CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS How many men has there been upon this earth that could say, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”? Those few words capture the entirety, the sacredness and the glory of Christ. For it is only with great Spiritual Force that one could forgive even those trying to kill you. Those that do not know are ignorant of this Spiritual Force. It was said two thousand years ago, and regretfully it is still so today. For we are ignorant of that consciousness in which we all exist. For existence itself is that consciousness. Therefore, when He said, “I and my Father are one,” he did not mean the physical body. The physical body of Christ has some significance but a minimal significance. There are many theories of his life where many regard him as a political rebel. Many regard him as a religious rebel trying to teach people, taking them away from their old superstitions preached in the temple and those that became mercenaries in the name of God and tradespeople that used to trade in the temple. He was all of those. Like Jesus, the man, he tried to show people that your superstitions are not good. The political upheavals of those times with the Sanhedrins and the Romans and the Pharisees and the Zealots fighting against each other. And, of course, all of them against him. It is not good, and he tried to bring about significant social reforms. But that is not the part I look at personally. I look at that vast consciousness encapsulated in a tiny little body. What do we mean by the consciousness that Christ had? It means one thing only that he had conquered within himself the conscious level of the mind, the subconscious and the Superconscious level of the mind, which is the entirety of the mind. And once, when a person finds the entirety of the mind, then you could say, “I am fully conscious.” JESUS, THE MAN Like Buddha, they call him enlightened, he was a man who was awakened, and so was Krishna as well, but it all means the same thing; fully awakened to existence itself. Yet, being a man having a body, he had to dwell in the conscious level of the mind as well – the little analysing mind, the rationalising mind, the left hemisphere of the brain as the scientists would call it, and in those agonies in the garden of Gethsemane, he said “Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” That was the man speaking, not the consciousness speaking. For has the Father ever forsaken anyone? But the agony was so great that during that night, while he was praying, his very close ones that should have been awake fell asleep. Are we all not sleeping in this garden while the consciousness is awake? In the life of Christ, who was born ordinarily and grew up as an ordinary boy, he had that deep yearning for knowledge and yet at the same time, he knew that all the knowledge of the world, Divine wisdom, is forever within everyone. That man represented the four thousand million people on earth today. This was a supreme example, a representation of man so imbued and empowered with the Divinity of that vast Consciousness we call the Father. Yes, he was a man. He used to wine and dine with the Pharisees and the moneylenders. Many people ask why he did that. Was it necessary for him to go and wine and dine with those people that were regarded to be impure? Yes, it was required. He was with them. He shared their joys and agonies and their pleasures to show that “I am the son of man, like you are the sons of men but yet at the same time I also know, that I am the Son of the Father.” TO FORGIVE THEM MEANS GREAT LOVE This consciousness starts from dualism, a dual consciousness where man is so centred within himself, within his body and mind; and the Superconscious level of himself that is within himself, with which he is born, is ignored and forgotten. Yet it is the Super Consciousness that makes me lift my hand or even blink my eyes. So, when he said, “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do”, he was talking of this ignorance, this nescience in which the world today is involved. To say forgive them means great love. You can never forgive without really feeling, experiencing and being that love. With forgiveness, naturally, there is compassion. There is a recognition that this man is ignorant and, therefore he does not know what he is doing. Shall I take revenge upon him? No. No. I must love him. For it is only his ignorance that makes him do the acts he does. For example, if a little child breaks a precious vase that you have in the house, you might become angry, but the child, in his ignorance, did not purposely break the vase. The life of Christ was taken on the cross because of people’s ignorance. Some politicians had a purpose for getting rid of Jesus for their means because he was a threat to their positions. But the rest, even his closest ones that went around with him on foot, trudging the whole land from city to city to city, even they had forsaken him when he was supposed to die. Yet in the three years of ministry, they were around with him everywhere, seeing all these wonderful miracles happening all the time, and they were so close with him, he had shared bread. To share bread is a bond, “the staff of life,” as we call it. And even those very people never lifted a finger to help him. Yet there in that garden, he could have escaped. No. The greatest favour he has done to the world was to be crucified. He could very easily have escaped, but it
Channels of Divinity: Becoming a Channel for Divine Grace
Christ, Dharma, Divinity, Ego, Force, God, Grace, Happiness, Heart, Joy, Karma, Love, Meditation, Mind, Peace, Scriptures, Self, Soul, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Universal, Wisdom
