CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS HAS TO ASSUME A HUMAN FORM Christ has never left us. The body of the historical Christ might have disintegrated into its original elements, but the Christ Consciousness is eternal, and it has never left us; it is always there. It had no beginning, and it had no end. Only that which begins does end, but that which has no beginning will not end. So that consciousness, that divinity is eternal, it is infinite, and it is forever there. There comes a time in the scheme of things when a more significant imbalance is caused in this world or in the solar system or instead in this universe, and that very consciousness embodies itself to bring about the balance again. This is not only a Christian concept but also a concept of the Hindu people, where Krishna, for example, says in the Gita, “From age to age I shall return to bring back the balance which is needed.” In the scheme of things, this world that we live in, the collective world, sets off a particular vibrational factor, and vibrations can be disturbed, as we would find in radio reception. The radio will be distorted if it is not correctly tuned in. So, when the vibrational factors of the existence of this world are disturbed, a magnetic pull forms. A certain auric magnetism is produced that demands the embodiment of that eternal consciousness. Therefore, from time to time, that consciousness will forever manifest physically to help humankind. The Christ Consciousness or the Krishna Consciousness is the same, and for man to appreciate that abstract value, it has to concretise itself. It assumes a human form because only by the human impulse can another human understand. Therefore, it becomes necessary to assume a human form. It will always happen as age after age goes by. This will always happen, but at specific points in time, when a more significant imbalance is created on this Earth, then that consciousness embodies itself in the form of man, flesh and blood to teach us and show us the way. Is it not said that “I am the way, and I am the life”? Yes, that is very, very true. GURUSHAKTI COULD BE TERMED THE LAW OF GRACE Gurushakti is a Sanskrit term that means a universal force, a universal power that, by its very nature, is evolutionary; it evolves. It could also be termed the Law of Grace, which forever exists in this universe. Through meditational practices, we invoke that Divine supreme power called Gurushakti. We invoke that, and to invoke that, it will be necessary to be in touch with our innermost self; to be in touch with our innermost self, we require a teacher. When the minor child goes to school, he has to be taught the A, B, C’s and how to read, and until he can read on his own, he needs a teacher. In our case, we need a spiritual teacher or a guru, and when the power within him is awakened, and the child can read on his own, then the child will not require the teacher. When a housewife goes shopping, she makes a list of what she wants to buy at the supermarket, but once she has bought what she needs, she no longer requires the list. So, she discards the list. In that way, teachers will need to teach you about Gurushakti. GURUSHAKTI IS THE BIRTHRIGHT OF EVERY PERSON A real guru is a person who can gather these universal forces and pass them on as a lending hand to help the person who is seeking self-integration. That is Gurushakti, and this is the birthright of every person because without Shakti or without that energy or power, no person could lift a hand, breathe, or do anything without that power within him. But human beings have been acting and living in our highly sophisticated, hectic age automatically. These powers are just taken for granted. People live automatically. But if these powers are under a certain kind of conscious control, one could gain the maximum benefit for one’s benefit all the time, all the time. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1976 – 08
Beyond The Veil: The Soul’s Pilgrimage to the Divine Source
IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH? I do not believe in life after death; I know life after death. There are three aspects, first, we start thinking, have faith, and then we know. If we sit in an air-conditioned room, we believe the fire is hot in the next room. We believe. But as we leave the door and go to the next room and experience some of the heat, that belief turns to faith because now we have experienced something. So, belief becomes faith. Then, when we jump into the fire and become one with the fire, we know what the fire is. So, belief leads to faith, and faith leads to knowingness. Every person has gone through a period of knowing an afterlife, generally known as death. Speaking, there is no death. No one dies. Even this physical body cannot die. What happens to it is that it disintegrates into its original elements. In other words, it is just transformed into different things. So, if even this physical body is indestructible, what about the eternal Spirit? For, there is everlasting life. The meaning taught to us by the Scriptures about everlasting life is that there is no death, and the basis of all fear is death or, in other words, fear of the unknown. Every situation in life is feared because of the unknown. A person is not happy in his work, not necessarily because of his work mates but because he feels inadequate, and fears he might get the sack. He has fears at home. He fears about his children’s health; they might be healthy now, but he fears, “Oh if they should fall ill, what am I going to do?” Or if his wife is going to start nagging the following day, what is he going to do? So, fears are mostly grounded on that which is unknown, and the basis of all these fears goes right back to the conception of death. RELATIVELY SPEAKING THAT WHICH IS BORN MUST DIE Relatively speaking what is born must die. Everything that is born has its period of living, it decays, and dies, but that is on the relative field. When we go deeper within ourselves, as in our meditational practices, we start realising there is no death; there is only life, everlasting life. When we say life, the other side of it would be death. There again, we come back to the law of opposites. You can call Divinity, God or Divine energy or whatever; if we call Him the Creator, then He is forever creating, and what does He forever create? He creates life. He does not make death. This is a metaphysical or philosophical understanding that life is eternal and can exist in a grosser or subtler form. We have found that the human mind is only known to us in ten per cent of its value. Ninety per cent of