OUR DIVINE PATH You are on the divine path. You do not need to find the divine path; for any path you take is only to the Divine. Where else can you go? There is nowhere else to go but to Divinity, so whatever path you choose is a path to Divinity. If a path is chosen with twists and turns, it will take longer. It will take so many, many, many lifetimes, and in these lifetimes the lessons we have to learn could be not so pleasant. What is the direct path where lessons to be learned could become pleasant, and they could be compacted instead of being stretched out? Where does Divinity reside? That is the question. We usually say Divinity is everywhere, omnipresent, so in whichever direction you look, you will find Divinity, but the easiest direction to look is to look within, for you would know you better than anyone else and that makes the path much easier, quicker, by looking within is the process. OMNISCIENT, OMNIPRESENT & OMNIPOTENT We say that Divinity is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. Being omnipresent, it is everywhere. Divinity is in the chair, in the table, in the flowers, in you – everywhere, but if one starts searching for that Divinity in all various objects in our perception, it will take millions and billions of years to uncover that. The outward search is not always successful unless you are a bhakti yogi where there is total devotion to a particular object in total devotion and complete surrender! By projecting your mind outward to the object of devotion, one only mirrors oneself. Again you are brought to yourself, so, the path of Divinity lies within. THE PATH LEADS ON WITHIN All the time, we have been teaching how do we tread this path within. Meditation and spiritual practices are the path that leads one within. In these meditational processes, what obstacles do we come upon? What are the hurdles? The peaks and the valleys, they all have to be gone through. What do we do apart from just meditation – and, what is meditation? When you stop meditating, then you are in meditation. This sounds paradoxical, so it requires an explanation. I am feeling lazy today, so I am not going to meditate. That does not mean you have reached anywhere, but when one reaches the totality of meditation where it would not even be necessary for you to sit down to meditate. Life itself becomes like the river ever flowing on, then that very flow of life becomes a meditation. That comes at a later stage where every action, every breath one takes, is a meditation, but at the beginning, where we start on the path, techniques are necessary to reach the goal, and then you even discard the techniques. THE PATH OF YOGA Yoga is a path, and by yoga, I do not mean hatha yoga. Yoga as a whole is only the start on the path of meditation. Patanjali talks of yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dhyana, dharana and samadhi. You reach Samadhi or total meditation after going through all these various limbs, but these limbs are not steps, they can be acted upon simultaneously. Yama and niyama means restraints and observances. That is very easy which anybody could work out for himself in the process. Right living, right thinking, putting in some effort to better ourselves, restraining ourselves from things which we should not do to preserve purity or things that we should do to preserve purity, those are observances and restraints. Then we have the process of asanas – that is where hatha yoga comes in – to keep the body healthy, supple, pliable so that you could sit and meditate without feeling tired, where the inner organs are massaged. Pranayama regulates oneself. It regulates the rhythm in the body, for prana is not the breath that you take in – most of you that have read “Raja Yoga” (Vivekananda) will know this – but it is a vital force contained within the breath. It is contained in the food that we eat. That vital force is contained in everything, and pranayama is a method of capturing that vital force within ourselves to gain that needed energy. When one sits down in meditation, that vital energy captured within us helps the meditation. It helps dharana, which is remembrance. It helps dhyana, which is a form of meditation as well. All these are preparations for total meditation. Reaching total meditation, one has reached the goal. The process is nothing else but preparation, and this is what yoga teaches. You develop concentration – and we do that without concentrating through our Tratak practices (a visual form of meditation) – then remembrance, contemplation. Contemplation should be an unbroken contemplation. You try out one experiment and look at your watch to see if you can be focused for three seconds. You try that out, and you will see how difficult it is. It sounds so easy that all your attention can be focused for three seconds. No! Within those three seconds, your mind will wander so much, so it has to be brought to that state where the mind does not wander, and it becomes one-pointed. Try it out for three seconds and see. If you can fully concentrate on a particular object just for three seconds, then you know you have reached somewhere in concentration. By having the proper concentration, your thoughts become powerful. They become like laser beams. Then when you sit down to meditate on the mantra with a concentrated mind which does not require effort. Tratak teaches you that concentration without even concentrating and it brings all the mental forces together. MEDITATION In our meditations, all the practices that are prescribed are interlinked, and this is the process – they are all interlinked. You develop concentration and one-pointedness, which in turn helps your mantra meditation. You become so at one with your mantra that you automatically
No Medium Needed: Finding Oneness with God
YOU ARE BORN STRONG There are no psychic powers in this world that could have a bad influence on you, and this is a great misunderstanding that must be corrected. For no one’s psychic abilities, no one’s thoughts can ever affect you if you are strengthened within yourself. You will not feel the cold outside if you put on your overcoat, and that overcoat is the spiritual practice that gives you the strength so that no one could ever have any influence over you, and you are not to be influenced by anyone except by yourself. Use the analytical process of the mind, use the energies of the core of your personality and be strong. Why should you be weak when you are born strong? You have every ability within yourself, and yet you subject yourself to outer influences when it is unnecessary. To repeat over and over and over again, realise that Divinity is within yourself. Because this message is so hard to understand, do not use your mind to understand me. Use your Heart to feel me; that feeling is not an emotion. It is not emotion because emotion is a mixture of thought and feeling. But when it comes to pure feeling for which I have no other word to describe it, it becomes a knowingness, to know that which is Divine.So, forget the psychics; that is rubbish. THERE IS NO MEDIUM BETWEEN YOU AND GOD If you feel very good with a person, continue that feeling