THE TRUTH ABOUT SENILITY Senility comes about with age, but you will find many older adults that are not senile at all. If you study their lives, you will find that some people become senile because those who have become senile have not been very active mentally. Among the greatest authors or musicians, George Bernard Shaw, for example, or even Churchill, or Gandhi, you will find that they did some of their best works at an old age. Why have they not become senile, and why do others become senile? It is because their minds have not been very active. They might have been physically active, but those who have become senile have not been intellectually active. Senility begins with the mind and not the body because the mind influences every part of the body. All diseases and senility are the decaying of the body’s various organs and more so of the brain, and doctors have proven that one hundred percent of all diseases come from the mind. It is a method of wrong thinking. When a person gets older, the constant thought in their mind would be, “I am getting old, I am getting old, I am getting old”. They stop reading, they stop studying, and they stop all these mental activities. So, it would be natural that their thoughts make them senile. No one needs to become senile at all. The basis of senility has to do with one’s way of life and thinking. If I reach the age of eighty, God forbid, I will not be senile because the mind is permanently active. And not only is the mind being intellectually active, but it is also empowered by the Spirit within. Senility can be avoided by more significant mental activity and by drawing that energy and that Force from within. Many things are inexplicable, and doctors have no answers for senility. They do not go back to the samskaric nature of the person. Some people are very active mentally speaking, and some do not return to their childhood and pre-childhood stages. There are certain hereditary factors. When they reach a ripe old age, you will find that children of senile parents also become senile. But that is just a tendency, and the child can avert that tendency by taking a greater interest in everything around him, which means again by developing greater and greater awareness. For example, I had the pleasure of being with Charles’s mother. She is eighty-three, and I had a little chat with her, and everything she spoke to me about was cohesive and reasonable. Unfortunately, she is reaching the end of the road as her face is bleak because of the illnesses she had gone through, there was such serenity on her face, and she has been meditating for about four or five years. That has produced in her that serenity, and with her terminal disease, just waiting for time, she accepts everything so well. She has no fear in her and is so, so serene. Serenity can never come to a person who is senile, and serenity is not compatible with senility. Here is an active mind at eighty-three that could reason with you, ask you intelligent questions and speak to you very cohesively. It goes to show that not everyone needs to become senile.In senility, there are certain samskaric factors. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1984- 13
Spontaneous Living: Unfolding the Essence of True Activity
HOW TO GUIDE ACTIVITY? Activity itself is expression. The finest thought in man’s mind is a form of mental activity. Life is composed of activity, activity, and activity; but how to guide this activity, how to control this activity into useful channels, until even control is not required anymore, until that activity becomes completely spontaneous, which is the best form of activity? When we talk of activity, it does not only mean physical activity. Physical activity is an expression of thought-activity, and thought-activity is the reflection of that which is un-active. There are three aspects of man. The outer aspect is the physical body, the inner element is the mental body, and of course, deeper down is the spiritual aspect, the changeless that governs all change. Man, as well as the entire universe, is governed by specific natural laws and natural factors. Through meditation, we are trying to give the inner Self the entire scope to reflect in its full glory to the mind and through the mind to the body. That is the end and aim of all religions. The end and aim of all religions are to find out how to unfold that changeless quality which underlies all forms of activity. When we find the secret of that, when we can draw forth from the changeless storehouse of all energies into our minds and bodies, then we have discovered the secret of life and successful living, good living, truthful living. Then we will live life as it should be lived. BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT ARE A CONTINUUM The prevention of this is the mind. I have always said that the mind is a very cunning animal. Why should it be a cunning animal? Why should it have the impurities in the mind that stop that beautiful light from filtering through? The body might have its importance for the purpose of expression, but the mind is even more critical because if we study natural laws, we will find that the process in everything is the same, from the subtle to the gross. The mind is subtler than the body, but there is no dividing line. You cannot find a dividing line between night and day. You could sit outside and watch the sun going down and try to perceive where the night starts, but you will not be able to perceive it. The transition from mind to body is subtle because it is a continuum. We are trying to bring that eternal, changeless quality within us to the changing qualities of the mind, and by bringing that force, by bringing that power of light into the mind, the mind becomes appreciative of that force. In other words, that which has remained so unconscious to us becomes conscious and more and more and more conscious, so the ninety percent of the dormant mind is enlivened. And enlivening the ninety percent of the dormant mind, it reflects on the ten percent conscious mind. THE EXTENT OF THE MIND IS AS VAST AS THE UNIVERSE When a person has higher values in life and develops virtues in his daily activity, truthfulness, honesty, and sincerity, then be sure to know that the light within is filtering through more. And the more light filters through, the more these virtues develop. The mind is such a cunning animal that you cannot destroy it. The mind is unbeatable, and the extent of the mind is not limited to our little physical