MAN HAS FREE WILL There is no difference between animal and man as far as the physiological and biological self is concerned, and the difference starts from the psychological or the mental level. We could safely say that the difference between an animal and a man is that man has developed the power to think. Thinking is a means that could quicken evolution, and all religions do agree that it is much easier for man to reach the divine stage because he has a mind. Having the thinking ability, there are other stumbling blocks; it is like a coin where you have the heads and the tails; with the growth of the thinking ability in man, he has also taken on not only the section of the mind which could dwell in positive thinking, but he also has taken on the ability to dwell in negative thinking. So, to recap, the difference between an animal and man is that a man has thinking ability, while the animal has not. The animal functions on an instinctive level; its evolution automatically proceeds to the stage of man. Man’s evolution can proceed much faster than the animal. Specific laws of nature guide the animal, and it becomes the development progress as nature wants it to progress; the animal has no say how fast or how slow it wants to progress, but man has the say how fast he wants to progress or how slow he wants to progress or if he wants to remain static. When that point is conceived that the man can expedite his progress or retard his progress or remain static, it would mean that man has free will. Because of the abilities inherent in man, the development in man is very dependent on the other side of the coin, which is free will. On one side of the coin, he has the natural tendency to progress; on the other side, he has free will, which could act as a brake or act as an accelerator. HOW TO EXERCISE FREE WILL How is the free will to be exercised? That is the real question. Free will can be exercised by improving our conceptions and perceptions of things around us here in the relative material plain. As we refine the thinking processes inherent in us, we take the thinking process from a grosser level to a subtler level. In the progression between the grosser to the subtler, the free will in man is also affected, because as we said, free will and the urge for development are two sides of the one coin. If the thinking processes are refined naturally, free will joins in to support that refinement of thinking. When refinement of thinking occurs, free will plays together with refinement. At the gross level, free will could lead a person into various spheres called negative, but when the thinking processes are refined, free will is directed to lead one to positive things. Man still has a choice, and to exercise choice is to refine his thinking. Refining of thinking must necessarily draw on something which is beyond thinking. What refines thinking is the power that is beyond the thinking that helps refine the thinking. It works in a complete circle. That which is beyond thinking is the spiritual ability in a man. Refining thinking through the mental process when it becomes finer and finer and finer, more of the spiritual quality in man is drawn into the thinking and that in turn again refines or elevates or gives direction, good direction to free will. So, in the process of evolution, in the process of progressing to a better and a higher life, we exercise all these three facets of man, the spiritual side, the thinking side and that which is connected with the thinking side, the free will. When a man has refined his thinking process, he starts flowing with the current of nature and as he flows with the current of nature and not against it, that ability to choose also becomes natural in always selecting that which is right. Let us say that you have a choice of going to the bar to have a drink, and at the same time, you have a choice of going to a Satsang. Why does one man choose to go to the pub, and why does the other man go to Satsang? The difference is there in the refinement of thinking. To one, the grossness of the pub and the liquor he puts in him gives him a kind of pleasure, while for the one whose thinking is further refined goes to the Satsang where they will receive pleasure and the refinement of pleasure which is bliss. So here we have the choice. REFINEMENT OF THINKING If we want to go to a pub and force ourselves not to go to the pub, we are repressing certain latent desires we are inhabiting; we are pushing it aside as if we are hiding a skeleton in the cupboard. Our practices develop the refinement of thinking that will always lead us spontaneously to the right path. When we do our meditations regularly, and with great sincerity, we will find that the thinking gradually becomes more refined, and the mind gets attracted to greater and greater bliss. That is why we come to Satsangs because our thoughts during our meditations have produced a certain experience or perhaps a glimpse only, maybe a little glimpse that makes us realise that there is more. One teaspoon of sugar will make something so sweet to a certain extent, and we know that if you put in ten teaspoons, it will be sweeter. So, when we continue with our meditations and our practices, we refine thinking by going beyond thinking, we get a glimpse of the bliss, and the natural desire is produced for greater bliss, so that is why we will not go to the pub because that is a momentary kind of so-called pleasure which