the mind being dormant must exist in a subtle state. Therefore, the grosser ten per cent of the conscious mind cannot know the subtle ninety per cent of the mind. So, if the body does not die, if the body is indestructible and disintegrates into its original elements, then the subtle body within ourselves, which is the mind, is indestructible too because the composition of the body and mind is the same. It is all matter, one in a grosser form, one in a subtler form. Speaking relatively, when this physical body is discarded, the subtle body, which we call the mind, will not be destroyed either. WHICHEVER IS MORE SUBTLE IS MORE POWERFUL Whichever is more subtle is more powerful. For example, if a minute atom can be split, it can blow up the whole of Liverpool. As we go to the subtler essence of things, the more powerful it becomes, and because the mind is of a far subtler essence than the body, it can last longer. It can last longer than the physical body. So, the mental body can still exist after the physical body has passed away. So, what happens when one exists in the subtle body? That is the question that you would like to have answered. The impressions and the existence in the subtle body are nothing different from the facts in the grosser body. But because the subtle body is more powerful, we experience all experiences more powerfully in the subtle body. The subtle body in that state of the hereafter has a chance to evaluate its entire life. It assesses, considers, and formulates if it should take another birth. This three score years and ten might seem a very long time to us, but in the scheme of eternity, it is not even a fraction. REINCARNATION CAN NOT BE INTELLECTUALISED, BUT IT CAN BE EXPERIENCED So, today’s life is a composition or the total of all the lives we might have lived before. Reincarnation is not something that can be intellectualised, but it can be experienced. Some people can go back to their subtle bodies and experience the lives that they have lived. This can come only on the experiential level. But certain intellectual inferences could point to previous existences. If anything had a prior existence, then it could have an existence hereafter. In this world, one child is born in very happy circumstances, while another is born in very adverse circumstances. If that Divine law, which we could call God, is just and unbiased, then why should God allow one to be born in happiness, while another in such total unhappiness? Certain hereditary factors are also at play, but of course, hereditary factors, being totally physical and mental, are very superficial. There is still something far beyond it. To return to our point, our lives today are the sum of past existences, and reincarnation can be experienced. There have been many instances in newspaper reports where a small child describes certain places and things and specific associations of previous lifetimes very, very accurately and this
Reincarnation, Memory, and Spiritual Progress: The Silent Journey of the Soul
MAN’S GREATEST GIFT IS THE ABILITY TO FORGET In this modern world, when you say, “Believe this or believe that”, people do not believe because many structures seem to be based on disbelief. There was a time, say, two thousand years ago, during the time of Christ or before that, Buddha or Krishna, when injunctions were made: “Thou shalt and thou shalt not”, and they were taken in good faith and belief. But perhaps the mind of today is a bit more sophisticated and wants explanations; they want answers, scientific data, and logical explanations, and their belief could be led to faith and then to knowingness. You do not need to remember the lessons you have learnt; they become part and parcel of yourself and are already there. The greatest gift man has been given is the ability to forget; that is the greatest gift. Never mind past lives; even if you could remember every negative incident that happened to you in this life, you would end up in a lunatic asylum. The greatest gift man has been given is the ability to forget. It is not necessary to know past lives to progress in this life. If we want light in this room, we put on the switch. We do not need to analyse darkness. We just put on the switch, and we have the various meditation methods at our disposal. When you sit down to the meal your wife has cooked for you, you are interested in that moment, when you are eating the meal, how you are enjoying the meal and if the meal is palatable. You will not lose the pleasure of eating by dissecting or analysing what spices or herbs went into it. When you sit down to eat, you enjoy the meal. So, let us live this life in such a way that it could become very, very enjoyable and remarkable. That is the purpose. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BELIEVE I disagree with the philosopher Nietzsche and the law of perpetual reoccurrence. This life is never lived over again in the same pattern. It is always a different life. Because the life we live today is the total of all past lives, then there would be a difference in this life from past lives. What answer is there for all the experiences that we have gained. It is all the experiences, all the words, deeds and actions of past lives that have formulated this life. Although incorporating all past life experiences, this life is necessary and has to be a different life. As a different life, we have perhaps taken a step further on the ladder. We are on a different step and must progress and climb more until we reach the summit and the roof. And when we get to the top, we have a grand view of the whole universe, the entire cosmos. You do not have to believe. It is not a matter of belief; it is a matter of knowing. For your spiritual evolution to find happiness, you do not need to believe these things; they are unnecessary. Therefore, I said that the human mind can only infer these things because these previous existences are not to be appreciated intellectually. The finite mind can never know the infinity within the 90% dormant mind, and the 90% dormant mind or the totality of man’s mind is as vast as the entire universe. It does require some understanding. You cannot understand it by the mind. Something just clicks inside, telling you, “Ah, this is true.” THERE IS A PROGRESSIVE EVOLUTION GOING ON AND ON AND ON To believe in reincarnation, you must accept the law of Karma. You will have to consider evolution, the law of Karma and the law of reincarnation as a totality. Our existence today has not come about just as humans; humans accept the law of evolution. From the amoebic cell, man has progressed through the mineral