THE DYNAMICS OF HEALING I would never heal someone unless the person comes to me. But if I see a person in trouble, in pain, in misery, my Heart will flow to that person, and in that very flow, with the strength of thought and Spiritual Force, I will even unconsciously send out a healing energy to the person. Therefore, in the company of true Spiritual Masters, you would always find a great peace descending upon you. Especially people who are meditators and doing spiritual practices keep that Spiritual Force alive in them to enjoy life more. When it comes to healing, let us think about this: at the time of Jesus, there were thousands of people that were blind, there were thousands that were lame, there were thousands that were deaf. But if we read the Scriptures, why did he only heal just a few blind and a few deaf and a few lames. There are reasons for that, and the true Spiritual Master knows that very well. A person is suffering from an awful disease, but if you heal that person and if the time is not right, you are transferring that very ailment to the person’s next life, where they will have the illness, perhaps not in the same form, but the suffering would be there. Certain healings relieve the person of the intensity of that disease so that it is not transferred over to another lifetime. If a person has ended a particular karmic debt and just about at the end of it, then the Spiritual Master would give the person a little push so that they could overcome it. It is like a schoolmaster with a pupil in school who needs fifty percent to pass, and the child achieves only forty-eight or forty-nine percent. The teacher knows that a whole year of the child will be wasted, so he will award the child a mark or two extra so that it could go on to the next standard. That is what a good teacher would do. IT IS OUR DHARMA NOT TO LET ANYONE GO EMPTY-HANDED That is how it works when it comes to healing. We are teachers of knowledge, wisdom, the practical side of the theories, the practice of various meditation, and other spiritual practices. We do not put ourselves out as healers. Still, if anybody is in trouble, I, or the healers to whom, through the grace of God, I could transfer the abilities, of course, it would be their bounded duty to relieve any misery or suffering to which someone is afflicted. If they are approached, they are bound not to say no. You have come, and you shall not go back empty-handed. That is my principle. Anyone that comes to my door will never go back empty-handed. If I only have one slice of bread in the house, I will share it with the beggar that would knock on the door. That is our dharma; that is our duty. For what else is life worth? You make millions of pounds, and you will pop off tomorrow. You are not going to take it with you. You amass this, and you amass that you are not going to take it with you. But through spiritual practices, if you have amassed merit, which is interpreted in joy and happiness and peace of mind, that will come with you. Because once your inner self, your soul, is at peace, then that is the portion that carries on, not the body. Therefore, everyone knows the age-old saying, “What is the sense of gaining the whole world and losing your soul.” THAT WHICH WE CALL GOD IS CLOSER TO YOU THAN YOU YOURSELF Therefore, to find great peace within ourselves and help humanity, that is what you are taking with you, and that is what you are made of, really, not this bag of bones and blood. As I always say, if you melt it down into its chemical value, I think you will get about forty pence for it, and with inflation perhaps sixty pence, who knows? Do you see what it is worth? Nothing. But the love you can radiate, and the more at peace you are within yourself, the more integrated you are, the more love you can radiate and give and feel. Then that Old Chap up there which we call God is not so far away, you know. He is not far away; He is closer than you because you are made of His essence. TWO KINDS OF HEALING There are two kinds of healing. There is magnetic healing, and there is spiritual healing. In magnetic healing, you are transferring your spiritual energies by thought force to the other person, and it makes the other person feel a little better. But there is a great danger in this, and the danger is that with the positivity you have in you, you are also passing on your negativity. Spiritual healing is different, and I would never make any person a healer unless the person has the potentiality. By transmitting these healing powers, we stimulate that potentiality so that it can be used powerfully and forcefully. In spiritual healing, the first thought in my mind is, “I am not the healer, I am just a channel. I am just a channel; I am not the healer”. By doing certain practices, that Universal Force, that Universal Energy flows through you to the other person and feels it immediately. So, no harm is done to you, the healer, and so much benefit is accrued by the person to be healed. Instinct is a word that could be defined in many ways, but if you instinctively feel or if you have a feeling within yourself that I should help this person ask yourself, “does this feeling come from the Heart or is it just a mental thought that is there?” Is it selfless, or is it perhaps ego-orientated? These things one has to think
Vibrations of Divinity: Seeing the Spirit in All Forms
WHAT IS A SPIRITUAL LIFE? There is no difference between home life, business life or spiritual life. They are but aspects of the same thing. Even in your business, you can be very efficient in your work or business and yet be totally non-attached to it. ATTACHMENT – DETACHMENT – NON-ATTACHMENT What do we mean by non-attachment? There is attachment, which you know of, then you have detachment which means more a form of escape. While trudging around for many years searching for truth, I have met many Yogis and Saddhus in the Himalayas. I have found Yogis away from the world and living in caves, but they were not non-attached. They found detachment as a form of escapism. When they could not be efficient in their lives, they ran away. That is detaching yourself from the world. But non-attachment means to be in the world and yet not of the world. Non-attachment is where you are fully involved. If your business does a million pounds turnover, why not make it two million? I have always said that if you live in a ten roomed mansion, why not a twenty roomed? But do not be attached to it, and that is non-attachment because the very basis of attachment brings you unhappiness and misery. Non-attachment is where you enjoy life because it is joy itself, but you are not attached. For example, if I get served with a dry piece of bread or a king’s feast, I will choose the better, that is for sure, but if I have the dried piece of bread, I will not hanker for the king’s feast. That is non-attachment. EVERYTHING IS VIBRATION As the Americans would say, you can be a householder, a homemaker, and still be very, very spiritual. Likewise, with the same principle, you can be in business and make your business spiritual. You regard this as a piece of cloth and wood and things like this. I regard this as God because the same atoms, the same molecules in here, are in me. We are