A WRONG PATH, MISTAKES RESULT MOSTLY FROM CONFUSION “Mistake” is the negation of “take.” You have reached out to take, and you have missed the mark. When you miss the mark, it is either because you are blind or the room is dark. I want to take this flower, but I miss it. That is a mistake. All opportunities are given to us, whereby we need not make mistakes. All opportunities are given, and mistakes result primarily from confusion. But in our rashness, in our hurry, in our impatience, in our intolerance, we grab, and we miss. When the mind is confused, we allow it to simmer down. As the Chinese proverb says, before saying an angry word, if you are feeling angry, roll your tongue nine times and then say it. By the time you have finished rolling your tongue nine times, your anger is gone, and you will not make the mistake of saying the wrong word. That is the mistake. If the confusion cannot be solved by ourselves, we go to a counsellor, a qualified person, to advise us, to counsel us so that we do not make a mistake – it is very simple. A WRONG PATH Because in the beginning, we were in such a hurry, or we were so rash, we take the wrong path. What is the wrong path? The wrong path is that which takes us away from our real Self. There are wrong paths which are very circular, taking the wrong road to the beach and instead of down there, we walk up here – but those are not the paths to which we refer. From the spiritual point of view, a wrong path takes you away from the divine essence within yourself. In other words, you are not flowing with the laws of nature. Nature does not make mistakes. Water runs down a hill and not up a hill. The sun rises in the east and never in the west. Like that, everything in the laws of nature works to fine precision. Every planet that revolves around the sun has accuracy through natural laws. Every plant, every flower that grows timelessly, combines all the various natural laws involved in it to make it conducive to growth. Because man has a mind, the cunning animal as we call it, we turn and twist nature’s laws and swim against the current. The wrong path starts with a mistake, and that mistake could also be defined as a misconception. Instead of conceiving the right path, we miss it. Misconception. That is why we take the wrong path. But even after taking the wrong path, you can still make a U-turn and come back. A little time would be wasted, but there is no hope lost. No hope is ever lost. It is the mind that is the troublemaker. If the mind can be regulated to think rightly, then these mistakes and wrong paths do not happen. What do we do to let the mind operate within the laws of nature would be to keep holy company? That is why we are here. Sat-sang – association for the purpose of truth. It is always advised in ancient scriptures that as far as possible be in holy company. Good company, and because of that, read good books instead of cheap novels which we find in those bookstalls on street corners. The other day I passed a stall, and magazines were hanging there, and I had to turn my head away. It was terrible the photos in the magazines. If the reading matter is good matter, the company is good company, and continuing that, our minds would be attuned more and more to a higher level. The more and more the mind is attuned to a higher level, the less and less do we have the chance of making a mistake or going on the wrong path. That is it. So simple. DO ONE NEED TO EXPERIENCE THE WRONG PATH? It is like saying that do you not need rain to know the sun. Do you not need to know the night to know the day? But who says the sun and the rain are wrong? Who says the night and the day are wrong? They are not opposites. They are part and parcel of one whole. But this would not apply to man’s life as he lives it. It is not necessary to go through extreme misery to find happiness. It is not necessary. It is not necessary to eat bitter fruits half the lifetime and then say, “Let me eat bitter fruits now because I know that by eating bitter fruits now, sweet fruits will come.” You might be dead by that time! It is only the right knowledge and right guidance that will prevent us from experiencing the wrong path and be led onto the right path. We are also looking at it from this limited fraction in this vast continuum. Today if a man is walking on the right path, who knows how many wrong paths he has not traversed in past lives? Today man gives his life to save thousands and millions. Who knows that through his hands thousands and millions were not destroyed in the past? But if today we are on the wrong path, must we think and say, let me continue on the wrong path? That is the question. Because as soon as we realise that this is the wrong path, you immediately impress your mind with all happenings of the wrong path. Negative affirmations, negative suggestions, negative thinking all the time will not produce a positive thought or a positive action. IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO KNOW MISERY TO FIND HAPPINESS Things that were done in ignorance or innocence are OK. You did not know. But as soon as man develops the thinking mind and man learns to discriminate and starts knowing that this does not seem right, and as soon as he knows or realises
Infusing Spirituality into Life: Integrating the Spiritual and the Material
