Janujee, Author at FISU Meditation

The Personal God: Bridge to the Infinite

Acceptance, Bible, Brahman, Buddha, Chela, Christ, Compassion, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Devotion, Divinity, Evolution, Evolve, Force, God, Guru, Impressions, Integration, Karma, Kindness, Krishna, Love, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mind, Omnipresent, Oneness, Relative World, Samskaras, Separation, Spirit, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Surrender, The Absolute, The Abstract, Universal, Universe

THE IMPERSONAL AND THE PERSONAL The concept of a Personal God is designed to please man’s analytical mind. But beyond the personal God, there is the Impersonal God, which is an energy that is devoid of quality. It is a neutral energy possessing inherent attributes. But for this neutral energy to be of some value to the manifested universe, it has to concretize itself. This impersonal energy – the Brahman can manifest itself. Manifestation is not creation. With the Impersonal God, the totality of all, there is no creation but a manifestation. By manifestation, we mean that it is the nature of the Impersonal; it is the inherent ability of the Impersonal to concretize itself. The flower does not create fragrance; it is the very nature of a flower to give off fragrance. The fire does not produce heat, but heat is the manifestation of the fire, and the nature of the fire is to exude this heat. So, from the primal impersonal force and by its very nature of manifestation, the entire universe has come about. However, being such a subtle force, it cannot solidify itself from one step to the next. From that subtlety, there must be a gradual concretization. The impersonal force has no power of thinking. When we say God’s Will or “Thy Will be done,” it is not the Will of the Impersonal God. Will only come about with the Personal God, not the Impersonal God. So, as it would be said in the Bible, “First was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word is God.” What is meant here is that the very manifestation of the unmanifest impersonal in its concretization assumed a specific vibration, and it is because of this vibratory factor, due to its conjunction with other vibrations also exuding from itself, that various forms come about. So, the Word, which is the vibration, has undergone a long process of evolution since the Big Bang, from which this entire universe has been composed. Through this process, the minuscule atom, in its concretization, continues to evolve. THE EVOLUTION OF FORM AND THE BIRTH OF CONFLICTS The atom can duplicate itself and replicate, for the very act of replication is inherent in the atom. As it progresses further through the force of evolution, it solidifies into a very subtle gaseous form. This gaseous form, in turn, condenses into matter, and with further condensation, we recognize this matter as the mineral kingdom. Proceeding from this mineral kingdom, we find it evolving into the plant kingdom and from the plant to the animal kingdom. Throughout this entire process, there is a consciousness. There is consciousness in a stone. We think that a stone is inert, but a stone, too, has life because, if it did not have life, it would not have the quality to change. If you leave a stone outside, you will find many changes taking place, and through scientific analysis, you will discover that the stone contains all the same atoms. It has a molecular structure, and there is intense motion in that stone, and that very motion that we find in all these forms, from stone to plant to animal, is that consciousness or life force. This entire process, from the animal level up, is automatic. The trouble only begins when evolution takes a further step and reaches the stage of man. That is where all the trouble starts because man’s inherent quality is thinking, and with these very thoughts, the Law of Karma begins to operate. One thought in a particular experience conflicts with another idea in another kind of experience. With all these experiences accumulating, we become the complex beings that we are, filled with the impressions that we call samskaras in Sanskrit. It is the samskaras that are troubling us. All conflicts and all sufferings are not from Divinity. All disputes and all sufferings are made by man himself because of his thought processes. Although composed of an excellent matter, for thought too is a thing, thought can only find its validity in the relative form of existence and not beyond it. Through spiritual practices, we go beyond the thought forms. We go beyond the finest levels of matter and into the impersonal, where nothing remains, and all the motion that we see becomes illusory. So, all the conflicts, all the waves of the ocean that are so turbulent, are all within the confines of relativity. There was a chap who gave a lengthy talk on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, thoroughly exploring the subject for an hour or two. So, one person in the audience stood up and said, “You seem to know more about Relativity than Einstein.” So, this man says, “Why do you say that?” “Well, statistics have proven there are only twelve people in the world who could understand Einstein. But you must be greater because none of us understand you.” WHAT IS THE PERSONAL GOD? Therefore, all the problems and troubles we face in this world stem from that. So, where does the concept of the Personal God fit into the scheme, and what is its meaning? Most Personal Gods that people believe in are creations of man’s mind. Most people find different kinds of Gods. To one person, there might be a God with four arms. To another person, it might be an older man with a long beard sitting somewhere in the clouds on a golden throne and a few dozen bookkeepers writing everything down that everyone does. That is also a manufactured concept of a Personal God. The concept of God has also been regarded as “Father” – “Our Father which art in heaven.” Why not Mother? For if everything emanates from himself, then it should contain both aspects of what humanity is all about. It includes both the positive and negative aspects. By negative, we do not mean anything bad. It is similar to electricity, where you have positive and negative currents to make the bulb