made of the same substance. This chair might not have the consciousness that I have, but it is only a degree difference. It is not a difference of kind. Everything is based upon this atomic or sub-sub-sub-atomic matter. Matter and energy are but two sides of the same coin. If we learn to understand that and have that attitude, then everything around us would seem Divine, and when everything seems Divine, it is spiritual. It is of the Spirit. The Spirit is very, very, fine, not perceptible by our five senses, but it is experienceable, while other things, like this table and this chair, this jug, are also made of the same substance. Everything is vibration, and because those vibrations being congealed, they become perceptible to our five senses. EVERYTHING ARE BUT ONE Spirituality, materiality and all these things are but one. It all depends on how we look at it. That is why I go round the world lecturing to give people a proper understanding of things apart from the practices that will help them understand better because practices bring about a greater awareness within you. That is the path to joy and happiness in life. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1983 – 23
Be Yourself: Unveiling the True Self
ON THE PATH, YOU WILL FIND THE BURDEN BECOMING LIGHTER AND LIGHTER The most important people in our organisation are the Preparatory Teachers because they are the ones that form the link between Divinity and man. The Preparatory Teachers are the people that introduce God to man. They are more important than what I am because they are the ones that bring the people to follow the path of the Lord, to follow the path of love. So, all my blessings upon you, my children. Excuse me for calling you that; some of you are older than me, perhaps. We are all children, Children of God, made in His image, made in His Divinity, and nothing could detract us from that except ourselves if we want to do it. The path is not always easy, but as you gradually go on the path, you will find the burden becoming lighter and lighter, which is what the guru does. As you climb up the hill with that bag, that heavy load of samskaras, that burden, the guru comes behind you. You do not even notice him, but he has got a lovely long pin, and he pricks the bag, and all that heaviness, all that sand of samskaras trickles out slowly, slowly. And when you reach higher and higher on this climb towards Divinity, your burden becomes lighter and lighter, and then you realise, “I came with no bag; there is no weight in it. It is so light.” The greatest tool the guru has is a big pin. Sometimes I miss the bag and push the pin a bit lower down. So, my Beloveds, you have your job to do. The more you do it, the better for you. If you put a quarter teaspoon of sugar in your tea, it will not be so sweet, half a teaspoon, a little sweeter, a full teaspoon much, much sweeter. BE YOURSELF A guru can be a catalyst to show you who you are and what you are. He will show you what you are now and show you the potential of what you can be. That is his job. A true guru does it by words and imparting the spiritual forces of which he is only a channel, and being that channel; his mirror has to be clean so that you can look into the mirror clearly and recognise the spots on your face. Once you recognise the spots or the marks on your face, you will not need to use all these powders and all those things with which you cover up marks. How many people in this world can truly say that they are not hiding behind a mask? A facade. People do not live as they truly are. People live in an idea of themselves. They do not live themselves, but they live in an idea, which is a mental conception. I, idea, is so similar to one’s ego-self, where the ego-self conceives it to be something far more significant and better than what they are. We live an ideological way of life rather than a pragmatic, practical way of life because of one reason, we fear ourselves. With his big pin, the guru tries to pin you on the backside so that you do not fear yourself. Take off the mask. Be yourself. That is the true message, and that is how to live. Every person, every man, thinks himself greater than what he is. Every woman too thinks herself prettier or greater than what she really is, everyone, except these neurotic, psychotic cases that we are not talking about now. How beautiful will it be if man can say to himself, “I am this. I am me as I am now. But let me do something to improve myself, to become a better person.” You do not need to be a religionist. You do not need to be an atheist. You do not need to be nothing. You need to be yourself, and when you realise the meaning of being yourself, you will know immediately, I am nothing because you are nothing. Only your assumptions and presumptions, and ego selves make you think you are something. You are none lower than the most significant King in the world, the most prominent millionaire, the greatest Queen, or the greatest genius. You are none lower than any of them. You are equal to them. Because you are nothing, and they are nothing too. When you realise this nothingness within yourself, you lose the sense of the “I” -ness. You lose the sense of the ego, and when you can genuinely say “I am nothing,” then the real something dawns in your Heart, the reality which can only be one, and that is Divinity. WHAT ARE PROBLEMS? Yet man says, “Oh, I am a Professor, I have got half a dozen PhD’s behind my name. Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Metaphysics, Doctor of Psychology, Doctor of Bullshitology.” It means nothing. All these people with these Doctorates are more befuddled in their minds than simple, humble people like us, whose minds are led forward to that something. Observing the glory of that something, you automatically feel “I am nothing,” and when you feel I am nothing, then all the joy of that something enters your life. Because when you feel you are something, that is the greatest blockage. That glory of the something cannot infiltrate or permeate you, and then everyone complains of suffering. My husband did this, my wife did this, my daughter did this, and my this, that, a million problems. What are problems? Who creates problems? God does not create problems. Like in our prayer the “Shanti Path,” the entire universe is filled with peace, and in the end, we say, “Let that peace dawn upon me.” Let those not just be words, experience it, feel it, enjoy it. When I go to bed at night, I lie down, and I do certain practices, which you
