SYMBOLS OF THE DIVINE Christmas is the Mass of Christ. The Mass is a celebration. And Christ, who is He? Christ is the highest expression of the divine manifested here on earth. He is one of the Lights who, from time to time in the history of man, are sent when great darkness covers the world. A tree is the highest form of plant life. What in the kingdom of plants can be greater than a tree? Consider its size, its shape, its perfect symmetry and colours, its majesty. What great spirit of nature is in charge of a tree! So, at Christmas, these two significant symbols merge to express Divinity in the clearest possible way. Lights are added to the tree and beautiful decorations, some of which reflect wonderful flashing sparkling patterns to which the heart responds in heightened awareness and greater expression of love, love for the Divine Creator – or Manifestor, as I always prefer to call Him. And who might be the most sensitive to this expression of love? A child. Childlike innocence is pure, but at the same time, it contains within itself the seeds of impurity, samskaras inherited from the past, which will be expressed later in life. Primal innocence, on the other hand, is forever pure and can never be contaminated by past samskaras, for it has none. The child, in his innocence, feels very deeply the primal innocence of love as expressed by a Christmas tree, with all its beauty and magical symbolism of divine power. A Christmas tree represents love in all its many aspects and is responded to by children of all ages, so that they, in turn, may reflect this love in their lives and benefit the world around them. THE SACRED MEANING OF CHRISTMAS GIVING Giving at Christmas time does the same thing. But before you can provide, you must first receive. How can anyone give what he does not possess? The presents at the foot of the tree are each an expression of the love that lies in the heart of the giver. Nothing can come from nothing. First, the giver must feel that he has love to give. This love then expresses itself in the form of a present – a wrapped-up parcel of love. This present might bring much happiness to the receiver, who will then share it with others. So, the spiral of happiness reaches upwards as an ever-increasing expression of the divine love for all humanity. This expression of love is the play of the light of Sattva, our old friend! Yet in the present state of our evolution here on earth, the darkness of Tamas must also play. Christmas passes, and often with it comes a dimming of the light of Sattva. Yet this twilight is only transitory. Each time love is expressed, its effects are never lost. Love may yield to the darkness of Tamas for a time, only to reemerge even stronger as the light of Sattva. This is the eternal struggle between light and darkness. The world will forever suffer the play of the opposites. This is the play of the divine and must never be thought of as discouragement. An individual may eventually transcend this play and thereby make room for another to spiral upwards in his turn. And so, my Namaste carries my love and wish for a Happy Christmas to all. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: “Jewels of Silence”
Experiencing the Truth: The Light That Dissolves Doubt
TRUST BEYOND PROOF You may have forgotten this, but Christ also said, “There are many sheep, but not all of them belong to my flock”. There shall be many doubters; let them doubt, for their doubts, too, will lead them. Start with doubt. Who starts with doubt? I love doubters; an honest doubter must be an earnest seeker. Doubting should not be engendered by curiosity. Doubt should arise from a genuine, sincere search. When you seek sincerely, you will overcome your doubts. Scriptures teach various things because they have to appeal to different temperaments. There are multiple temperaments in the world. Some people are born of doubt. Many things in life cannot be proven. I would ask this young man, “Are you sure your father is your father?” You only think that because your mother has told you so. Many things in life cannot be proven; many things in life are taken on trust. The most excellent business deals are done over lunch; the contracts are signed later. The relationship between husband and wife is one of trust. They can cheat each other, and perhaps some of them could be so clever that, for years, it would not be known to either party. But there is trust, there is faith, and faith is what the whole of Christianity is based upon. You talk of God – prove God to me. You speak of reincarnation, prove that to me. There are a lot of things in life that are known by inference. BEYOND THE MIND THERE IS NO SATANS AND NO GODS The finite mind is not capable of comprehending the infinite. The finite mind can only infer certain things. Specific laws of logic are applied, and in their application, we would think, “This could be so.” But that is not the criterion; the criterion is what one experiences. So many Satans indeed come in the name of the Lord, so many of them do, and if the Satan deludes you, it is not the fault of the Satan, it is your fault! Yes. WHY do you get deluded by Satan? You get so deluded by an evil power because you have an evil tendency in you. Because of the evil tendency in you, you can only see the evil in others and think, “I am being deluded.” Forget the mind, if the tendencies in you are good and pure, your heart will feel that “Here are words uttered that will stand through ages and ages to come.” So, the criteria are your heart and your feelings; the mind will help. Yes, use the mind. I always say it is the most cunning animal. It is the mind that invents the Satans and the Gods. They are all inventions of the mind. The entire universe is nothing but mind. All problems in life are nothing but the mind. How we tutor that mind, how we learn through meditational practices, how we can overcome the mind, how we can go beyond the mind, and there truth is found, and yet when truth is found, it cannot be explained. And when you reach that level beyond the mind, all your Satans and your Gods, they all disappear. They have no existence; their existence lies in the mind. So that which is written through the mind must be of the mind. THE MIND CAN BE REFINED TO ITS HIGHEST SATTVIC LEVEL The purpose of our Meditation Foundation is to experience truth. We do not want to know about truth – for that you go to a university because Universities only tell you ABOUT a thing, not what a thing is. In our Meditation Foundation, we learn to experience what truth IS, and that truth is forever eternal. That truth is so powerful when known and experienced that no Satanic power could ever touch it or come near it. They cannot because when the light is switched on, darkness disappears. Darkness becomes non-existent, darkness becomes an illusion, and the mind has these illusory faculties. The