But by expanding the rubber that constitutes the balloon, by stretching the rubber, it will become fine, and when it becomes finer and finer, it becomes more transparent. When we stretch the ego, it becomes more transparent, and more of the Light of the Spirit can shine through. The ego is to be preserved and not destroyed. When the ego is stretched through our meditational practices, through the understandings and realisations we receive, and as the light more and more filters through it, the ego assumes a different form. It is not destroyed. It is not sublimated, but it is brought to its greatest potential. The same ego is brought to its greatest potential in its refinement. Man could never exist as an embodied being if he did not have an ego. Ego is that which gives man a sense of individuality. If man wants to live in this body, he must have a sense of individuality but an individuality at its finest level, where that individuality becomes refined and transparent. WHEN THE TOTALITY OF LIGHT SHINES THROUGH, MAN FINDS FULFILMENT Ego can be very gross, can be very opaque, where light cannot shine through, and the same ego can be so refined and stretched that the fullness of the light comes through. It is only when man discards the mind and the body entirely then only the light will remain. But for practical purposes as householders, as living, breathing human beings, this is an impossibility. If any man tells you that “I am egoless,” that is not the truth, for even the highest realised man will still have a trace of ego in a very refined manner and so refined that the glass is so clear that the entire Light of Divinity can shine through, but the transparent glass is there. The whole process will be to clean up the glass and make it transparent. That is the process, and by making the glass translucent, the glass assumes an invisible form because the powerful light is shining through. You will notice this in many things where if you put a strong beam of light behind a piece of glass, you do not see the glass. You must have heard of many people walking through a glass door because they did not see the glass. I have been into one shop once, and they had one of these doors without frames, just glass, so they had to put a sticker on it so that from a distance, you could see that “Look, there is glass there, and I have got to open it.” That happens in the refinement. To repeat, it is not a question of annihilation or sublimation. Annihilation means destroying that glass, and when you destroy the glass, you are destroying your entire personality. Man cannot exist without being an individual being, without being a personal being. But with the light shining so powerfully through, through the clear glass, what could be observed is the light only and not the glass. That does not mean that there is no glass. Man finds fulfilment in life when the totality of light shines through, despite there being a glass. This means the Universal Self shines through the individual self because the individual self has been cleansed and refined. It is only when the body and mind are discarded at the time of death of a realised man, like my guru, that it would all merge away. At that time, the intense heat of that light disintegrates the glass, disintegrates the ego, and it goes back into its original vibrations. THE EGO FACTOR IS NECESSARY TO LIVE RESPONSIBLY The householder has to be conscious of himself. If he is not aware of himself, he will not be able to relate to his environment. He will not be able to tell to his wife, children, his beloved, and his friends because their individuality must exist. If individuality does not exist in everyone, then the whole purpose of life is lost. Then you do not need to serve humanity because you are not an individual anymore. It is only the unit that tries to get together or become one with all the units around him and form a whole. To be able to live responsibly, the ego factor in man, the personality of man is necessary. If the entire ego were destroyed, your whole personality would be destroyed, your mind would be destroyed, and your thinking ability would be destroyed. You would become mindless and body-less, and only the Spirit would exist, which is the Universal Spirit, and you become one with the