HUMAN BEINGS REQUIRE SOME DISCIPLINE All of us seek the secret of happiness. Who in this world wants suffering? Certain sects in the Hindu religion, the Islamic religion, the Buddhist religion, and Christianity go through various penances and make their bodies suffer. In India, I have seen certain so-called Yogis that would stand on one foot for Kingdom to come and think that they would reach enlightenment by doing that penance. I have seen others in India who would stare into the sun until they became blind, and of course, in the Christian religion, we have penances too. I believe in one thing no amount of penance can lead you to enlightenment, and if you overdo it too, it will lead you to disillusionment. A certain amount of penance is necessary for one purpose only: to discipline oneself. Because human beings require some discipline, and by having some discipline, you do not go wild; that is the whole purpose behind it. We are like horses, and disciplines are the reins. You allow the horses to run, but the reins control the horses in what path to go and not run wild. We must have a certain amount of discipline but not extreme penances that make us suffer, which could often become fanaticism. For example, the Hindu Swamis preach celibacy; it is a form of penance. They say you sublimate your sexual energies and turn them into Ojas. This Sanskrit word means light, but that is impossible, scientifically impossible, and in every mystical way, it is impossible. They say it is a certain kind of suffering you have brought upon yourself. But that causes a lot of repressions and inhibitions. You are stopping something natural, so why go through penances. STRENGTHEN YOURSELF TO AVOID SUFFERING Everything must have its natural course, and it is not necessary to inflict any misery or suffering upon us. If suffering comes to us without our doing, then what. There is only one way. You cannot change the man that makes you suffer. But you can change yourself and gain inner strength that whatever is inflicted upon you will run off you like water off a duck’s back. There is a secret to how to avoid suffering. There you strengthen yourself, and you strengthen yourself with spiritual practices, which is a way of finding happiness. As you proceed away from misery, more and more and more happiness comes, and when more and more happiness comes, the misery starts diminishing and leads to happiness. By instilling a more significant thought, a better thought, a more substantial thought in one’s mind, the pain will disappear because nobody willfully wants to be miserable. THE GIVER IS ALWAYS THE RECEIVER You do find some religions with fanatical ideas that want you to go through penances, as I told you; you stand and just stare at the sun for months and months and months until you become blind. What use are you to the world if you do that? It would be straightforward for me, for example, to go and sit in a Himalayan cave and meditate all the time, but then what use am I going to be to my people around the world. Let me be up and about and work to do something good, which should be the aim of all. Because the more you do good for others, the more will rebound on you. The giver is always the receiver. You do one little good, and that goodwill rebounds on you ten times. Look at the mental peace you get. You do some good service to someone, and you will find much more at peace. But let that come as a service without any motivation, that “Oh, for this organisation or for that church or that synagogue, I go around with the collection box, and they will put in this and that.” Fine. I am doing good. I may myself be good. But the motivation must not be ego. Because once the ego-self is involved, then you are thinking of yourself. You are not selfless, and no amount of good will be of any value if it is not selfless. It must be a total giving of oneself; body, mind and spirit whatever little service can be done in life with complete sincerity. THE WIDOWS MIGHT Look at the time when Jesus lived. You know the story of the widow’s might. She just had one little coin; that was all the poor widow had, and she gave it. Yet, those that were rich gave thousands and thousands, but Jesus said that the widow’s might was more critical and of far greater value than all the thousands that they provided. For here was real giving, her last. I will tell you this story of myself; I arrived in South Africa penniless. I qualified as an accountant before I came to South Africa. Any professional person will tell you that it is a challenging job to build a practice; it could be a medical practice, an accountancy practise or a legal practice. It takes time to build up your practice, get more and more clients, and expand. I had just started, and I did not know anyone. I did not have a car or anything, so one day, I was standing at a bus stop, and I had about three miles to go to reach where I lived with some people, and I had sixpence. It was pounds, shillings, and pence in South Africa at that time. Today it is the rand and cents. So, I had sixpence in my pocket, and I was at the bus stop waiting for the bus. A woman came up to me, it was freezing, and she had a baby in her arms, and she said, “Sir, could you help me with the bus fare”. I looked at her and gave her the sixpence I had, the only sixpence I had. “Take it, take it”, and I walked for three, four miles
Gurushakti: The Eternal Channel of Divine Grace
WHAT IS GURUSHAKTI? Gurushakti is a universal force that is existent everywhere, and it is eternal. Through the practices that we do, we draw that Shakti unto ourselves. Shakti means energy, and you would know what guru means. So, the energy which the guru imparts is called Gurushakti. You will find that there is the energy of electricity in a river. Still, to capture the energy in the running water, you need a hydropower plant to capture this energy and transmit it to the generator. It is not the generator that gives the energy on its own. Still, the generator converts the energy of the running water so that the conversion of this energy into electricity goes through all the pipes, and that is why you have light in this room. If man is evolved enough, he could draw this energy from the river himself, but if he is not evolved enough, he uses the generator’s power. GURUSHAKTI CAN ALSO BE CALLED GRACE There are many bogus gurus in the world, but a true guru has acquired the ability to make himself into a channel through which, like the generator, the energy flows and is directed to the people. Gurushakti can also be called Grace. Grace is a word very hard to define, but