Transcending the Ego: The Journey to Universal Individuality
INDIVIDUALITY Merging away into Divinity does not mean that you are losing your individuality, but that you are being individual and universal. The qualities of the drop of water you are, do not disappear in the ocean; it becomes one with the ocean. As an individual drop, you will only enjoy the limitations of the particular drop. Still, when you get merged with that vast ocean, you enjoy the joy of the entire ocean because there is no difference between the drop of water and the ocean; it is composed of the same substance. You will know that if you take a fine atom, it will have more power if it is split than a two-thousand-ton bomb. A two-thousand-ton bomb thrown somewhere will only create a big hole, but if an atom is split, it will destroy the entire Victoria, for example. It is not the drop that is so important, but the energy in the drop that is important, and when that energy combines with universal energy, you find the full joy of it, the bliss of it, the bliss of Divinity. RISE ABOVE THE GUNAS The entire universe operates in cycles. One cycle begins, and then it goes into quietude, which in Sanskrit we could call Pralaya, where the Gunas or the substances which run this world, Sattva which is goodness and Light, Tamas which is inertia and darkness, and Rajas which is the balancing force, or the activating factor. This universe is forever in motion because of these three factors, and none of them can be removed as long as you stay away from the ocean. For the ocean is beyond Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. If you read the Bhagavad Gita, it says, “Rise above the Gunas”, which is Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, “Rise above them and then perform action.” You do not need to wait until you merge away into that vast ocean. You can achieve that balance, that activating force in this very lifetime, and that does not mean being inactive. It means being active, for as you are now, you are active, you think you are sitting still, but you are not. There are billions and billions and billions of cells operating systematically in your system as you sit there, so everything below Divinity is action all the time. To make this life happy, one must proceed from Tamas to Sattva, from darkness to Light. THE SECRET OF ETERNITY Now here, so you are now here. If I want to sit still and not take the step, I am going to reach nowhere, and yet, if you analyse the word ”nowhere” just shift the “w” to the left; it becomes “now here.” That is the realisation man has gained, not the past; it has gone. Forget it and the future as well, that might never come, but now here to enjoy this moment to its fullest, here and now. That is the secret of eternity. Eternity cannot be measured in time, there is no linear measurements where you proceed from A to B, and if there is no time, there cannot be any space, because space, as any scientist will tell you, depends on time, and time is dependent upon space. If you want to go to the city, central Victoria, it will take you time because you have got to cover that space. But this area of merging away into that infinity of that ocean, there is no time. It does not proceed from a horizontal level; it does not work on horizontal levels. It works on a vertical level. It is one line, one line which is total unity all the time. That line is thin, so the same goes that the path to Divinity is like walking on a razor’s edge. It is so fine, yet the path is so beautiful that you do not cut yourself with a razor. It is sharp and yet not harmful. THE EGO WANTS TO PRESERVE ITSELF Many people worry about losing their individuality. What is your individuality? Have you examined that? That I am John or Joe or Jack, or whatever I call myself to be “me.” I start comparing that “me” with my circumstances around me. I try to dive deep into my subconscious mind and find comparisons of the outer experiences that I am gaining. It is only when you dive to the subconscious level of the mind that you will find comparisons. If you see a dog on the road, you will not know it is a dog unless you have seen a dog before. That impression of the dog is there existent in the subconscious mind, which has billions of cubby holes that would give you the experience. For example, if you go to some remote country and have never eaten their kind of food, it will be very strange to you because you have not had an experience of that kind of food. Our problem lies in this, that we want to preserve individuality. We have made such a mistake in thinking that I am the centre of the universe. It is I, George or John, that is important and the whole universe centres around me. The very importance that I am attaching to myself is the basis of ego, and it is the ego that wants to preserve itself. The inner part of yourself that goes beyond the subconscious and Superconscious levels does not require to be preserved. It is and will always be there, and that is what we mean by eternity and infinity. WE HAVE TO TRANSCEND THE EGO So, what do we do in the circumstances? We have to transcend the ego. You can use a lot of analysis on how to transcend or go beyond the ego. But remember, it is the ego working on the ego, and the ego is nothing but mind, thought formations all collected together. So, you are working with the mind on the mind, and you are not
The Hero’s Journey: Overcoming Obstacles on the Spiritual Path
Ancient Sages, Awareness, Belief, Bliss, Buddha, Christ, Conscious Mind, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Enlightenment, Evolution, Force, Freedom, God, Guru, Gurushakti, Heart, Humility, Impressions, Joy, Karma, Krishna, Love, Meditation, Mind, Path, Peace, Religion, Samskaras, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Spirituality, Strength, Subconscious, Unity, Universal, Universe