mind is capable of experiencing illusions – that is the stumbling block to the truth. If any man wants to find Divinity through the mind, he cannot. The mind can be refined to its highest Sattvic level. The mind is also governed by the 3 Gunas, which constitute Nature, the entirety of the universe. I have spoken about the Gunas before. You have the Tamas, inertia, laziness, darkness; you have the Rajas, which is the activating force, the passionate force; you have the Sattva, which is light, light, light, light. Although the mind is a stumbling block to the progress of Man’s evolution, the same mind can be trained so that the Sattvic forces, the force of light, can dominate one’s life. The 3 Gunas will forever be there; they are indestructible, as Truth, or Divinity, is indestructible. These forces will always be there, but we have to allow Sattva to dominate, not Tamas. By allowing Sattva to dominate, the mind becomes increasingly refined. Sattva is more subtle; it reaches the highest subtlety of relativity. While Tamas, on the other hand, is at its grossest level. So, we allow Sattva to dominate so that the mind experiences the finest relative quality of existence. When we reach the finest relativity, then we go beyond it and experience truth. FROM DOUBT TO FAITH So, we use the mind as an instrument to overcome itself, and then the power of darkness, the power of Tamas, call it Satan, call it what you will, disappears. There is an old saying – “it takes a thief to catch a thief.” It takes a Satan to recognise a Satan. Yes, that is true, very true. So, when we go through our meditational practices and reach the refinement, the Sattvic level of our minds, we are in tune, and we go beyond all the doubts. It is easy to say, “do not doubt, do not doubt, believe, believe, believe”, it is easy to say it, but
Transcending Crime: A Heart-Centred View on Wrongdoing
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT FROM A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEWPOINT Crime and punishment can be examined from so many different angles. One angle would be the sociological one, which is what most people are concerned about. Then, of course, there are metaphysical and philosophical angles in which we can examine what crime is, what punishment is, who should mete out punishment, and who is a criminal. The laws of sociology are based on one principle: to preserve some form of stability in society. To have this stability in society, limitations have to be put on people’s actions. As we know, sociologists usually do it with a stick. The stick is held there like a school master would – my apologies to the school masters – the stick is there, and thereby fear is instilled into people’s minds, that “If you do this, you will get that”. But the funny thing is that if a criminal steals a million pounds, he will go to jail for 6 months, and if he steals an egg, he will go to jail for a year. Why is this? Psychologists will tell us that the person who has embezzled a million pounds has used far greater brainpower in his planning. Is that planning to be appreciated in lowering the sentence? What a funny business. It brings to mind a remarkable story written by Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables” – the miserable life – where this man, because his wife and children were starving, went to steal a loaf of bread, and stealing that loaf of bread got him into so much trouble. Was this justice? People who create laws in our social systems cannot always be right. There are many inconsistencies in their judgments and in the background that led to these laws. But the main idea is that they need to instill fear in people’s minds so they will not do wrong. If a traffic cop is behind you while you are driving, you are likely to be careful not to break any traffic laws. Similarly, in all forms of criminal activity, if there were no punishment, people might go out of control and commit all kinds of acts that hurt both society and themselves. So, these laws are necessary. How these laws are enacted, promulgated, and implemented might need significant reform. Though it could be a curb on others trying to embark on that path, how is criminal punishment going to help the individual? The most significant number of criminals born in this world are made in jail. If a person is convicted, that person will be put in touch with others of like sort, and through the exchange of ideas and views, they do not come out as better people. So, in most cases, if the crime is not severe, the appropriate course is rehabilitation, which alters the criminal’s mind and changes his old mental attitudes and concepts, so that he can try to live a better life. And this can be done through meditational means and by providing knowledge to people in jail. There are other methods. Many people who become policemen do so not because they want to uphold the law, but because of a personal vendetta. We do not say all, but many of them in their childhood have been so oppressed by their schoolmates, their friends, their environment, that they grow up and say, “Let me become a policeman and I will show them.” So, they become policemen. A criminal becomes a criminal because his upbringing has also instilled in him a grudge against society. So, the criminal has a grudge, and the policeman has a grudge, and the two negatives can never make a positive. Recently, I was invited to talk to a group of policemen. If these very policemen could be put through a course in human psychology, they could learn how the human mind works and then reform the man without further deforming his mind. So far as laws go, there is a lot that is to be desired left out. But punishment has to be there to preserve a specific stability in society. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT FROM A PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWPOINT That is from the sociological point of view. Let us examine this: crime and punishment from the philosophical point of view – what is crime? What spurs a person to perpetrate a particular act? Are there any karmic values that might extend further than his childhood? Can we say that all the tendencies of an adult come from childhood, or do they go even further back? Tendencies are not things that could never, never be rubbed out; tendencies can be overcome. Perhaps this person in previous lives might have lived such a life whereby a certain tendency, a particular impression, has been formed in the memory box of his mind, and that he has taken another birth to manifest that tendency, and by manifesting that tendency, he is trying to overcome that tendency. If everyone tried to manifest their tendencies, this world would be in chaos, because no human being is entirely animal, entirely human, or altogether divine. Every person has these three aspects within them. Through evolution, they have travelled a long journey through thousands, maybe millions, of lifetimes. They have accumulated experiences from the mineral kingdom to plants and animals, and within their minds, they carry all the impressions they have gained. When they were animals, it was in their nature to kill. It is not wrong for a tiger to kill; it is part of the tiger’s nature to hunt for prey to feed itself. A tiger never kills for fun, nor does any other animal. Predators never kill for entertainment; they kill out of necessity. However, that impression of killing remains in the human mind. The criminal allows his lower nature, as we call it, to dominate his life. He comes with this animal tendency, and then the principle of heredity comes in, and the principle of training the child comes in. When