we can use an analogy here. For example, when we plant a seed to grow a flower, for the flower to grow, so many qualities are needed; it requires the minerals in the ground, and it needs water, light, and heat. We know that if the plant is given too much water or too much heat or fertiliser, it can die and yet when the flower grows, what quality is there, what is there that gives that plant good things in its proper proportion? Just the right amount of water, the right minerals from the ground, the right amount of light and heat. There is a power of coordination, and this power of coordination is Grace. THE TRUE GURU IS NOTHING BUT A CHANNEL As we said before, Gurushakti or Grace is forever existent, and the good guru is nothing but a channel, and yet he is a most ordinary man; when he is thirsty, he will drink water, and when he is hungry, he will eat food, and he also has to go to the loo. He is so very, very ordinary. You could compare him with a flute, a piece of wood, a flute through which Divinity blows so that we all can enjoy this beautiful music. The guru who imparts this Gurushakti is only like the generator. He does not manufacture the energy, but it flows through him because he is a channel. A HUMAN BEING NEEDS A HUMAN IMPULSE As a human being, one needs the human impulse to impart it because, as we said, this energy embraced is abstract. This abstract energy has to be concretised, and who else could concretise it better for the human being than another human being. The true guru has experienced life, and perhaps not only one life. Reaching the oneness and communion with Divinity must be the process of many, many lifetimes. And having experienced this communion, he can go back into his previous lives and know the lessons he has learnt, and knowing all the mistakes that were made, he is in a position to advise others not to make those same mistakes. Or, as the saying goes, no saint did not have a past, and there is no sinner with no future. So, every saint has had a history, and every sinner has a lot. THE QUALITIES OF A GOOD DISCIPLE A good guru will intuitively know the sufferings of mankind even without a word being spoken. Through the power and Grace of Divinity, he delves deeply into the human soul of the true disciple. So, two qualities are required: a good guru and a good disciple. The qualities of a good disciple are acceptance, openness, love and devotion, and through these few capacities, which everyone has, you draw this Grace or this Gurushakti to yourself. This Gurushakti is like a well from which you can draw as much water as possible. As the Bhagavad Gita says, if you take a thimble, you can only get a thimble full of water. If you take a one-litre jug, you get one litre of water, and if you take a 50-litre jar, you will get 50 litres of water. So how much you will draw of Gurushakti depends upon you. The greater love and open-mindedness you have, the more regular you are in your practices, and the more you draw from Gurushakti. These are the principles of Gurushakti, and this is nothing new; it has been demonstrated repeatedly by true masters throughout your lives. CONSCIOUS EFFORT IS REQUIRED If you are born with a hole in the bucket, then remember you created the hole. Every person is responsible for himself, and Divinity is a neutral quality. So whatever position we are put in is a creation of ourselves, but there is no hope lost because if you had the ability to create a hole, then be sure to know that you also can mend the hole. So, find ways and means to repair the hole, and your bucket shall never leak. The ways and means of mending the hole are by doing one’s meditation and personally prescribed practices as given to you by your guru, and secondly by self-help. That meditation is effortless, one hour a day, half an hour in the morning, half an hour in the evening, but what about the other 23 hours? Are you just going to sleep? Some effort is required during the waking state of life. If you are unemployed, it will not help you sit at home waiting for a job to come to you; you have to look for it. So, an effort is required. If a man is a drunkard, an alcoholic if he does
Beyond the Myths: The True Essence of Heaven and Hell
HEAVEN AND HELL Heaven is precisely 5.000 million miles, 3 yards and 2 feet away from here. I am joking; you know that. It is not only Christianity that believes in heaven and hell; the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Christians, the Daoists, and Islam. They are not teaching the original teachings; they are putting more emphasis on evil. By focusing on evil and subjecting you to eternal damnation, they hold a stick over your head. When they could not keep an organised church with love and understanding, they devised the method of frightening you, which is why I am here to change these misconceptions. Because if God is love and a God of justice and compassion, He will not put you to eternal damnation, and heaven and hell are all in your mind. When you indulge in the grosser surface levels of life, like the turbulent waves on the ocean and your boat is tossed up and down. That is hell. You dive deep into the sea and find quietness and peace there, heaven. So, hell and heaven are here and not somewhere up in the sky or below the earth. Heaven and hell are in the Heart. As we live our lives, we can create heaven and hell for us, which is why the Almighty has given us free will. HEAVEN AND HELL ARE HERE Every cell in your body is pulsating in a system, and wherever there is a system, there is cohesion, and that very cohesion is love. You are made of love, and when all the dirt in the mind is removed, you start feeling that love vibrating in you for yourself and others, and that is heaven, and all those around you become angels, for you see Divinity in them also. So, hell and heaven are here. The Bible or the Vedas of the Hindus we have today are not the original as they were composed; they are severely edited. This editing was done by the fathers that founded the churches. Then church became so organised that today it has become a business, and that is why instead of the churches becoming full, they are becoming emptier. Because the people that teach in the churches, the temples, and the synagogues do not know what they are talking about because real knowledge and wisdom come from experience, not from book knowledge. Anyone can go to a theological college for three or four years and become a church minister, but the real three or four years or ten years or ten lifetimes for studies must be in the subject of experience. I will never speak to you of God if I have not experienced God, and if I do that, I am the world’s greatest hypocrite. Most of the priests we have today are hypocrites, and I challenge all of them, including every guru, on any platform anywhere in the world. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang ES 1980 – 03