To Master the Universe: Change Attitude, Unfold the Spirit

Attitude, Bliss, Conscious Mind, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Eternity, Force, God, Happiness, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Law of Nature, Law of opposites, Laws, Light, Love, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Path, Self, Self-Realization, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Spirituality, Strength, Subconscious, Surrender, The Path, Unfoldment, Universe, Yoga

MAN IS A SPIRITUAL BEING Man is a spiritual being because that spiritualness, which we might call God, permeates him entirely, and it does not only permeate the physical or mental body but also everything that governs him. That spirituality within himself also empowers all his thoughts. In our organisation, we talk about unfoldment because, through millions of years of existence, man has gathered a lot of dross around him, and it is like a dirty window. So, the path of spiritual unfoldment lies in cleaning the window so that pure light can shine through. HAPPINESS IS DEPENDENT ENTIRELY UPON THE MIND Consciously or unconsciously, everyone is seeking happiness. It all depends on what we mean by happiness because if you find happiness, you will find misery, for they are the opposite and reverse sides of the same coin. The search for spiritual unfoldment, realisation of the Spirit, or self-realisation is not for happiness. Happiness could be a side product. Where does happiness come from? Does it come from the senses? You look at a beautiful flower, and you feel happy. You see an accident on the road, making you feel unhappy. Here is the sight. If we come to the other sense of hearing, you listen to a beautiful Symphony, and you feel elated, and you hear discordant sounds, like a bomb dropping, for example, and you will feel unhappy. So, happiness or unhappiness is not dependent upon the body and the motor organs. It is not reliant on the senses. Happiness is dependent entirely upon the mind. HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS IS BECAUSE OF TURBULENCE IN THE MIND The secret lies in how the mind interprets the perceptions it receives. Remember, the mind is like a lake full of waves bubbling up and down, and as long as these waves remain in turbulence and turmoil, your receptivity will be likewise. So, by changing one’s attitude, we simply mean changing the mind, re-patterning the mind, as I always say, if the mind is well trained through meditation and spiritual practices to bring a greater calmness within the ripples. If this is not achieved, then self-analysis, which is Jnana Yoga, which you might have heard of, also has excellent results. Through self-analysis, we know the value of the turbulence. We know that all the happiness or unhappiness we undergo is because of the turbulence in the mind. When one can look at this turbulence objectively, the turbulence or the ripples in the mind lose their value and sting, and you do not become unnecessarily elated or deflated. So, this area is beyond happiness and unhappiness. You reach an area where happiness and unhappiness become the same. THE NATURE OF MAN IS JOY, WHICH IS BEYOND HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS When you change your attitude, you are objectifying what you are going through, and by objectification, you witness what is happening. Most of you know that there are two hemispheres in the brain. The one section governs all thinking and analysis, and that is the section that has to be brought under control. In this section, the brain’s left hemisphere undergoes all analysis and interprets it through symbols and words, interpreting any happening or thing, but it has limited means. If that limitation is removed, then you can objectify anything happening. So, we draw from the intuitive or spiritual faculty in man, which can be expressed through the brain cells. Through spiritual practices, we activate that section of the brain, the right hemisphere, whereby you draw forth specific energies that quieten the turbulence in the left hemisphere. This cannot be done by the left hemisphere alone; it is not that the two hemispheres are apart, but it is not alive as it should be. When the spiritual energies are poured into the analytical side of the brain, the judgmental part, the rationalising part, then your rationalisations will have or will assume a different meaning altogether because, to a specific measure, it is filled with that spiritual energy within you. This will change the entire character of your thinking, and when character as the whole of your thinking is changed, your attitude will change. The attitude one has to have for spiritual unfoldment is tackled from so many different angles. Firstly, by enforcing it with spiritual energy. Secondly, by looking at things in the right way. I quoted this couplet a million times before, and you must have heard it: “Two men behind prison bars, one saw mud, the other saw stars.” Both were in the same circumstances, but the attitude – one saw glory, and the other saw gloom. And this gloom is produced by man himself because he has not found the secret. It is a secretless secret instead because it is inherent in man, but he has failed to activate that inner force within him. That the Kingdom of Heaven, which is within, he has failed to open the gates so that this flood of energy could rush through into his mind’s stuff and help him change his attitudes in life. For the nature of man is joy, which is beyond happiness and unhappiness, beyond the laws of opposites, but one has to release the pleasure. There has to occur an explosion within oneself, and that explosion comes about by yearning for that joy. Nothing is achieved for nothing. You get nothing for nothing and very little for sixpence. IN EVERY ADVERSITY, THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY When we open the doors of that infinite source within us, then with the power and added energy given to the analytical mind, our attitudes change. One person can go through the severest misery in life and yet look at it objectively so that he does not feel it. For in every adversity, there is an opportunity. Anything adverse can be changed. I know a friend during business days who had quite an excellent job and was sacked from the job – redundancy is what the bosses always tell you. So he was at