Acting Without Judgment: When Judgment Ceases, Peace Begins
Compassion, Force, Guru, Happiness, Impressions, Karma, Kindness, Love, Mind, Peace, Purity, Samskaras, Scriptures, Self
USE THE GOLDEN RULE The mind is filled with compartments, and because of this, we become judgmental, and the reason for these compartments is because of the experiences that we have gone through. The more experiences you have gone through in various lifetimes, the more compartments there will be, and therefore, whenever we witness something, we try to draw from the memory box. When it aligns with the experience’s objective, we judge it by our own personal standards. The way to avoid that is to use the Golden Rule: put yourself in another’s shoes. That is known as the Golden Rule. But we do not. We only see things from our angle, and when we do, there will naturally be distortions. It is these very distortions that make us fearful, for there is an energy in everyone that wants you not to be judgmental. So, the conflict arises from the force in the mind that generates these fears. ACT FOR THE SAKE OF ACTING, AND NOT FOR THE RESULT THEREOF When fear is created, you naturally will suffer from anxiety. When anxiety is there, you will worry about the minutest little thing, which holds no water at all. The first perception you have of an object, you will compare with these various compartments or cubbyholes in the mind, and when you come to a judgment, you are creating more compartments. And as we create more and more compartments, more fear arises, and in this anxious state, we project ourselves into the future, which makes us even more fearful. Most people worry about or are afraid of things that might never materialise, things that will not materialise at all. By being judgmental of the object, you are also becoming judgmental of yourself; will I achieve this, or will I not accomplish that? It is a projection. Then the idea of achievement or the result that will occur puts you into greater worries and sleepless nights. But if you do not have expectations for the result of any action, you will sleep very peacefully because anxiety will not be there. It is said in the scriptures that ‘act for the sake of acting and not for the results,’ because the results will come naturally. When you focus solely on the action itself, your mind remains calm and centered, fostering inner peace. This is how the mind should really function. Not worrying about the results, not worrying about the paycheck; keep on acting, and every action you perform becomes more stabilised in the mind. First, it comes out in the form of a thought, and the action performed or based on that thought will further stabilise that samskara, and that is why the scriptures teach of love, compassion, and sympathy. REGARD YOURSELF AS AN INSTRUMENT, AND EVERY ACTION YOU PERFORM WILL BE A PURE ACTION So, you are being kind to yourself by avoiding thoughts that are contrary or adverse. If you are compassionate to someone or kind to someone, you are benefiting more than the object to which you have or to whom you have extended the kindness. Like that, by action, one removes the old impressions in the mind, and as the impressions become moved away or thrown out of your system, the less fearful you will become, and the less fearful you become, the happier you become. And that is what everyone is seeking. So, scriptures have their value, but action must be totally unmotivated. When you do good for someone, never think, “I am doing it,” because, as we have said before, you are not really the doer. There is a force within you that is using you just as an instrument, for you are nothing else than an instrument. So let that force work through you and regard yourself as an instrument, and if you regard yourself as an instrument, then every action you perform will be a pure action because you are not the actor. And purity lies in the absence of motivation. If you do some good work and say, “I did such and such a thing,” then there will be no result of that action. I remember arriving in South Africa and being totally broke. I was standing at a bus stop waiting for a bus, and at that time we never had rands and cents; we just had pounds, shillings, and pence, and I had six pence in my pocket. Here, a woman with a baby in her arms came up to me and said, “Sir, can you help me out with bus fare?” Because she had a long way to go. So, I gave her the sixpence and never thought about it at all. I took a walk home, which is about five miles away. In those years, things were much cheaper than they are today. I walked home five miles away. But what a beautiful feeling I had within me, and the very next day I got offered an excellent job out of the blue, as one would say. So, if we do not worry or take to mind any action we perform, the result will always be there because you did it totally unselfishly. You did it with feeling, you did it with sincerity, that when the evening was cold, why must this woman walk all those miles with a baby? So that is self-giving in some form or another. JUDGE YE NOT SO THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED There are many ways in which we could give ourselves to others. Sometimes, just a kind word can transform another person’s life, and his transformation in return would rebound on you, so you would also gain some transformation. But when we keep on compartmentalizing our minds, then these actions will not happen. Then we become judgmental, and we say, “What right does that woman have to be out late at night with a baby?” That is her business, and I would be judging. Who knows, she might have had some very
How to Unlock Creativity? Connecting with the Universal Mind Within