The Dance of Souls: Individuality and Unity in the Divine Play
Bliss, Consciousness, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Force, God, Heart, Joy, Love, Meditation, Mind, One-pointedness, Oneness, Philosophy, Purity, Relative World, Religion, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual Practices, The Absolute, Unfoldment, Unity, Universal
WHAT IS THE SOUL Soul is a word that has been very misunderstood, or perhaps the term has been used in many different contexts. When you say soul, you can mean the individual soul, according to the Sanskrit word, Jivatman, and when you say soul, you can also mean the universal soul that resides in a person. If you use the word soul as an individual soul, then the individual soul is the carrier of your whole existence from times past. From the very first moment that you became individualised, from the very first moment the spark left the fire, from that moment up to now, the sum totality of what you are is carried and conveyed by the individual soul. It is you, so it is your character and your personality. The character and personality of the individual soul are modelled and shaped by our thoughts, words and deeds, not only of this life but of many existences in the past. So, the individual soul contains all that you are now at this very moment. That is the individual soul, but when you talk of the universal soul, that universal soul is the divine force, the divine power that is untouched, untouched by your soul, by your personality. Yet the individual soul draws its strength and sustenance from the universal soul all the time. The individual soul cannot exist without power; it depends on the universal soul. The individual soul is like a light that requires electricity, but the universal soul is the electricity itself. It is independent, not dependent on anything else; it is self-luminous. The purpose of this division is because the universal soul, in some way, must express itself. The universal soul is of such intangible nature and can only be appreciated by tangibility, and its means of expressing itself would be through the individual soul. YOU ARE THE SOUL You are the individual soul; you can never possess a soul because it becomes apart from you and the individual soul is the full expression of yourself when you have a soul. There are sub-divisions of the individual soul from the grosser level to the finest level of the soul. There is no difference between mind and soul, it is all part and parcel of each other, one composite whole, but we use these terms, mind, soul, heart. A person’s heart is the core of his personality: the core, the deeper level, the deeper strata of the individual soul, the heart. The soul is you; it is the total of yourself, and that is the individual soul that would further progress, becomes non-existent, and is annihilated. THE UNIVERSAL SOUL IS ETERNAL In all systems of philosophy, you will find that there is a progression; if philosophy is not a progressive philosophy, then it becomes a dead philosophy. So, when you talk of the individual soul and the universal soul, naturally, you accept the concept of duality. But as we progress slowly and gradually, we will find duality ceasing and oneness becomes. The universal soul is eternal. That is a premise that has to be accepted. What happens to the individual soul, then? Does it annihilate itself? And if it does annihilate itself, what are the processes of annihilation? The process of annihilation of the individual soul is the refinement of personality and character, which are the basic constituents of the individual soul. There, too, we come back to the same principle, refined personality by our practices. IT IS A CLEANING PROCESS It becomes so refined that it merges away into the universal soul, where duality ceases and oneness comes about. To refine a person’s personality, you must remember that the personality of the person is the total of his being—the total of all his experiences through ages past. In the process, that personality, firstly so pure as the spark, might have gained a lot of dirt around it. It is a cleaning process, and as the individual soul becomes cleaner, the nearer it gets to the Universal Soul. In the cleaning process, how do we clean? If we want to sweep this floor, we have to use a broom, and our broom in the cleaning process are our meditations and our conscious effort in the waking state of life whereby we consciously try to be better and better. Meditation helps so much to the betterness. The gross personality of man can be equated with a block of ice. This block of ice with the fire and the heat within one desires to progress, and all desires have fire always; they are hot, they