START SPIRITUAL EDUCATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOL There is a great necessity in this world to express to the young about the spiritual life. I think I have spoken about this many times before, as mainstream education does not start spiritual education like some organisations are doing, because when you reach a certain age, your mind is so set. But start spiritual education from when the child is small, starting in school, primary/infant school. That is the place where spiritual knowledge is to be given to be moulded and grow up in that. I have found one thing: in the home where there are meditators, where quality recordings are played all the time, the children listen. You will be surprised how perceptive children are. Although they might not be able to verbalise it, they feel that something good is there, and if they are nurtured and brought up in that kind of atmosphere, then juvenile delinquency would be so much lessened. THERE IS A GREAT INTEREST IN SPIRITUAL MATTERS TODAY In all countries, including America, England, and everywhere, technological progress has been so fast today. The intellects have become more and more developed. Despite the technological developments, they have searched outwardly, for they suffer from dissatisfaction within themselves. They do not have peace. They could run multi-billion-dollar corporations, and yet they find an emptiness. They have gone to the highest intellectual and technological development limit and cannot find the answer there. So, the only way they can go is inward instead of outward. Therefore, there is a great interest in spiritual matters today, of finding the Kingdom of Heaven within. There is a significant surge in that direction, which is an excellent sign. Unfortunately, many of my countrymen have come along and misused the privileges that were given to them. Instead of them converting the outward seekers, they became outward seekers for power and wealth. That is a tragedy, and when I meet some of these guys at times, I give them a piece of my mind because I am afraid of nothing and no one. It could be the highest lord of the land. If I want to say something, I say it openly and clearly and in no uncertain terms. That is a tragedy, but those that do understand might be performing some little good work. THE PEACE THAT PASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING Anyone on the spiritual path should be encouraged to find himself. By finding himself, his life will become more peaceful, and that is what we want. “The peace that passes all understanding.” We need this integration; the mind and body have been led so far outward. It is about time that more and more people like you would make a right-about turn and start going inward. For only there is peace to be found. A millionaire might become a multi-millionaire, and the multi-millionaire might become a billionaire. But what has he gained as far as his personal peace is concerned? Therefore, the scriptures would say, “What is the use of gaining the world and losing your soul?” And souls are being lost. They are not lost; we say these words figuratively and not to be taken in its literal sense because the soul of men can never be lost. But it can be entangled with these total materialistic, unbalanced desires. WE NEED MATERIALITY I am not against materialism. But what I would like to see is that Spirit, that spirituality to be infused into materiality. So that which is material becomes spiritual, and that which is spiritual becomes material. It is a continuum. It is a oneness. But although having two eyes, we close one eye and look at the material part. Let us open the other eye and see the spiritual part as well. We find the two eyes adequately focused, and in that proper focusing, the spirituality and materiality is infused. Because we need materiality – we need it. If I have not got fifty cents or fifty-six cents in my pocket at home, I cannot go and buy a loaf of bread, and I need the sustenance. That is material. You walk outside. God’s air is free, but we are paying for it in taxes. INFUSION OF SPIRITUALITY We cannot escape materiality. This body is material. It is flesh and bones. It is material. But the spiritual side of man can be deeply infused in that materiality so that it functions holistically so that it functions in a wholeness. That is healing. To be healed is to become whole. It is beautiful, really if we think about it. It is beautiful, and it is not an impossibility. It is within reach of everyone. It is just by directing one’s attention, and with spiritual practices, you will find that we will see lesser and lesser faults in things. We will see the greater and greater good in things. That is practical infusion in practical daily living. Then we stop being judgmental. “Judge ye not that ye be judged.” “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” “Do unto others as you expect to be done unto you.” These injunctions become realities, not just words on the printed page. That is what we want. So simple. You do not need to make it complex. Very simple. The simple understanding of what life is all about, and if you know life, you know love. And if you know love, you know laughter which is joy. In our motto, we had to use the word laughter because there is three L’s. Instead of saying L. L. J, we say three L’s. By laughter, I mean joy. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1982 – 05
Life, Love, and Laughter: Embracing the Essence of Being
LIFE IS TO BE ENJOYED You might all know the story of Ramakrishna, where this teacher took his students to a mango orchard. All the students started counting how many branches and how many leaves and how many veins in all these various leaves, but one student sat in the corner. He plucked a mango and was eating it. Who had the greatest enjoyment? The leaf-counters or the mango-eaters? So, enjoy! Life is made to enjoy, for life itself is joy. The very composition of the forces that make life is joy. Life is love; love is laughter. And that is why we say, “Smile and the world smiles with you.” See, these simple little sayings, there is such deep meanings to it, but we fail to understand it. If I pull a big face, you are going to do the same. So, I smile, and you will smile. And if my smile and love is genuine and sincere, it will touch the very core of your being. And that is how life is to be lived. That is how the connection between the relative and the Absolute is created: hotline from the conscious mind to the superconscious mind and the beyond. The superconscious mind is as vast as the universe. And yet, there is something more beyond. The totality of the superconscious mind and the subconscious and conscious is represented by what we know as the personal god. The emanation of this totality is the personal god, and from there, we reach that which is impersonal. The personality that is created by this universe is the personal god with various attributes. At the same time, the impersonal is the neutral force — like electricity in a stove for heat or a fridge for coldness. And that is what man is. And that is where? Nowhere, but nowhere is now here. Do you see the similarity in spelling between “nowhere” and “now here?” It is spelt the same way. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1979 – 02