THE ORIGIN OF THOUGHTS Psychologists say that the origin of thought originates in the subconscious mind. Through various layers of the subconscious mind, it comes to the conscious mind, where the conscious mind recognises the current the thought produces. Through multiple processes with different combinations of certain kinds of chemistry, the conscious mind receives those currents and translates them into thought form, and then we think that we are feeling. I would say that the origin of thought is not necessarily from the subconscious mind, although specific thoughts of a lower level can come from the subconscious mind. Yet, behind the subconscious mind, there is a mind that we could call a memory box. Every thought that we think is never new whatsoever. We have thought those thoughts before. However, the combination of two thoughts could be regarded as new, and synthesising those two thoughts could produce a third thought if we go beyond the levels of the subconscious mind and come to the area where there is a subtle conjunction between the superconscious and the subconscious, where the subconscious just ends as the day would end, fading away into the night imperceptibly. At that level, we can cognise things, or thoughts could arise from that level, which we can term the finest relative level. At this finest relative level, we are not only in communion with our mind, but our mind has expanded to the universal mind. So, no distinction would remain between the limitations of the mind as we know it and the universal mind because our mind has become one with the universal mind. Once we have dove within and contacted or been one with the universal mind, and a thought arises from that level, at the finest end of the subconscious mind, then we are capable of the most significant amount of creativity, as we call it. Because then we would have at our fingertips, so to say, all the knowledge that has ever existed. Existed not only on this planet but all the knowledge that has existed throughout existence itself, and that is what we mean by direct perception. You would find people trained, or people that have trained themselves, in such a manner that they could cognise things directly. As a typical example, you might find a genius in mathematics. A problem could be asked of that person, which generally would require a computer for several days to answer. Yet, this person with the ability of direct conception would come to the answer immediately. CONTACTING THE FINEST LEVEL OF THE MIND OPERATES UNDER A VERY NATURAL LAW All of these things function under natural law, and all laws we do not understand are considered supernatural. A hundred years ago, when we would tell someone that you could take a two-hundred-ton machinery to fly through the air, they would say we were mad. Nowadays, we have hundreds and hundreds of planes flying over our heads every day. If you told a person a hundred or so years ago that you could speak from San Francisco to New York, three thousand miles, and have a person-to-person conversation, they would regard that as supernatural, which would be unbelievable. Contacting the finest level of the mind operates under a very natural law. We call it supernatural because we do not understand the law that serves it. But there are people, very few perhaps, that could have the direct conception of all knowledge that could ever be. Knowledge can only be known to ourselves when formulated in thought form. When we say thought form, we add a form to thought. The next time you think or try to think, see that you are thinking in pictures or words. You are thinking in pictures or words because the word forms a picture. So, in this case, we could say there is no difference between words and pictures. Or we could say that they are two aspects of the same thing. In direct cognition, the picture presented to us in thought form never works linearly. By linear fashion, I mean proceeding chronologically from a, b, c, d to z. In direct conception or cognition, the entire picture is conceived. I think it was Mozart who said, “I might be wrong with the name,” that he could conceive the whole composition entirely within a moment and its parts simultaneously. The entirety and its parts simultaneously. This comes from the subtlest level of the mind. There is a Sanskrit term for it, “Ritam bhara pragya.” That term is applied to that area of the mind where direct cognition occurs. When you find an artist, poet, or composer composing great works, everlasting works, then be sure to know that he has contacted intense levels of his mind, and the deeper the level, the greater the composition of whatever it is, music or poetry or painting. And the immortality of such work is in the fact that when you read the poem or listen to a talk by a person who has direct cognition, you not only understand the words, but it immediately touches the deeper level of yourself. This can be seen in the form of painting. It could be heard through words, hearing, and, of course, through sight; one reads and then hears those words in one’s mind. CREATIVITY HAS VARYING DEGREES To develop maximum creativity in daily life, which I always bring to every question I answer, we must meditate. When we meditate, we reach the deeper levels of the mind. In my experience, we have artists, such as Rhodesia’s most well-known artist, J. Trevor Wood; in his famous paintings, the ideas, conceptions, and colours have come to him in the meditation process. Creativity also has varying degrees. Like for example, one poet is a more excellent poet than another poet. Both of them go to the deeper levels of the mind. They are doing a form of meditation without knowing it. The poem that is not of such high
Everything Is Perfect: Seeing Through the Illusion of Imperfection
Belief, Christ, Compassion, Consciousness, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Eternal, Evolution, Free Will, God, I and my Father are one, Integration, Kindness, Kingdom of Heaven within, Law of opposites, Laws, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mind, Omnipresent, Path, Separation, Spiritual Practices, Superconscious, Surrender, Universal, Universe
IMPERFECTION IS JUST A CONCEPT The imperfection that is seen around us is but just a conception of our own minds. On this path to Divinity, as one progresses into that range of the Divine, one sees nothing else but perfection. There are no untruths in this world. Everything is truth and truth is God. But there are degrees of truth, so the path to Divinity is the path of progressing from a lower truth on towards the higher truth. Therefore, if Divinity is omnipresent, if It is present everywhere and regarded to be perfect, why do we conceive of anything as imperfection. The very moment we have the idea of imperfection within us, the very moment that idea strikes our limited consciousness, our vision becomes blurred, for there is nothing imperfect in this world. There is no imperfection whatsoever. If you can realise this truth that everything is perfect, everything is within the plan of Divinity, and within this process of evolution, this process that makes this universe exist, and when we realise that all that which exists is perfect, then only will we be able to realise the injunctions of