kingdom, from there to the plant kingdom, to the animal kingdom, and then to the stage of man. There are millions and millions and billions and billions of atoms in the universe, and each atom is an entity of its own. Each atom contains a completeness on its own. If you can dissect and know the secrets of one atom, you will learn the whole workings of the universe. This has been said by science. It is not a question of more souls existing today than before but a question of more sub-human beings becoming human at this period of life. In proportion and ratio, there will be more self-realised people. That is the procedure all the time. So, there is a progressive evolution going on and on and on. MAN OF TODAY IS NO BETTER THAN MAN THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO I would not say that humanity has made any progress. The people who live today are not necessarily better than those who lived during Christ’s time. Technological advancement is not necessarily spiritual evolution. Sometimes, technological advancement can lead one to devolution rather than evolution. Look at the evil of the technological progress in creating the hydrogen bomb, which, according to several nuclear experts, has the potential to be 1,000 times more powerful than an atomic bomb, which was so destructive that it killed thousands of people instantly. We remember Hiroshima. So, technological advancement is no proof of human evolution, and today’s human beings are no better than those who lived during the time of Christ. They are none better. They still have the same weaknesses and the same vices. But out of the gallon of milk churning it, a certain amount of cream does float up, and I would say that if I could lead just one person to a greater realisation, to self-realisation, the mission of my life would be accomplished. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1976 – 08
Life, Love, and Laughter Through Non-Attachment: Discovering the Eternal Joy Within
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NON-ATTACHMENT AND DETACHMENT The opposite of attachment is not detachment. The opposite of attachment is non-attachment. Let me explain to you the difference between detachment and non-attachment. In detachment, you become detached from the world or your environment. That could be a form of escapism. When many people become dropouts or failures in life or cannot stand the problems of life, then they seclude themselves, they become recluses or hermits. Many of the sadhus or so-called yogis you find in India are dropouts. I have met hundreds of them. They are dropouts, so they detached themselves from the world. But the idea is to have non-attachment, where you are in the world and yet not attached to the world. You are in the world, yet not of the world. That is non-attachment. That means you partake of everything, wear clothes, live in houses, have wives and husbands and families, and live normally. And yet you can still stand apart and observe the play. For is this whole world not a stage, as Shakespeare would say? That is non-attachment, where you are watching the play of the world and sitting in the audience watching the whole world go by. Yet you are partaking of it without being attached to it. That is non-attachment. What happens with attachment is that you become so emotionally involved that you will feel all the pains and the sorrows. But if you are non-attached, although the pains and the sorrows come, you can stand apart and become the witness, and when you become the witness, the emphasis is more on the big “I” instead of the small “I.” With attachment, the small “I” is activated; with non-attachment, the big “I” is activated and becomes the witness or the observer of all that the small “I” is doing. So, the big “I,” or the authentic, actual Self of man, starts permeating the small self of man. The whole secret of life is non-attachment. It does not mean being aloof or detached. It does not mean you leave your wives and children or husbands; the whole day, you sit on some hill or Himalayan cave or sit up in the Andes. That is not what it means. I am a teacher for householders, not for the monks. The monks can carry on with their monkey business. I am a householder, a teacher for householders. JOY IS AN ETERNAL QUALITY Non-attachment is also a form of renunciation, which does not mean that you have renounced the world, but you have renounced the attachment to the world and live in a state of non-attachment where nothing can touch you. By having non-attachment, you rise above, go beyond the polarities, and go beyond the law of opposites. Because in attachment, the law of opposites functions. If you feel intensely happy today, know that you will feel intensely unhappy next week, too. Be sure to know that. Every pleasure has pain as a constituent within itself, and every pain contains within itself pleasure. In non-attachment, you do not experience pain or pleasure. You experience joy. That is something different than pleasure. You eat a big, beautiful dinner, it gives you pleasure. You go to see an excellent show, it gives you pleasure. It does not provide you with joy because pain and pleasure are inflicted upon you, and it requires support from external things while joy wells up from inside. You might go for a lovely dinner, dance and show and feel so happy. You go out with your boyfriend or husband, girlfriend or wife; a couple of hours are spent. Ah! I am happy, so lovely. Yet you come home, and just a little thing, especially after having a few glasses of champagne, just a little thing might set off a fire. You quarrel. Half an hour ago, so much pleasure, and now, just because of that lovely time, as you call it, you are having pain. Do you see how they are so associated with each other? But when you rise above pain and pleasure, there is absolute joy and bliss; then you are functioning from a different level altogether. Pain and pleasure are in the realms of the five senses: hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, and feeling, but joy comes from within. It is welling up from the Kingdom of Heaven within, from the core of one’s personality called the Heart. Joy comes from there, and that “joyousness” is what we are after. When a person is attached to any material thing, a relative, or a person, one must realise that attachment has no value whatsoever because everything is transient. All these pains and pleasures are transient; they all pass away very soon. But joy is an eternal quality; it is good through eternity. THERE IS ONLY ONE SPIRIT WHICH IS ETERNAL AND IMMORTAL AND PERMEATES EVERY ONE OF US There was a well-known rabbi who lived in a small village in Israel. One man was passing through that village and heard that this well-known rabbi lived there. So, he thought, “Let me go and visit this rabbi.” So, he went to this rabbi’s home. It was a poor, modest home, and he went inside, and the rabbi said, “Welcome, come inside, sit down,” and offered him a glass of water. Poor man, and his whole house was bare. He sat on the floor with no furniture, nothing. So, this visitor says, “Rabbi, I was just passing here, so I dropped in to see you.” And after they chatted, chatted, this fellow asked the rabbi, “Why is your house so bare?” So, the rabbi replies, “Oh, I am also just passing here.” We are all just passing here. So, while we pass here, we realise that we form attachments that we think will be eternal. I have three children. The one is married; he is twenty-five. The other one is just becoming a pharmacist; he is twenty-two and a boy of thirteen. And I can assure