The Flow of Meditation: Embracing Thoughts Without Attachment
THOUGHTS IN MEDITATION Many people are worried about thoughts in meditation, and this is a misconception. Many people say, and this has originated in the East, that in meditation, there should be no thoughts in the mind, the mind should be blank, but that is erroneous. The mind could never be blank. There comes a time when you will find a certain blankness in the ten percent conscious mind, but your mind could never become blank, for the subconscious would be working all the time. Like in sleep, the conscious mind goes to sleep, but the subconscious mind is forever working. Many people complain that when I sit down to meditate, lots of thoughts rush through my mind. That is good; let them rush through the mind. A thought is like a story; it has a beginning, a middle and an end. As the thought is tapering off at the end, you easily and effortlessly introduce your mantra, and as that mantra fades away, another thought will come. A THOUGHT LAST FOR A FEW SECONDS ONLY We think that a thought lasts for half an hour; it does not. By thought here, we could equate it with contemplation, and man’s mind cannot systematically start a thought and preserve that thought for a period of time. A thought cannot last that long because man’s mind is so fragmented that he cannot. Man’s mind can only have a thought for a few seconds at a time, and then there has to be a gap that might not be noticeable to people. What you are experiencing is a whole series of thoughts, most of the times disconnected. You will think for a second of Auntie Mary, and then you will think of the pudding you have got in the oven and then think of what you will wear tomorrow to the party – totally disjointed. BEING ABLE TO CONCENTRATE, YOU WILL CONTEMPLATE Proper contemplation is like pouring oil from one vessel into another without a break, and that comes about through a concentrated mind that could focus all its energy to a focal point. That is why the practice of Tratak is so important that it will help you to concentrate and by being able to concentrate, you will contemplate. LET THE THOUGHTS COME, LET THE STORY FINISH When thoughts occur in the mind, there is nothing wrong with it because once the mind goes totally blank, in the present state of man’s mind, he could very easily go into self-hypnosis and he could also very easily go into a form of a catatonic state, which is not a healthy state at all. So, when the thought comes or as many as they like, let them come, let the story finish, and you get back onto your mantra. When that ends, another thought will appear from the subconscious to the conscious level, but the secret here is that you are not to be involved in the thought when these thoughts come. By involvement in thought, we mean that you must not be emotionally involved. Auntie Mary was not kind to you, so here the thought of Auntie Mary comes up, and when you say, “Oh, she was not kind to me”, you feel angry. That anger is an emotion. Think of the unkindness of Auntie Mary by all means, but objectify the thought, view the actions of Auntie Mary as if you are looking at a motion picture, looking at a film and view it detachedly. Then that very thought, that detachment or non-attachment to your thought is in itself a form of meditation. Meditation is an alternation between mantra and thought and mantra and thought, a smooth transition from one to the other. EMPTYING THE SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND OF SAMSKARAS Those meditators who have all these thoughts cropping up are not to be bothered. They are emptying the sub-conscious mind of many samskaras, of a lot of impressions, and they are letting it off; they are letting off steam, which is partly how a lot of the stresses can be resolved. The same thing happens in dreams. If you dream, it is a wonderful mechanism, and if you have nightmares, that is even better, for all the dirt clogging the mind is thrown off. All the horrifying thoughts that are existing in the mind in seed form are being dispelled. If you had to live in the waking state of life the experiences of the nightmares, you would not be able to live. Life would become extremely difficult. You see how wonderful nature is or how wonderful God is. He has given man all these safety valves to rid himself of the impressions, the samskaras so that he could be led to God because God is always calling. He says, “Come, come, come, come, come” and therefore, He has given these safety valves. DO NOT BE WAYLAID BY SIDDHIS When these thoughts come about, then one must be very careful when one talks of telepathic thoughts. Those which are regarded to be telepathic thoughts could just be one’s imagination, they could be hallucinations. Some people might have that psychic ability to receive thoughts of others, but they must just be regarded as thoughts, and no importance must be attached to them because they could be the greatest stumbling block in one’s spiritual progress. All the greatest Saints and Sages have said that do not be waylaid by what they call Siddhis. You leave your front door and want to go to the garden gate; there are beautiful flowers in your garden, you do not get stuck there. As you pass you admire them, you say “Ah, they are so lovely, look at the lovely colours”, but you march on the path and reach the gate because you have to go out. All these Siddhis, or sometimes they are called occult powers, is not our line. I could teach each of you any particular Siddhi you want to have, but I shall not
The Evolving Soul: Transforming Personality Through Meditation