bodies only, but the scope of the mind is as vast as the universe. Here we have a paradox that the eternalness, the everlastingness, the immortalness of the Spirit is there, yet with it, there is also the eternalness of the mind. The mind is a superimposition upon the eternal Spirit. Fire can never exist without its heat. The mind is the heat of that fire, but through various processes, intermixing, interchanging, and interpenetration of many factors, the mind becomes clouded. And it is because of the clouds of the mind that the pure light does not shine through. NOTHING IN THIS UNIVERSE IS EVER DESTROYED Through meditation, we are trying to blow away the clouds. Blowing away the clouds does not necessarily mean eradicating them, but we use the same clouds as an instrument whereby the clouds refine themselves. The cloud is not destroyed, but that cloud can be made to pour itself down as health-giving water. The cloud is not destroyed; it is only changed. The cloud that becomes very dense naturally would disperse itself in the form of rain. So, there is no destruction. Nothing in this universe is destroyed – it only changes form. But by conscious effort, conscious living, and wanting to live a better life, we change the form of what is already there. And we can change the form to greater usefulness because it is the same energy that is activated, the same energy. It is the same electric current that produces coldness in a fridge, that gives warmth or heat in a stove, but how to use it depends on us. MAN HAS THE POWER OF DISCRIMINATION Physiological and biological, an animal and a man are made of the same components; the only difference is that man has the power of discrimination. Man loses out because he does not use his God-given power of discrimination. Because of the power of discrimination, being there and not using it to its total value, discrimination becomes indiscriminate. And it is this indiscriminate-ness within us that gets us wound up, that brings the cloud denser and denser and denser until the sight of the sun is entirely lost. Through meditational and spiritual practices, we refine that cloud. We change that cloud into other forms where the light can penetrate. We cannot destroy the mind because the extent of the mind is the extent of the entire universe; there is no separation. Your mind cannot be separated from another mind. Your power of thinking can assume an individuality but, in the
The Unveiling of Love: Clearing the Mind to Discover Divinity
LOVING IS THE TRUE NATURE OF A PERSON Loving is the true nature of a person, but that nature, the truth of nature, is covered by the cloudiness of the mind. The clouds that are formed are because of your past impressions that have been created in your mind. The purpose of life, to find the true nature of Divinity, is to get rid of those old impressions that have clouded the mind. There is only one way to get rid of the old, stale, stinking impressions, and the way is to purify one’s mind through spiritual practices. When one is regular in their spiritual practices, then all those impressions will disappear, and the disappearance of those stale, stinking impressions brings about purity. And when purity comes, you will know the meaning of love, and when you know the meaning of love, it brings you close to God. To know the meaning of love is not a mental conception; it is a spiritual reality which is realised by the Heart. When this realisation dawns, then the heart becomes pure, and when the Heart becomes pure, you are close to God. It is so simple. TO BE SIMPLE IS TO BE TRUE TO ONESELF What do we do to find this purity which, in most cases, is a rarity? Everyone has the capacity to find the purity which will no longer remain a rarity. The secret of life, to find that purity, is not so difficult if you try. You have to get rid of the age-old impressions which you have gathered through so many lifetimes if you believe in that. To find that purity, one has to develop within oneself the simplicity that goes with life. There are many factors involved in being simple and not simplistic. To be simple is to be very true to oneself. To be simple is not to be simplistic, but a simpleness involves total truth within oneself. To be truthful to oneself is, to be honest with oneself. It is to be yourself. Then only can you be honest with yourself? If you are a thief, be a thief, but an honest thief. Thieves are regarded to be dishonest, but being an honest thief is not a contradiction of terms. Be a thief in honesty, go and steal, take from the rich to give to the poor – Robin Hood. So, you are not thieving for yourself, but you are doing this deed to help the poor, the needy, the lonely, and the lost. NO ONE IS PERFECT Honesty takes many forms, but it all depends on how you formulate the form of your deed. There is no one in this world that is perfect. Even a self-realised man has to have two per cent of imperfection in him. If he does not have that two per cent imperfection, he will not be able to eat; he will not even be able to go to the toilet. When we go to the toilet, we expel the dirt that has accumulated in the body. Food has only certain values as far as its energies are concerned; the rest you evacuate, throw off. Can anyone tell me that you do not go for a wee or a pee or the other things that go with it? What a stinking subject! That is life, and life must be lived in normality. Life must not become abnormal. For once life becomes abnormal, you lose the love of life. When you lose the love of life, you lose the love of God. So, the principle is this, love yourself. When you can really love yourself unselfishly, then only will you know the value of life and the Divinity that gives you this life. When life is given to you by Divinity, use it and do not abuse it. For when you abuse, you are creating more and more impressions in your subconscious mind. The more impressions you have, good or bad, in your subconscious mind, they must find some expression. And that expression is translated to your conscious mind, and that is where your problems begin because of the translation from the subconscious to the conscious level of your daily living. If you can clear your mind from those impressions of the subconscious, then your conscious mind becomes clear, and in its clarity, you will find your life very, very much happy. Life is no secret. If you want to call it a secret, please pre-fix it with the word ‘open’ – secret, for life is an open secret to be enjoyed. For your entire