Trust and Love: The Gateway to the Peace That Passeth All Understanding
Attitude, Compassion, Divine, Effort, Evolution, Faith, Force, God, Guru, Heart, Impressions, Integration, Laws, Love, Meditation, Mind, Peace, Purity, Self, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Subconscious
TRUST AND LOVE ARE INTERCONNECTED The main requirement for trust is self-confidence within yourself. Let us take as an example a man who might think he is sexually weak, which could be one condition why he does not trust his wife, although his wife could be a pure goddess. Therefore, self-confidence is something significant, and to create self-confidence in oneself, one must know oneself, to quote the Scriptures, “Man know thyself.” When you know yourself, what part of you do you know? Man thinks he knows himself, and he believes that he thinks, but he stinks. You think that you feel, but you are not thinking because of your little conditioned mind that, through all the various experiences you have gone through, all the impressions that have been created in your subconscious mind. When I say you think that you know yourself, in reality, you do not. Because a tiny fraction of the conscious mind is set into motion, and that tiny fraction of the conscious mind can never encapsulate or capture the totality that is required for trust, and when you do not have total trust, you distrust and you mistrust. You see how you have missed it all? To have trust is to be able to function, not only with a small section of your mind, but with the entire mind. But that is still not enough. Because a mind can play various tricks upon you. So, we come to the crux of the matter: trust is a matter of the heart. You trust with your heart, not with your mind. The mind will tell you that Jamie is such a good man. However, you can only truly appreciate and understand the goodness of Jamie if you experience it. Here, the heart and the mind must be combined for you to experience trust. As you start to experience trust, your self-confidence grows and grows. And with that very growth, like a flower from a bud, it blooms into its full beauty, and that beauty in the growing of trust is expressed through love. Because trust and love are inseparable, if you do not love a person, you cannot trust that person, and if you cannot trust a person, you cannot love the person. So, they are interconnected. IF YOU WANT TRUST, TRUST FOR THE SAKE OF TRUSTING We have covered three points. Self-confidence, which comes about through trust and trust through love, and love through trust, and trust through self-confidence. You see how they intertwine. When the mind starts doubting, which is opposite to trust, because trust and doubt are at opposite poles, in polarity. There are some methods to convert mistrust or distrust into trust. Firstly, you start using your mind and you analyse. You say, “Jamie did this, he kept his promise. He was going to see Gururaj at nine o’clock, and he came there one minute to nine. He was given some duty to do, and it was done punctually, on time.” So, the mind would rely upon those factors of the person’s history; if he has done nine things perfectly right and as instructed, then I am sure the tenth one will also be right. There is an old philosophical saying that if you have a chain of twenty links and if nineteen links of the chain are the same, then the twentieth link will also be the same. However, the mental analysis that needs to occur is determining how trustworthy a person can be, and based on their record, you will start to trust the person. That is not enough. That trust, that mental analysis to repeat, must be filled with that heart quality, which we call feeling. So, feeling is also brought into play, and when feeling is brought into play, one’s emotions naturally come into play. So, here trust would include self-confidence, love, emotions, feelings, the heart, but that is still not enough. Why is it not enough? Because of the feelings you have for the person, all the emotions still have to be filtered through the mind. The mind is so devious that most of the time, it does not express the true feelings of a person. It can distort. It acts like a filter. So, you put on green glasses and everything looks green, or if you have jaundice, everything looks yellow. So, apart from the various mechanics of the mind, the heart, and feelings, genuine trust must come from a different area. That area is the core of the human personality, which people usually call the heart. You can call it spirit, call it whatever you want to call it. These are labels. So, if you wish to have genuine trust, of course, do not analyse the person that you want to trust or the object, or the question on hand. No. You do not analyse it. You just trust for the sake of trusting. Like love for the sake of loving. You do not analyse. WHEN YOU TRUST, YOU FIND GREATER PEACE AND YOU TRANSFORM YOUR ENVIRONMENT Any one of you here can pull out a gun and assassinate me. One of our meditators in America had a dream on my last trip to America that Gururaj was going to be assassinated. For example, anyone here can pull out a gun and shoot me. But I say no, I trust that no one is going to do that to me, and if they should do so, I will say Bless you, you have taken me away from a lot of misery, sufferings not of my own but the sufferings of all of you that are so close and dear to me. I can feel every thought of yours. My only suffering is your sufferings—none else. You trust for the sake of trusting, and I will tell you what will happen as a result. Say, for example, a man is married to a woman who might not be very faithful, or the man might not be loyal.