burn. With that heat, the ice melts and becomes water. Some refinement is taking place. The heat makes the water become vapour, and as you would know, the vapour merges away in the air. Then it is like the air in the balloon; if you prick the balloon, the air merges away in the outside air. In the beginning, we thought dualistically that the air in the balloon, the individual soul is apart from the Universal Soul. We felt that in the beginning because of the relative and the absolute aspects of life. But when the air merges away from the balloon into the air outside, we come to realise that the division, the duality we saw, was really non-existent. It was really non-existent, and the annihilation of the personality can only realise this. That balloon that keeps the individual soul as an entity ceases; the balloon has to be pricked. THE PURPOSE IS THE EXPRESSION OF THE UNIVERSAL SOUL The balloon is the ego; the ego is the rubber substance that keeps in that air. With the refinement of personality, we find the rubber; the ego becomes thinner and thinner and thinner. The rubber becomes thinner, and it bursts, disintegrates, and the air in the balloon becomes the air outside. The individual soul ceases and becomes the universal soul, which is the aim and goal of all here. That is the
Unfolding the Spiritual Self: The Inseparable Nature of Spiritual and Material Life
Awareness, Bible, Chela, Christ, Divine, Duality, Evolution, Force, God, Guru, Gurushakti, Happiness, Harmony, Heart, I and my Father are one, Joy, Law of opposites, Love, Manifestation, Manifestor, Mantra, Meditation, Mind, Relative World, Self, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Teacher, The Abstract, Unfoldment, Universe
UNFOLDING THE SPIRITUAL SELF The idea that spiritual and material life are two separate entities, that material and spiritual values are incompatible principles is definitely a misconception. As a human being, you are composed of three selves: the physical self, the mental self, and the Spiritual Self, and you could never divorce them from each other. Each one forms an integral part of the other. The three bodies, the three aspects of man, are just different vibrations with different degrees of solidification. The Spiritual Self is, of course, at its subtlest, while the physical self is at its grossest. It is one composite whole that comprises the whole, the entire universe. We know that the body can never exist without the mind, and the body and mind can never exist without the subtle energy, which is the spirit. It is impossible to separate them from each other. We use these terms, the physical, mental and the spiritual, for the sake of convenience to discuss the matter. But even in the most physical thing, you would find the spiritual permeating. To make the physical and material life better, we try to let the subtle self of ourselves, the Spiritual Self, become deeper and deeper in the material side, in the physical side. Thereby, it enhances the physical self and the mental self, which is the purpose of meditation where we activate the subtlest level of ourselves. In meditation, we find that beautiful relaxation of the body, the dropping of the metabolic rate, which signifies that the muscles and the mind are at a certain rest and when that is at a certain rest, it gives a chance for the spiritual aspect of man to come forth, to unfold more. It will naturally touch the various other aspects of the mind and the body in its unfoldment. To repeat, in meditation, we are activating the Spiritual Self so that it will help to support the mind aspect of man and the body aspect of man. It enhances the mind, develops a greater awareness of the mind, it creates a sense of greater perception. As far as the physical body is concerned, we are actively drawing on the Spiritual Self if there is any imbalance in the physical body. This is a great force – a great power, and that slowly encompasses our whole body and therefore makes our body better and creates a greater refinement in the body. BRINGING FORWARD THE SPIRITUAL SELF WILL BENEFIT MAN IN EVERY ASPECT OF LIFE In our experience, we have found that by drawing on this power, people suffering from certain diseases will alleviate a lot of the physical sufferings. Then we find people with a nervous temperament that is very nervous. If the Spiritual Self can support and act as a balm to the nervous brain, to the nervous mind, it softens that nervous mind; it brings a greater calmness. When the mind and body and spirit are brought together to act in unison, to act in harmony, a person becomes more and more stable because now he does not only have to depend upon his physical energies, he can harness the mental energies in his physical and material activities, and still more he brings forth the latent Spiritual Self in him, that subtle energy, that subtle force which is all-powerful. We know, according to physics, that an atom, a very small atom that the eyes cannot see, has so much power it could blow up Table Mountain. In that way, the subtle energy in ourselves is so potent