OBSTACLES ON THE PATH People misunderstand Nirvana or Enlightenment. When you pass through a garden, you will see beautiful flowers, but you have not yet reached the end; you still got to reach the end of the path to be enlightened. All these various visions, sounds and things you hear, the tinkling of bells, the roaring of the ocean, music of the veena, you see wonderful visions and things, but that is not enlightenment. It is a psychic phenomenon. I have gone through all this, I know. When you go far deeper than the conscious level of the mind, you would find the sights and scenes. Wherever I travel around, amongst thousands and thousands of people in the world, people have these experiences, and then they develop spiritual pride, the greatest obstacle to enlightenment. That in itself proves that you are far from enlightenment because when you are enlightened, there is no such thing as pride. Pride goes away; you become humble. There will be obstacles on the spiritual path. To quote Vivekananda, he said that “The spiritual path is a path for heroes,” for people with determination that will persevere. The obstacles and the barriers that come on the path are very necessary. Spiritual practices are scrubbers, where you clean yourself of the impressions you have in your subconscious mind. That is a cleansing process. All those samskaras embedded there must be cleared away until you reach a stage of total mental clarity and unification with the Spirit. Then you are enlightened; otherwise not. Some of the characteristics of enlightenment are that you feel entirely joyful, blissful all the time, and whatever obstacles appear in your path, you feel so still within yourself. Say someone says some nasty word to you or any angry word to you, you would typically get upset. Still, when a person is enlightened, the whole mountains could topple down, and it will not affect him at all because he is so still and at peace, within himself, because he has become that peace. He has uncovered the veils and found the peace that is already there. Everybody here is an enlightened person. Spirituality is not something you would gain from outside or buy at Woolworth’s Bazaar. It is there already. What is required is the unfoldment, taking away the veils one by one, until you feel and experience and live that peace, and when you live that peace, then you are living God. You are not believing in God anymore because to believe in God is just a mental conception, and you find the concepts vary. EVEN IN YOUR SLEEP, YOU CAN LIVE GOD Some Hindus would believe in a God with six arms, and some believe in God as a man sitting on a throne, somewhere up there with a long beard, and someone else might have other conceptions of God. That goes to show that they are nothing but conceptions. When you experience that Divine Force, you live it twenty-four hours a day. Even in your sleep, you can live God. I will tell you about my experience. We had some tests done at St Thomas’ Hospital here and then in South Africa at the Groote Schuur Hospital, which is very famous for heart transplants. For the sake of experimentation, we had sleep laboratories where they wired me up and connected me to various electrical machines. They found me fast asleep, in a very deep state of sleep, and yet I was aware of everything around me, which I described to them; what one Doctor said to another, who came in, what they were doing, and everything. So even in sleep, you could be aware, and that awareness of Divinity is a twenty-four-hour business. You are just aware. Sometimes, it seems you have got eyes behind your head and see what is happening behind you. You are aware. There are no eyes behind, but the inner eye you have, which they call the Ajna Chakra, picks up like a radio would pick up the broadcasts of stations worldwide, be they from the east or the west, so you become aware. By developing that awareness, you also develop the awareness of the Universe and everything that constitutes the Universe. For example, I can pick up a stone and feel the pulsation in the stone. It has life. Even a rock has life, and you are made of the same molecular structure as a stone is made of, perhaps a bit more evolved, but yet there is life. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF AN ENLIGHTENED MAN The entire Universe is teeming with life all the time. There is no death; there is only life. When you truly become aware of life, of the entire Universal life, then you can say, “I am enlightened.” An enlightened man does not act any differently; a truly enlightened man, not these sham gurus that would want to sit up on pedestals and be far away from people. Jesus was an enlightened man, and he used to mix with everyone. Wine and dine with the Pharisees and moneylenders, and all these things he used to do. That is a sign of humility because an enlightened man does not find any difference between himself and you because he sees that Divine Spirit in you. That is where his entire focus is. He will see the exterior as well. When you are driving a car, your entire focus is on the road, or it should be, but you are aware of your passing scenes. That is how an enlightened man behaves. I am sure you know that old Zen story, where the disciple asks the Master, “Before you became enlightened, what did you do?” He said, “I used to draw water from the well. I used to cook, and I used to eat, I used to sleep, I used to chop wood.” “And after you became enlightened, what do you do?” He says, “I make fire, I draw water, I eat, I
Awakening to True Existence: Unveiling the Totality of the Self
FINDING EXISTENCE The ultimate purpose of life is not only to exist but to find existence. Naturally, existence has many levels. That which we are calling existence in our personal, relative plane is not true existence. We exist partially; only a very small part of the real existence is brought to the fore in our daily lives. This means one thing: we are not functioning in totality, and when a person does not function in totality, then he is not a complete person, and all of you will know that ninety-nine cents does not make a dollar. We try to find the meaning of life but finding the meaning of life is not done overnight but through a progressive process. To find true existence is a process because existence itself is a process. A process with so many factors that revolve around each other, intermingling, intermixing. Within all this mixture of the various elements that composes a human being, one has to find the pivotal point, one has to find the centre, and when the centre of yourself is found, then you could say, “I am that I am. I exist and I am existence.” To find the totality of one’s Self is to find what existence is. It is not only a mental cognition, but it is an experience, the greatest experience anyone could ever achieve. How many of us could say, “I am existence”? When you say, “I exist,” it is only a thought form that comes from the Chitta, from the memory box in your mind. Because of previous experiences and impressions, that memory box tells you that you exist. Then, of course, the