constitution is composed of nothing else but joy, but because you cannot enjoy the joy, you make life miserable. Not my fault, and it is neither the fault of Divinity. It is you, governed by the impressions, which formulates your karma. As you would know that every cause must have its effect, and every effect creates another cause. So, if you, in the first place, destroy the cause, there will be no effect. LOVING IS A NATURAL QUALITY For example, my beloved, I assume, loves me, but if I do not encourage or inspire the love in my beloved, then naturally, she will not love me as she should. She might do her duty. But doing one’s duty is not loving. Loving is a natural quality that just wells up within oneself. It is not something planned, it is not something contrived, it is something that just happens, and that is love. Anything you contrive has been constituted through your thought processes. Love is not a thought process. Love is a quality of the Heart that just wells up within you, and yet it still translates itself into the lower conscious mind; it translates it there, so you feel the emotion of love. For feeling and emotions are not of the Heart. Feeling and emotions are created by the mind. Because the mind cognises feelings and emotions, so therefore the mind is the
Shaping Tomorrow: The Art of Living with Purpose and Spontaneity
CAN WE PLAN THE FUTURE? The future is unpredictable, yet we are often forced to make plans. But you cannot plan with any definite form. We could have an idea of what the future can be, but no future can be planned to its finest detail because the future remains unpredictable. We can have a general idea of what the future could bring, and having that general idea in mind, we form a certain tendency to achieve that aim. If that tendency is deeply implanted in us by our thoughts and perseverance, then we are naturally led to the goal by the tendencies we have formed. WE HAVE FREE WILL TO CHANGE THE PLAN I am a person that believes in spontaneity, spontaneity within the framework of the general outline. To me, life is like a poem. It has its metric system; it has its framework, yet the expression is free. When expression is free in the already existing tendencies, then the tendencies are enlivened. There is a difference between spontaneity and impulsiveness; life could assume greater meaning and greater joy whenever a person lives spontaneously. Yet the outline of the plan we have in mind can be fulfilled. It is like not only writing a poem but painting a picture. We have in mind the outline of the picture we will paint; we have this landscape in view, but when you pick up the brushes, you have not planned every stroke or every shade of the paint to be used. A spontaneity occurs where you would just dab on what should be dabbed on according to your entire makeup, according to your being. If we find that initially, the plan we have in mind or the tendencies we have formed are not right, we have our free will to change that plan. You might start off painting a landscape of the mountains, and you could very easily convert that into a field of corn with the mountains just in the background. This can come about very easily and beautifully by how we approach things. TO LIVE LIFE FULLY IS AN ART When it comes to planning, a person has to plan, but that plan does not need to be meticulous like an architect’s plan of the house, where he has designed the position of every brick and every pipe. Life is not mechanical. So, living life is not mechanical living. To live a life entirely is an art, not a science. Science might work on precisions; two and two make four, but in art, two and two can make five. The beauty of living life artfully as art, the art of living, then spontaneity gradually increases because we move like the blade of grass in the direction the wind blows. Of course, we are thinking on the line of good things. We do not get blown by ill winds, and we can develop a specific resistance to that. But every person has to have some plan, and by method, we can also mean purpose. Both words are synonymous to a great extent. We have a general sense in mind, and as we live from day to day, we find ways and means to fulfilling that purpose. Life is not to be lived in a straight jacket. Living life in a straight jacket would mean the precision of science. Life becomes beautiful when the tendencies are followed in the form of art, consistently so. Because when the precision is too strict and straight-jacketed, life could become very, very dull. Why bore ourselves? We do not need to be bored with life, and we want to soar with life and forever soar upwards and not become a bore to ourselves and others. So, within the plan we have in mind for life, we make allowances, and the most excellent allowance that can be made is for spontaneity. INFUSING LOVE INTO WHATEVER WE ARE DOING It is like a woman cooking. A good cook will not follow the recipe in the book to the “T”. She will have those little extra touches that just come spontaneously to her. That is the way life is to be lived. That is how the cook will find joy in her cooking, and when there is joy in the cooking, the eater will find it joyous. When the cook follows the recipe implicitly, it might just not work out, and you all would know that you could give the same ingredients and the same recipe to half a dozen different cooks, and each meal would taste differently. Each meal would taste different, although all of them have been given the same recipe and ingredients; it would taste different because of that spontaneous, personal touch. The same analogy could be used in living, where the plan of life and purpose of life forever remain in the mind’s background. We do not lose sight of the goal, but all the actions that would take us to that goal must become spontaneous. And in spontaneity, there is a flow, there is a beautiful energy flow, and love is the best expression of that energy flow. That is how in every sphere of our activity, you can infuse love into it. The cook can infuse love into her cooking. The carpenter can infuse love into the chair he is making. The plumber can infuse love into his plumbing. When that energy becomes spontaneous, it becomes love, and as we know, “Love is God and God is Love.” Despite man’s plan, one also very consciously brings oneself that flow in every action, in every daily activity, and it can be consciously recognised. Once we are set on the path, the journey becomes more accessible because there is now a director. It is of no use just drifting along, and that drifting along is sometimes confused with spontaneity. It is worlds apart to be spontaneous and sail. To be spontaneous, purposefully and with a purpose is good. Howsoever spontaneously, drifting without