of very good but ask yourself one question, what is the motivation behind that feeling of very goodness? If the motivation is pure, there is nothing wrong. If the reason has certain connotations which are not pure, then discard the person. These mediums are a whole load of rubbish. Who can be the medium between you and God? There is no medium. There is no medium at all. You might have great teachers coming to teach you the truths of Life, but that is all; remember that. That is all. How do these mediums operate? It is so simple; I could teach it to you all in two- or three months’ time. Just to spend some time with me and I could teach you all these tricks. I could teach you the tricks of psychometry, clairvoyance, mind reading; you name it. When the mediums say they are getting messages from another source, then know that that source is too busy to contact you. That medium has found the little ability, which is tiny, to go to the deeper recesses of the mind, and at that time, that person might have been possessed with excellent knowledge or have learned and poured it through, thinking it is another being like Seth or Beth or – GO TO GOD You see how we get deluded by all this rubbish in the world. The medium has just developed the ability to go to the deeper recesses of the mind, reaching another period of existence within themselves and pouring out what they had learnt there. I would never advise anyone to go to a medium or a psychic; they could do you more harm than good. Go to God. Because God does not require someone to give you messages through some little evolving soul, existing somewhere in some other dimension and who is not fully developed or else he will not or cannot make any contact, for if you are still in the process of development, how can you make contact. It is a logical, physiological, biological, and psychological impossibility. Do not go to mediums, and do not waste your money. Instead, give it to your church, some orphanage, or something good that could help people. THE GAP CAN ONLY BE FILLED BY GOD AND HIS GRACE The other trick a medium would use is mind reading, which I could teach you in a couple of weeks. These things are so simple, and they are of no importance whatsoever in a person’s Life. How will it help you go to a fortune teller, a psychic or a mind reader? The mind reader picks up your thinking of Auntie Mary and tells you about Auntie Mary to make you feel happy. And after you finish bucks. You see the racket I am trying to destroy in this world, rackets in the name of psychics, noise in the name of religions, racket in the name of cults. People are so gullible because of a lack within themselves. They get taken in by anything. They feel something is lacking, and they think something is missing. They feel a gap, and they want to fill the void. That is why they go around to the psychics and mediums and bullshitters and cultists and all these damn money-making false gurus around the world. But let us fill the gap right, and God and his Grace can only fill that gap. That is what I am trying to say. YOU NEED A TEACHER, THAT IS ALL You go to a psychic, Madam Gypsy; what does she do? Firstly, she has to be a wise psychologist. She looks at you, she sums you up, and the first thing she will say is, “Oh, you got to cross my palm”, which means putting money in the hand. Then she starts telling you of yourself. We could, with any person of any bit of perception, could convey anything of any other. You ask anyone here, and I will read your whole Life for you without even looking at your hand. So, these guys develop this little ability and use it to make money for themselves, and it has become a racket, and to repeat to you, these rackets must be destroyed—all these cults, all these money-making gurus, all these religions that are not religions. And by doing that, we will find the truth within ourselves. That is what we want to do; we want to see the truth within ourselves, by ourselves, with
The Strength of Humility: Unveiling the Light Within
Awareness, Bible, Compassion, Conscious Mind, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Grace, Gurushakti, Happiness, Heart, Humility, Impressions, Joy, Kindness, Kingdom of Heaven within, Light, Love, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Path, Peace, Purity, Samskaras, Self, Spiritual, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Subconscious, Superconscious, Tranquillity
HUMILITY REQUIRES STRENGTH In the Bible, it says that “the meek shall inherit the earth.” The meek shall inherit the earth, not only the earth but the heavens. Meekness is not cowardice. Meekness comes from strength; a better word for meekness is humility, and you have to be strong to be humble. If you are weak, you could never be humble. Humility requires strength. Strength is always in you, not to be discovered but to be uncovered because it is veiled. Like an electric bulb, you know you wrap a lot of cloth around it, and the Light does not come through. The process that people on the spiritual path go through is unwrapping the veils so that the Light can shine in its full brightness, which brings strength, and that is why we teach meditation and spiritual practices to unveil the veils. From where do the veils come? Divinity is a neutral energy that favours no one, and neither does it favour another. All those veils that block off the Light within you are created by yourself and no one else. These veils are composed of ignorance or nescience, where you are not aware of your true Self, that you are Divine, and it is only in the awareness of your true Self, that you are intrinsically Divine, that you will find the strength. KNOCK, AND THE DOORS SHALL BE OPENED People go through life in all kinds of misery. There is no misery in this world except that you create for yourself. There is no misery; you make it. The Creator has not created misery for you; you have created it. Why should one child be born in happy, prosperous, healthy circumstances and another born in poverty, illness, and suffering? Look, that Guy up there, which I know so well, and I live with Him twenty-four hours of the day, I know He does not create misery. It is a neutral force given to you to use whichever way you want. Use it negatively; then you have the negativity. Use it positively, and you will have positivity. You do not plant Dahlias and expect Roses to grow. This goes further back than the time that you were born. You are a total of all the lifetimes, if you do believe in that, from the very first primal atom or the amoebic stage up to now, you are the sum totality of it all because of the experiences that you have gone through, and that is conditioning your present lives at the moment. Why am I so happy and joyful all the time? And why do I see X, Y and Z outside the window full of misery? He has brought suffering upon himself. He is standing in the damn rain while I sit here so comfortably. Who says he must stand in the rain? Walk in, for the Kingdom of Heaven is within; those doors are never closed; they are open. That is why Spiritual Masters are there to lead you to the door, and as the old Biblical injunction