The Power of Non-Attachment: A Journey Toward Inner Joy
WANT VERSUS NEED The difference between want and need is that a need stems from something deep within ourselves. A need is something that would add to one’s evolution. A need is something that would aid one’s unfoldment. That is a need, and those needs are fulfilled in various ways. It could be fulfilled with growing pains, for example. A child needs to grow up, and in his need, he might feel all these growing pains. A child needs to learn to walk, and it will fall and hurt itself so many times before the child walks. A man has needs for one thing, primarily to find the joy and happiness that is latent within him. That is his primary need. He tries to translate the need into wants by his thought forces and patternings. He thinks he wants half a dozen Cadillacs, a mansion with 20 rooms, or some big business or job to fulfil the need. The mind creates all these wants, and as we have said many times, the mind is nothing but a set of patterns. So instead of flowing with your real inner self, with your real need, you are flowing with patterns. You are flowing on the surface where no depth is felt and where those wants become needless. We drift from one polarity to the other all the time. We create wants. Show me any want that a man would want that is totally valid. You want a vacation. Where is the greatest vacation that you would find? By going to Hawaii or the Bermudas or Barbados, Cape Town, South Africa? Would you find your needs there? Or is it just an imaginary thing you have created that you now want? There could be nothing wrong with the want, but you have to pay an excellent price for it, and I do not mean the cost of air tickets. With that want, there is selfishness involved. The selfishness in the sense that it would make you happier, but it does not. For example, whenever you go on a holiday, remember you will need a holiday after the holiday. Because nobody knows how to go for a holiday. This can be a holiday, a holy day, coming to a course where everything is still, quiet, where you listen to some teachings and do your meditations. The distinction lies in wants and needs. The mind creates desires, and they could be very fictional because you always want more and more and more. If you have a million, you will want two million; if you have two, you will want five. It is a never-ending process producing unhappiness. There are real wants in life, and the real want is joy, which is a need also. Here you use want differently: you combine the want with the need. You need love, and because you need love, you will make plans; you will devise ways to fulfil that need in a wanting, longing manner. You will devise strategies as far as your mind is concerned to fulfil legitimate wants. You want to eat food, and I would rather say I need food than I want food. WANTS ARE MAKINGS OF THE MIND There is a fine distinction between want and need. Need is what primarily is required for sustaining you in this little body and allowing it to express itself in total accordance and concordance with natural laws, and those needs will always be fulfilled. They will always be fulfilled. Because needs are genuine; wants are artificial. I can do without going to Hawaii. I can do without going to Barbados. It is not a need; it is a want, a fixture of my imagination that I will feel so much better by going there. No. That feeling of that goodness is there inside. Try this sometime. Go and see an excellent show that you have heard so much about, but go in a bad mood, and you will not enjoy the show. You will not enjoy the finest musical. But go there with a beautiful frame of mind, and that which is not so good will seem better to you. So, wants are the making of the mind, and the more the mind indulges in wants, the more wants will be created. It is insatiable that could never be satisfied. THE TRUE NEED OF MAN IS TO FIND HIS INNER SELF The true need of man is to find his inner self so that his life can be harmonious. The true need of man is to love and to be loved. That is a need, and that opens up his inner self. The true need of man is to be able to think clearly, to know what discrimination is; that is a true need for man as far as the mind is concerned. And a true need for man is to have his three meals a day and a place to rest his head. That is a need of the body. So, the Spiritual Self is accompanied by some requirements; needs accompany the mental self and the physical body. Therefore, they are valid. MAN HAS TO GO BEYOND CRAVINGS When we come to wants, it is “I want that, I want that,” and it only proves that you are still a young child, growing up but emotionally immature, and the greatest need in life is to find maturity. Because everyone is wanting, wanting, wanting, and all this wanting to be put together in this world is creating all the frictions in this world as well as within yourself. By wanting, you also mean possession; you want to possess. That is a want also. You need some possessions, by all means, but the mind has a habit of exaggerating those wants into kinds of possessions. You wear a one-carat diamond; you get tired of it, then it must be a two-carat diamond. Those are wants, and wants are associated with cravings. And that is the thing that
Beyond the Ego: Finding Freedom and Joy in Selflessness