The Alchemy of Sleep: Dissolving Samskaras in the Dream State
WHY ARE WE DREAMING? The dream is the most critical mechanism; the greatest gift man has been given. Do you know that you are evolving even in your sleep? That motion set forth in the path of evolution is not stopped when your conscious mind goes to sleep, but it continues; it is continuous. The waking state of life is also a dream, but a conscious dream that can be manipulated. Because of the conscious mind, you can redirect a thought. You can direct it in whichever direction you want it. Like you are driving a motorcar. You can turn left, or you can turn right. It is within your power to do that, and that becomes evolutionary if you have found the art of which way to direct your thought. The dreaming state of consciousness is more evolutionary, and be happy that you can dream. Because here, without you willing a thing, it is automatically coming to the surface where the samskaras are being released and, with the release, they are being dissolved. It is easier to dissolve a samskara in the dream state than dissolve a samskara in the waking state. The reason is that one is effortless while the other is effortful. One is with effort. SLEEP IS A STATE VERY CLOSE TO SELF-REALISATION A sleep state is a state which is very close to the state of self-realisation. This will sound paradoxical to you. But during the sleep state, you are not consciously controlling your conscious mind, and you are allowing the deeper layers of your mind to function on their own. It could be described as a kind of meditation. But because the conscious mind is not functioning, you have that stillness in dreamless sleep and being so close to the source; you do not recognise the source. So, although you are in a state of realisation, you are not conscious of it. Therefore, it is not self-realisation. Realisation does involve the conscious mind, as well. The conscious mind has to appreciate everything happening within, and if there is no appreciation of it, then it is not self-realisation; it is sleep. That is the difference. Shakespeare has said something very beautiful about this: sleep is the best nourishment in life’s feast. Of course, he meant it in terms of the rest and the energy gained. IN SLEEP, THE LIGHT WITHIN CAN SHINE THROUGH But where does this energy come from? It comes from a far deeper source that is within. When the conscious mind is not in operation, and the subconscious mind is lulled to a certain extent of stillness where it is dreaming, it is not insignificant turbulence. Therefore, if you do not remember the dream, then that Light within has a chance to shine through, invigorate, and regenerate the mind and the body. You see how vital sleeping could be, how integral dreaming could be, for those are also states of consciousness. Those consciousnesses have to be taken into account to achieve self-realisation. Without being able to dream, without being able to experience the waking state of life, one could never appreciate what is realisation. In self-realisation or a deep state of meditation, in Nivrikalpa samadhi, which means meditation without form, consciousness of the body is lost because we allow the mind to cease functioning. The conscious mind and the subconscious mind, for that period, ceases functioning or rather cease their turbulence and assume a balanced, tranquil state. And when that is done, then naturally, the glass of the window becomes clearer and cleaner, and the Light shines through in its full glory, its full force, in its full power. So, you see how important it is. But, when that Light shines through, a certain kind of consciousness exists. Not the waking state of consciousness, not the little mind that we use, nor the subconscious mind that we use, but consciousness exists consciously. That is pure consciousness, unadulterated by the workings of the subconscious and the conscious, and dreams do not interfere; they have subsided. So, in meditation, we train the mind to achieve that tranquillity where the depth of our inner Self shines through in full force. IN DREAMING, THERE IS A SPONTANEOUS RELEASE Coming back to dreams, we have said it is a must; it is necessary. The forces released in dreams are even more powerful and more important than those released in the waking state of life because this becomes an automatic process, and that which is released automatically is released because of necessity. That dream you have dreamt was essential for you to evolve because the inner mind, the deeper layers of the mind, knows what it has to release, and the conscious mind puts on no brake. There is spontaneity about it, and it is a spontaneous release. So, we should be happy to be able to dream! The form of dream is not essential. The worse the dream, the better for you. This might not sound nice, but it is true. Have more nightmares, for God’s sake! Release those fears. Do you see how the forces of nature are helping us? Every force in nature is doing its best to help man evolve. The only thing he holds tight; he just does not let go of the force of nature. So, when you have a nightmare, the following day you wake up, and you feel fearful – who feels fearful? It is a small piece of the conscious mind that feels the fear, yet the conscious mind recognises that this was but just a dream. ONLY A SELF-REALISED PERSON COULD ANALYSE THE DREAM The little conscious mind tries to analyse what the dream could mean. But there is no necessity to analyse the dream. The only person who could analyse the dream for you would be a self-realised person who could go back into your past lives and pick up all the threads and pieces of this jigsaw puzzle called a dream. He would know where
The Symbolism of the Cross: Discovering Life’s Divine Balance
Acceptance, Attachment, Belief, Bible, Christ, Consciousness, Divinity, Eternity, Faith, Force, God, Guru, Heart, I and my Father are one, Joy, Krishna, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Mental Patternings, Mind, Path, Peace, Relative World, Religion, Self-integration, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual Practices, The Absolute, Unfoldment, Universal
