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
The Journey from Silence to Silence: Experiencing the Infinite Within the Finite
Attitude, Bliss, Brahman, Conscious Mind, Divine, Ego, Eternal, Eternity, Evolution, Force, God, Heart, Impressions, Joy, Love, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mind, Omnipresent, One-pointedness, Oneness, Path, Relative World, Samskaras, Scriptures, Self, Spirit, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, The Absolute, The Three Gunas, Unity, Universal, Universe
FROM SILENCE TO SILENCE In the scriptures, it is said: “From silence we come and to silence we return.” We come from silence and end up in silence. Has it been a journey, or have we not travelled at all? That remains the question. If it has been a journey coming from silence and returning to silence, then who experiences this journey? Who is the experiencer of this journey if there has been a journey? We do know that the Spirit of man, or the Universal Spirit, is omnipresent. It has nowhere to go and nowhere from which to come – it just is. So, what journeys – what takes this trip or goes on this trip from silence to silence? What are the mechanics that produce the experience of this journeying? Is it an experience or an illusion, and, even if it is an illusion, how is illusion experienced? Because all illusion or delusion is just but a counterpart of reality. In the process of evolution, we experience that which is seemingly real yet unreal. What remains is reality. So where do you come from and to where are you going? I gave a talk in San Francisco where I said that you come from nowhere and you are going nowhere. “Nowhere” is “now here.” Look at the similarity in the spelling: NOWHERE – NOW HERE. You are now here, and that is the important factor to recognise in practical life. Nevertheless, the mind has a habit of inquiring. The mind is conditioned through the process of evolution of going through various stages whereby it gains these experiences, but who gains the experiences? The mind gains experiences. Having gained these experiences by the mind, of the mind, and from the mind, there is nothing outside the mind. The human mind is as vast as the entire universe, and if you individualise it, it only means that you are viewing one bubble in a vast pond. Yet, how can the bubble be separated from the pond? Man has the capacity within himself to experience the entirety of the universe with the mind, yet the Spirit remains aloof, for the Spirit cannot experience this journey. Therefore, we say, “From silence, we proceed, and we return to silence.” It means that the mind that has been manifested as the fragrance from a flower goes through this journey, be it illusion or not, and then finds itself at total at-one-ment with the Spirit. That is the journey. So, in reality, there has been no journey. What are the reasons why the mind should assume that this has been a journey? What are the grounds that the mind thinks that “I have travelled from here to there” when the Spirit, the reality behind everything, does not travel or go anywhere – it just is? THE MIND FINDS ITSELF TRAVELLING From the beginning of this cycle of the universe, for the universe operates in cycles, there is a creation, or rather a manifestation. And the powers in the manifestation are known as the three gunas in Sanskrit: Tamas, Rajas and Sattva. Tamas, the forces of darkness, and Sattva, the forces of light, and Rajas, the activating force that interacts between light and darkness; for wherever there is darkness, there has to be light; wherever there is light, there has to be darkness. In our concept of linear time and space, the entire mind, or the universe, is nothing else but propulsion that seemingly goes forth. In the third dimension that we exist in, we find this movement proceeding from A to B, while there is no space and no time beyond the mind. And Blake has said it well: “Eternity in an hour.” It is just a moment, instead. Blake was a bit wrong in his calculations. In the process of the mind, the mind feels itself travelling. Why does it feel itself travelling, or why does it feel mixed up in the process of evolution? The various atomic and molecular structures that compose matter have always to be in motion for it to exist; when it becomes motionless, it ceases to exist in its grosser form. And as it exists in the grosser form, enmeshed in this motion of contraction and expansion, it thinks it is moving. If you watch a wave in the ocean, you think the wave is coming from a distance and going to the shore. That is not so. It is an illusion that is created, for the wave does not move. There is a rhythm in the ocean created by currents where each wave is bobbing just up and down where it is and the next bobbing up and down, and the next, and the next, giving us the illusion that the one wave has moved from that end to the shore. Likewise, in this flux of the universe, in this motion, this perpetual motion that perpetuates itself, within itself, by itself, because its nature is motion. We are trying to find that which is silent behind all the motion, for that which is motion cannot be silent, and that which is silent could have no motion. Very simple. Because the mind can act and interact within its own components, it becomes more and more complex, and it is these very complexities that add to the motion of the mind. The mind creates the experience, and the mind itself is the experiencer, for the eternal Spirit within man is beyond all experience of motion or anything else. It just is. The sun does not create the heat, but heat rises from the sun, it is the nature of the sun to give off heat, and that is how that eternal energy, first in its very silent form, manifests itself as mind. IN THE PROCESS OF MANIFESTATION, THE DIVINE FORCE GROSSIFIES ITSELF When the mind assumes this motion, it also finds a direction, which is what we term as will. We can call it Divine will. There was will,