that if we only give it a chance to unfold itself through meditation, it will benefit a person in every respect of life. It will even benefit one in one’s environment. If we make ourselves better, we exude a certain vibration in the environment, and the environment becomes better. If the flower becomes beautiful, naturally, it makes the garden beautiful too. That is what we do in meditation. It is a misconception to think that the material and spiritual sides are separated; they can never be separated because one cannot exist without the other. Some of the Vedic scriptures say that I exist because God exists, and God exists because I exist. You cannot separate them either. One is an integral part of the other. Sometimes the material side takes greater dominance; it predominates this spiritual side where the spiritual side is subdued while the ideal would be to let the spiritual side dominate. Let the spiritual side be predominant so that the physical side, the material side, could become richer and richer, which it does. EVERY PERSON IS A UNIQUE ENTITY We differ from many, many other movements. Before I taught anyone meditation, I explained that every person is a unique entity. If a person wants to become a doctor and if he studies all the books on medicine or the various drugs, he might just be using the wrong drugs and kill himself, but if he has an expert professor to teach him how to use those drugs, then, of course, it will benefit him. Likewise, as explained before, every person is a unique entity in our system. Because of that, there is a particular method, a particular mantra that has to be given, as mantras in many cases are required, to suit their vibrations. THERE ARE OTHER LATENT SENSES IN US THAN THE ORDINARILY USED As I have repeated this repeatedly, perhaps some people do not know about it, that everything in existence is nothing but vibration. These vibrations solidify themselves into gross matter. They exist on the one level as very subtle, and through solidification, like vapour into ice, they become gross and everything we perceive with the five senses. We perceive the same vibration but in a gross solidified state like human beings, tables, chairs. Everything is nothing but vibrations in a solid-state. Those vibrations naturally would have to have motions, and wherever there is motion, there will be sound.
Self-Help and the Power of Meditation: The Courage to Transform Life’s Challenges
Acceptance, Attitude, Bible, Bliss, Divinity, Eternity, Evolution, Faith, Force, God, Grace, Gurushakti, Integration, Joy, Karma, Law of Nature, Love, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Path, Philosophy, Samskaras, Self, Spirit, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Practices, Strength, The Three Gunas, Universal, Universe
DiSCRIMINATION The purpose of meditation is primarily to integrate oneself, integrate the three aspects of ourselves: the body, the mind, and the Spirit. This can never be accomplished overnight, and it takes time where a gradual integration takes place if we do our spiritual practices regularly. Therefore, we insist on the program of self-help. Self-help requires a lot of discrimination where one has to discriminate which road to take when one reaches the fork. This cannot just come about on its own. In total integration or being quite high on the ladder of integration, one intuitively would take the right fork in the road, but when we are still floundering and finding our way, we are stuck at the fork. One of the ways is to use one’s discrimination. Discrimination increases with greater integration simultaneously with the intuitive abilities, but if we are stuck and do not have the discriminatory power, what are we to do? That is the most difficult question that could ever be asked and which philosophers through the ages have flaunted over. WITH ACCEPTANCE COMES COURAGE One principle comes to the fore; that is a question of acceptance. Firstly, we accept two factors; that I am not integrated, and I have not got the power of discrimination to choose which road to take. When this acceptance begins, a force is activated within us that gives us courage. With acceptance comes courage, the courage to realise that even if I take the wrong road, that will still be my learning. Our minds have been conditioned throughout the ages by all our thoughts and deeds, from the primal spark when man began through his whole evolutionary process; all the experiences gained through ages and ages have formed conditioning to the mind. The mind could be conditioned so that it would find difficulty in recognising the truth or the right road. How do we uncondition the mind? There again, we rely upon discrimination, meditation, and acceptance. Because of the laws of karma, the patterning of our minds, and the aggregate of the samskaras of which we are made, we will have to face our weaknesses; we will have to face the mistakes that our actions have created. But if the attitude is there, I am going to learn from these very things happening in my life. Let us not be like the moth that