HOW TO LIVE LOVE Jesus stood for love. What is love, how can it be gained, how can it be acquired, how can it be lived? That is the entirety of any religion, and I am talking of true religions and not the interpretations of religions. Love can only be brought about by self-integration, and I have said this many, many times before. I will say it repeatedly that through spiritual practices, the body, the mind, and the Spirit act in oneness, in unison, integratedly, and when we can function integratedly, then we realise the meaning of love. For it is the integrated person that will know the meaning of the commandment that says, “Love thy neighbour as Thyself.” If you are not integrated within yourself, you are not loving yourself, and if you cannot love yourself, how can you love your neighbour? The purpose of life, the purpose of Jesus’s teachings, is this become integrated, become whole. Find the wholeness, and in the wholeness, you find Divinity, for Divinity is the wholeness. And everyone has the right to reach that stage of Christ Consciousness where “I and my Father are one.” RADIATING THE PEACE FROM WITHIN We that have faith, we that believe; not blind faith or blind belief, a reasonable belief, and more important than that, the experience that one gains within oneself. That peace that comes automatically will bring peace to others around you, and you emanate it from yourself. You have had this experience, all of you. You could go to someone’s home; the atmosphere is such that you do not want to stay there for a few minutes. The atmosphere is so beautiful at someone else’s home that you would not mind sitting there for an hour or two. It is the very emanation, the radiation of the atmosphere in that house, and it is the people who live in the home that radiates that. When we find that peace within ourselves, we radiate that peace to others, even unconsciously; please give me one person with a troubled mind and let him sit with me for five minutes, and that person will feel calm and peaceful. Not to say that the person’s troubles will disappear as if waving a magic wand. No. But the person will feel peaceful, and it is only by having that peace within ourselves that we can tackle the greatest problem that might face us in life. Peace comes with this unfoldment of consciousness. Peace means not to be asleep; that is dead peace. We want peace to be alive, awakened peace, where we are conscious of everything around us. To be in the world and yet not of the world. We live in today’s time and age, our ordinary lives. We do the work that we have to do. We earn the bread and beans and carry-on life. Yet, because of spiritual practices, there is a specific strength in the background, there is a certain peace that is there, and that pulls you through, for whatever might happen inside you are steadfast and still. “Be still and know that I am God.” The ocean exists peaceful, quiet underneath, and the waves on top are turbulent. What Jesus taught was the attention, where is your attention, on the turbulence of the waves or is your attention on the calmness of the ocean deeper down. It is just a few feet deep, that is all. Not even six feet that is something else. So, one of the great men that lived in this world brought this message to us in such few words. GOD IS LOVE; LOVE IS PEACE If you read the whole Bible, you will find only twenty-four words spoken by Jesus. The rest were books, interpretations; you know the four books, Matthew, Markus, Luke, John, you know that. But the power and force of those few words are still alive today, just as much as they were at that time because they came with the full force of that Universal Consciousness. “Love Thy neighbour as Thyself.” “Do Unto others as you would expect to be done unto you.” These injunctions are so beautiful. But without gaining that consciousness, that Christ Consciousness, you will never be able to appreciate those words. You would think about them, analyse them, and mull over them, but it is a different story when it comes to practising them. Only when one can love one’s neighbour as oneself can we know what religion stands for? It binds you back to your source, God, and God is Love; love is peace. THERE ARE SO MANY THEORIES ABOUT THE PHYSICAL LIFE OF JESUS We can go on and on and on. There are so many theories on the physical life of Jesus. About two years ago, in your Observer newspaper, there was a two-part article on the physical life of Jesus. I did not agree with everything, but they said another scroll was found in the desert by an Arab, and he found it in an earthen jar, and they deciphered it. According to the articles in the Observer, they say in the scroll that Jesus had a son with Mary Magdalene. They also say that Jesus did not die on the cross, but he went into a coma, and when he was buried in the tomb, he regained consciousness from the coma and escaped through the help of Nicodemus. The first person he went to see was Mary Magdalene, and she took him to his disciples, where he was nursed. Then he went to the East, and he lived to seventy-three. It is also said that a few of the significant Upanishads of the Hindus were written by Jesus; not written actually but spoken, and people had recorded them. These are various theories put forward by people. It is not for us to accept them or deny them. Let there be a million theories. But I am not interested in all that. I am not
Opening of the Heart: Transforming Desires into Divine Expression
MAN CAN ACHIEVE WHATEVER Man can achieve anything the mind is capable of thinking. This is a very common law, a very elementary law that if you keep thinking of a certain object, you can materialise the object. We are not talking of magical voodoo; that is nonsense. But if you have a burning desire to achieve a specific goal and think about it positively, you can achieve whatever your thought commands you to achieve. Any person can make a resolution that in five years, I am going to be a millionaire, and he will be a millionaire! Firstly, that burning desire to achieve is needed. Secondly, the proper planning should go behind it. The planning should be such that at the end of one year, I must reach a certain level; at the end of the second year, I must reach this level; third year, that level; fourth that level, and within the fifth year, I am a millionaire. That is something different from daydreaming. You can daydream, and in fact, most people daydream about things – wishful thinking, I am this, I am that. But here we are talking about solid, concrete thoughts where there is a determination to achieve something, and