theology that would say, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” If you keep on seeing imperfections, how can you love thy neighbour as thyself. So certain theological beliefs are these, that be kind to the neighbour. But who is being kind? Is that kindness or compassion that is being expressed not ego made? Is it perhaps to inflate your own personal ego to say to yourself, “I am so kind, I am so compassionate”. As soon as you use the word “I” then your ego self is set into motion. I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE Perfection can only be perceived by perfection. And that perfection is reached through meditation and various forms of spiritual practices whereby the ego self is cleansed. The ego can never be annihilated, for whichever is manifested from the Manifestor also has to be eternal. For once manifestation disappears, the Manifestor also vanishes. God exists because you exist, and you exist because God exists. You are an integral part of each other, and all problems that exist in this world are because we feel so separate from Divinity. We do not realize the truth which Jesus spoke, that “I and my Father are one.” It was not the man that was speaking; it was the Christ that was speaking, and that Christ is the universal consciousness that has the cognition of perfection. PERSONAL GOD – IMPERSONAL GOD Reaching this universal consciousness is not the totality of things. Theologies might have perceptions of a grand old man with long beard sitting on a throne and looking around at all his children. These injunctions are necessary too. They serve a certain purpose, and the purpose it serves is for you to develop devotion. For you can only be devoted to an object. An object that is somewhat concrete in your mind, or a symbol which could be concretized in your mind. And that becomes the object of love and devotion, so that too is a path to reach the superconscious area of your own mind. But as soon as you give Divinity any attributes you put limitations on Him. As soon as you call Divinity kind you put limits on Him. As soon as you call Him compassionate you limit Him, because every quality must have its opposite. That is an eternal law; the law of polarity will always exist. With kindness there will be unkindness, with compassion there will be that which is opposite of compassion. How do we get out of this dilemma? That is the question. How do we get out of this dilemma that we are so involved in? The totality of consciousness, which is none else but the vibratory emanations of this universe, form the personal God. And most theologies teach of the personal God that has attributes. But then beyond that stage that real God is the impersonal one, that impersonal energy that has no discrimination and neither distinction, that does not interfere at all in your life, it only energizes your life and gives you life, gives you that breath. That is the impersonal energy which energizes the personal god, which in turn is the God which people of theology worship. So, the impersonal god manifests itself; the unmanifest becomes manifested in the personal conception of God. Now how many has really seen God? How many have heard Him? How many have tasted Him? Your senses are not required because they are limited and incapable of even perceiving that personal god that perhaps is sitting on some throne. So how far would the impersonal God not be from you? To have the idea of the personal god serves its purposes in taking you on the path of devotion. Who created that God? Did God create man or did man create God? Is it just a conception of yours, and where does that conception come from but from your limited ego? So that is why in different theologies there are different conceptions of God. The Hindus, for example, would believe that God has four hands, four arms. It is very symbolic, and there are great amounts of truth in symbolism, too. But it has to be interpreted in its true value and not to be taken literally. Like that, other religions have other conceptions. But the real God is beyond all conception, all perception. The real God is only experiential. You can experience that Divine energy flow within you. And through meditation and spiritual practices you can draw upon that Kingdom of Heaven within, draw from that storehouse of energy and allow it to permeate every cell of your body. Every thought in your mind can be permeated by that energy, and then when you act in life, any action you perform in your waking state or sleep state or dream state would be in accordance with Divine will.
Cleansing the Soul: The Journey to the Spirit Within
THE SOUL IS MADE OF IMPRESSIONS/SAMSKARAS The soul is a repository of all the experiences that you might have had in this lifetime from childhood, or perhaps from previous lifetimes if you believe in them. Your soul is a reflection of your mind. We could even term the soul to be the mind, which is entirely different from the spirit. The spirit is a neutral force that contains no impressions. While the soul, or in Sanskrit the Jivatman, is that which includes all the samskaras which we might call impressions. And those impressions are precisely what you are made of. The soul resides nowhere. You are the soul, and the physical body you see around you is but the grossification of the subtle soul, of the subtle mind. And yet, the soul is composed of very fine matter. This very fine matter, which we could call memory cells, are forever acting and interacting with each other. It is this very motion that is produced in action and interaction that governs your actions, your daily way of life, your behaviours and your concepts. It also governs your ability to perceive according to the limitations which have been set upon the soul through the sheaths of samskaras or impressions. To reach the real spirit within man, that neutral force, which is attributeless, one has to clarify or cleanse the soul. You might call it unfoldment or development, or you could use any term you wish, but the soul has to be clarified in order to reach the spirit within. THE EVOLUTIONARY PROGRESS Biblical scriptures were not wrong at all when they said that this universe was created within seven days. Science has proven that in the “Big Bang”, in this vast explosion, be it seven seconds or seven days, when all these minute particles of subatomic matter shot forth, it gathered unto itself various other particles. The very atom there had the ability to duplicate itself and replicate itself. In its evolutionary progress – for evolution could never be regressive, it is always progressive – it passes through various phases: the mineral, plant, animal, and then finally to man. From the very start, from the very particle of subatomic matter, there the soul existed. And, in that very subatomic matter, coming from that vast explosion, it contained a significant amount of