CHANGING OF PERSONALITY? We are nothing else but a bundle of all the experiences that we have gained over all those millions of years, perhaps, and that constitutes our personality. Through meditational practices, changes come to the personality. For example, from certain experiences in life, one becomes hard, or one becomes obnoxious, or one becomes a heckler or troublemaker or whatever. If that person is sincere enough, that will cease in him because he will start viewing everything within the framework of love. Take the example of a heckler or a troublemaker. Why does he do that? What is the discrepancy in his personality that would make him do that? Of course, the teacher would always look upon such a person with love and compassion because he understands there is something wrong. What is the mechanism that is making the person tick? The most common thing one would find is that there is such a blockage in him that he cannot express the love inherent in him. Therefore, because he cannot express love, his awareness is limited. By his awareness being limited, he had a lesser understanding and many times even the answer to a question might not be understood. When we look at these things, study the personality, we do not feel pity, but we feel greater love and greater compassion. In like manner, meditation does change the personality. It takes away the hardness that is there and brings that mellowness that love inspires. It teaches a person how to love, it teaches a person the meaning of love and not only that, it teaches a person to become love. That is the fundamental change required in today’s man. Because of the vast experiences one had in various lifetimes, there are conflicting thoughts, conflicting impressions in one’s mind and these conflicting impressions have to be resolved. If one goes through all the various experiences and tries to resolve them one by one, it will take millions of years. That is the process of psychoanalysis, for example. They try to find the cause of things, and by finding the cause of things, the cause can be altered. But if the personality is defective in itself, how can the cause be altered? That is the scientific way. The mystical way is this; that you do not analyse the causes. You go to the light. In other words, you do not analyse darkness, you switch on the light, and darkness disappears. That is the shortest path, the shortest route towards finding that inner joy and that inner peace about which we all think. The personality chosen by the soul is not a choice. There is no difference between the soul and the personality. Where does the soul reside? Does it reside in your leg or your head, or your arm? No, you are the soul. Therefore, the soul is the personality, and this life that one has taken is definitely to learn lessons. RESOLVING CONFLICTS IN THE MIND After leaving this body behind in the subtle spheres of existence, one goes through a process of evaluation. We evaluate all things we have done in all our lifetimes, and we choose the circumstances in which we are born. The body perishes, and yet the body is not destructible. All matter remains eternal. It will not remain immortal in the same form. It will disintegrate and go back into its original elements – dust to dust. In that way, the atoms that compose the human body are not destroyed, but they will be attracted to its like. Birds of a feather flock together – it is a true saying. The body changes from time to time. But the subtle body in man, which is the carrier and conveyor of all experiences that one has had, has to resolve the conflicts created. For example, the conflict between love and hate and the conflicts experienced between pleasure and pain. All these conflicts have to be resolved, and to resolve conflicts one by one is a process that would take millions of years, but this process is not necessary. You do not need to analyse the mechanics of darkness. Switch on the light, and that we do through meditation. We reach the deepest layers to the source of light and bring forth the light to banish all the darkness in our lives. As one meditates and one gains experiences, one is modifying oneself; modification of the mind is a modification of the soul. Every experience gained, good or bad, has its particular value. No experience is for nothing – it must leave some impression. As humans on this planet, we are just a tiny speck in this vast continuum that we call eternity. Within the range of evolution, one can digress by one’s actions, not to a lower kingdom but in the strata of the human kingdom. One can be born again for example as a worse type of person than one is in this life, because of our actions, because of our thoughts; for thought too is an action, a subtle action. When the physical body acts, it is just a translation of that subtle action which started in the mind. So, thought and action, thought and deed, as we normally talk about it, modify the soul. THE SOUL IS SUBJECTED TO CHANGE; THE SPIRIT IS CHANGELESS Here one thing must be understood, and there have been many misconceptions about this. The soul is equated with the spirit. The soul is not the spirit. The spirit in man is forever pure. The soul is the personality with its origin or its impetus from that neutral power called the spirit. It is the soul that evolves and modifies because evolution necessarily implies change all the time. The spirit is changeless. The soul is like the waves on the ocean, forever rising, falling and rising and falling and yet at the depths of the ocean, the calm unchangeability is there all the time. We are trying to
Divine Love: The Inexplicable Gift of Life
ONLY LOVE EXIST Love heals anything. Love heals the mind; love heals the heart. Love heals any ache or pain. The greatest gift bestowed on mankind is to be loved and to be able to love. When we make ourselves worthy of that, when we start loving, even consciously, at first, it might seem a bit mechanical, but showing little kindnesses here, there, and everywhere it starts the machine rolling. I have a friend who is a very big businessman, and during those business times, I used to visit his office now and again. He has a big notice in his front office that “To be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.” By acting enthusiastic, you become enthusiastic. You are repatterning your mind with some effort. When it comes to love, you can not just love, but start with the little niceties, the little kindnesses, a little smile. When you become loving, you become lovable. That is how you attract love towards you. That is how we attract the greatest gift given to man, to be able to love and to be able to