HOW DO WE USE CONSCIOUSNESS? Your mind has a memory box that covers the entire universe. Every experience in the universe is there in your mind, which you can tap upon and use. By will we mean not only the conscious will by which we think that this is light, and this is a glass, and this is a table, not that will, but that will which like the drop of water has merged into the ocean of the Divine will and when I am merged into the Divine will the discrimination between chairs and table and me. You just cease because I would see beyond the outer form of things. I would see into its very structure, and by visiting into its very structure, I would find that all is but one, and I am none different from the tiny ant that crawls on the floor. It is the same life force that is there. In the process of evolution, I might have developed a more significant amount of consciousness. But how much is that consciousness helping me? That is the main question. Am I using that consciousness in a negative way, or am I using that consciousness in a positive way? You are conscious of a sharp blade; give that to a loafer, and he will go and kill someone with it but give the same blade to a surgeon, and he will save someone’s life with it. The matter is the same. The knife or the blade is the same, but how are we using it? That is the question. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE Because of past experiences, our minds tend always look at the negative side of things. We look at the painful negative side but never at the pleasurable side of things, and we do not do that. Our minds have become patterned and habituated by the forces we have created within ourselves. This law that says, “whatever you sow you will reap,” can be transcended to a higher level, where you can plant potatoes and say, “look, I want onions to grow,” it will grow because you have known the sameness, the same light, the same energy, that is in the potato is in the onion. Your little will or little consciousness is so powerful if combined with Divine will or Divine consciousness that there is no such thing as impossible or impossibility. You can plant potatoes and have onions to grow. GOING BEYOND THE EGO Our main problem is that little ego-self and how to preserve the ego-self. In trying to keep the ego-self, you are only creating greater and greater misery for yourself. This misery for yourself comes from bondage because you are so attached to the little ego self that you are bound by it, while the path to Divinity should bring about freedom, freedom from one’s thoughts, freedom from the idea of possession, all kinds of attachment. If you are non-attached to things, it does not mean that you discard the world. As they say, “In the world but yet not of the world.” When you are not of the world, you can enjoy what is in the world and how beautiful it is. You can never enjoy what is in the world until you go beyond it. Because once you are in the world, you will be in that whirlpool all the time, and you will just shift around energies. Today you are so happy; tomorrow, the opposite occurs. It is the same energy, and it fluctuates up and down because all energy has motion. It is like a pendulum; when it swings to the left, it must swing to the right by its momentum. But there is one beautiful factor when that pendulum swings to the right; it has that moment’s pause before it swings to the left and that moment’s hesitation is what we have to capture. Despite the motion from left to right, that pause gives it the momentum, and if the man can live in that pause, you have known eternity. WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FUNCTION WITHOUT A SLIGHT SENSE OF EGO SELF We cannot control the ego-self; no one can. Even the most realised man, including Krishna, Christ, Buddha, everyone, will always have two percent ego in him because without that two percent of “I-ness,” he will not be able to live in the world. He will just disintegrate; he will not be able to do any of his biological functions. He would not be able to eat; he would not be able to take a bath and things like that. That two percent of “I-ness” will remain before the drop of water sinks into the ocean, and that two percent of that individual drop will disappear when it merges into the ocean, and there is no ego-self left. There is no small I left but the big “I” of the Universe, the big “I” not only of the Universe but the big “I” of that Divine Force, that Divine Energy, only that is left, and from there you view the entire universe. BEING NON-ATTACHED, YOU ARE BEYOND HURT You view the entire motion of how the universe is functioning. We do not pursue engendering or keeping up the little ego-self. The more we can get away from the ego-self, the greater happiness will we have? This does not mean that you must not look after your family; you do not need to throw them away or go to live in the forest or jungles. It does not mean that. Live in beautiful mansions and have half a dozen motor cars or whatever you want to do. Buy lovely diamonds, do whatever you want to. But you are not attached to it, and when you find that non-attachment to it, then nothing can hurt you. Because you are non-attached, you are beyond hurt. Using an analogy – your little child falls down the stairs, you will be hurt because the child has
Spirituality in Daily Life: Bridging the Spiritual and Material Worlds
START SPIRITUAL EDUCATION WHEN THE CHILD IS SMALL Expressing a spiritual life to the young is very beautiful and necessary in this world. Do not start universities, where spiritual education is given like some organizations are doing because when you reach a certain age, your mind is so set. But start spiritual education when the child is small, starting in primary school. That is the time when spiritual knowledge is to be given so that they could be moulded, to grow up in that. I have found that in homes with meditators, where good tapes are played all the time, the children listen, and you will be surprised how perceptive children are. Although they might not be able to verbalize it, they feel that there is something good, and if they are nurtured and brought up in that kind of atmosphere, juvenile delinquency would be so, so much lessened. PEACE IS ONLY FOUND IN AN INWARD SEARCH Technological progress has been so fast today in all countries, including America, England, and everywhere. The intellects have become more and more developed. Despite the technological developments, they have searched outwardly, for they suffer dissatisfaction within themselves. They have not the peace. They could run multi-billion-dollar corporations, and yet they find an emptiness. They have gone to the highest intellectual and technological development limit and cannot find the answer there. The only way they can go is inward instead of outward. Therefore, there is a great interest in spiritual matters today, finding the Kingdom of Heaven within. There is a significant surge in that direction which is an excellent sign. Unfortunately, many of my fellow citizens have come along and misused the privileges given to them. Instead of converting the outward seekers, they became seekers of power and wealth. That is a tragedy, and when I meet some of these guys at times, I give them a piece of my mind because I am afraid of nothing and no one. It could be the highest lord of the land, and if I want to say something, I say it openly and clearly and in no uncertain terms. So that is a tragedy. But those that do understand might be performing some little good work. Anyone on the spiritual