says, “Knock, and it shall be opened,” but we are too lazy to lift our hands to knock. It is not even a physical act. You do not need to knock with the knuckles, you just need to think, and the doors are opened there for you. The closest thing to you is Divinity, yet we are so blind that we do not see it, we do not hear it, nor feel it, and it is there all the time. DIVINITY IS CLOSER TO YOU THAN YOUR VERY BREATH Divinity is closer to you than your very breath, and you become meek and humble once that is realised. And when you become meek and lowly, you know the value of love because a haughty person will never admit that love. They are all too much in their ego self: “I am Mr So and So, and I am this, I am that. “You are nothing. Your ego self is nothing, it is created by your thoughts only, and you know how thoughts work. Today you will think one thing, and tomorrow you will feel the opposite thing, and the next day something more opposite. Your ego self, the “Me and the Mine,” is the cause of all the trouble, but what about changing “Mine and Me” to “Thee and Thine.” REACHING THE SUPERCONSCIOUS LEVEL, YOU DO NOT COME BACK EMPTY-HANDED Can anyone truthfully say that this is my body? Can anyone truthfully say this is my brain? Nothing belongs to you, not even your mind or your body. The only thing you are encapsulated in are the thought forms you have created, and those thought forms in the Sanskrit word are called samskaras or impressions that have been deeply planted into the mind, and that rule governs your life. It regulates every action you do because the mind is patterned, and you do not go beyond the patternings. You just revolve around the patternings you have created, which is like a maze. You go this way, and you get caught, then you turn the other way, and you get caught, then you turn the other way and get caught, and you do not know the way out. You have created the maze. That is why Spiritual Masters come along to show you the path out of the maze you have made yourself. Finding humility, mildness, and gentleness is dependent upon ourselves. To find the humility, mildness, and gentleness of which you are born is to find that which is within yourself, and it can only be found through meditation and spiritual practices. When the conscious mind is brought to a calmer state, you go to the deeper layers of the subconscious mind in which all these impressions are captured and encapsulated. But then you still go further to the Superconscious level of the mind, where there is real peace, joy, tranquillity, meekness, mildness, and gentleness. Reaching there,
Scriptures and the Spiritual Path: Unlocking the True Purpose of Scripture
Belief, Ego, Evolution, Faith, God, Guru, Love, Path, Religion, Scriptures, Separation, Spirit, Spiritual Path, Yoga
THE PURPOSE OF THE SCRIPTURES The purpose of all Scripture is to follow the spiritual path. Because the spiritual path can never be divorced or separated from the teachings of ancient seers, they have cognised certain truths, which have been put forward for us to practice. If a person is theologically minded, he must understand all Scripture aspects thoroughly. When it comes to the Scriptures, one must use discrimination according to one’s understanding. Certain things in certain Scriptures might not go with your knowledge, and if it does not go with your understanding, you do not need to follow them blindly. That does not mean that the Scriptures are wrong. Perhaps your understanding is limited. When the understanding expands, a greater appreciation of the Scriptures takes hold of us. Many Scriptures have been misinterpreted, which applies to every religion worldwide. We can take a Sanskrit example of a word called “Jov.” “Yo” means barley, and it also means a goat. In the ritual portions of the scriptural injunctions of those Scriptures, it is said that “Yov must be sacrificed at the sacred altar.” This has been so misinterpreted that they started killing goats instead of giving barley as oblations. So, Scriptures from time immemorial have been subjected to misinterpretation. THE SPIRITUAL PATH IS THE BASIS OF SCRIPTURES To apply Scriptures to the spiritual path is a thing which is quite different. For the Scriptures to be correctly understood and applied to the spiritual path, one has to learn the Scriptures, and when one does not understand the Scriptures by oneself, we go to someone who understands the essence. Yet that which the person you go to explains to you or the interpretation of the Scriptures must not be taken on blind faith. Therefore, you will find many seekers searching as I have done. I went from guru to guru to guru until I found a guru who could give me the explanation, which was at par, at level with my stage of evolution. As we said, the spiritual path is so connected with scriptural injunctions. Let us take the Ten Commandments, which form part and parcel of the Scriptures and show you how to live a good life with its various injunctions. We have spoken on Raj Yoga which showed us the principles of Yama and Niyama and how to live a good and proper religious life. You could call it a scriptural life because the Scriptures and religion are not two things apart. So, we take the scriptural injunctions as a basis to progress on the spiritual path because we have to take this as a basis for the spiritual path. After all, the spiritual path is the basis of the Scriptures. ALL SPIRITUAL PATHS LEAD TO THE SPIRIT WITHIN Over time, many things have been added to these various Scriptures in various religions. If you take a piece of iron and leave it out in the rain, sun and snow for a long while, that piece of iron can get rusty, and people tend to take the rust for the iron. With our intellect and the powers of discrimination or with the advice and the teachings of those who know, we go beyond the level of the rust that has accumulated and come face to face with the genuine article, the iron. When we come face to face and appreciate the essence behind the rust, then Scriptures and the spiritual path become one. The whole idea is to understand our religion correctly, what our religion has meant and what the religion has taught. That is to be understood. It is not wrong for a person to follow Hinduism or Buddhism, or Christianity. Those are all paths. They all lead to the same goal and are all spiritual paths leading to the Spirit that dwells within. WE HAVE TO RISE ABOVE THE SCRIPTURES We do not make any distinctions between the spiritual path and scriptural injunctions. The validity of the Scriptures is in the fact that it has endured thousands and thousands of years. If it were essentially false, then it would not take. Like a great piece of literature – Shakespeare lived three hundred years ago, and yet we read his works today, and for the next three hundred years, his works will still be studied. At the same time, some small author not of much worth might have published a book at that very time when Shakespeare lived. He is gone, forgotten, and the book is not even there anymore. So, the purpose of Scripture is to point to our truth and show us reality in its varied forms. It shows us the