purity. It was pure, for it reflected the pure consciousness that was contained within itself. But through the gradual evolutionary process, through all these various kingdoms of existences, it could not help but gain experiences. In the beginning up to the stage of the animal, it progressed with the laws of nature. It never contradicted nature, or never went against nature – it was pulled along in that momentum, that force. But when it reached the stage of man, with the ability to think, all the troubles began, because, with the thinking process of the mind, which is the soul, man started realising his individuality. When that very particle could not think, there was no realisation of individuality. It was an instinctive process. For example, in the animal kingdom just to survive, there was no acquisition, there was no greed, there was no lust, and everything functioned within the framework of the laws of nature. As you would know, animals have their mating seasons, so, in the animal world, although it is on a lower rung of the spiral, it functioned naturally. THE THINKING ABILITY But when man started thinking, the unnaturalness came about because, with his thought, he formulated that individuality. With his thought processes, he separated the mind from the spirit and the body from the mind; the total vision was lost. He created a division in the vision! In order to have the individuality, he had to preserve that individuality, and for the sake of self- preservation, he had to start fighting nature. Therefore, the deeds that men do are not always in the flow of nature, but they are swimming upstream, not with the flow of the waters, but upstream in the river. When one swims upstream, conflicts begin to arise. So here the very mind of man, the soul of man, is now involved in conflicts by his own actions. INDIVIDUALITY Assuming this individuality, many challenges were brought forth to him, and the more he resisted these challenges, the more he fought them, the problems became greater and greater. Therefore, the scriptures would say, “Resist not evil.” And this is what it means: do not get into these conflicts. When man from primitive times, with his own thoughts started progressing, he became more and more aware, he also became more and more aware of the troubles and the challenges that faced him. Because everyone wants to get away from misery and suffering, man started searching outwardly in secular, mundane things to try to find an answer, and in getting involved in mundane things, and to ease himself of the sufferings, his mind started expanding. But, with that expansion in an outward search, his troubles also multiplied. With a sophisticated mind or soul, it is the same thing, he started inventing various things to ease the burdens he has, but searching outward has not eased the burdens at all. This does not only apply to the sophisticated man. This has also applied to the primitive man, where he created river gods and rain gods and all kinds of gods to appease his mind. Today we have also created gods: the motorcar god, the aeroplane god, the money god. Have we not done that? So how much has the soul progressed? Yet, there has come a time, especially more so in this century, where man is becoming tired of the outward search to ease his problems and replace it with pleasures. Then again, wherever there is pleasure, there has to be pain, wherever there is sun, there has to be rain. So, he got himself involved in the law of opposites. You cannot accept a coin without
In the Clarity of Being: I Am That I Am
HOW CAN I GET THE CLARITY WITHIN MYSELF TO KNOW MYSELF? When you ask yourself, “Who am I, and what should I be?” there is one phrase you must delete, and that is, “what should I be?” It would be a projection trying to reach somewhere, but how can you get somewhere when you are already there? That is why I always say that you are divine. You have nowhere to go at all. You come from nowhere and you go nowhere, for how can eternity, immortality, and infinity come from anywhere or go anywhere. The better way to put it would be, “How can I gain clarity within myself to know myself?” When you ask the question, “Who am I?” there is not a single person who would answer you. An outside source cannot answer it, but it can be answered by your inner self after gaining that clarity, after getting rid of the stumbling blocks. And you start slowly. YOU ARE A MIXTURE OF YOUR INDIVIDUAL SELF AND YOUR UNIVERSAL SELF In that wall that prevents you from seeing the other side, you just need to knock out one brick, and that force itself will knock away all the other bricks. It is like this boy in Holland, there was a hole in the dike, and he plugged it with his finger, or else the whole of Amsterdam would have been underwater. But here you do not need to plug the hole; you need to open that little hole, that one brick, so that the flood, the waters of Divinity, could cover your entirety. And then the bricks are of no value, the wall is gone. And that is what you want. When the wall has collapsed, all the little samskaras that constitute the wall will be submerged in the water of Divinity. Then what would you say who you are? Will you say that I am the bricks lying under the water, or will you say that I am the water, the ocean? For what is the difference between the water, the ocean, and the bricks? There is no difference at all. It is just moving it around, breaking down the barrier so that the mud of the walls will mix in the water of Divinity, and they become one. And you cannot separate that mud from the water, or else it would not be mud. It would either be water or mud if you separate them. So, this mud is a mixture of your individual self with your Universal Self. WHEN YOU START REALISING “I AM BRAHMA,” THEN THE QUESTION “WHO AM I?” DISAPPEARS Therefore, everything is divine, and never ask the question, “Who am I?” For the answer is already there, I am that Divinity. I exist in that Divinity if any existence there be. For it is only the small I that thinks of existence, but the big I does not think of existence at all, because the big I cannot think. It just is. So, when we ask the question “who am I?” the answer is straightforward: “I am I. Yahweh. I Am That I Am,” without any qualifications at all: I am This, I am That. The Vedas usually talk about “Thou art That,” and of course, it means that thou art Divinity. But why the Thou and the That? Do you see how mistaken it is? Because you are creating a separation between thou and that, where no thou and that exist. That is the grand illusion, and it is supposed to be one of the four great injunctions of the Vedas. “Thou art That” is for the wayfarer who is on the path that slowly, slowly, slowly starts realising that you are divine. Which is a necessary step, but it is not the total answer. But when you say and start realising Brahmasmi – I am Brahma – then the question of “who am I” disappears entirely. Because to ask a question, there has to be a questioner. And who asks the question? The little mind wants to know who I am. IN SELF-REALISATION NO QUESTION REMAINS So, when there is no question, there needs to be no answer. You just are. Isness. Beingness in totality. When you are total, who is there outside to ask, “Who am I?” In that totality, there is no question left because there has to be someone outside to ask the question. And if there is no one outside in totality, then no question is asked and no answer is necessary, and that is what we call the realisation of self. That I realise myself means that I am myself, for the question disappears again. Who is the realiser? Realisation is self-existent. Like this one philosopher said, if I could stand outside the universe with a barge pole, I could turn it around. I cannot remember the guy’s name. He was perhaps poetic or perhaps just dwelling in his imagination. Because he can never be outside the universe, he can become the universe, ah, yes. You see, these philosophers have led us up the garden path. You can take all your Hegel and Kant and Spinoza and Nietzsche and whoever. One day, the question “who am I?” will disappear from your mind because the basis of that question, “who am I?” stems from insecurity and inadequacy. It is only when you feel insecure that you want to know who you are or what you are. It is a stepping stone. Nothing is useless; everything has its own purpose. But reach the stage of purposeless purpose. Ahh! That is the stage. Purposeless purpose means non-motivation, non-questioning, non-inquiring. These are necessary. The child goes to school, form two, three, four, five, six… ten, eleven, twelve. He needs to inquire. But when he has gone through all his studies, he does not need to ask any more. When the teacher gives a child in form one a maths lesson, and the child is made to write
How Does the Mind Work? About the Human Mind and Consciousness
Attachment, Attitude, Awareness, Brahman, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Force, God, Happiness, Heart, Impressions, Karma, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Manifestation, Meditation, Mind, Non-Attachment, Philosophy, Purity, Religion, Scriptures, Self, Self-Realization, Spirit, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Universal, Universe
VERY LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT THE HUMAN MIND AND CONSCIOUSNESS So little is known about the human mind and consciousness by psychiatrists and psychologists, and who has you. They have barely dipped their big toes in this vast ocean of the mind, and most of the analysis, like Freudian or Jungian analysis, is more hit and run, and they call it psychoanalysis. Did you know that one of the highest suicide rates in the world is among psychiatrists? So, if they are in such a muddled state themselves, how are they going to help others? I do not know if I ever told you this before, but when I was about eight years old, a very holy man who was called a Sufi passed through my village. I went to see him and chatted with him because, since I was about four, I have been interested in who or what I am, where I come from, and where I am going. After long chats, I asked this Saddhu, as they are called, “Give me a spiritual practice,” and the spiritual practice he gave me was this. “Draw rings. Just circles.” And I drew so many circles that we could plaster this whole High Leigh with the paper on which I drew circles. I thought this was absolute madness, drawing circles. How was it going to help me? But only later, in retrospect, did I realize it was a very valuable practice. Because if you, as a boy, can draw a perfect circle with your free hand, then your mind becomes more and more concentrated. I cannot do that anymore. I am getting too old. THERE ARE VARIOUS SECTIONS OF THE MIND THAT ALL FUNCTION TOGETHER There are four sections of the human mind; we will call them sections for the sake of explanation. They do not operate independently, but they operate together. Manas is the lower mind that is subject to sensory inputs and could be called the conscious mind. The lower mind is subjected to sensory input. Seeing, touching, smelling, tasting, and hearing. Man is governed mainly by these five senses: seeing, touching, smelling, tasting, and listening. Manas, which is the lower mind, is influenced by the sensory inputs. These five senses influence everything you do. Seeing will influence your thoughts. Hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling all influence your thoughts, but those thoughts are the sensory input into the lower mind. The lower mind cannot function on its own. These impressions you get are sent to what we call the Chitta, which is the memory box —or, we can call it, the subconscious mind. Because of all the sensory inputs you have, they create impressions in the subconscious mind, which activate and motivate actions performed through the conscious mind. Yet the subconscious mind requires identification because this is only a memory box from which the conscious mind draws impressions. The subconscious mind is like a box of pigeonholes, where specific files are put. So, if you see a dog, that very act of seeing will transmit the impulses to the subconscious mind, where that impulse will be compared to a dog that you have seen before, and then only the recognition occurs that that is a dog. Otherwise, you will not know if it is a dog, a cat, or a mouse. But this is still not enough. The subconscious mind transmits itself to the ego or the individual “I”. These sensory inputs of the conscious mind are transmitted to the subconscious for comparison; once compared, they must be identified with the ego sense. For without the ego sense, no one could really live. Even the most perfected Master must have two percent imperfection in him, otherwise he would lose all sense of individuality. He would not be able to eat. He would not be able to sleep. He would not be able to go to the toilet or perform any biological function. So, a tiny percentage of that sense of individuality remains. When a highly realised man, a Spiritual Master, leaves the body, the little 2% of the ego self dissolves, and the person merges into Divinity. That is still not enough. The ego sense will still require specific guidance, and that comes from Buddhi, which is intellect. The function of the intellect is to weigh the pros and cons. And when the Buddhi or intellect weighs the pros and cons, it transmits it back to the ‘I’, the ego, and how it will fit in with your personal individual ego. You might like lamb, you might like chicken, you might like cabbage, or this or that. It is because of the various impressions that are there and the Buddhi that is analysing it and transmitting it to your individual self with its likes