path should be encouraged to find himself. By finding himself, his life will become more peaceful, which is what we want. “The peace that passeth all understanding.” We need this integration; the mind and body have been led so far outward. It is about time that more and more people like you would make a right-about turn and start going inward. For only there is peace to be found. A millionaire might become a multi-millionaire, and one might become a billionaire. But what has he gained as far as his peace is concerned? THE SOUL OF MAN CAN NEVER BE LOST Therefore, the scriptures would say, “What is the use of gaining the world and losing your soul?” And souls are being lost. They are not lost; we say these words figuratively and not to be taken in its literal sense because the soul of men can never be lost. But it can be entangled with these total materialistic, unbalanced desires. MATERIAL VS SPIRITUAL I am not against materialism. But what I would like to see is that spirituality is infused into materiality so that which is material becomes spiritual, and that which is spiritual becomes material. It is a continuum, and it is oneness. Although we have two eyes, we close one eye and just look at the material part. Let us open the other eye and see the spiritual aspect as well. We find the two eyes adequately focused, and in that proper focusing, the spirituality and materiality are infused. We need materiality. Because if I have not fifty cents, fifty-six cents, I cannot go to buy a loaf of bread in my pocket. And I need the sustenance, and that is material. If you walk outside, God’s air is free, but we are paying for it in taxes. We cannot escape materiality. This body is material – it is flesh and bone, but the spiritual side of man can be deeply infused in that materiality so that it functions holistically and in wholeness. That is healing. To be healed is to become whole. If we think about it, it is beautiful really. It is beautiful. And it is not an impossibility. It is within the reach of everyone, and it is just by directing one’s attention. IT IS SO SIMPLE With spiritual practices, you will find that we will see lesser and lesser faults in things and the more significant good in things. That is practical infusion in practical daily living. Then we stop being judgmental. “Judge ye not that ye be judged.” “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” “Do unto others as you expect to be done unto you.” These injunctions become realities, not just words on the printed page, which we want. It is so simple, and you do not need to make it complex. A simple understanding of what life is all about, and if you know life, you know love. And if you know love, you know laughter which is joy. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1982 – 05
Prayers for Peace: Finding Peace Through Love by Opening the Heart
THE REAL WAR IS WITHIN THE INDIVIDUAL All the wars in the world are faked. By being fake, I mean that the wars are based upon economics. All the wars in the past, too, the basis was nothing else but economics: to create greater markets, to provide more employment when unemployment becomes rife, to try to stabilize the economy or the country’s deficit, and war balances that. Wars will always be created in this world. There have always been wars. Every so many years pass, and there is a war. But the real war I am concerned about is the war within the individual man, how to resolve the conflicts within oneself. So often, I use the analogy that it is the nature of a flower to be beautiful, which is not the only thing it does. It also enhances the beauty of the garden. So, leave the politicians and their economics alone and their greed for power. It will always go on. Even in Krishna’s time, the war of the Kurukshetra between the Kauravas and the Pandavas was contrived by greed and possession. Even during the development of Christianity, millions of people were killed. You know the story of the crusaders, the crusades, even in Islam, where they ruled and conquered with the sword to develop the organization. I have stopped calling them churches anymore. Organizations. Business systems. That is what they are. PRAYING FOR PEACE Man must be concerned more about the conflicts that rage within himself, and that is why we have our spiritual practices and the little understanding which I might be able to give you: theory and practice. We have our spiritual practices that reduce the conflict, the inner conflict, that is there. By gaining a more robust and deeper understanding, we can see things differently, reducing disputes. The greatest war that one has to confront is the war that rages within oneself. But at the same time, we also pray for the world’s peace. But our prayers become invalidated because we are not at peace in ourselves. But it is always good to pray for world peace. Many countries have a day of prayer for world peace. Send out good thoughts, good loving vibrations, and some effect will come. But if you think there will be no more wars in the world, that there will be an age of enlightenment, that is not true. That will never happen. There has never been an age of enlightenment because we are a small space in this vast continuum. THE SPIRITUAL FORCE IS SO NECESSARY As highly evolved souls pass away from this planet, not necessarily enlightened souls, but highly evolved souls for whom this planet does not become or remain conducive for their spiritual growth, they go to another world with higher beings. Other planets have more evolved beings than what we have here. In this world, at this moment, there are very few enlightened men. Very few. You can count them on the fingers of your one hand. One or two of them are active, and the others are not. You are just waiting for their bodies to fall off. That is all. But you will be surprised how much this is necessary, how much spiritual force they exert in this world to bring some sort of balance, although not total balance. The odds are too great. QUARRELING DURING THE TIMES OF CHRIST During the time of Christ, you also found all the quarrelling masses. He was the most despised man on earth. His people rejected him. The Sadducees, the Pharisees, Sanhedrins, the Romans, the works. What a tremendous spiritual Force he was. If he were not so great, his teachings would not have lasted until today. Because of his great spiritual force, he had to undergo all the suffering. Because he was an enlightened man, his evolution was too advanced for ordinary people to understand. They condemned him because he used to wine and dine with the Pharisees and the money