memory box, or you could call it the subconscious mind, transmits those impulses to the conscious mind saying, “I exist,” and then your conscious mind starts analysing, “Do I exist?” You say, “I exist because I have hands and I have feet, I have eyes, I have ears.” That is what existence means to you. Because you are looking at the surface level, your requirements are your primal urges; urges of sex, urge for food and various few other things that are needed to keep your supposed individual existence alive. Naturally, this is an outcome of the conscious level of the mind and the memory box and the analytical portion of your mind. That is only as far as psychology goes. But there is something far beyond that. YOU ARE, THEREFORE YOU THINK Freud and Jung, one of the proteges of Freud, talked about the unconscious. How can there be anything called unconscious when everything is existence, and true existence is alive and functioning and in motion all the time? So how can it be unconscious? I find consciousness even in a piece of stone, and there is consciousness there of a lower level, perhaps, because millions of molecules are swirling and swirling around in it. To me, this couch here is alive, and I can feel the life in it. That is existence, where you can feel and experience everything in the universe with the higher level of your mind, and then you can say, “I exist.” And when you say I exist, you are existing in totality. Descartes had said, “I think; therefore I am.” What he meant there was that I am a product of thought formation. What is the value of thought that is forever changing, changing all the time? Descartes is wrong. He said that “I think, therefore I am.” I say, “I am; therefore, I think.” The amness comes before the thinkingness. Because if you were not there in totality, as you are, though unrealised and unrecognised as yet, you will not be able to think. So, “I am. Therefore I think.” If I pattern my life around Descartes’s view, I think that I am, then it brings about a falsity. For where does this thought come from? Where does it originate from? There is only one source where everything can be manifested from, and that is from the Manifestor. Every thought that you think comes from the Manifestor because the Manifestor is totally unchanging. DIVINITY IS ALSO CHANGING BUT WITHIN ITSELF I will give you a different view, that although the Manifestor is regarded as unchanging, it is still changing. This is a revolutionary thought. In the ocean, you find the turbulent waves, which are the surface level of yourself, your thought level, and calmness in the ocean below. But that calmness also has currents because that calmness cannot exist without those currents. So, the Manifestor is also changing in a very, very subtle form while you are changing, and changing, changing in a very, very grosser form. To appreciate existence in its truest value, we got to move away from the grossness to the subtlest level, which we call Divinity. If Divinity stands still, and if He does not change, this universe would not be there. The change that we find in our lives is, of course, a progressive change. It goes from one step to another step to another step, with all these experiences gained, good or bad, but even good and bad are learning processes. But the changingness of Divinity is a change just within itself. It does not move; it is just there. But you are moving, and what purpose has your movement? Where are you coming from, and where are you going to? Where are you moving to? Nowhere. In reality, your real Self, your real existence, is not moving. We are sitting here in this room, and when we come back this afternoon, this room will still be here, which you would assume it to be. But it is not. This room is not where it was two minutes ago. This entire planet is hurtling through space, at millions and millions of miles an hour. Two minutes ago, we were in a different spot to now, and even as I say these words, we have travelled another few million
What Makes You Choose: The Dance of Free Will and Divine Will
WHAT MAKES YOU CHOOSE? There are various levels of the mind, and only the lower mind thinks it makes a choice. One thought in the mind wants to go to New York, and another thought says, “I want to go to San Francisco.” The lower phases of the mind would debate the point, weighing its pros and cons. But the very debate of the point, “Shall I go to New York or San Francisco,” is not entirely dependent on the lower levels of the mind because the lower level of the mind is only subjected to outward sensual input. That very thought, “where shall I go,” would go to deeper layers of the mind, and when it goes to deeper layers of the mind, to the Chitta, where the pros and cons are weighed. It is like the plaintiff and the defendant fighting each other, and that is the conflict that is felt in the conscious level of the mind: shall I or shall I not? To be or not to be? But it does not stop there. It goes further to the memory box, and there it would try to find which was pleasurable the last time: was New York more enjoyable, or was San Francisco more pleasurable? These cases are presented in one section of the mind and then sent to buddhi, the discriminative faculty, and there it is weighed further, and that very thought gets more refined. After refining the conflicting ideas, it goes to the ego-self, which you have created and which forms the totality of your mind. The answer would come back via the usual channels from which it went there, which will make you decide where you want to go to, either New York or San Francisco. That is as far as modern psychology goes. Modern psychology will talk to you, not only of the I-ness, the ego, but they will also talk to you of the superego, which comes about through parental and environmental conditioning. But that is not enough. There is another factor involved in you making a choice. That factor is the energy of the inner Self that energises or vitalises your thought processes, and that energy can be activated, or your conscious mind can subdue it, and then you are left choiceless. When you think that you are deciding, you are not deciding at all with your conscious mind. This works very, very fast. The decision is already made there by the various forms of patternings in your mind. The patternings in your mind force you to make a decision, to make a choice. So, you are not deciding. There are also external factors that influence you. You meet a friend, and he