be loved. For the very word “love” is synonymous with God – for God is Love and Love is God. WHEN TWO PEOPLE ARE GATHERED IN MY NAME, I AM THERE When a man loves a woman, God has come between the two people. He is there, ever-present. In the scriptures, when two people are gathered in my name, I am there. This also has its literal meaning where one discusses the teachings of the scriptures. It also has a figurative meaning, that by getting together to discuss those very teachings, one discusses them not as a surgeon, analysing and dissecting, you get together for love – a sharing of love. Then that Force, that power, is always there. The most significant healing that could be given to me, for example, is your love, a sharing of that love. That is all. It opens up a beautiful channel toward that which is inexplicable. I experience it every moment of the day, but if you ask me to explain it, to define it, I cannot. It is beyond the comprehension of the mind. But the feeling is so powerful. THE FLOWER JUST GIVES OFF FRAGRANCE Last night Doug and I were sitting down chatting; I said, “You know, the forces of Divinity are flowing so powerfully that I sometimes feel that this body could hardly contain it.” That is the whole secret of life, to share this love, and in sharing, there is growing. Look how beautiful when the flower grows. Look how many elements are shared or interconnected with each other. The air shares, the sun shares, the minerals in the ground shares, and all the sharing makes the flower grow; it makes it blossom in its beauty. And when it blossoms in its beauty, that is not all that it does. It also gives off that fragrance without asking. You do not ask the flower for its fragrance; it is just there. It just gives. If our lives could be like the flower, where we become fragrant with love, and there is not a single person on Earth that needs to be unhappy. For love is all; love is happiness; love is joy; love is God; love is Divinity. Nothing else exists but love. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1978 – 23
Love as a State of Being: Unfolding the Divine Essence
WHAT IS REAL LOVE? How can we cultivate and integrate that which is called love? How can we talk in tangible terms of that which is intangible? What people call love is not love. You will be surprised to hear this. Love, as most people know, is a need. Real love knows no need. Love, as most people know it, is a dependency. It could be a physical dependence, an emotional dependency, all kinds of dependencies, and that they call love. Then, what is real love? Love cannot be cultivated. Love is happening. Love is like the fragrance of the flower. The flower does not transmit the fragrance consciously. It is the nature of the flower to give the fragrance. That fragrance is love. It is the nature of fire to give off heat. The fire spontaneously gives off that heat; that is love. We do not cultivate love but cultivate qualities within us to make it conducive for love to come. In other words, everything is a preparation for love to come. When we plant the flower, we nurture it, use fertilisers, and use water. The sapling is well-tendered. We tie it to a stick because it is frail until it becomes strong when we throw it away. So, what are the things necessary in preparation for love? Things essential in the preparation for love are summed up in one word – Virtue. Virtue is practised with consciousness. Our conception of love is at such a level that it only touches the mind, and the mind is nothing but a patterned entity, and it functions in a specific pattern. We have to repeat the pattern, consciously exercising particular virtues. The same principle applies to the child learning to play the piano, or when an old lady is trying to cross the road, you do not have that love in you for that lovely old lady, but you go up and help her cross the street. You have not expressed love. Perhaps you have expressed a kind of pity. You pity the old. It might not even be compassion, for that person might not have heard of the word compassion. The only thing he knows about compassion is the passion. In this way, a conscious effort begins. Likewise, “Do Good, Be Good” is a sage maxim to follow in every sphere of life. If you cannot do anyone any good, do not harm anyone. DO GOOD, BE GOOD Doing good and being good sounds so simple but is so tricky. What do we mean by “doing good?” If we study moral philosophy, we will find so many different concepts in the mind of what constitutes Good. You can study it from the theological aspect and half a dozen other elements. But that still does not make you good. We use our scriptures and our great religions like Christianity as a guideline to what is good to help us decide, in any circumstance, what should be done. Thou shalt not covet, Thou shalt not this. Those do and do not have great value. MEDITATION TAKES AWAY MUCH OF THE WEIGHT OF THE EFFORT REQUIRED We want to learn to love, so we start not talking about love, but we start with the virtues surrounding love because we are not capable of learning love yet or experiencing it. The mind has some idea – Boy loves girl, as they say. Girl loves boy. They look into each other’s eyes and melt away, and how they wish they were made of wax – then they would melt away. It is not a question of looking into each other’s eyes but the eyes of both looking in the same direction. That brings about an understanding. Here, the keyword to learn to love is understanding. Knowledge of the moral principles as set out by the sages, Buddha, Krishna, and Christ – developing an understanding and, with effort, putting that understanding into practice. It requires some effort, and here, meditation comes to help again. It would make that understanding easier and take so much of the weight away from the effort. When all this preparation is done, you see a slight flicker of love, which is so encouraging. Need disappears. I do not need to love you. I love you because I love you. What does that mean? It means I do not love you. I love love. I love love, and you are the only object that enables me and gives me the privilege of loving love. You are the focal point. Need disappears – dependency disappears – for love is