and dislikes. Then it gets back to the memory box, pulls out the file, and says, “Ah, this is okay, chicken is fine, curried chicken or roast or whatever.” And that is submitted to the conscious mind, where your five senses will start enjoying it. WE PAY SO MUCH ATTENTION TO SENSORY INPUTS TO THE LOWER MIND The lesser the ego, the lesser the value of sensory inputs would be, and by lessening the value of the sensory inputs, you do not become attached. You reach the stage of non-attachment. I might have said to you sometimes that if there is a King’s feast on a table and there is a dry piece of bread, of course, I will choose the best. But if there were only a dry piece of bread there, I would not have any regrets whatsoever, because I would know that the molecular structure of that piece of bread is the same as the molecular structure of a King’s feast. After all, when it comes to, for instance, tasting, what happens is only four inches from there to there, four inches, and people die and kill themselves for those four inches. For once, it goes down the gullet, and
The Path of Love: Integrating Heart, Mind, and Spirit Through Meditation
Acceptance, Attitude, Divine, Divinity, Eternal, Evolution, Force, Grace, Heart, I am That I am, Integration, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Laws, Light, Love, Meditation, Mind, Oneness, Path, Purity, Scriptures, Self, Spirit, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Spiritual Teacher, Surrender, Universal, Universe, Yoga
THE HEART IS THAT WHICH IS CLOSEST TO DIVINITY AND IS FOREVER RADIATING AN ENERGY The core of the human personality is what is called the heart, the sum-totality of all your feelings, your emotions, and not only those that you feel with the mind. All the feelings and emotions that we experience are not necessarily of the heart. A lot of it is mixed up with the mind. The heart is a quality or a form of existence that could exist without the mind and without feeling, without emotion, without the thinking process. It could exist independently, yet the various mechanisms of the mind are necessary to be able to appreciate what is happening in the heart. The heart is forever radiating an energy, a force. When I said that the heart is the core of the human personality, it means that the heart is that which is closest to Divinity. Divinity is encompassed, trapped, so to speak, in the heart. The heart has a universal quality. Therefore, we call a good man a big-hearted man. Little do we realise how big that bigness is. Its extent is the entire universe, but because humans have minds, they persist in limiting the heart. By limiting the heart to its individual self and its individuality, they close the heart. Therefore, the question arises: “How can we open the heart?” THE RADIATION OF THE HEART IS FOREVER PURE How do we begin by opening the heart? If a man says, “Oh, I must be kinder, I must be more generous, I must be more loving.” Does the heart say that? The heart does not say that. The mind says that it feels the closeness of the heart. Yet the heart is pulsating so powerfully all the time that the mind starts to feel those pulses or impulses, and it begins to wonder. Why is my heart closed? Why can I not feel? Feeling is thought to be measured in terms of one’s emotions, because emotions could be good or bad, could be positive or negative, but the radiation of the heart is forever pure. When we study the Scriptures and where it is said that “Jesus’ heart bled for us.” What bled? What shot forth the pulsating flow of blood? When we talk of blood, we mean lifeblood, lifeblood coming from the heart, empowered, generated by the force of the heart that is universal. THE HEART DOES NOT REQUIRE OPENING, BUT THE MIND DOES Here, we have to be very careful in understanding this principle. Opening the heart is not necessary in opening the mind. We start with the mind in trying to open the heart. We gather to ourselves or affirm to ourselves positive qualities that affect the opening process. But the proper way to open the heart, and here is the secret, is to go beyond the mind and not let the mind interfere. Man says to woman, woman to man, “I love you.” The love that is spoken there is not the love of the heart, although it is generated by the heart. It is empowered by the heart, but it is the mind that is speaking. The mind appreciates the shape of her nose, her ears, or her toes and says, “I love you.” The heart has no eyes. It has no ears. It has no feeling. Yet we say the heart feels. The mind feels, not the heart. The heart is a pulsating, radiating power, and when the heart is opened, that means that the mind is opened. The heart does not require opening. Like our usual old analogy, the heart can be likened to the petrol in the tank of the car, and the carburetor is the mind. So, when the mind is expanded, the heart, the petrol automatically flows through. WHEN YOU STIMULATE THE HEART, THE MIND AUTOMATICALLY OPENS UP In our practices, we leave the mind aside and we are in touch with the source that could override the discrepancies of the mind. It is tough to start with the mind in opening up the mind, so that the heart could shine through. But it is so much easier for the heart to shine through in its own “isness” through the mind and all the crevices of the mind. All the dirt in the mind is automatically washed away in this force, this torrent of heart energy. People who follow Jnana Yoga would start by trying to expand the mind, which is a challenging path. People who would want to start with the heart would find it much, much easier, because they do not take the mind into account, because when they stimulate the heart, the mind automatically opens up, and the power flows through. IT IS THE NATURE OF THE HEART TO LOVE AND TO SEND FORTH THAT LOVE The question is, how does one stimulate the heart? How does one reach the core of one’s personality? How does one take the individual feeling that is within oneself and infuse it into that universal oneness which is the heart? The process is facilitated through our meditational practices, where we systematically delve deeper into levels beyond the mind, and there, in the realm of the heart, lies the Kingdom of Heaven. You see how the heart has been so misinterpreted, because the core of human personality is the spirit, and the spirit is the heart. What loves, really loves? The heart loves. Not because the heart wants to love, but because it is the nature of the heart to love and send forth that love. LOVE FOR THE SAKE OF LOVE So, we bluff ourselves into thinking that we love, because the moment you believe that you love, you have stopped loving. Take this to mind very carefully. The moment you think I love, I have stopped loving, because the mind interprets it, and the mind is too imperfect to analyze that which is so infinite, so forceful, so powerful. How could it