Judge Not the Master: The Return of Enlightened Beings by Will
THE RETURN OF ENLIGHTENED BEINGS FROM AGE TO AGE There have been many self-realized individuals in the world who merge away into Divinity, much like a drop of water dissolving into the ocean and becoming one with the sea. Then another class sits on the fence, like Buddha, Krishna, and Christ. They sit on the wall. They can merge away if they want to, or they can come back and retake birth if they want to. Their hearts are filled with kindness and compassion, which is why they keep coming back again and again. Like the Gita says, when there is a significant imbalance in the world, when evil rises, I shall be born again and again from age to age. And that is true. That is true. They are not the ones who would want to merge away. They found that consciousness, explored in its entirety, merged into it, and by will, they took birth. And their will is determined by us. We assess their will. Because as a person radiates an emanation of some force from him, likewise, a city emanates a certain force, a country emanates a certain force, the whole world emanates a certain force. And it is that force, that very emanation, that draws that Christ or Buddha back to this planet. WE NEED TO HAVE A CERTAIN CONSCIOUSNESS TO RECOGNIZE A BUDDHA OR A CHRIST There may be one man living at this time who is simultaneously inhabiting many other worlds, holding different jobs. Because once you know the entirety of consciousness. It is similar to holography, where a hologram can be broken down into its constituent parts, and the entire picture can still be reconstructed from a small piece of it. There is one transmitting station, but its transmission could reach millions of wireless sets throughout the country. The oneness is there and yet it is within each and everyone here, and not only on this planet but on many, many other planets and places of existence where the fullness is there of that. When there is a radio broadcast, a transmission, such as a symphony, you do not only hear a bit of the symphony on one radio, a bit in another, and a bit in another. No. You hear the whole symphony of five million radios. In that way, the consciousness is everywhere doing its job. But I can tell you one thing, though: Buddha or Christ should have taken down your main street; they might get arrested for vagrancy because we have got to have a certain consciousness to recognize that consciousness. Because these individuals live on two levels simultaneously, there is another paradox—human, no different than you and me. Yet, like the two birds in the tree, they live on two different levels of existence: in that vast universal level and yet at the same time in the individual level. The only difference between you and Christ is that you live at a particular level, whereas Christ lives at the universal level, which can be experienced, and I speak from experience, not from books. I only discuss the experiences that I have personally had and am having, but you can live in those two levels simultaneously. So, you are God and man. WE CANNOT JUDGE A MASTER As you know, a great many people have very stringent preconceptions of what a master ought to be and what his level ought to be, and that is the trouble. You are projecting your prejudices, your own biases, like this woman who went to this political party with her particular ideals. Those ideals come from your thought level, from your understanding, and we have no right to have a fixed ideal in our minds. Therefore, it is said in the Bible, “Judge ye not that ye be judged.” It is very accurate. How can you judge a person who lives on two levels simultaneously, when you are not living on those two levels? When you lack knowledge, how can you judge something less, with a limited mind? There is a story of a monk who was sitting around the fire with his chelas, and all of a sudden, the monk, the guru, spiritual master, pulled out a piece of burning coal and jabbed it in the arm of one of his chelas sitting there. So, everyone was aghast; they were shocked. “How can you do this?” He was the epitome of kindness and compassion. Yet, you burn your chela. So later, he had to explain. He said, “The destiny of this man, within a week, was to be burned alive, and I averted it.” So, if we see such a man jabbing his chela with a burning piece of coal, we would think, “Oh, my God. Let us not have anything to do with him.” Ramakrishna, a great sage who lived at the turn of the 19th century, if any psychiatrist or psychologist should see him today, would say he is mad, insane. One day, he was walking on the road, and he saw a dog eating food out of a bowl. Ramakrishna went to sit next to that dog and ate from the dog’s bowl with the dog. If you see that, would you say that is madness? But to him, he felt that the food and the bowl and the dog and he were but one! The same essence, the same consciousness. So, we never judge. We never project our ideals upon a master. But we can ask ourselves, “Does my master benefit me? Does my master give me a better understanding of life? Does my master gently guide me along the spiritual path and show me the way? Am I gaining anything more, my serenity, calmness, peace, am I gaining?” That is the question to ask yourself, and not to judge a master. You cannot. WE CANNOT PROJECT OUR IDEALS ON A SPIRITUAL MASTER My guru, Parvitranandaji, used to do funny things. But I knew, I mean, I
The Power of Innocence: The Circle of Expectation and Acceptance
EXPECTATION IS THE ROOT OF DISAPPOINTMENT Faced with disillusionment means that we had expectations, and expectations are the mother of disillusionment, frustration, and all those things associated with it. Everyone will expect something. But what is expectation based upon? It is very easy to say do not expect things, which is a profound metaphysical truth, but human nature is such that they wish. There are expectations, you cannot get rid of them. You expect your husband to be faithful, your wife to be loyal, this to be that, and that to be that, children to be good, and it does not work out that way. A person has a business and wants his monthly turnover to be two hundred thousand. He feels disappointed if he does not reach his target. Disappointment is another close relative of disillusionment. When you learn to accept the situation you are in, that disillusionment will disappear. Acceptance necessarily requires innocence, as innocence is a state of mind that contains purity. When anything is pure, it becomes simple. So even while the expectation is there, it will be simple and therefore reduce the impact of being disillusioned. When the effect of disillusionment is lessened, you will find that in the future, expectations are also lowered. They work in a circle, where one leads to the next, and the next leads to the one. It is so easy to say ‘accept whatever life gives us,’ but can we truly accept? We have to bring the mind to a much calmer level, and when the mind is at a more relaxed level, we would say, ‘so what.’ I think I have said this before, that there are only two kinds of people who could say, so what: the one who is responsible, and the other who is irresponsible. He just does not care, so he says, ‘So what.’ But the accountable man cares, and yet at the same time, because his mind is in a calmer state, he will say, “Come what may. So what?” And with that state of mind, you do not feel disillusioned, because you were not expecting too much in the first place. IN THE INNOCENT STATE, THERE IS NO DISILLUSIONMENT What else can we do to mitigate the impact of expectations, and how can we lessen it? What else can be done? It is by one thought that should always dominate one’s mind, that I will do my best. I will do my very best, and if it works out, fine. If not, I accept that as well. Then there will be no disillusionment. This requires that the innocent state is pure. Purity has nothing to do with morality. Morality is a human construct and originates from the mind. All moral injunctions come from the mind, and it is these very injunctions that have caused more harm to the world than good, because these produce guilt, and as I have said many times, that guilt is the most significant disease in the world. It is even more severe than cancer or heart disease. Guilt has killed more people and made them more mentally unstable than anything else in the world. But purity is something different. Purity comes from deep within yourself, and when that purity is awakened within yourself through spiritual practices, you will find everything to be good. So, purity goes beyond the law of opposites, while morality is within the law of opposites. When you go beyond the law of opposites, there is no disillusionment, for everything is good. I expect my child to pass his exam. I will do my best for my child. Create conditions in the home and his environment that will help him pass his exams, and that is the best I can do. If he does not, that is him, and I am not going to feel disillusioned. Because what is the greatest thing I can expect? DESTINY IS A CONCEPT OF THE MIND They say you are a master of your destiny. There is some truth in it, but that truth is not well understood. What do we mean by destiny, and you being the master? Is destiny mastering you, or are you mastering destiny? Speaking from a spiritual level, there is no destiny. You come from nowhere and you go nowhere; you are just here. For your spiritual self is always here: eternal, immortal, omnipresent. So, where can you go? How can you master that which is? You do not master it, but you uncover it. So, the very concept of destiny is also a mental concept, and when one indulges in these kinds of ideas of destiny, and you do not reach your goal, you feel disillusioned. So when we enter the area of purity that is within ourselves, we find everything to be good. WHAT IS THE REALITY OF LIFE A man goes to the races and loses a thousand dollars, and he will come home feeling terrible. I know a man who borrowed money to go to the races to gamble, and he lost it all. He was so sure that he was going to win, so when he lost, he had a heart attack. I was called up to the hospital where I had to treat him. He said it came from the horse’s mouth, so he could not lose. So that expectation brought him disillusionment and gave him a heart attack. You can see how the attitude of the mind plays a significant part in our mental and physical well-being. It has an effect. I will not be disillusioned with anything. Because I am living in an illusion as it is. What is the reality of life? What reality is there? If there is reality, it should be permanent, for reality is always permanent, while this life is transitory. So why should I be disillusioned about anything? We are forty people here; I would like to talk to four hundred. But even if there were only four, I
The Illusion of Bondage, the Reality of Freedom: Awakening to the Light Within
Bliss, Buddha, Christ, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Divine, Divinity, Freedom, Impressions, Integration, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Krishna, Law of opposites, Light, Mental Patternings, Mind, Omnipresent, Peace, Relative World, Religion, Samskaras, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Subconscious, Superconscious, The Absolute, Unity, Universe
BONDAGE IS A MENTAL CONSTRUCTION Your very nature is freedom. If Divinity is omnipresent, and if Divinity represents freedom, then, because of the nature of omnipresence, which is freedom itself, you should feel free. There is a difference between reality and actuality. Reality could be appearance, while actuality is that which is. So, this bondage which shackles you, these handcuffs, this ball, this chain, that does not allow you to move as you want to move, where does that come from? Does it exist? If you find any reality in it, is this reality of your mind, or is it an actuality? You go to see a movie or a magic show, and you see the magician cutting a woman in half. You know it is an illusion, yet it is still there. It seems real. But is it actual? The woman will turn up a few minutes later, more alive than ever. So, what is bondage? Can bondage be described as an illusion? Are you living in an illusion, or are you living as you are? Teachers tell you to be like Buddha, be like Krishna, be like Christ. But I tell you, be yourself! By being yourself, you can get rid of the illusion of bondage. You that are boundless, you that are boundaryless, why do you go through the suffering of the sense of bondage? If you are going through the sense of bondage, where does bondage come from? Where does this illusion or superimposition upon yourself come from? It stems from your thinking. Think that you are bound, and you are bound. Think that you are free, and you are free. If you keep thinking, “I am weak, I am weak, I am weak,” you will become weaker and weaker. YOU CAN ONLY RELEASE YOUR GATHERED PATTERNING THROUGH YOUR MIND So, you have no control over yourself. Due to the patterns in your mind, resulting from the various experiences you have undergone in this life or perhaps in ages past, you have created patterns upon patterns within your subconscious mind. Because the subconscious mind is unable to contain all those patterns upon patterns, it has to release them. And the only way it could release them would be to expel those patternings through the conscious mind, through the analytical mind, through the thinking mind, which in turn expresses itself through your five senses, like hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, and tasting. These patterns originate in the subconscious level of the mind, which is non-existent in substance. It is only a coming together or a bundle of impressions. These impressions come in two different ways. They can be gathered from past experiences and collected from your environment. If the climate impresses you so much that it leaves those scars of patterns in the mind, what do you do to be non-affected by the outer impressions? The way is to strengthen yourself, but how do you maintain yourself? How can you get rid of the patternings, and how can you stop yourself from the input that is thrust upon you through your teachers, through your parents, through your friends, through the environment at large? How can you stop