flies to the flame all the time, knowing very well that it will burn itself and end itself as a moth. The very first inkling of the warmth, the heat of the flame should turn the moth away, but yet the moth is so patterned that it is forever drawn to its death. CHANGE OF ATTITUDE Because man has some discriminating power, not total discrimination, but some reasoning power; he accepts that whatever comes, I will face it. The very negative experience that might come will lose its sting by facing it with courage. It will not be as powerful as it would have been otherwise, so with the courage, one has, one will naturally have greater acceptance. The one feeds the other, acceptance gives courage, courage engenders greater acceptance, and that is how man’s attitude towards life and attitude toward his environment gradually changes. Total self-transformation cannot come overnight. We are patterned conditioned creatures. We have to uncondition. With the change of attitude, greater hope is born. When greater hope is born, it helps greater courage again. Greater courage helps greater acceptance. It is all interconnected with each other. Very consciously and with the help of our meditation, we change our attitude towards life, and experiences are necessary for life to bring us to the attitude, to the understanding that all there is, and whatever experience I am having has been brought upon me. In other words, we develop another quality—the quality of taking responsibility upon ourselves for ourselves and the environment created around us. The environment has not created you; you have created the environment, and if the environment has negative forces in it and if you are strong enough, those forces will never affect you. Still, because we are weak, those forces can attack us. But with this attitude that I stand firm as a rock amidst all these dashing waves, then all the negative experiences, unpleasant experiences lose their power, lose their force and then we can say in the words of the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling, that the whole world around me can turn mad and I do not lose my head. Those are not the exact words but is a gist of the meaning. TAKING RESPONSIBILITY With acceptance comes courage. With courage comes, this beautiful attitude, with that attitude is created a sense of self-responsibility, the recognition that I am what I am because of what I have been. When one creates this attitude, automatically, our eyes open. Automatically, the intuitive flow starts flowing, a clearing up of the samskaras start taking place, and when that clears up, and you stand at the fork, you will spontaneously take the right road. That is the other way that comes about even before a great level of integration is reached. Even though this road, even though this path, a greater and greater integration comes about, and there is nothing in life that has not got some positivity in it. You know the old saying, “Every cloud has a silver lining”. Everything we do has something very beautiful in it. You know the story of two men digging holes. One said, “I am digging a grave,” the other said, “I am digging for the foundation of a cathedral.” To develop a positive attitude towards life does not require great discriminatory powers. It does not require a great intellect. As the attitude changes, everything becomes more and more beautiful. This flower is beautiful to me now, but if my attitude towards it changes that, “ah, how did this flower grow? What powers of Divinity have come together to make this flower
Switch On the Light: Discovering Your Divine Essence and Limitless Potential
Bliss, Buddha, Christ, Divine, Divinity, Ego, God, Guru, Integration, Joy, Krishna, Law of opposites, Light, Love, Mental Patternings, Mind, Philosophy, Self
SWITCH ON THE LIGHT No man needs to go through misery, and no man needs to have any suffering. You are suffering because of your interpretations stemming from a patterned mind, a conditioned mind, for which you and only you have been responsible. So, what do you do when you cannot unpattern the patternings over millenniums, thousands and thousands and thousands of years of your very existence? If the room is dark, why analyse the darkness? Switch on the Light. Is it going to help you to analyse the darkness? No. And that is what I discuss with the psychoanalysts, Freudian, Jungian, Bullshitians. Get rid of the darkness, get rid of nescience, get rid of ignorance, and it is so easy, so, so easy. Seek, and thou shall find. You do not need to seek; it is there already. And if you insist on the word “seek,” then it will mean that you will just have to turn your mind a little bit, and you will find. But what do you find? You will find yourself. You will find your authentic Self, your Divine Self, composed of nothing else but joy, joy, and joy. WHEREVER THERE IS PLEASURE, THERE WILL BE MISERY Because you are so mixed up in the law of opposites, you go battling on and on and on. You are not seeking joy; you are seeking pleasure. And wherever there is pleasure, there will always be