Maya and the Infinite: Living in Relativity While Seeking Unity
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MAYA Shankara says that the whole world is an illusion, and nothing is real; it is a dream. That is from the Advaita philosophy, Advaitism. In other words, monism regards everything as just an unreality, and only Divinity is the true reality. That is very well and very, very true, but from what angle is it true? It is true from the standpoint of Shankara, who had reached self-realisation and knowing infinity; to him, there was nothing finite. He has become one with infinity; there was nothing finite because he saw infinity even in the finiteness of life. Once you have such great beauty, the little beauties disappear because they disappear not in annihilation – little beauties are not annihilated, but they merge away into the greater beauty. ONLY WHEN WE TRANSCEND RELATIVITY WE CAN CALL RELATIVITY UNREAL When we talk of Shankara, we must know the meaning of discrimination to be able to discriminate between what is reality and what is unreality. Proper and complete discrimination only comes when we reach the stage of Shankara. I have said this before, that because of this philosophy of Maya, more harm has been done than good. To the one who has not reached a high stage of evolution, the belief of Maya can be very harmful. They become deterministic; they become fatalistic. I have seen very low-income families with 12 children; though they can hardly feed two, they have 12, that belief of Maya is so ingrained in them. Then I asked, “Why have 12 children when you cannot even feed two? Never mind two, you cannot even feed yourself.” Then they said, “It is the work of God.” I said, “the work of God? Did you sleep in separate bedrooms?” God works in mysterious ways, but you two have to work in less mysterious ways. “What had to happen had to happen; it was ordained; it was predetermined that I must have 12 children.” Their free will comes into play, and divine will, which we discussed many times before. It is very good as idealistic philosophy to acknowledge and to understand the principles of advaitism or monism where everything else, all existence is a dream and the only reality is the Lord, that is very true. But, if your wife and children are hungry at home, can we call that unreal? If you have a headache or a toe ache, can you call that unreal? It is only when we transcend or go beyond relativity that we can call relativity unreal. While we are dreaming, that dream is completely real to us; it is only when we wake up that we look back and say, “oh, what a lovely dream,” good or bad dream. Then only the realisation dawns that all these possessiveness that we had, all these me and mine, all these pettiness was only a dream. Why did I stick to that dream? How could I have been so foolish to have stuck to such a dream? But that comes when we become realised. NON-DUALISM IS THE EXTENSION OF DUALISM Shankara is not to be discouraged, Advaitism is not to be discarded, and Non-Advaitism or non-monism is not to be discarded either. While we are still enmeshed in relativity, we must look at all relativity to be real too and only when we transcend, only when we go beyond the relativity, will we realise that that was all just a dream. Now I know the essence because I am the essence, which is real, not the manifestation. The Manifestor is real and not the manifestation. When you become the fire, you do not worry about the heat, but until you have become the fire itself, you must be conscious and aware of the heat around you and not discard it as just Maya, just uselessness, just dreaming. This is not contradictory. Non-dualism and dualism are not contradictory as most people believe, as many teachers teach, but one is the extension of the other, that when one passes beyond dualism, then there is non-dualism, but it is not contradictory; it is a stage. We pass these stages from dualism to non-dualism, from separation to oneness. That is the stage we pass through, and that is the truth. We find this in the Bible; Christ said the same thing. Christ said to the flock, “Pray to thy Father in Heaven,” which is dualism. Father in Heaven and you here, separate dualism and then to his closest ones, he said, “I and my Father are one,” non-dualism. This is illustrated very well in the Bible as well and, of course, in various ancient philosophies. WHEN ENMESHED IN RELATIVITY, NON-DUALISM IS AN INTELLECTUAL PRINCIPLE So, while we are still enmeshed in relativity, we can accept the principle of non-dualism that everything is a dream and there is only one reality. We can accept that principle but remember that it is an intellectual principle; it is a principle which is analysed by the mind, the intellect will accept it, the intellect analyses it, that is intellectualising. But what we do practically in the world today until we reach that stage of realisation, we have to accept the separateness until we progress and go beyond the separation. WE WANT REALISATION, NOT INTELLECTUALISATION We have to accept the reality of relativity; I am trying to say that even relativity is real because we are enmeshed in it; we are part and parcel of the relativity. Intellectualising about the unrealness of the universe cannot get us anywhere; it is only intellectualising. We want realising, not intellectualising, but realising, because the mind too is so finite. That principle where everything becomes a dream, everything becomes Maya is when we have reached infinity and become one with the infinite. Until then, we are still finite, and we accept all that around us is finite. It is because of dualistic philosophies; it is because of this dualism that all these ethical and moral laws are