yourself from being influenced by these influences? What tools do you have? THE MIND IS THE ONLY TOOL YOU HAVE TO CLARIFY THE MIND The only tool you have is the mind itself, where the conscious level of the mind—the analytical level that functions from the left hemisphere of the brain—can be guided through the various patterns of the subconscious level of the mind. You do not need to destroy those patterns because there is nothing in the universe that is destructible, and science today has proved that you could never kill even a single atom. Even when this body is discarded, it is not destroyed; instead, it will revert to its original elements: water will return to water, air to air, ether to ether, and dust to dust. That is the idea. However, humans have an innate ability to reach further back with the help of the conscious mind and go beyond the subconscious mind to a level that I term the superconscious mind. Although it is also relative, the superconscious mind is at the subtlest point of relativity, and therefore, it has maximum clarity.Through spiritual practices, through a scientific method which has nothing to do with religion, you reach that area of the superconscious level of the mind, and then the clarity that is felt there could be brought back down through the same hotline to the subconscious and then to the conscious level of the mind which interprets itself in your daily actions. DRAWING UPON THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN WITHIN AND ALLOWING THE LIGHT TO SHINE THROUGH If you can remove the veils of the subconscious mind, that totality of impressions that are gathered there, or pierce through them and reach the superconscious level, then that superconscious level, that finest point of relativity which is connected to that which is Absolute, the absolute light, then that absolute light will shine through the tunnel that you have created and the patternings, the dirt in the subconscious mind and the conscious mind is banished. The darkness is banished. That is how you treat yourself holistically, where you draw upon this power of the Kingdom of Heaven within. You draw from there and allow that light to shine through this hotline, this channel, this tunnel, so that you can become more and more integrated, suffused, and infused by this divine light that is within you. The entire universe is contained within you. There is no somewhere where you have to go to find it. It is there within you, and knowing yourself, you will spontaneously know everything that is outside you. So, you reach a state which could be called Unity Consciousness. Where you, the little I – John, Jean, Jack, or James – is in touch with the higher “I” within yourself, the universal “I”. So here the small
Finding Divinity in Love: The Effort of One, the Return of Ten
MAKE YOUR GARDEN BEAUTIFUL AND THE BUTTERFLIES WILL COME BY THEMSELVES We say that when we take one step towards Divinity, Divinity takes ten steps towards us. You will find this occurrence in daily life when the mind is filled with goodness. Divinity is always synonymous with goodness. Nobody ever says Divinity is bad. So, if our minds are saturated with thoughts of Divinity, we draw grace from Divinity. It is a natural force of our thoughts, be it negative or positive, that whatever we think we will attract, and this attraction applies to love as well. If you want to be successful in anything, in a career, in love, in anything, and if your mind is firmly established on that particular object that you want to reach, you will find conditions around you that will make it conducive for you to achieve that object. One of the secrets of success in worldly terms, of course, is to develop a burning desire. With a burning desire, you plan to make five million dollars in five years. That desire must burn within you; it must consume you. Meanwhile, you formulate a plan and work according to it, setting your goal. You will find that because of that burning desire, you will attract people and conditions to you that will further your plans and make you successful. The same principle applies to Divinity, but here it is not a burning desire but a yearning to become one with Divinity. If there is any selfishness, that by becoming one with Divinity I will have this reward or that reward, or that reward, then it is not yearning, it becomes wishful thinking. So, you develop that love, that yearning for that which is Divine, and you proceed on the path towards Divinity, and because of your yearning and feelings within you that are so strong, you attract. Just as I used an analogy before, you do not need to call the butterflies; simply make your garden beautiful, and they will come on their own accord, hundreds of them. OUR ACTIONS HAVE TO BE CONDUCIVE WITH THE LAWS OF NATURE That principle also applies to love. The love between a man and a woman is not so dependent on both parties being together. Suppose, If you love a woman just for the sake of love, not for lust or any other greed, not because of any infatuation. In that case, you just love and you will find, for example, that the practice of Gurushakti is based upon that – you will find that she will start loving you, but for that, one needs strength, which is acquired through spiritual practices. When one loves strongly and deeply and first understands the meaning of love, that love is then activated in the entire relationship and the whole universe. I have never found anyone who hates me, and the reason is simple because I love everyone and everything. By loving everyone and everything, those who are receptive come to me with love. Love becomes a gift that you give unselfishly, and love is another name for expressing Divinity. Suppose you take a step in the direction of Divinity. In that case, Divinity takes ten steps towards you, not necessarily in the physical form that makes things easier for you or conducive for you, for who knows the ways of Divinity. A man might be going through so many troubles, there too, Divinity is at work. It is the energy of Divinity that enforces the law of karma, and whatever you sow, you reap. It enforces; the very Divine energy enforces that. Therefore, our actions have to be conducive to the laws of nature, to Divinity, or to love, which is the same thing. LOVE KNOWS NO ATTACHMENT Modern Psychologists would talk about physical and mental chemistry that brings two people together. There is some truth in it, but only a fraction of the truth. Whatever happens inside you does express itself in a kind of mental or physical chemistry. They cannot define the chemistry. They cannot define the various secretions in the body that make one love another. For lack of a better word, they would say that there is some mental chemistry at play when two people are deeply attracted. However, due to each experience, many of you can have a great deal of attraction and yet not love. It could be just a surface feeling, and then as you pursue this, the surface feeling would naturally fade away. But if it is from deep within, it would never, never fade away, and every day it would seem as if you had married your wife just yesterday, even if you are married for twenty-six