pain – the law of opposites. When there is sunshine, there will be rain. Where there is cold, there will be heat. So, you vacillate between the two extremities of the stick: pain there and pleasure there. You are staggering and up and down; it goes like the seesaw. One moment down, another moment up. By coming to the centre of the seesaw, you find the balance. The centre of yourself. Where there is this total integration, you do not need to fluctuate between pain and pleasure, you go beyond pain and pleasure, and you reach the area of joy, which is different. Joy, bliss, totally merged in joy and bliss. You can put any label you like. You can call it God, you can call it Allah, you can call it Bhagwan, you can call it whatever. That is your true Self, not the little ego self all so mixed up in Auntie Mathilda’s problems or Uncle John’s problems. That is not your true Self. We are searching for joy, and joy is Divine. Divinity is God, and once you find that, you have found everything. YOU THINK THAT YOU THINK He is in the crawling worm, and He is the dog? How much more is He not pervading you: you, the thinking being. Thinking being. Since when did you start thinking? You have never thought. You think that you think. You have never thought. All the analysis you go through. All the rationalisations you go through are biased because they are patterned and conditioned by the thoughts thrown upon you since you were a child. Your parents condition you into certain things, your teachers condition you, your ministers condition you, your environment condition, and your boss condition. So, do you think? You are a creature of conditioning. Let us move away from the patternings and become thinkers. If you want to rationalise, then do it properly without being conditioned by others. Be yourself. BE YOURSELF; YOU ARE DIVINE Everyone tells you to be like Christ, Krishna, and Buddha. I said, “False. Be yourself.” Then you are honest to yourself, sincere to yourself, and what is greater in life than to be yourself, sincere to oneself? You are not sinners. You are children of Divinity. Every drop of blood that flows through your veins is Divine. You call yourself; I am a sinner, a sinner. I do not know where this idea came from. It never came from Jesus Christ, that is for sure. Believe me. It came from organised churches that filled their coffers. They tell you of eternal damnation and put you into fears of all kinds instead of instilling love in you, which is your true nature. Did Jesus or Krishna or Buddha not represent love? Is God not love? Then why not speak of love? Why talk of eternal damnation? Conditioning again. I am a sinner, a sinner. Keep on repeating to yourself that you are sick, sick, sick, and you will become sick. But say to yourself, “I am the product of the Divine, I am Divine. Nothing is impossible for me.” Nothing is impossible. You put a stroke between the I and the M: I’m possible. That is the man’s attitude to living a happy, successful life. Success is to have access to your authentic Self. Not the millions in the banks; they mean nothing. Because you are just passing by, you are not going to take anything with you in any case. WE ARE JUST PASSING BY There was this American student of philosophy, and he was fond of reading the works of a particular rabbi that lived in Israel. He was on a study tour, and he was pretty close to the village where this rabbi lived. Knowing that, he thought, “I have read so many books written by this rabbi; let me give him a lookup.” That is always an Eastern custom that you never go to a guru or a rabbi empty-handed. If you cannot afford anything, just a little petal you give as an offering. So, this chap went to the rabbi and took nothing. And he says, “I am sorry, Rabbi, I was just passing by, and I could not manage to bring you an offering.” And they started chatting around about this, that, and the other. And the rabbi’s room was empty, and after a while, this man noticed. He says, “Rabbi, why is your room so empty, and you are sitting on the floor?” And the rabbi replied, “You are just passing by here; I,
Why Meditate: Awakening to Your Universal and Individual Nature
Conscious Mind, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Force, Happiness, Harmony, I and my Father are one, Integration, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Light, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Oneness, Peace, Self, Separation, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Unfoldment, Universal, Universe