always independent. DEPENDENCY – INTERDEPENDENCY Dependency disappears, which means that weaknesses go away. A dependent love, be it emotional or physical, is not strength. It is a weakness. It is because we are so disintegrated and fragmented that we have this dependency. The need goes, dependencies go, and then, when dependency goes, there is a middle step: interdependency. Then, an interdependence develops between two people, neither dependent nor independent. Now they see a wholeness that there is no more you or I, but us – that interdependence. There is still one step further, where you go even beyond interdependence. But, as householders, living a householder’s life – with family and children – that interdependence is necessary. When there is that interdependence, conflicts cease. Recently, I was asked to say a few words at a wedding, so I said marriage is a union where you start a three-legged run. No more four legs, but two of the legs tied together. That interdependence. There are two forms of independence. In the lower form of autonomy, there is conflict. At first, when the independence of the lower level ceases, conflicts cease, and with the development of the inter part of it, they function as a unified whole. After going through that phase, which is necessary for daily living, one comes back to independence, but of a different sort – it is spiralling. One is at a
The Journey of No Journey: Returning to Stillness
Bliss, Brahman, Consciousness, Divine, Divinity, Eternal, Evolution, Force, God, Heart, Joy, Light, Love, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mind, Omnipresent, Oneness, Path, Philosophy, Samskaras, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, The Abstract, The Three Gunas, Unfoldment, Unity, Universal, Universe
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL There is no development; the soul is wholly developed; there is just an unfolding. In this path of unfoldment that goes from Silence to Silence, What is travelling? Have we travelled a path, or have we not travelled at all? If it has been a journey, who has experienced this journey? We know that the Spirit of the human being, or the Universal Spirit, is omnipresent. It has nowhere to go and nowhere from where to come. It just is. So, what journeys? Is it an experience, or is it an illusion? Even if it is an illusion, how is it experienced? All illusion or delusion is just a counterpart of reality, as its own “non-existence” exists within that “It” that we call reality. We come from nowhere and are going nowhere, but give a little space between the “w” and the “h”. You are “now here”, an essential factor to recognise in practical life. Nevertheless, the mind has a habit of inquiring. The mind is conditioned through evolution into various stages whereby it gains these experiences. Who gains the experiences? The mind gains experiences. A HUMAN BEING HAS THE CAPACITY TO EXPERIENCE THE ENTIRETY OF THE UNIVERSE; THE SPIRIT CAN NOT The experiences gained by the mind, of the mind, and from the mind bring us to a simple idea: 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 an expansive pond. That bubble has no separate existence from the pond. A human being has the capacity within himself to experience, with the mind, the entirety of the universe, while the Spirit remains aloof, for the Spirit cannot experience this journey. Therefore, we say, “From Silence, we proceed and return to Silence.” It means that the mind that has been manifested, as fragrance is 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 there has been no journey. But the mind assumes that this is a journey, that there is a journey. What are the reasons for this? The Spirit is, while the mind thinks it travels from here to there. From the beginning of this universe’s present cycle, there is a manifestation, wrongly called creation, because creation requires a will behind it, while manifestation is just an emanation. It is the nature of the Manifestor to manifest like it is the nature of a flower to give off fragrance, but there is no will involved. The powers in the manifestation are known in Sanskrit as the three gunas: tamas, rajas and sattva. This interaction between darkness and light manifests in the universe’s manifestation, the Universal Mind. THE MIND CREATES EXPERIENCE The entire mind, or the universe, is nothing but propulsion that seemingly goes forth in our linear time and space concept. In the third dimension we exist in, we find this movement proceeding from A to B, while beyond the mind, there is no space and no time. Like Blake said, “Eternity in an hour”, we would rather say, in a moment. In this process put forth through manifestation in which the three gunas operate, the mind feels itself travelling. Why does it feel like it is travelling? Why does it feel mixed up in the process of evolution? In this process of contraction and expansion generated by the three gunas, matter and its various atomic structures are constantly in motion. The mind, enmeshed in this process of contraction and expansion, 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. This is not so. There is a rhythm in the sea created by currents where each wave is bobbing up and down where it is, then the next bobs up and down, and so forth, giving us the illusion that the wave is moving at that end to the shore. Likewise, there is the flux of the universe, the perpetual motion that perpetuates itself, within itself, by itself, because its nature is motion. We are trying to find which is silent behind all the activity because that which is motion cannot be silent, and that which is silent can have no motion. Very simple. Because the mind can act and interact within its components, it becomes increasingly complex, and this very complexity adds to the mind’s motion. The mind creates the experience, and the mind itself is the experience, for the eternal Spirit within humanity is beyond all experience of motion or anything else. It just is. Here, it is a question of superimposition. Heat rises from the sun. The sun does not intentionally create heat; it is the nature of the sun to give off heat. Similarly, in its very silent form, that eternal energy first manifests itself as mind.When