influences you; let us go and see this movie. And he will say, “Oh, no, it is not a nice movie, but the other one is better. So let us go there.” Are you using your mind, or are you using your friend’s mind? You are being influenced. In daily living, you are constantly subjected to outer influences. Your conscious mind is a very susceptible vehicle, and it could be influenced in many, many ways. You sat down to breakfast this morning, and I am sure you chose what seemed to be most palatable or something you had eaten before and enjoyed. So, your choice is dependent, not only on outer circumstances but also on the inner circumstances, the inner mechanisms that are operating with you. FREE WILL IS VERY LIMITED When you talk of choice, you naturally would mean free will. There is no such thing as free will in totalness. Free will operates only in a limited manner. Free will tells you that you go to Chicago either by helicopter, motor car, donkey cart, ox wagon, or whatever. That is far as your free will goes, which in reality is not free will – that is also influenced by other circumstances. You want to get to Chicago in a hurry to take the helicopter, and you want to take all your time about it, then you choose an ox wagon. And then, of course, you study your pocket, as well. The ox-wagon would be cheaper than the helicopter. So even in such a small matter, your free will, which you think is so free, plays a very small part. We are all on this Earth, or in this universe, regulated by a pattern, and everything functions in a pattern. If you study the hemisphere, if you study the skies, you will find the orbiting planets, you will find the various stars in the galaxies and all, they are all working in a perfect precision; everything is just perfect. That is why the newspapers could tell you when the sun will rise and what time the sun is going to set because it is a pattern. Where does this pattern come about? This pattern is what we call Divine Will, and Divine Will has to operate in a pattern to prevent chaos. Even when two planets crash, that is also part of a pattern. They had to crash to create other kinds of patterns. So, man’s will is very, very limited. Say, for example; you do not feel like having lunch today. There could be many reasons for that. Either you are not hungry, so you are influenced not having lunch because you are not hungry, or you might be having a tummy ache, or you might be fasting. So not eating lunch today is also not your choice. It is governed by other factors. The most important thing, which yoga psychology would teach you about, is the samskaras, the past impressions gathered over a long period and which create a particular kind of tendency in your daily living. TENDENCIES CAN BE MODIFIED What we are confronted with are tendencies that have created patterns within us. These tendencies can be modified. That is the tendency of a river running in a specific direction, but you
Expectations and Freedom: Embracing Non-attachment to Fulfil Destiny
LIVING WITH EXPECTATIONS Life cannot be lived without expectation. Now, what do we mean by expectation? That is the question. Because within expectation, there is planning. If you want to go on a journey, you have got to plan your route. And by planning your route, it would imply that you expect to reach New York if you are going to New York. If we are bound on the mundane level by expectation, how should the expectation be handled? These little expectations are the things that make the world run. But in the expectation, the quality that is required, the quality which would not bind you, would be non-attachment. If you were attached to an idea, then you would feel disappointment. But if you were not attached to the idea contained within the expectation, then disappointment will not be there. You cannot live a life free of expectation. That kind of freedom comes at a far later stage when you are just about to merge away into the Divine. Then you do not expect the mergence, for even expecting the mergence with Divinity is also a form of attachment, an attachment to the idea. STRENGTH IS WHAT WE TEACH All externalities can have no effect at all if we have the strength within. And that is what we teach. Strength, hope and courage! Let all calamities come, and by facing them, the calamities dwindle away. We need that strength. We need to strengthen ourselves in such a way that come what may, we accept it. I accept the responsibility for what comes my way, and I will do something about it. Expectations can be used in a constructive or destructive way, depending on how much you are attached to the expectation. Planning is necessary. You plan to drive from here to San Francisco, and you are not going to drive expecting to have a puncture or having the car breaking down. For then the drive would be so unenjoyable because what would loom in your mind is the thought of the puncture or the breakdown and not the beautiful scenery that you are passing. The journey of life becomes a living hell instead of a living heaven. And yet we expect to reach San Francisco. But what is the idea in the mind? The puncture and the breakdown or the beautiful scenery on the way? EXPECTATIONS There lies the secret behind expectations. With a little conscious effort, with a little positive thought, one can definitely and truly and in reality change one’s entire patterning of thought which is another word for expectation because thought is the main constituent in expectation. People that do not expect in this practical, daily life would be people without any mind. They should be in a lunatic asylum. They become mindless. Having the strength, the fearlessness, the confidence and all the expectations that I am potentially divine; and within my expectations, being of divine nature, no disappointment can befall me. Do you see how practical it is? There again, we come to the attitude of life. As we proceed through life with all the expectations, fine, but be not attached to the expectation and no disappointment can befall. When there is no disappointment, then the result is joy. Then you fulfil your appointment with destiny. And destiny is to know one’s inner self. Therefore, the Bible keeps on saying, “Man, know thyself.” Knowing thyself as man includes all the opposites, for life can only exist here by means of polarities. There has to be contraction and expansion. Without expansion, there is no contraction. Without contraction, there can be no expansion. When we say that we live with expectations and not attached to expectations, we automatically rise beyond the polarities, beyond pain and pleasure. We rise above it and find that equilibrium. You function within that equilibrium. The waters have become still, and you swim in the still, transparent, beautiful water. That is what we are doing. We are swimming in this world that is called life. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1980 – 03