lenders. They used to condemn him, and even his closest disciples used to be so jealous of him when he was so close to Mary Magdalene. This was discovered in some new scroll they found, and there was a series of articles in The Observer, a paper published in England They could not understand him. How could they? How can you see what is on top of a twenty-story building if you are not standing on another twenty-story building? If you are standing on the sidewalk, you will have a very slanted view and can never see what is on top. But these great men never defend themselves; they say what they want to. They will just go marching on like an elephant marching down the road, and there could be a hundred dogs barking, and he does not care. Let them bark. I go on and do my work. That was the attitude of Jesus. QUARRELING DURING THE TIMES OF KRISHNA Same thing with Krishna. He was a great statesman. Strategy, he was instrumental in creating that war of Kurukshetra between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Of course, this could be literally or historically explained, and that could also be symbolically explained. But the truth forever remains the truth. The truth will always triumph, and how much dust gathers on the diamond, it must sometime blow off and shine in its full glory to all those that can see. They shall see. IT IS IMPORTANT TO LESSEN THE CONFLICT WITHIN OURSELVES So, the object is to find or to lessen the conflict that rages within ourselves. That is important. For these wars will always be created—all the time. There will never come a time of peace. There is a war going on, a world war going on, but a cold war that is even more dangerous than an actual war. These governments are trying to create all kinds of inventions, inventions of destruction. They want to preserve peace by fear that:
True Surrender: Surrendering by Love to the Inner Divinity, the Universal Self
Ancient Sages, Brahman, Buddha, Conscious Mind, Divine, Effort, Ego, Enlightenment, Eternal, Evolution, Force, Guru, Gurushakti, Happiness, Heart, Love, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Oneness, Relationships, Relative World, Samskaras, Self, Separation, Spirit, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Surrender, Universe
INDEPENDENCE – DEPENDENCE – INTERDEPENDENCE When you feel independent at your present stage of evolution, realise that that occurs from your mental patterns. You think that you are separated, but are you independent and of what are you independent? If you are independent, you would be self-subsisting, and you would not need any external or internal force for you to exist, and if you cannot exist, you make an exit. In relationships, you usually start with your thinking processes, making you think you are independent. But when an involvement takes place with another person, your wife, husband, your guru or whoever, that interchange creates a dependency upon the person. The mind becomes dependent because of sensory input: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and feeling. Those are the sensory inputs that create a dependency. Because without the sensory input, your mind would cease to function. The sensory inputs go to what we call the mind-stuff, or manas, which is like a television screen. These sensory inputs are like the transmitter, transmitting onto the television screen. But that is not the end. That input goes to an area which in Sanskrit we call buddhi. That is where the word Buddhism arose: buddhi, Buddhism. This area has analytical faculties. These analytical faculties weigh up the pros and cons of the sensory input, and as thinking beings with intellect, with buddhi, you have the power to discriminate. The power of discrimination and the sensory information is collected to form that ego-self. That ego-self makes you think you are independent, and it also plays a significant factor in your dependency. Dependency becomes a crutch. Dependency also is a form of escapism. Take the case of psychotics, neurotics, who are so totally dependent upon various forms of drugs that they cannot do without them. That is dependency, dependency is a weakness, and primal independence is also a weakness. Interdependency is where two people cannot do without each other. Dependency means that one person cannot do without the other. Interdependency implies that two people cannot do without each other. So, the one is dependent upon the other, and the other is dependent on that one. That is interdependency. FROM A LOWER FORM OF INDEPENDENCE TO A HIGHER FORM OF INDEPENDENCE To live everyday relative life, a significant amount of interdependency is required to preserve equanimity, equilibrium and so-called happy life of love. The man says, “I love you,” or the woman says, “I love you,” which is a misnomer, and it is a total misconception based upon interdependency. I would put it differently: “I am love, and you are me.” so interdependency disappears because interdependency requires two people. While if you recognise the authentic Self that is within you and you say, “I am love, and you are me,” that is love. You are not interdependent because you do not recognise each other separate from each other; only love is there, the man is not there, and the woman is not there. You reach the final point when only love is there, and the last point is independence. So, you start from a lower form of independence to a higher state of freedom. As I explained, the lower form of autonomy is through sensory input, etc. We could call the lower mind that does not cognise the beauty, the reality, the Brahman, the Buddha, that is within us. It does not realise that because the first independence, being so involved in their ego self, refuses to recognise the higher force within. When we come to the area of intellectualising things, discriminating things, you have a thought in mind, “Shall I go to Chicago, or Timbuktu,” and the mind will evaluate what would be beneficial for me. Who is the me that you are talking about? It is that little mind, that little conscious mind. That is the me that you are interested in while living this life. I am also interested in me, but which me? The higher me that encompasses the entire universe. That is the me. So, Timbuktu, Chicago, New York, New Orleans, or Philadelphia means nothing. It is all one. I have got it all in the palm of my hand, not only the whole of your America but the entire universe. It is there. So where am I going to? Nowhere. I am going nowhere. That is the real me. Because of its universality, it cannot go anywhere because it just is. TRUE SURRENDER You