the mind assumes this motion, it also finds a direction, which is what we term Divine Will. Because there was Divine Will, all this you observe, including our wills, has come about. This is very true from the theological point of view and the philosophical point of view. But from the mystical point of view, this truth assumes a different approach: In the manifestation of Divine Will, the will becomes the individual mind. Here, there is no differentiation between mind and will. Ordinarily, it is the directed activity of a particular mind, which is self-created and called will. IN THE PROCESS OF MANIFESTATION, THE DIVINE FORCE HAS TO GROSSIFY ITSELF When manifestation occurs, this Divine Force has to grossify itself in the form of matter or grosser energies in the process of manifestation. From the subtlest level of that silent energy, ever inaccessible like in limits in mathematics, this Divine Force assumes the form of activated energy. The more that energy is activated, the
Sacred Union: Transforming Sexuality into Spiritual Oneness
ANIMAL, MAN AND GODMAN We have to remember that we are householders, live a householder’s life, and have a family. Sexuality is only the outward expression of an inner welling up. I am not talking about lust, which is animalism. Every man contains three things within himself – the animal- because he has passed through that stage in evolution. In his memory, there are still implanted impressions of animal life. Man has within himself what man should really be, and thirdly, man has within himself the godman. Within every human being, there are three things: animal, man, and God. It depends upon us to which we give greater emphasis. Lust comes about because the greater focus is given to the animal side, which lives mostly by instinct and bodily needs. The only thing distinguishing man from animals is that man has thinking power. He has reached a stage higher in his evolution. Having the thinking power and the power of discrimination, he has also developed the power to subdue or overcome animal instincts and live as a man who should not have animal instincts. That very man stands in the middle between animals and God. Between animal and Divinity. Because of this power of thinking, he can lean either way because of this power of discrimination. He can be pulled to the animal side or the God side. But that does not make him cease to remain as a man. Man can stay on this earth and yet live as a godman. When man lives as a godman, the act of copulation can be sublimated into something extraordinary. I would never tell any householder to abstain from sex. If you are a householder, you are there to bring up your family, to procreate; it is the nature of man – that must not be stopped. CELIBACY? I had a couple coming to me in South Africa. Before they came to me, some swami had visited South Africa, and they went to the swami, and they went to his lectures and had a private interview; the swami, who was a monk, would think like a monk. He was an ascetic. He tells this couple that to find maximum spiritual growth, you have to become celibates, and by becoming celibate, you will find maximum spiritual growth and reach God. So, this couple took the word of the swami. Two weeks went by, three weeks, four weeks, and two months went by, and a terrible amount of irritation and irritability started developing between them, formerly loving each other. With the irritability, a lot of quarrels began. The wife was nearly on the verge of a nervous breakdown with the quarrels. So, they heard about me, came to listen to some of my talks, and made an appointment for a private interview. Then I started talking to them, and when you speak to someone, you like to find out the causes of things, so I asked them, “What have you been doing, and what has happened?” So, they told me that swami so and so came, and he said that we must become celibates, and we have become celibates. I was very wild. I said, “The two of you go to bed tonight in the same bedroom.” I saw them again a few weeks later, and they were back to their usual selves. The concept of celibacy is fine for an ascetic, for a yogi, who has reached a level where he can take the sexual energies and sublimate them into spiritual force. But that is not the dharma of a householder. When I say a householder must indulge in the relationship, I do not mean excesses. Of course, that is something else. But normal according to need. That is how a person lives every day. SEXUALITY When it comes to sexuality, in Victorian times or in olden times, the word could not even be spoken. It was a sin even to utter the word “sex.” But we have come a long way from that. We have come a long way from the inhibitions implanted in young children’s minds. But after coming a long way, we have gone to the other extreme, so instead of inhibitions, we have developed permissiveness, and anything when it comes to extremes is always wrong. We choose the middle road according to the station in our life. If we are householders, we do the things which householders do. If we are ascetics and live in Himalayan caves, we do what should be done in Himalayan caves. Sexuality is the togetherness between partners, and I emphasise partners, not just permissiveness. The togetherness, the copulation between partners, can itself become a meditation. Why do we get together? A force is involved, expressed in a physical act, but the physical act is not the force. There is an inner Force that wants them to merge into each other. You-ness and I-ness must cease. There should be us-ness. This inner force wants him or her to become one with their partner, which makes us indulge in the physical act. Although the physical act, too, has a specific power of its own, in actual copulation, which is not lust, it is the inner force of wanting to penetrate within the beloved’s soul where the two souls can join in union. THERE HAS TO BE A TOTAL NATURAL FLOW There is no differentiation at all; there is no duality. But being embodied and having a limited mind, we think my wife and I are separate. Yet, within, a force wants to bring us together. There is a mental togetherness. The mental togetherness arouses or demands a physical togetherness. All this is engendered because of the oneness of spirit between man and woman, who also would like to see and express that oneness through the mind and the body. That is why men and women copulate. That is apart from creating children. That is a different aspect of it. The very sexual act can be