Living Divinity: The Universal Message of Spiritual Masters
Awareness, Belief, Bible, Buddha, Christ, Consciousness, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Eternal, Evolve, Faith, God, Guru, Gurushakti, Heart, I and my Father are one, Joy, Krishna, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Meditation, Oneness, Peace, Purity, Religion, Self, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Practices, The Abstract, Unfoldment, Universal, Universe, Yoga
JESUS, THE ORDINARY MAN VERSUS CHRIST, THE CONSCIOUSNESS There is Shakti in everything, so you are having Gurushakti right now. If you believe in Jesus, believe in Jesus. Do not relinquish your belief in Jesus. You must not stop. The difference between a true Spiritual Master and Jesus or Krishna or Buddha is only of time and different bodies. The consciousness these men bring to the world is the same, for there is only one consciousness, but because Divinity is abstract, consciousness has to take a human form to impart the impulse to another human. Very few people know the real life of Jesus. The various Churches have devised the life of Jesus that you know about but have done this for their personal needs. The two most prosperous and wealthiest organisations are the Church and Insurance Companies. The Church promises heaven after you are dead, and the Insurance Company promises you a lot of money after you are dead. They tell you to build up a store for yourself in heaven. Do you know where heaven is? And if you do not know where heaven is, how are you going to build a store up there? If you do not know where Dublin is or understand how you will get there? How do I get there? You need a guide to show you, and everything in life is a Guru. Even when you drive and go into an unknown place, you use a map. That map is guiding you. Do not relinquish your belief in Jesus; remember, it is a belief. You have not experienced Jesus, so how can you have faith? And if you have not developed that faith, how can you become one with Him? Jesus was not as the interpretation of these church institutions says; he was an ordinary man. He never died on the Cross; he just went into a coma. Nicodemus was his patron and organised it so that Jesus did not have to stay too long on the Cross. Many people were crucified, and crucifixion was not only for Jesus, but that was the method they used in those times, as we have the electric chair or hanging today. It was not exclusive. There was a lot of politics involved in getting rid of Jesus. The Romans did not like him and feared he might gather all the people to overthrow the Roman rule within Israel. So, there were political reasons. Jesus was the most despised man of his time. His people did not like him. The Sanhedrin did not want him. The Zealots did not like him; they hated him. He was the most despised man, and there would have been no Christian religion at all if there were not his followers who wrote about him, and that happened forty, fifty years after he departed. The Christian Church only became formalised when all the Cardinals met at the First Council of Mycenae, 325 AD. I think it is. That is how it became formalised. The difference is that you can speak and converse with a living Master but cannot communicate with a dead Master unless you are highly spiritually developed. He cannot answer you back. How many of you could tell me that you have spoken to Jesus, and he gave you an answer? But you can ask me a question, and I will provide you with an answer. So, Jesus, Krishna, and Buddha were ordinary people, as I have said before, ordinary people who were very, very human. Jesus even had a child with Mary Magdalene. They were not married, but these things have been hidden away, and this was found in some later scrolls dug up in Egypt somewhere and translated. It was even published in the Observer Newspaper in England. So, Jesus was an ordinary man. But what I believe in is Christ, and Christ means consciousness, total consciousness. A TRUE MASTER WILL ALWAYS SHOW HIMSELF TO HUMANS AS A HUMAN Man in the world is very little conscious; his consciousness is minute. Compare that minuteness with the infinite consciousness that Christhood, Krishnahood, or Buddhahood could bring about. When Krishna and Christ said, “No one goes to the Father but by me,” it does not mean Jesus the man. It means that consciousness, which we can call Christ, is consciousness. When you evolve to a particular stage of reaching that consciousness, only you can become one with what we call Father, and we call it Father because there was not a single woman on those councils where the Bible was re-formulated. Speaking, that eternal energy, which we call Father, is neither man nor woman. It is an energy. You can have that energy in you in the form of a woman or the form of a man. You can call it Mother, and you can call it Father. It is the same because Divinity is sexless; it is neither He nor She. For example, last night, when I did the Communion Practice in which many of you had beautiful experiences, I was away from the entire Universe. I merged into that Divine energy, which is neither He nor She, and yet I would walk amongst you. When we meet outside or sit at dinner, I joke with you, laugh with you, and tease with you. I will even use a few cuss words to make you laugh, to demonstrate to you that I am like you as a man, a human. I will even use f’s and b’s; why not? You hear it on television daily, and in all those plays little children listen to. I do not need to use them, but I emphasise things to show you that I am very human. I will not mind using the word bastard, for example, in a private company. I will not mind, for I am one. My mother had an affair with a king. She used to work in the palace, which is how I was born. And