you are capable of achieving anything your heart desires. When you associate this thought with meditation, your meditational practices will make your thoughts more potent. That same power can be misused; it can be abused. This is the thing which is happening in many movements I have seen and studied that teach this principle of how the power of the mind can be used to achieve one’s goal. They show you how to achieve this power. But then, this power can be misused if you are working on the mind level only. By studying these systems, you might gain greater power of the mind, which means that you are using a more significant section of the mind, and therefore the mind becomes more powerful. In your mind, you might have the destruction of another or covetousness, or you might have a terrific amount of negativity in your mind. By using that greater power, you could bring that negativity into reality. You can harm people and destroy people. All this is possible. THERE HAS TO BE A COMBINATION OF MIND, HEART AND GRACE All these different mental systems work on the mind level only. The difference in our system is that every time you sit down to practice, as the awareness of the mind becomes more significant, the heart opens up simultaneously, and greater love flows. You put one of our meditators, a regular meditator, among those from other organisations, and they will look like robots. You will point out very quickly, without difficulty, the person who meditates in our system. You will see the love radiating, the love just flowing from the person. And, because that heart has opened, you would become incapable of projecting that negativity. You will project only love more and more powerfully as you become more regular and more established in your meditation. Through our simple practices, the mind and the heart are opened, and when the mind and the heart are opened, they cannot remain empty. It becomes filled with Grace, the Grace of Divinity. We call it Gurushakti. How can you go wrong? What else do you need in life? What do you need? You need to love, and if you want to become lovable, become loving first. For if you are loving, automatically you become lovable. You have a magnetic pull. Your very presence creates an atmosphere. You must have experienced this many times. You go into a certain home, and things are so gloomy because of all the negativity in the home – the atmosphere. You wish you could just leave immediately. Then you might be in another dismal company, and a person with that love and positivity walks in, and the whole atmosphere is changed, just because of that one person, and a joyousness sort of descends. That is the difference between the systems of yoga, or whatever you wish to call it, that works on the mind only. It has to have a combination of mind, heart, and Grace, for, without that, nothing is achieved which is worthwhile achieving. If you want to attain extensive wealth, you do not need heart there; you can acquire extensive wealth with the mind. But are you going to be happy? I would still like to meet a happy millionaire, and I have known many! Because his mind and soul are in those millions and how to accumulate more and more, and the more his mind is involved in that, the closer his heart becomes, and he does not know what happiness is. Yet, I have been in a hut and sat down on the floor, breaking bread with very poor people. (A chapati made of raw flour, the Indian corn, about a quarter, half an inch thick – with a bit of yoghurt and a chilli). I would sit and eat their food with them and break their bread, and there was so much joy and happiness and so much love. It is so tangible; you could feel it as a solid object. What great joy, what great happiness! And after lunch, the peasant picks up his plough on his shoulder and goes back to the fields. What great joy. One has found contentment in that chapati and a little yoghurt and the chilli. Another man has seen all the discontent in the universe despite owning millions. IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO OPEN THE HEART Do you see how important it is to open the heart? And every great teacher in the past has taught this message. What did Jesus teach? He taught nothing else but love. What did Buddha teach? Nothing else but love. What did Krishna teach? Nothing else but love. The emphasis was not on the mind. It is good to develop the mind. Why
Infinite Purity: Seeing Beyond the Illusion of Opposites
MAN SEE THINGS TO BE IMPURE BECAUSE HIS MIND IS LIMITED The Absolute is forever a pure entity, and being a pure entity, it is always a simple entity. All the relativity that we perceive around us is always very complex. The primal simplicity has become complex, and it is because of the complexity that we have forgotten how to recognize the simplicity. Why, wherefore, and how has the simplicity become a complexity. This has been a philosophical question that has been debated throughout the ages, and no philosopher has ever been able to give an intellectual answer. The reason is that the primal simplicity, which we know as Divinity, is infinite, and man’s mind is finite. The finite mind could never comprehend that which is infinite. A question of this nature can only be answered in a parable form. Great teachers like Krishna, Buddha and Christ used the parables because the abstract value of Divinity can only be interpreted to a limited degree in symbol form. All parables are symbols because the mind works linearly from A to Z. Infinite existence does not need to progress from A, B, C to Z; it is a continued existence, and all the A, B, C, D, E, F, G exists at the same time, and when it exists at the same time, then there is no space and time. All the dimensions man’s mind can think of is here and now, but because the intellect does not have the full comprehensive ability of comprehension, it cannot take in the entire existence at one glance; that is in the area of Divinity. Man can only see a section at a time, yet the sections one sees one at a time are not perfect because if you put five people together and even though each one sees the same object, they will have a different interpretation of the same object. This proves that man’s mind functions according to its particular level. Because of these levels, comprehension is fragmentary, and that is why the mind cannot see the whole. Because it cannot see the whole, it sees part, which is logical, and all the problems and all the incongruities, all the problems and all the inconsistencies