truth from various aspects. The height of the spiritual path is reached only when we can view all the aspects of the Scriptures as a whole, and to do this, we have to rise above the Scriptures. If we stand at the bottom of the mountain, our view would be minimal, but if we stand on top of the hill, we have a vast panoramic view. This applies to the Scriptures. WE HAVE TO RISE BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF DOGMAS You have Scriptures, which could be very dogmatic. To understand what the Spirit is all about, we must rise beyond dogmatism’s boundaries. To be in any form of dogmatic faith or belief is nothing wrong, and it might be what is required by us for that moment in our spiritual path. But the spiritual path and the study of all dogmas and dogmatic creeds only find fulfilment when we transcend the boundaries of dogma. All the problems in the world that have taken place are because of dogmatism, where religions war against each other and say, “My way is right.” The other says, “My way is right”, and the third says, “My way is right.” This causes conflicts because dogmas always produce boundaries. And when we live within a limit, it would be like the story of the frog of the well. The
The Essence of Dharma: Discovering the Depths of Duty
Conscious Mind, Dharma, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Evolution, Force, Free Will, God, Grace, Happiness, Impressions, Joy, Karma, Law of opposites, Light, Love, Meditation, Mind, Oneness, Relative World, Samskaras, Scriptures, Self, Self-Realization, Spirit, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, The Absolute, The Three Gunas
WHAT IS DHARMA? It is so surprising that Dharma and Karma rhyme so well, and yet Dharma and Karma are just but the obverse and reverse side of the same coin. It is a misconception to believe that Karma is wrong; you have good and bad Karma. Good Karma means actions performed that are conducive to nature and are in the flow with nature, while bad Karma would be the forces created by acts that conflict with nature’s details. Dharma means the performance of duty, duty towards one’s parents, one’s wife, one’s children, husband, friend, and society. That is the interpretation of dharma. But there are far greater meanings in dharma. It is not only a performance of duty that one does with effort. For the beginner’s some effort might be required, but one has to reach the stage of dharma whereby all actions performed, where all Karma performed become spontaneous. This very spontaneity that is developed in man shows his level of evolution and some progress in his life. You would have many mythological stories, for example, where Rama, in the Ramayana, because of his father’s promise and duty to his father, was banished for fourteen years into the jungles and underwent so many different experiences. This could be because of the promise, but the deeper meaning is that because of specific karmic values of Rama, he had to undergo these difficulties in the forests. This is a cleansing process to dharma. So, you might start on the dharmic path and end up cleansing the bad Karma within you. DHARMA LIES WITHIN KARMA Bad Karma means all the impressions of all kinds of experiences that are stored up in the mind through ages and ages, which are active experiences, or which could even be inactive experiences, meaning such things as emotions and other psychological factors. Anything that leaves an impression in the mind or the subconscious strata of the mind can be equated as Karma, and when we refer to Karma as impressions, the counterpart of Karma, we call samskaras. To repeat, Karma and dharma are so interlinked, and they are not in opposition to each other because within your Karma lies dharma. By performing good action, you are performing a dharmic action in the flow of nature. Here we do not differentiate, but all activities performed in life can be brought to a very good or refined level so that one does not only act from the storehouse of the impressions in one’s mind but from a level which goes beyond those impressions. THERE IS A DIRECT LINE TO THE SUPERCONSCIOUS MIND After the conscious mind, we have the subconscious mind, and after that, we go to a level of the Super-conscious Mind. Forces of nature govern these three so-called sections of the mind, and in Sanskrit terminology, they are called Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva. Tamas is the force of inertia or darkness; Rajas could be called the activating force, and Sattva is the force of Light. Here at the finest point of relativity, on the verge of the Absolute, we have the Superconscious Mind. People do think that seeing that I have performed so many bad Karmas in my lifetime, I will have to suffer them all. This is not necessary, although there is truth in that “whatever you sow, you will reap.” That is a great truth. But this truth applies only to the subconscious mind. When one reaches the Superconscious Mind, one can overcome all those impressions. Here is how it works. Apart from the grosser nervous system connected to the conscious mind, there is a subtle nervous system which is the hotline or direct line from the conscious mind to the Superconscious Mind. If you can activate that subtle nervous system and find the direct link to the Superconscious level, then you can draw the forces of Light from there so that they can permeate your conscious level. WE CAN BYPASS ALL SAMSKARAS WITH OUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICES Throughout all the ages, you have accumulated so many karmas, good and bad. That is one reason why all theologies have created all these heavens and hells. If you live a good life, you will go to a region where there is all happiness, which is called Heaven, and if you do bad actions, you will go to an area called Hell or suffering. That is why theologies, in their way, try to portray the result of that which is good and that which is bad. But the principle is that you do not need to go to Heaven or Hell; you go beyond that to a Karma-free region. To reach that region, we will have to go back to the main point again that this very fine network of this nervous system can lead you directly from the conscious to the Superconscious, cutting right through all the samskaras or impressions stored in the sub-conscious mind. Through meditation and spiritual practices, one does. However, at first, it might not be so apparent to you; one does reach the Superconscious level and from there draw the Light and banish the darkness of impressions, the Tamas which resides in the subconscious mind. Therefore, in practical daily living, we must remember that one does not need to feel guilty about any actions that man has performed because what is past is past. There is no future, and there is only now. With spiritual practices, we reach an area called “nowhere”, and that “nowhere” if you take note of the spelling is “now here.” That does not mean that we do not make any effort. We can bypass all the samskaras with our spiritual practices, which would have taken millions of years to clear up. If the floor is filthy, you use a broom; it will require so much energy and time, but if you have a powerful cleaner, an electric vacuum cleaner, how quickly would the floor be cleaned. So, we use the vacuum cleaner for meditation and spiritual