Beyond Friend and Foe: The Oneness of True Love
Acceptance, Attitude, Awareness, Belief, Bible, Chela, Christ, Consciousness, Ego, Enlightenment, Eternal, Evolution, Faith, God, Guru, Humility, Joy, Law of opposites, Light, Love, Manifestation, Mind, Oneness, Path, Scriptures, Spirit, Spiritual Teacher
LOVE THINE ENEMIES You can love a friend just as much as a foe. Therefore, Jesus said, “Love thine enemies,” and he said this from experience, for wherever he went, he was opposed. Many people were his enemies – enemies of Jesus, but how could Christ ever know of enemies? “Love thy enemies” can only come from a deeper level, not from the mental and analytical level. For, in an enemy, we would find all the faults, and all the defects found in an enemy are nothing but the projection of our minds and faults. Because we are not strong enough to bear, recognise, or accept our faults, we project them onto others. And projecting those faults, they assume the form of enemies. Yet, no one is an enemy or a friend to anyone. These things are surface expressions. Not that we must not have friends; by all means, they could benefit you. They could be invaluable to you, and you could be beneficial to them on the surface level of life, and we cannot deny the surface level of life, for that, too, is necessary. But when the Oneness, the communication of the Spirit, occurs, there is no friend and no foe. There is neither acceptance nor non-acceptance. It is a recognition of what is, and that isness is the truth. WE WANT TO GO BEYOND THE OPPOSITES You have a friend, and you trust the friend. Tomorrow, something might happen, and he becomes a foe, so you have lost trust. The mental qualities are forever changing when we are looking for the eternal, when we are looking for that consciousness, that Christ Consciousness, in everything around us. For it is there, transcending trust, faith, and belief. Because there is no opposite in that consciousness – it is just there. Today, you believe in something, and something might happen that will produce disbelief in you. The opposite is there, and it could be something very trivial. It could be something that could not even exist to make the disbelief. It could be some interpretation of your mind. You disbelieve, so you are bringing about the opposite reaction. We want to go beyond the opposites, beyond belief and disbelief, and beyond the so-called worldly love and hate, for these are all but qualities. When I say to you that love must exist for the sake of love itself and not for the sake of the object, that love is a different kind of love. It means two so-called individual loves merge into that one love into that consciousness. The actual search is not for love. Love is still a secondary quality. It is a quality that has quantity. “I love him a little.” “I love him very much.” It is a secondary quality given to the personalised being, the personification or the manifestation of that consciousness. Truth is beyond all that, for truth is consciousness. As I have said many times, language is so inadequate to describe and explain what consciousness is all about. One could only say it is an is-ness that we never question, which is how this has also been misinterpreted wildly. You go to some of the ashrams in India; for example, you cannot question the guru. He can do what he likes. You are not allowed to question the guru. You must have faith in him; he can be a scoundrel. You must have faith – that is blind faith. I would never encourage that. I encourage total questioning according to your ability. I would allow you to interpret according to your ability. If your interpretation is wrong, that is also good. If it is correct, that is a bit better. But go beyond the wrong and the right. That is what we want. Then there is no separation; there is no question, doubt, faith, nothing because these are qualities only of the mind. THE MIND IS A MANIFESTATION If a man asks a woman, “Do you love me?” She says “yes”, and he asks, “Why do you love me?” For this reason or for that reason or another reason – then that is not love. That is a form of manifestation of love. A manifestation through the manifestation of the mind. For the mind is a manifestation. It is not the truth. It is a superimposition to look for qualities more conducive to their framework and frame of mind. Then, all the conditions come about. Where true love, real love, should be unconditional. These are the things that the disciples of Jesus failed to recognise at that time. They were constantly questioning. There was so much jealousy between themselves. In some scrolls that were found recently, there were prominent write-ups in reputable newspapers in England like the Observer. I remember reading those write-ups where many of the disciples felt jealous because Jesus held Mary Magdalene so close to him and kissed her passionately on the lips. There were jealousies. Things were conditional. That “why are we not paying that attention? Why is Mary paying that attention?” So, were they true disciples? No, they were not. They were not true disciples. They only became true disciples after Jesus left them, and in the process, the realisations dawned of not the man, the man that was given to passion, that was given to anger. When they saw beyond that, only the realisations dawned on what he represented and his reality. NEVER EXPECT ANYTHING In the mundane world, no guru or chela must live in expectations. Never expect anything. Even in your meditations, do not expect anything, and then the most extraordinary things occur. Because expectation is building a wall, in other words, your mind is biased already. You are expecting something. You want something. As long as they want it brought in, you get nothing. What is required is total innocence. Not faith. Not trust. That is not necessary. But just an acceptance. That is necessary. According to your ability. According to your measure. According