Guided by Love: The Essence of Guru-Chela Relationship
Chela, Christ, Compassion, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Enlightenment, Evolve, Guru, Heart, Joy, Kindness, Love, Meditation, Mind, Path, Purity, Relationships, Self, Self Discovery, Self-Realization, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Practices, Spiritual Teacher, Strength, The Abstract, Unfoldment, Universal, Wisdom
GURU/CHELA RELATIONSHIP The primary purpose or the primary essence of a guru/chela relationship is based on love. What happens when a chela comes to the guru? The guru is not always obliged to accept the chela. In the ancient Aryan Vedic system, which existed thousands of years ago, there were many times, and more often than not, where the chela was immediately rejected, and the guru said, “Sorry, I cannot accept you,” because the guru can judge and estimate the qualities that are inherent in the chela. In those times in India, especially and specifically, there were many, many ashrams and people were more spiritually inclined. Therefore, there was a greater abundance of spiritual teachers and preceptors. In the modern age, times are different. Today, the position has changed as far as there are not as many ashrams as before. Another thing that has happened today is that today’s population is far greater than what it was in those times. Taking all these things into consideration, taking the rise of extreme materialism in people into consideration, today’s ashrams would just about take on anyone as a chela. I give you this because although the chela does not qualify if he could benefit just a little, some purpose would be served. USE DISCRIMINATION In our organisation, we have one maxim: to turn a person in the right direction; we would never promise anyone self-enlightenment in one lifetime or four lifetimes or ten lifetimes. We say self-effort is necessary. You can evolve yourself through proper guidance, and where there is guidance available, then, by all means, make use of the guidance so that you would evolve. Vivekananda used an analogy that the seed must be good, so the ground must be well tilled for good fruit to grow. The guru in the form of the seed has to be good, and at the same time, the chela, the ground, also has to till himself well before the tree can grow. In this tilling, practical methods are given; in our case, meditational practices are provided. At the same time, everyone is told repeatedly that you must use discrimination; you must discriminate between right and wrong in your daily living. You must consolidate your actions in such a total manner that all your actions are not only done with mind and body, but also with that divine energy within you, so your daily actions must be a representation of the totality that you are; your body, mind and spirit, and this you have to do consciously. This is told to everyone over and over again. By all means, your meditational practices will give you strength. Still, that strength has to be restrengthened by your daily living and daily activity so that your meditation and everyday living can walk hand in hand. It forms a very, very beautiful circle whereby one strengthens the other. PREPARE YOURSELF Going back to those ancient Vedic times, one could discriminate, and that was a test to chelas that before they approach a guru, they had to prepare themselves. In Vedic times everyone knew that if you do not prepare yourself, a guru will not accept you. Today’s modern living has become such that even the poor gurus have been reduced to such a state that although they know that such and such a chela is not worthy of being accepted, yet he finds worth in the chela, understanding the modern structure of society as it is so immersed in materialism and today the real guru, the true guru, is just satisfied that if I could only ignite one spark in this person’s Heart. Therefore, you would find chelas coming along with many negative qualities, but the purpose should be pure love and not possessive love. For a person to conceive of and to practice pure love requires very, very great purity. It is the same as saying that if you want to know God, then you become godly. If you want to know purity, then you become pure. That love would be loving for the sake of love that exists, that beautiful divine communion, that energy that exists between chela and guru. That is, of course, the ideal. But then we have chelas that have negative qualities, and they might develop a possessive love. The guru also assesses possessive love; nothing goes beyond him. A true guru, a good guru, can evaluate even the flicker of the eyelid of the chela and interpret its meaning truthfully and beautifully. He would know. But behind it all, he sees the Divinity in the person. The person is still learning, and therefore a true guru develops or has within him very spontaneously all the kindnesses and all the compassion knowing the weaknesses of the chelas. THE GURU SEES THE DIVINITY WITHIN Behind the weaknesses, he also sees the Divinity. Someone complained to me that, oh, the servant is not working well, she is not polishing the furniture well or washing the dishes well. So, I replied that if the servant girl had your brains, she would not be a servant. If there were that perfection in the chelas, they would not need a guru. Therefore, the guru’s primary aim is to accept the chela with all his imperfections because it is only the guru that knows the true quality of love, that knows what true love is. In other words, he accepts the person in the totalness of that person, he does not only see the body and the mind, but he also sees that divine spirit, that eternal spirit that resides within everyone. We know that some chelas are possessive. This is seen and very openly witnessed by the guru and is very plainly recognised, but the hope is that this person will better himself as the person goes deeper and deeper into their practices. That person will better himself. The guru is also hopeful, and so is the chela. The chela must be optimistic too. SOMETIMES THE GURU HAS