The Journey to Illumination: Acceptance, Devotion, Love, and Surrender
OUR BURDENS ARE NINE-TENTHS IMAGINARY Everyone wants to become so important in life, and all that importance is imaginary. Why do they want to be important? Because then they can express that ego that they have brought with them. Instead of deflating the ego, they want to inflate it. How many people are hurt in the process of inflating the ego? When others are injured, it must rebound back on you because you are responsible. It is nice to be necessary, but more important, to be nice. These are such simple home truths. If we are nice to people, we do not need to pretend. We only need to know that there is Divinity in everything, and automatically, we become nice. You must add the “n” to the “ice” and how warm you will glow. We carry these burdens; nine-tenths are imaginary. If you study fear, for example, you will find that nine to ten percent of your fears are imaginary. You fear things that might never happen, and you try repeating those fears to yourself repeatedly. You are going to make them happen. Things might have a logical order: two and two make for two, and two make eight. We can work in a rational manner, which is fine. However, rationales do not work logically. By accepting ourselves as responsible for developing the power of discrimination, we eliminate the burden we carry, and that burden is nine-tenths imaginary. What would be the worst that could happen if it was not nine-tenths? What is the worst? You will only die, and there is no death. It is another subject we can talk about. There is no death. What have you come with, and what will you take with you? Like that, it goes unnecessary burdens. Let me tell you this story. A very tall lady was six foot three, and she had a boyfriend who was five foot three, perhaps five foot two and a half. They used to go out in the evenings, and she lived a mile from the bus terminal. So, they used to get off at the bus terminal, and he used to walk her home the mile. One night, he tells her, “My love, allow me to kiss you.” He is so short that he constantly needs a stool. Here, they passed an abandoned blacksmith’s shop. So, he got onto the anvil, and he kissed his girl. Nothing wrong with that. One of the finest things invented, if you know how to kiss. Two souls become one, where the prana in two bodies intermingle to such a level of refinement that the bodies are lost, and only the prana remains. That is kissing. That is a different subject. Never mind. So, this chap gets on top of the anvil and kisses the girl, and after that, they start walking again. They were nearly home, and he said, “Honey, can I kiss you again,” with such pleading eyes. She says, “No once a night is enough.” Then he says, “Oh, what is the use of carrying this anvil with me?” Yes, we all carry these anvils around, but those imaginary burdens and burdens also have other aspects. One of the most significant aspects is expectation. This chap was expecting to kiss his girl again. Therefore, he carried that heavy anvil with him. Expectation is the father of disappointment, and disappointment is the mother of suffering. What a marriage. RESPONSIBILITY PLAYS A BIG PART IN SELF-ACCEPTANCE Expectation is the father of disappointment, and disappointment is the mother of suffering. Because one expects so much from life, that one comes to disappointments. There would be no disappointment if there were no expectations in the first place. It is better to live life from day to day. That does not mean that you do not have any ambitions or any plans in life. It does not mean that, but it means undue expectations. I know of a young man who bought a lottery ticket two or three weeks before the lottery was to be drawn, and every day, his mind was on that lottery ticket. He could not concentrate on his work; he was irritable at home, expecting, “Ah, here is something going to come for me”, but it never came, and he felt so discouraged. He invested a pound in buying this lottery ticket, and when he did not get fifty thousand for it, he was so disappointed. He cried. His wife had to phone me. She said, “My husband is in a terrible state. What must I do with him?” I said, “Get him on to the bloody phone.” Undue expectations. I expect to be loved by someone. What right have I got to hope that? I expect you to love me. What right have I got to expect that? Why not live my life so your love for me will automatically and spontaneously materialise? Being responsible is so important; it plays a significant part in self-acceptance. And to be oneself, whether one is a prince or a pauper, is a joy in itself. Do you know there is such great joy in being a pauper? I remember running away from home once. I came to Bombay with nowhere to stay, slept on the beach for three nights, and then thought I had to find some food, so I went to ask for work in a little restaurant. I said, “Look, I do not want any pay; just give me a plate of food; I am prepared to work.” It was quite a good bargain for an Indian businessman. Meanwhile, it was such a joy to wash those dishes. I thought, “Oh Lord, you are giving me the opportunity, the privilege of washing someone else’s dishes.” How beautiful. Perhaps it is one way of serving humanity. I knew that because I was not going to get paid for it. The job lasted three days. The health authorities came along and would not allow me to sleep
Calculated Risks, Eternal Joy: Balancing Change and Permanence
WE CLING TO THE TRANSITORY VALUE OF LIFE In the relative life, the only thing that is sure is change, and we cling to the changes, the transitory value of life because we find security. I have given you an example before, in the Himalayas, a person has an accident and is lying in the snow. Such a warmth envelops him that he does not want to get up. If he would only exert his will to get up and walk around a bit to circulate his blood, he would be saved; he would live. But he loses his life in that warmth he has found lying in the snow. That is the daily experience of all of us; because we are afraid of the unknown, we stick to that which is familiar. We adhere to what is expected, even though it is so unpleasant to us and brings so much suffering to us. Common sense would tell us that we should evaluate relative existence with all its changes and try to see how beneficial these changes are to us. We can still live in the changes and change the differences; that is the secret of life. What do we change? We change that which is forever evolving into changelessness, wherein stability can be found. The fear of facing the future or turning away from that with which we are so familiar is a sure sign of instability, a sure sign of a lack of faith and a sure sign of the disbelief of Divinity. What prevents us from wanting to change, although inwardly we wish to get away from the suffering? Yet we are so tied down, bogged down, because of how we have been conditioned. As we have always