and all those things that seem impure, we see to be impure because of our limited vision. EVERYTHING IS PURE Meanwhile, in reality, everything is pure. Only the unreality of the mind imparts impurity to that which is pure, and that is why we have the old saying that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. A particular object might seem ugly and impure to one person, while the same object would seem very beautiful to another person. That is why a highly evolved person in communion with Divinity only sees the good in everything, and there have been men of that stature like Buddha, Krishna, Christ. When the greatest sinner like Mary Magdalene, the prostitute, came to the Lord Jesus Christ, he saw the inner essence of purity in Mary. He said, “I forgive you, my daughter, but sin no more.” Be your authentic, pure Self and discard this limited view that your mind and body have given to you. Jesus could see the person as a total whole, while the ordinary people at that time could only see her as a bad woman and everyone wanted to stone her. To comprehend what is pure, we have to have that total developed awareness, which is achieved through meditation. RELATIVE LIFE ALWAYS HAS ITS OPPOSITES I will give you an example; we can take the analogy of the sun. Through the heat of the sun, water vaporizes into the sky. The same water vapour raised by the sun becomes condensed, and when it becomes condensed, it forms a cloud. The sun is not affected, yet the shadow formed by the sun is obscuring the sun and down here on earth, we find it dark. The pure sun has been the cause of creating the cloud, and that cloud has produced darkness, and this is the process of nature. Because of our limited conceptions, we only see the darkness and the cloud and never think of the sun above, which is pure. Yet, the essence of the sun is there in the darkness and the cloud because it is light that has created darkness. When we see the light and darkness, we look at the pair of opposites, and everything in the relative sphere of life always has its negatives. Pain – pleasure, light – darkness, black-white, everything has its pair of opposites; it has polarity. It is like a stick with two ends, where pleasure is at one end and pain at the other end. Goodness at one end and badness at the other because one cannot exist without the other. Through understanding and realizations, awareness of the mind and opening of the Heart through our practices, we perceive from the ends of the stick to the middle, and when we reach the middle, the ends do not affect us; we are in the middle. If you take a stick and try to put the end of it on your finger, it cannot balance, it falls, but if you put the middle of the stick on your finger, it stays in balance. It is, therefore, a practical demonstration. GOING BEYOND THE LAW OF OPPOSITES In our lives, the same thing happens through our spiritual practices; we leave the ends of the polarity and come to the centre, and when we come to the centre, it means that we are coming to the centre of ourselves and the centre of ourselves is forever pure. This means that we go beyond the law of opposites, and when we go beyond the law of opposites and reach the centre, there is no pleasure and no pain, no black, no white, no light, no darkness. Only Bliss and joy, which wells up from within, remains. Pleasure and pain are transient
The Nature of Dreams: How Past Existences Shape Our Dreams
WHAT IS A DREAM? Modern psychologists, especially the Freudian school, will tell you that a dream expresses a suppressed desire, which is not the complete truth. Some dreams could express a hidden desire, but not necessarily. Dreams originate from the subconscious mind. Erroneously, psychologists will tell you the same thing, but they have never, ever troubled to analyze what the subconscious mind is. What is the extent of the subconscious mind? They have only gone just a little bit deeper than the 10% conscious mind, so they have gone down to 30% of man’s consciousness. Seventy per cent still remains unanalyzed, and the 10% of analysis done of the dream state is not yet complete. They are primarily presumptions and suppositions. Why should man want to express his suppressed desires in the dream state? And who says that that is the only way of expressing one’s desires? And who says, in the first place, that there is a suppression of appetite? How do we know that that very desire is expressed in the waking state of life in a different form? These are questions that psychologists must study. Dreams typically have their origin in far, far deeper layers of the so-called subconscious than what is imagined. We had repeatedly said that the mind’s extent is as vast as the entire universe, and every experience gained from the primal atom, from the time of the Big Bang explosion when you were propelled forth as that minuscule atom. All the experiences gained from that stage, right through to mineral, plant, animal, and then to man, exist in the mind. Call it subconscious, call it conscious, whatever you wish to call it, but all those experiences remain in the mind, and those experiences cannot be destroyed; they are not destructible. A thought is usually translated through words or symbols. In a dream, one symbolizes a thought that is deep within oneself. The thought, not being conscious, or the thought not being brought about by effort, necessarily must be triggered off by a samskara which means an impression. So, this impression is in the mind. WHAT IS AN IMPRESSION The impression is not the experience. Let us say that someone cooks a very hot curry, and you visit the person’s home. Even if you do not like hot curry, because of your gentlemanly nature, your courtesy, you are obliged to sit and eat the curry. You are eating this food, and it is burning your mouth. The picture left, the impression that will be left, would not be of the varieties of the curries you have eaten – it could be bean curry, okra curry, mixed curried casserole, one of the dahls, whatever it could be. The impression that would remain would not be what that meal constituted. But the impression that would remain in the mind would be that pungency, that strongness, that burning sensation. That is an impression. Although the mind contains every existence that we have lived through in its totality, that which comes to the fore and that which formulates our future life and our actions, that which formulates what we are today is because of the impressions that are there. That