YOU ARE NOT APART FROM DIVINITY You are the soul. You are nothing but the soul. You do not possess a soul; you do not possess a mind; you do not possess a body. You are the body, you are the mind, you are the soul, and at the same time, you are Divine. You are seeking, consciously or subconsciously, or even, according to Jungian theories, unconsciously, you are seeking happiness. You are seeking peace; you are seeking joy. Why should you seek this when you are already joy and already peace? You are not apart from Divinity. If Divinity is omnipresent, then that omnipresence exists within each cell of your body. Billions of cells in your body contain that Divine Force. You cannot lift a finger without that Force being present. But you lack recognition of the cognition that you really are. There is no separation between you, your environment, and the real Self that exists within you. The delusion only comes when you regard yourself to be separate from that which Is. You regard yourself to be separate from reality and dwell in the field of unreality. It is a fixture of your personal imagination that tells you I am separate from the Divine. It is your imagination, your illusion, your delusion that creates the misery and unhappiness within you, and yet right behind there, somewhere you are questing, you are searching for that joy and peace. If that joy and peace did not exist within you, then there would be no search. Because of its very existence within you, you are trying to discover it. We call our organization the International Foundation for Spiritual Unfoldment. Remember the word “unfoldment” and not spiritual “development.” You are fully spiritually developed as you are, and you only require unfolding. YOU CAN BE NON-ELSE, BUT THE REALITY Every person is a unique individual being. Where did this individualization come from when the entire universe exists in total wholeness? Is your individualization illusory? Is it delusion? Where I regard myself to be I, me, mine. That is where we miss the point because you are not what you regard to be you. What you regard to be you is that conditioned, patterned mind that says, I am Mary, I am John, I am James, I am Dick, I am Tom. But you are neither of those. You think you are Tom; you think that you are John, you think you are Jean. Where does this John, James or Jean come from? What is your reality? What gave you this name and form that calls you yourself John or James or Jean? Is it not but name and form superimposed upon the real Self, which is you the Divine Self? You can be non-else but the reality, for if Divinity is omnipresent and the true reality, then what are you? A dream. A superimposition upon that which is real. To find the real you, you must get rid of the superimposition. You must get rid of the idea of me and mine. For you are neither me nor are you mine. You are non-possessed by anything. All the miseries and the sufferings begin with this idea: this is my table, this is my chair, this is my wife, this is my beloved, this is my son, my daughter. Yet, how can you possess anything else when you cannot even possess yourself? THE INNER QUEST IS TO FIND THE TOTALITY To come to that realization of non-possession, you have to become an integrated being. 99.999 percent of people in this world live a fragmented life. One thought pulls this way, the other thought pulls that way, and a third thought pulls somewhere else. Fragmentation. And that brings up the question of techniques, how you can integrate yourself—integration, which means that your body, mind and spirit work in total harmony, in totality. We are not living the totality that we are, which is the cause of all our sufferings and miseries, and the inner quest is to find the totality. When you cannot find the totality, what happens to you? Dissatisfaction. You are not satisfied with anything. The search becomes so external all the time. You have a five-room house, so you want a ten-room house. You have a Cadillac, so you want a Rolls Royce. You have five million in the bank, so you want ten million, so erroneously you think that this is going to bring you that joy and happiness. Possessions – me and mine – superimposed upon the reality that you are. The idea of that little self, that little egocentric self, that little ego self makes you think that the whole universe revolves around you; you think you are so important. How do we get away from the idea of the ego-self? That is where spiritual techniques come into play. Spiritual techniques do not destroy your ego. The ego cannot be destroyed. There is nothing in Heaven or Earth that is destructible. Every atom is eternal and immortal. Even when you discard this little body, the body only disintegrates to flow back into its original elements: air to air, ether to ether, dust to dust. By dying, you are doing a great favour to all the insects in the ground where you get buried. So, even in death, you are serving a purpose. THE EGO-SELF CAN BE REFINED The ego-self comes between you and your real Self, the small “s” standing in the path of the large universal “S,” which you are. What shall we do with this damn ego? You cannot destroy it, and it is there all the time. But one thing can be done; the ego-self can be refined. The ego-self of man is like a piece of rubber: very opaque, and the Light cannot shine through. By refinement of the ego, we stretch that rubber, so it becomes transparent, and the inner Light, the Kingdom of Heaven within, shines in its fullest glory through the
The Divine Journey: Discovering Christ’s Message of Love and Peace
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