discussed, our minds are nothing but a product of conditioning. I have known people, for example, in a restaurant who do not want to try a different kind of food; they are afraid. TAKE A CALCULATED RISK How much joy is missed in life because we do not want to change? We are afraid because of insecurities, instabilities, and a lack of trust. The most incredible thing in life, which could ever be achieved, is not always to mind your step but to take a leap. All the greatest things created in this world, from the most fantastic bridges to the tallest skyscrapers, everything, you name it, is because a person was prepared to leap. Even in leaping, it should not be blind leaping. As a business person would say, take a calculated risk. But are we prepared to risk our little ego, that little ego that wants us to cling, and cling and cling, to life? There is nothing wrong with clinging to life because everything is life, but what is our understanding of life? That is the question. Does life only mean the conditionings of which our minds are a product? Does life only mean the mundane things we attach so much importance to? Is that real life, and is that living? Most of us do not live; we just exist. BE PREPARED FOR CHANGE In this just existing, we drift like a rudderless boat. So, there must come a time when a person must accept a higher value than life’s ordinary, mundane, changing values. There are a few kinds of people that would be prepared for change. The one type of person that would change is he that reaches rock bottom when his life has become too much for him. He has gained the ground, and when one falls to rock bottom, there is only one way he can go, which is up. So, remember, when people go through the direst misery, there is always an upward surge coming; it is an infallible law. When we go through the worst suffering, do know that there is something better in store, the storm before the calm, that will inevitably happen. The other kind of person that wants to change his whole lifestyle would be the person that has gained some understanding. It would be the person that has seen the futility of his current lifestyle and very consciously wants to alter that lifestyle. The former person is forced to change his lifestyle. The latter person to which many of us belong intends to intentionally alter that lifestyle, and we gain some understanding in wanting to change that lifestyle consciously. At first, it is a mental understanding. Later, cognitive understanding, with the help of conscious effort and effortless meditation, becomes a realisation where every hatred can be turned into love, and adversity can be turned into an opportunity. One must not expect dramatic changes because that which starts very dramatically can also end very dramatically, and you are back to square one. Proper changes in life and changing one’s lifestyle must come gradually, and as it comes slowly, the greater force it would have, and the more significant impact it would have upon us. Have you ever seen a flower growing immediately after you plant a seed? When a housewife cooks, have you ever noticed she was putting the pot on the stove and removing it in two seconds? No, it takes time; it takes time. Therefore, one must cultivate patience, and the very patience produced is a joy if we understand why we are growing tolerance. As days go by, and we develop newer and newer understandings, deeper and deeper insights, our attitude towards life changes radically, sometimes unperceptively to us, but so noticeable by others. “But, this is not the same person I knew six months ago.” INFUSING THE CHANGELESSNESS INTO THE CHANGE As one progresses, it becomes encouraging, and the more encouragement one receives, observes, observes, and feels, the quicker the path goes. So, we essentially have to wake up from this deep sleep that we are in that is causing us suffering. And in that awaken-ness, that wakefulness, in that awareness, we would find that we have stopped existing, but now we have
The Heart’s Expansion: Living the Ideals of Love and Divinity
Ancient Sages, Awareness, Bible, Buddha, Christ, Consciousness, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Eternal, Evolve, Faith, God, Guru, Heart, Krishna, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Meditation, Mind, Path, Philosophy, Purity, Self, Separation, Spirit, Spiritual Practices, Surrender, The Abstract, Tranquillity, Universal, Wisdom, Yoga
WE ARE THINKING BEINGS There is only one way to express our actions in daily activity, and the component of that way is to live a better life in our waking state consciously. We can do it. We are thinking beings. We can discriminate, and if we cannot determine, we can always go to the guides that have gone deep into the subject and that are living here amongst us, and ask brother or father or guru, whatever, “What path shall I take, where am I wrong?” And guidance is there for the asking. That is the practical side, and meditation enhances the practical side of living by attaining that beautiful tranquillity of mind. By achieving that deep relaxation of the body, we can attune ourselves to the Universal Spirit within us. Because if we were just on the surface, on the ocean’s turbulence, we would not know the calmness within us, deep down in the sea. So, we dive within ourselves, and through systematic meditation, this is possible and experienceable; it is there just for the doing and the asking. When one dives deep within oneself and regenerates oneself, it rejuvenates oneself. One can genuinely bring the mind to the level of outer expression, and the outward expression or action of body and mind could become very beautiful. Only by the refinement that is taking place within ourselves can our perspectives of life change, where we would see things from a different angle from what we have been seeing up to now. WHEN THE HEART EXPANDS, WE SEE DIVINITY IN EVERYTHING The flower seems beautiful to you now, but after a few months of meditation, you will look at the same flower and assume a greater beauty because through meditation, one’s awareness expands and not only the attention, but the heart expands. The mind appreciates the beauty of the flower, and the heart, in its expansion, becomes one with the flower. It identifies itself with the flower, and then the actual value of the flower is known. Right now, our perception of the flower is limited to the senses, but when this refinement occurs within us, this flower becomes limitless, and Divinity is seen in the bud. Life is seen in the flower. Then we can look at any object and see it as Divine, which is how one can love everything. Then we fail to see the surface value of things and we see the inner significance of everything and everyone. If someone slaps one cheek, we could turn the other because that slap came from Divinity itself. The separation ceases. If the Lord slapped me on one cheek, I would turn the other one saying, “Oh Lord, slap me again.” Because I would fail to see the man slapping me, but I would see God slapping me and having a mind, I would think, “What is the lesson for me to learn here?” And that is how men evolve, and