is an impression. With this meal, the impression would be of this hotness. This hotness can be experienced in the waking state of life, where you might be in a desert, and you will experience intense heat. That heat you experience through the environment will associate itself with the heat that you felt inside. The heat in the environment will become hotter for you. It has its correlation with heat and hotness, and thereby, that impression can be eradicated or lived out, but in a different form. That heat of the desert had nothing to do with the curry, yet it has been re-experienced. The outer heat has been enhanced or made hotter by the inner heat, which the association of ideas causes. Heat is heat. IS IT NECESSARY TO INTERPRET A DREAM? You have these little books sold in the shops where you are going overseas if you dream of water. If you dream of death, this and that will be the answer. If you dream of fire, this is the interpretation. Of course, that is all rubbish! We know that. Because a dream is a composite story. I want you to get this very, very clear. We understand that a dream is a combined story. A dream might contain the elements of various experiences and not necessarily of one experience. You dream of Auntie Matilda, who has passed away. It is not necessarily Auntie Matilda that is the main factor in the dream. Still, Auntie Matilda is just an association of the beautiful experience you had doing “Waltzing Matilda.” That is a waltz, a dance. You enjoyed the dance; you enjoyed the music of “Waltzing Matilda.” So here is an association of ideas, opposite, something you enjoyed (doing that waltz), and it is associated with Auntie Matilda, that has passed away. So, a dream is a composite story, and the dream can draw forth elements from various experiences and not necessarily of this life only. A dream might be a composite story that would get together experiences of this life or of many other lives, many instances all brought together and thrown into this pot, and the soup that comes out is the dream. Now, how does one interpret a dream? Or is it necessary to interpret a dream? BEYOND THE MIND IS A FACTOR THAT KEEPS US SANE Many people say they do not dream. Psychologists will tell you that they do. They might not recollect the dream when they wake up because what has been dreamt has not been strong enough for them to remember it. Therefore, the dream is forgotten when waking up. But tests have been made in laboratories where it has been found that everyone dreams. Because although the conscious mind is put to rest or given rest by going
Transcending Good and Bad: The Journey to Inner Peace and Stillness
GOOD AND BAD VS. TOTAL STILLNESS In the relative field of life there are always opposing forces. The greater the spirituality that comes in this world, the greater the resistance. The purpose of great resistance is to make you push harder. Even spiritual masters can also take a nap sometimes – they too have to make an effort to be alert all the time to carry out their work, their dharma. Where I live in South Africa, you will always find that if you have six or seven days of sunshine, you can be sure that you will have rain, because the sun has evaporated enough water to form clouds, which have to form clouds, which have to be dispersed in the form of rain. In the relative world there will always be this expansion and contraction. There will always be this push and pull, and resistance will always be there. In the face of this, how must we act? Various moral laws are necessary, for one purpose only, to bring about a certain stability in society so that society can run smoothly. (This, of course, is an assumption, because I have seen no society in the world anywhere that really runs smoothly). The greatest moralists are the greatest sinners in the world. Those that preach morality know more about immorality than you and I know. What brings them to the idea of certain kinds of immorality? They make it their business to know what immorality is all about. If their minds were pure enough, then those thoughts would not even exist for them. It is always the one side that brings on the other side. We are involved in the law of opposites all the time. You have a high one week; the next week you will see there is a low. How then, does a person proceed? He has to bring about a balance: to accept that which is good, and to accept that which is so-called bad. When you rise above both, you are in the state of balance where there is no such thing as good or bad. FINDING THE BALANCE BEYOND POLARITIES Until you have risen above them, the denial of good or bad could be like James Bond’s 007 – a license to kill; that is wrong. But when the human being has risen above the polarities, then all actions, good or bad, are non-binding to him. He knows their apparent goodness or badness to be just judgments of others, projections of the minds of others. He is unaffected. His actions do not create any samskaras or any bondage whatsoever. What the human being is trying to find is total stillness. Goodness produces motion and badness also produces motion – so both are bondage. When it comes to goodness, if you force yourself to be good, what are you achieving? Do you think you are achieving a great deal? No. A bit, yes; it gives you a little satisfaction of the mind – because good and bad are products of the mind, nothing more. Doing good acts, while having a good motivation, which is also a product of the mind, brings about a certain amount of mental peace. This is your reward. The motivation has to be correct; the motivation has to be good; the action does not matter, and even once the motivation is good, it will still create a samskara, an impression of the mind, which will have to be worked out. But in working out that samskara, there is far greater pleasure than with any action not harmonious with nature. For an action not condusive to the flow of nature also creates an impression in the mind, a samskara; and working that out will cause pain. You are still in the relative field of the mind with pleasure and pain – still involved in the law of opposites. With spiritual practices and meditation, one transcends the law of opposites; but one cannot live in the transcendental state all the time. That state is an energizing field that one contacts, just as when your battery starts running down you plug it in the socket to recharge it. That is what happens. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: “From Darkness to Light.”