How to Find Answers to Questions: From Mind’s Questions to Heart’s Wisdom
Attitude, Buddha, Chela, Divinity, Ego, God, Guru, Heart, Joy, Law of opposites, Love, Meditation, Mind, Non-Attachment, Oneness, Path, Self, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Unfoldment, Unity, Wisdom
TEACHING IN SILENCE To those that are regular meditators, the day will come in your lives that there will be no more questions left to ask. Buddha’s greatest teachings were given in total silence, where he would sit with his chelas around him and because they were very advanced in the spiritual field, they would think of the question, and their answer would be there. Certain problems within themselves would automatically be resolved by themselves, and when they left his presence, they were transformed; some change took place within them. That is the power, the spiritual force that a man like Buddha would emit from himself, but at the same time, the recipient has to be ready too. Vivekananda said this. The seed has to be good, and the ground also has to be fertile because seeds on barren ground would have no value at all; they will not grow. So there has to be a readiness in the chelas. Overall these years that I have been giving talks around the world, perhaps those that have attended many, many courses have found one thing that I have led you slowly, and stage by stage by stage, into deeper and deeper knowledge. Sometimes a question is repeated, yet at one stage, when I look around, I would answer it in a way that will make my mind enquire more. And as the mind enquires still deeper, fathoms still deeper goes deeper, I will take the same question and answer it on a deeper level. Therefore, I say that when you have reached total depth, I will sit here with you and say nothing. I LOVE YOU To all my children, to all my chelas, to all, I would say, “I love you,” that is all. But then we go beyond those words of “I love you” because really speaking those are the most misused words, that “love” has come between the “I” and the “you”. Why should it be so? It is a fallacy to say, “I love you” when the reality of love is to bring about a total oneness that knows of no “I” and neither “you”. When that stage is reached then you would say, “I am love. My guru is love. All that surrounds me is love,” for love is all and everything. When man’s mind becomes fully realised, no questions would be left at all. But it is good to ask a question that shows that one is on the path. The mind starts enquiring, enquiring, enquiring. It will enquire so much that you would start saying “Neti, Neti, Neti,” which is in Sanskrit for “not this, not this, not this.” ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS In true questioning, when a person asks a question, its answer must inspire half a dozen questions by the response. And when those half a dozen questions are resolved, a dozen will spring up until the stage is reached where you become the questionless questioner. The mind has to be appeased for questions that come from the mind and are naturally thought of as human beings. But when all questions cease, and the mind ceases functioning or revolving itself around questions or gets involved in questions, all that stops and then the Heart just knows. What I usually try to do is not only answer questions or understand some aspect of life. What happens is that through the words or the presence – through all the emanations, something is imparted that reaches your Heart and aids spiritual unfoldment. I used to be the greatest questioner. I used to be the greatest doubter, and thank God I was, for that very attitude of mind led me on until I could read no books anymore. I do read them but not to learn. I just read them to corroborate perhaps or know of the experiences of others, for if you, as you all will, gain the totality, you go beyond knowledge because the mind can only give you knowledge. And all knowledge is acquired knowledge that once you go beyond this, you reach the area of wisdom. There is a vast difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is of the mind which can always be added onto, for today you will believe in one thing and tomorrow another thing, and like that you go on and on and on. That is how all discoveries in the world are made, but when you reach wisdom, that means you have reached the totality. ONLY DIVINITY REMAINS I would say that in the love that is there, let the time come when the “I” and the “You” are not there anymore and only love remains. When only love remains, the realisation we will have is that only God remains, and “You” and “I” are gone. When I say “You” and “I” are gone, it does not mean you will lose your physical body or the ego-self or self-identity. That will be there, but underlying that is that total stability, that living and feeling of a beautiful oneness, that unity around which the diversity floats on. And that floating on will never affect the unity, the oneness that has been created within you. Then you become the real observer of the relative things of life of which we have spoken. You become non-attached to the world, and when you become non-attached, nothing can affect you. When nothing can affect you, neither pain nor pleasure, then you are in a land of joy, such beautiful joy that knows of no opposites and no contradictions. The second thing or the third thing I would say is to become non-attached so that within oneself, no more conflict remains and only the Divinity that is there, only that remains. Do you see, so non-attachment! … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1983- 17