man progresses. THE TRUEST EXPRESSION OF DIVINITY IS LOVE For two thousand years and even before that, people have said, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” People have been saying that, and it is easy to say, “Love thy Neighbour.” But what are the mechanics in loving thy neighbour? The mechanics are within yourself. If you cannot become a channel of love, if you cannot become the channel for the Divinity to manifest in you fully, then your love for the neighbour cannot be complete. Then you are fooling around. So, we start with ourselves, and meditation is a process of purification; it is a process of refinement where we allow the truest expression of Divinity to be in us, and the finest, the truest expression of Divinity, is love. That is why love is so indefinable. WHEN THE HEART EXPANDS, DIVINITY IS FELT The day when a man can define love, then he has defined God. Yet the human mind is limited; it is finite. How can the finite ever define the infinite? But the infinite can be experienced; the infinite can be experienced in the expansion of the heart. When the heart expands, Divinity is felt, and that Divinity cannot help itself in love. And when we experience greater and greater depths of love, then we can honestly say, then we can genuinely practise “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” because thy neighbour as thyself. Separation ceases. SARVIKALPA SAMADHI, SAMADHI WITH FORM There are certain practices and processes whereby you start with separation. There are Sanskrit terms like Sarvikalpa Samadhi which means you use an object of Jesus, his beautiful statue, that is an object, or Krishna or Buddha or Mother Mary, whichever is most conducive to your temperament. You use that as an object, and the more and more you use that as your ideal, the more and more your heart and mind surrender to it because an ideal requires submission. A model in theological or philosophical terms is something to which you surrender. What is the sense of having an idea and not communicating with the ideal? When you have an ideal, the ideal of Krishna or Buddha or Christ – things happen within you. You have to love your ideal; otherwise, you cannot have an ideal. One of the aspects of love is surrender because you cannot love without surrendering. You surrender your small ego self, that little self which we think is so important, and it is that bit ego-self that says, “I do”. But when that little ego-self is surrendered to the ideal, we say, “Thou does, not me. I am but an instrument, Thy will be done.” That we find in Sarvikalpa Samadhi, where there is a separation, and most religions are based on this duality. It is a valid path because one can find upliftment through surrender and ideal. One purifies oneself. It is very, very valid, depending upon man’s temperament. There are many ways to approach Divinity, many, many ways, like rivers coming from different directions and becoming
The Essence of Yoga: Pathways to Selfless Service and Inner Harmony
HOW VALID IS HATHA YOGA? Hatha Yoga is a part of Raj Yoga, and for those inclined towards the postures, starting from the external self to the internal Self, Hatha Yoga is very, very valid. Some might have the temperament whereby they would say, “Let me start with the refinement of the body.” By refining the body through practising the various Asanas and postures of Hatha Yoga, you will achieve great results, even more so than in gymnastics. In ordinary gymnastics, as we know it, we are only exercising the body’s muscular system. In the practice of Yoga Asanas, we not only exercise the muscular system of the body, but we also exercise the inner organs of the body and the glandular systems of the body. In yoga asanas, the body is treated as a whole. The outer structure of the body and the inner structure of the body is treated, and for those whose temperament is of the nature to start with the body, then, by all means, it is very, very valid. WHEN THE BODY AND MIND BECOME TRANQUIL, THE LIGHT SHINES THROUGH That is what Hatha Yoga does; it goes from the outside to the inside. Compared to ordinary gymnastics, in Hatha Yoga, the added benefit is that the body can be tuned in great harmony with the mind. That is one of the main aspects of Hatha Yoga, where, as the body becomes tranquil through these postures, tranquillity is transmitted to the mind, and the mind also becomes tranquil. And when the body and mind become tranquil, the Spirit shines through. So, Yoga Asanas, for those that like them, do them. If our meditators do asanas, they will be very, very much more successful in it because their minds are already tuned to a certain extent, whereby the combination of the physical asanas with the state of mind that a meditator is in could produce far, far more beneficial results than just ordinary exercises. So, if you are doing asanas, combine them, but the rhythm should be there, whereas in the asanas, whichever posture you are doing, the mind is connected. Beautiful harmony and relaxation take place, and you can just float away. OTHER FORMS OF YOGA That is one form of yoga – there are other forms, and many people do not want to do these physical exercises. A person that is physically incapacitated, physically unable to do these postures, for example, can we say all hope is lost for him? No, there is hope for him too. For him, there are other forms of yoga, and mantra meditation is also yoga, but a different process takes place there. Here we surpass the mind and the body, dive deep within, draw the energy from inside, and bring it to the mind and body. It is a matter of direction. Through Hatha Yoga, we start with the body, mind, and Spirit, and in other systems of meditation such as Mantra Yoga, we begin from this direction – mantra, mind, and body. It is the other way around, but the same result is achieved. It is perfect and incredibly beneficial; nothing wrong with it. And those who do not want to do these things just live a life of service, do good, be good, forget all asanas and forget meditation. If you are already born in this life with the temperament of absolute service for humanity, then you do not need meditation, and you do not need yoga. You have been born already equipped. As you know, yoga means union. Through all these various yoga, those of us that cannot act spontaneously in service to humanity, and serving humanity is serving God; there is no other way you can do it. By praying, praying, praying, God, God, God, that is not service, and that is a different kind of service. That is a surrender, but surrender must convert itself, transform itself to service to humanity. IN SERVING THE, MOTIVATION IS THE IMPORTANT PART Those born already equipped to serve humanity, by all means, do it, but in serving humanity, a lot of factors have to be considered. There might be some person who belongs to twelve different welfare societies – she is with the Paraplegic Association, the Mentally Retarded Association, the Blind Society, and the Old Age Meals on Wheels, things like that – but what is the motivation? What is the important motivation? Is it service, or is it self-aggrandisement? Is