have many systems here in America, many cults and creeds, where you are asked to surrender. A person can never totally surrender in the lower forms of independence or dependency. He will surrender mentally with the thought that “I am surrendered to my guru.” That is wrong. You do not surrender to your guru. If you try to surrender to your guru, you are not surrendering because you are trying. But as you develop and find the real I within, the big I within, and you do the entire cycle, independency, dependency, interdependency and then the proper independence where the entirety of the I is realised. Your guru is non-separate from you, and there is automatic, spontaneous surrender. You are not surrendering to the guru’s personality because all gurus are crazy people. True gurus are crazy people, or else I would not be going around the world with a begging bowl lecturing, talking, teaching. As all of you know, I was in big businesses all the time, and I can get into another multimillionaire business tomorrow if I wish to, in commerce—crazy coots. Take Ramakrishna, for example, the tremendous Vedantic sage that lived at the turn of the century. He saw a dog eating from a bowl, and he went to sit down with the dog and ate with the dog from the dog’s bowl. If any modern Western psychologist or psychiatrist passed there, he would say, “Oh, this guy is nuts.” Nuts. But they could not understand Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna identified himself so much with the Spirit in
Letting Go: Awakening to the Eternal Now
Attachment, Awareness, Compassion, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Eternal, Eternity, Evolution, Freedom, God, Guru, Gurushakti, Heart, Humility, Integration, Joy, Kindness, Light, Love, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Oneness, Path, Peace, Purity, Self, Separation, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Unity, Universe
THE MEANING OF “LETTING GO.” There was a person that found himself hanging by a branch off a cliff, and the person that was feeling very distraught turned his eyes to God and said, “Oh God, please get me out of this situation. If you get me out of this situation, I will do anything.” God had pity on this man and looked down upon him and said, “I only require one thing”. And the man said, “Anything. What is it?” And God looked and said, “Let go.” When God said, “Let go, do not hang on to the branch,” the real meaning was, let go of your minuscule ego-self. For whom was the man trying to save in his prayer but just his little ego bodily self, which, as we all know, is very temporary? These three score years and ten pass by in a moment, and within the context of infinity and eternity, it is not even a split second, so you are hanging on for that split second. To be able to hang on, you need a crutch. The tree branch was a crutch. How many of you could honestly say that “I live without crutches.?” 99.99 per cent of the world’s people live and exist with crutches. While you, the real you, that is imperishable, the real you that is immortal, could never die. Yet knowing this or realizing this to a certain extent, you attach so much importance to your mind and body. Why attach importance to the perishables? Even all perishables have limited value and limited life. So, when God said, “Let go,” He meant let go of this body and find yourself, know yourself, the authentic self. “Letting go” means you are becoming unified with that eternal factor which is you, and that eternal factor is nothing else but God, for only God is eternal. Only Divinity is eternal. We live in that eternity, for life too is eternal, life too is imperishable. You are not born to be miserable. You are not born to suffer. You are children of joy, created in joy, by joy. But because you do not recognize this factor, you emphasize the wrong places, and you feel all the sufferings and miseries of this world. YOUR NATURE IS FREEDOM When you were conceived, what did your parents do? They copulated, and was that not an act of joy for them? It could have been the joy of love, or it could have been the joy of lust, but yet the essence of joy was there when you were conceived, and then you were born. Why does the baby cry when it is born? It is not a cry of sadness; it is the cry of joy. This happens because it instinctively feels it is out in freedom from the confines of the womb. To be himself and not being fed by the umbilical cord but to find that independence. That is what a human being wants all the time. You want independence, and you want to feel free, for your nature is freedom itself. Yet we have all these branches we hang onto for the dear, so-called life. Yet the branch will break, so let go. Let go of this mind. Let go of this body in your spiritual practices. Every time I sit down to meditate, I die. The body is dead for me. The mind is dead. I have died thousands and thousands of times. Because the mind is not there to think anymore, and yet every mind goes into thought, I observe the thoughts, and those thoughts do not affect me. I become oblivious of the body. The bodily pains, or what have you, do not affect me. In meditation and spiritual practices, you will reach a different realm, to that higher consciousness, to that Superconscious level where all shackles are gone. YOU FEAR THE UNKNOWN We walk around in this world handcuffed, and we were not meant to do that. If you say that you are born in the image of God, then why do you not also realize that you are also born in the image of God, and God is free, so you too must be free. All this hanging on to the branches of life and not wanting to let go is because you fear. What do you fear? You do not fear death. You fear the unknown. Yet you have had so many, many lifetimes before. You have been born so many, many times before. And you have died so many, many times before. And now, after experiencing all that, you are the sum totality of all your past experiences, and you still fear the unknown. You should know it. If I walk down your main street a few times, I should know the main road and not fear it because I know it. But that clinging to the ego-self makes you forgetful of your real self—the real self, which is divine. So, as you progress in meditation and spiritual practices, you would find yourself proceeding closer and closer to the cognition of the real self, which is you. Then the fear of death disappears. Then the fear of the unknown disappears. For nothing can ever be achieved if you do not leap into the unknown, and yet your little mind says, “It is unknown.” But it is not unknown. It is only the conscious mind, that 5 or 10 per cent which you use of the totality of your mind that says or thinks of the unknown. But going deeper through the mind, the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the Superconscious Mind, and where everything is known. The Upanishads say, “What is thereby knowing which all else is known?” What is there? The Upanishads are wrong: “What is everywhere by knowing which all else is known.” For you, in essence, are everywhere, but because that little mind divides or cuts you up into pieces, you find separation,