years, twenty-seven, thirty years, still looking new. But in the beginning, the chemistry, to use that expression, was not right, and that inner feeling was not there, and then people still dove on together for twenty-five, thirty years, but not with the intensity of love. They become attached, which is why they often live together. Love knows no attachment. They become dependent on each other, and so they are forced by circumstances to live together, rather than the husband having to hire a housekeeper to cook and clean, so he has a wife. The wife requires a breadwinner, so she has a husband, and they go through life for all those thirty, forty years, perhaps or whatever, being dependent upon each other, but not because of love. There is a difference. You find people saying, “Oh, John has been married for thirty years with his wife, and they must be loving each other so, so much,” but that is very seldom true. LIKE DIVINITY, LOVE IS NOT A QUALITY Supremely few people in this world can love, and as Dante has said, the greater the man, the greater his love. So, by greatness we do not mean that he is a Prime Minister of a country or some great genius. That is
The Secret of Supernatural Powers: Mental Gifts Are Not Spiritual Attainments
Acceptance, Ancient Sages, Bible, Bliss, Buddha, Chela, Conscious Mind, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Evolution, Force, Free Will, God, Guru, Joy, Law of Nature, Laws, Love, Meditation, Mind, One-pointedness, Oneness, Path, Relative World, Scriptures, Self, Self-integration, Self-Realization, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Practices, Universal, Universe
THERE IS ONLY ONE MIND; AT A SUBTLE LEVEL, ALL MINDS ARE INTER-CONNECTED The mind of man is universal. The extent of the mind is as vast as the entire universe. That means that if bubbles are in the pond, each bubble is connected to the other bubble. The same water connects it. The water that forms one bubble at this end is the same water that forms a bubble at the other end, and therefore there is a connection. If we disturb the water on this seashore of the sea, the same vibrational effect will have some impact on the seashore on the other side. So, there is an unbroken oneness between all minds, but the unbroken oneness between all minds is subtle. So, when we are centred when we have come to the centre of ourselves, we have reached a certain subtle level of the mind, where we are automatically, perhaps consciously, and in a sense of knowingness, know that my mind is not separate from the minds of others. It has happened many times in the Satsangs we have had. Many people have come to me afterwards and said, “I had a question for you, Gururaj, but before I asked you, you answered it.” So, all minds are interconnected, and when the mind is brought to a refined, subtle level, one can have these flashes of telepathy, where a person existing or living hundreds of miles away can feel those thought forms, can feel those vibrations, here and now. We have heard of instances where a son has an accident, and at that moment, the mother feels just something, feels a specific concern without rhyme and reason. Some worry sets in her mind about her son. At that moment when the son has an accident, in that shock or in that situation, he has become so centred that in that centredness, that very thought of his mother is in his mind, and his mother picks up that thought because the connection between the son’s mind and the mother’s mind is one, it is a continuum, it is never separated. There are four thousand million people worldwide, and everyone’s mind is connected. Not only in this world but also in the universe are our minds connected to the totality of all minds, for there is only one mind. At the subtler level, like in the pond, there is only one mass of water, represented by millions of bubbles that seem separate to us. So, when we have experiences of telepathy, our mind has consciously been opened to receive a powerful thought sent by another, in ordinary thinking very powerfully, or in a crisis when thought becomes even more powerful, and that thought is picked up. TELEPATHY IS VERY TRUE AND VERY POSSIBLE In the same manner, thoughts can be transmitted to other people’s minds, and this all falls in the same category of how mind reading is done, where one’s mind is tuned to another person’s mind, but that tuning can take place only at a much subtler level. So those glimpses you have of telepathy, where you, from the subtle level, can bring a thought that another person is thinking to a cognisable conscious level, is very accurate and possible. One can be trained to use this power consciously. One can be taught through meditational practices, to reach a certain subtle level of the mind, where in that subtle level of the mind, the thoughts of others can be picked up, and not only picked up but through the subtle level of the mind, an idea is sent to the subtle level of another’s mind. There is a widespread experiment, which we have read so much about in books. You are on a train, and they say that if you stare with a thought, “Turn around,” at the neck of a person in front of you, then that person, without knowing, will just turn around. We have read a lot of books about this. It is possible; many of you must have tried it. What has happened here is that the power of thought has been sent forth powerfully. If one thought can be sent powerfully, then all thoughts can be sent powerfully. We know that in Buddha’s life, he was often asked a question and answered it with absolute silence. He would not reply verbally, yet the questioner would leave with his question answered. All of us might have experienced this; I have experienced this plenty of times, where the person comes to ask a question and leaves without even asking. And then I say, “Where are you going? You have come for something.” And he says, “No, it is all solved already.” So, these things keep on happening, and it is nothing supernatural; it is nothing extraordinary. It is something very, very natural. That seems supernatural because we do not understand the laws that operate. Like I always say, if someone, a hundred years ago, told you that a two-thousand-ton machine could fly through the air, you would think that the person is mad. But today, we find planes flying; we do not notice them. All these things operate within the relative, and we know that we are only using a small percentage of the mind, and such a large percentage, over ninety per cent of the mind, is lying dormant, untapped, unused. Yet there are existences beyond this little Earth of ours. We are not even a grain of sand on the seashore of the universe. There are existences where telepathy is spoken language and verbalisation is unnecessary. It would be nice if it could happen on Earth. So, there are levels of far, far finer existences where this is natural. Here on Earth, communicating verbally is natural; in other planes of existence, communicating non-verbally is natural. DO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE GOAL Through further practice, these glimpses can be brought about to become a permanent reality, but there are dangers to