it service, or is it ego expression? For example, in Cape Town, a certain section of the Community Centre was to be built, and one person said, “I will donate fifty thousand Rand.” Beautiful, everybody cheered. Mr So and so are going to donate fifty thousand Rand. But to the Executive Committee, he wrote a letter saying, “I want this centre to be named after me, and that is the condition of my donation.” What is that man trying to do? He is trying to perpetuate his name and feed his ego. Unfortunately, charitable organisations even have to succumb to these pressures. That is so, so unfortunate because a greater good can be done through perhaps a lesser interest. But the whole principle is wrong as far as that man is concerned. That man is giving fifty thousand Rand; we will call it pounds, you will understand it better, fifty thousand pounds, for his name, so that this generation, the next generation and the generation after that will remember that Mr XYZ donated the money for this project. I was surprised that this man did not ask for his bust to be put on the ground. So, motivation is essential. I know this man is a millionaire, a multi-millionaire and that fifty thousand pounds were nothing for him to give. We know the story of Christ – the widow’s mite, which is of more value than the millionaire’s fifty thousand pounds. It is the motivation, the sincerity. THE VARIOUS PRACTICES ARE NOTHING BUT A
Breaking the Cycle: Transcending Samskaras Through Inner Strength
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WHAT ARE SAMSKARAS? Samskaras are not things that are impressed upon something. According to ancient philosophers, there is something called the mind-stuff of which the mind is composed. But the mind-stuff is composed of nothing else but thoughts, and thoughts become self-existent once thought is thought. It has its motion, and that motion, as in everything else, is perpetual. Although they have been shed from your mind, these various forms of thoughts that are perpetuating and are an eternal motion will go on and on and on. So, the present ideas you would have now will naturally attract thoughts from the whole universe, from the atmosphere of the universe, and that would strengthen the self-existing tendencies. Thought also has gradations, a grosser level and a more refined level; the finer level is what we would term impressions. Impressions are thoughts in a more refined form. It is like taking rough material and sifting it like you would sift coarse flour to get the fine flour. Those are impressions, and those impressions which form one’s tendencies are called samskaras. There is no such factor on which thoughts must lean or be based. If samskaras had a basis, they could never be thrown out of our systems. But because they have no solid foundation, something on which they are implanted, they can be got rid of.But samskaras cannot get rid of themselves by themselves. Another factor is needed, and that factor is the strength that is within us. It is the activation of the strength that is within us that will remove those samskaras from us. SAMSKARAS STICK TO NOTHING The samskaras will not be destroyed, but those samskaras will float around in the universe and land up where there is another likeness to be found. If a person has the samskara of hatred and through the spiritual power, which we activate, the hate is thrown out, it will be picked up by another person who has similar hatred in him. Samskaras are not necessarily bad. You have good samskaras as well, and good samskaras are also thrown off. They are not kept excellent and bad; they are both thrown off. When good samskaras are thrown off, they will go to people with similar goodness. Like the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Nothing is ever destroyed in this universe, not even a single thought. Even if your thought is weak and if it carries on in the mind, that thought will become strengthened by itself and by what it would attract. That is the basis of samskaras which are self-existing, and it is a baseless basis. Samskaras sticks to nothing. What is there to which air would adhere? It attaches to nothing. It is a free-flowing self-existing agent and what we usually do with our practices is by activating the inner Force, we throw out the grosser things, which are bad samskaras, and we hold on to a certain amount of the subtler thoughts or the good thoughts so that our lives in this world, our relative lives could be better regulated and made happier. But you have to go beyond relative happiness, where you discard the good and the bad and reach that stage of neutrality, which is pure consciousness. Because without reaching the location of neutrality, you will always be affected. Because in every good, there is some little bad, and in everything bad, there is also some little good. Therefore, imbalances are created. TO LIVE IN THE MOMENT IS TOTAL BLISS If the bad, the Tamasic side of yourself rises, there are more problems. If the Sattvic side of yourself rises, there are lesser problems. But it is like a pendulum swinging. The pendulum has a moment of rest when it swings to the left, there is a momentary pause before it swings to the right, and again there is a brief pause before it turns to the left. But when it comes to the centre, that is death. There is no swinging. So, we have to capture the momentary pauses on either side of the pendulum, and there lies eternity. There lies the motionlessness. There lies the changelessness. Yet the motion carries on in the centre between those two poles of non-motion. That is how samskaras function. We know that every pleasure we have, which we call happiness, has the germ of pain. If you are high, then remember there is a low coming. You move to the right, knowing you will have to move to the left. To live in the moment, either left or right, where there is no motion, is neither happiness nor pain but total bliss, indescribable. The activation of the Spiritual Force gives one the realisation of moments when the pendulum is still, and that is eternity. Yet we allow the pendulum to work on pleasure today and pain tomorrow, but our minds are so immersed in those still moments on either side that we do not notice the swaying of the pendulum. So let the samskaras come and go; they have no foundation whatsoever. PEOPLE THAT HAVE RISEN ABOVE SAMSKARAS ARE TRULY GODS The purpose of the pendulum swinging is to give the clock time; wherever there is time, there has to be space. The pendulum requires space to move. So, time and space in the universe are associated. And who has made time? We make time. It takes me twenty-two hours to travel from South Africa, from Cape Town to London. That twenty-two hours at five hundred miles per hour in the plane. I am not only counting time but also measuring space, and all time and space are limited. But where the pendulum stops at either end, that is limitless. Do you understand this? So samskaras they will come and go and go and go and go until you become so merged into that split second that it permeates your entire Self, and you become the observer of the pendulum. Time does not touch you. Space