Life’s True Wealth: Finding Life, Love and Laughter Within
MAN IS SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS The primary qualification for any person that wants to embark on a spiritual practice or path is a yearning. He must yearn to find something within himself, which he does not know. Some people are yearning to find the answer to things he does not know about, and some do nothing. We start by doing spiritual practices to find specific answers. Many persons would like to ask the main questions: “Who am I? Why am I born into this world? What is the purpose of my environment? How do I relate with my environment, and in the relationship of the environment, am I evolving to greater and greater happiness?” The main purpose of life, consciously or unconsciously, is to find happiness. It is because the nature of man is blissful. Ananda resides within him. Man is essentially Divine, and because of the essential Divinity within him, that is what spurs him on to find himself; to find the Divinity that is within him and that constitutes the mechanics of the path of finding happiness. So, to recap, man consciously or unconsciously searches for happiness. A man makes a million pounds, and he thinks he will find happiness in doing that. But when he makes the million pounds, he is still unhappy, so he tries for the second million, and when he has the second million, he will try to find the third. But is that the path to find happiness, to find that peace that is there within us? We are trying to find externality internally, using the wrong direction. INDIVIDUALLY DESIGNED PRACTICES In our Foundation, the given practices are individually designed and are aimed at the sum totality of that particular person. Based upon the person’s vibration, which a guru can hear in his meditative state, an assessment and evaluation is made, whereby the sum totality of the person is assessed, and thereupon, a practice is prescribed. So, it becomes an individual practice. We have avoided mass practices because there cannot be one medicine to cure everything. You might need a different medicine for a headache than what you need for a toe-ache. So, with our Foundation, all practices are individually designed. These individually designed practices are aimed at un-fathoming that which is within us, and that is the purpose of the Foundation, in order so that man could reach his primal state of bliss. Man is essentially divine. YOU ARE DIVINE When man repeats to himself, “I am a sinner. I am weak”, he will become weak. The message I bring to you is this that you are Divine. That Divinity is just covered up, clouded up, and we have to unfold it. We do not call the Foundation – spiritual development. The spirit does not require developing. It is fully developed within you and me but covered up. We have to unfold it, and we give our practices for the unfoldment. Our meditators find that in doing these individually designed practices, a greater harmony comes within them; they do feel a greater self-integration. Man has three aspects to himself. He has the physical body, he has the mental body, and the Spiritual body. And all troubles begin when the three aspects of man do not function harmoniously. With spiritual practices, we function harmoniously, with more and more and more harmony, and as we become more and more harmonious to ourselves, we create greater harmony in the environment. THE PURPOSE OF MEDITATION The nature of the flower is to grow beautiful. It grows beautiful, but it does something else as well; the flower that grows beautiful in itself also enhances the garden’s beauty. When an individual becomes more harmonious with himself and more self-integrated, his environment improves, which is the purpose of meditation. The purpose of meditation is to live as a self-integrated being, and being self-integrated, one can perform daily actions with greater dynamism and greater vitality. And having become harmonious, we automatically become loving, and when we become loving, we become loveable. When we, through meditation, create this beautiful harmony within ourselves, when the mental awareness expands, and simultaneously the heart expands, then this combination of the mind and heart, with that beautiful expansion and as we gradually achieve that beautiful wholeness, our attitude towards life changes, where we can start loving. Then we will know the meaning of the Commandment, “Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself.” Then we will know the true import. If we use that message “Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself” mentally, we might appreciate some of its meaning. But to appreciate the significance intellectually supported by the experiential value, how powerful that will become. Then we will know what loving your neighbour as thyself could mean. There is a significant difference between knowing something only by the intellect and experiencing something. PHILOSOPHIES MUST BE BROUGHT DOWN TO PRACTICAL DAILY LIVING These qualities of love which are gained through meditation, can be experienced and not only experienced but translated and interpreted in daily living. All philosophies in this world are of no use; if it remains only on the mind level, it is mental gymnastics. They must be brought down to practical day to day living, and our meditations are individually designed and tailored, made for each and every individual person so that he could do his practices twice a day, half an hour morning and evening. And he is shown methods how he can interpret them in day to day living and thereby making his life richer in every aspect of his being. Greater harmony is found in the home, greater harmony is found in work, greater harmony is found in his social circles, greater harmony is found in society. Society and various units of social bodies form a country, and then England can shine to its primal glory again. The empire builder can also start off to be the spiritual empire builder. This movement is in many countries, but England has become one of the leading