What to Eat and Drink? A Spiritual Perspective on Nourishment

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YOUR SYSTEM HAS TO ADJUST ITSELF FOR MORE REFINED FOOD AND DRINKS People on the spiritual path have to have specific observances. I recommend a book by Swami Vivekananda called “Raja Yoga”, or I have done two tapes on Raja Yoga (UK 1978 – 03 & UK 1978 – 04), which you could purchase and listen to. A person on the spiritual path has to have specific observances. There are movements in the world that will tell you that if you want to be initiated or join their movement, you must not smoke, you must not eat meat, you must not drink, you must not – something else which men and women do. They make it conditional upon you. In our movement, we do not enforce these things because if a person has been eating, say, meat for ten, fifteen, twenty years, fifty years, hundreds of years, it would be hazardous, and any doctor will tell you that it would be perilous to withdraw from that just immediately. The system is so used to that. But as you go on with your meditational practices and as the system becomes more refined, your need for grosser foods will become less and less. So here, you do not force yourself into things because as the system becomes more sophisticated, you will want more refined foods and drinks, whatever you have. When you have reached the stage where you have gone beyond it all, you become a law unto yourself. Then you can do anything you like, and you will not have any effect whatsoever. You are beyond it all. So, it is effortless. I would advise those contemplating vegetarianism that if you eat meat three times a day, which many people do, bacon and eggs in the morning, steakburger for lunch and at night some kind of stew, something like that, then cut it down a bit. If you eat meat seven times a week, cut it down to six, and later on, cut it down to five or four. Cut it down slowly because food affects a person’s thinking. FOOD ALSO CONTAIN THE THREE GUNAS Food also has the Gunas. That is a different subject, and we have a whole catalogue of audio files where the three forces of nature, “Tamas, Rajas and Sattva”, are explained. Tamas is inertia, Rajas is the activating force, and Sattva is the pure force of the Light. These three elements control the entire material universe, from the subtlest to the grossest. Food also contains these three forces. In grosser foods, you will find Tamas more dominant; in finer foods, you will discover Sattva, the purity and refined aspect of the material universe more dominant. So, the grosser the foods we ingest, the grosser our bodies and thinking could become. EVERYTHING CONTAINS LIFE After all, what is the human body? The human body is nothing but food. That is all what it is. The human body is nothing but food. The human body is composed of food. Food has formed all these muscles, blood, bones, etc. As we go on in our meditational practices and become more refined, our need for Tamasic food, grosser foods will become less and less. Some people go to extremes, such as “Oh, this is Tamasic food, so I must not touch it” and things like that. They go to such extremes that they would even harm their bodies, and overnight changes are no good. So, see how you feel. As you go on, the needs become less, and you will eat purer foods. Some Indian scientists had discovered a heartbeat in a cabbage. So, everything contains life. Some forms of life are of a lower developed stage in the scale of evolution, and naturally, animals are of a higher stage in evolution than the plant stage. So, we sustain life by consuming life, and when our systems become refined, and we can consume that which is of a lower evolutionary stage, by all means, that is good. When you reach beyond all this, beyond the laws of opposites and even beyond that which is beyond life, you can be in the world and yet not of the world. When that stage is reached, you have the licence to do anything you like, for there will be no attachments no impressions created on the mind that will perpetuate happiness and unhappiness. YOUR CHOICE, LET THE CHOICE BE GOOD So, in our organisation, we leave it entirely to the meditators. You have to walk on your own feet. I can only show you the path to unfoldment. The choice is yours. Let the choice be good, wholesome, wholesome that leads to wholeness; then we have life. We enjoy life when we become one with the Father. Is that not nice to become one with Divinity? Christ ate fish, and he drank. He had a good old time of it, the old boy. But remember, he was in complete control of all nature. He was. He dined with the Pharisees in the Inns and the Innkeepers, etc., but he was not affected. He was still one with his Father. How far are we? … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1980 – 13

The Path to the Absolute: Beyond All Attributes

Bliss, Chela, Compassion, Devotion, Divinity, Duality, Eternal, Eternity, Force, Freedom, God, Grace, Guru, Happiness, Humility, Integration, Joy, Kindness, Kingdom of Heaven within, Law of opposites, Laws, Love, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Non-Attachment, Path, Peace, Philosophy, Relationships, Relative World, Self, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Practices, Superconscious, Surrender, The Absolute, Unfoldment, Unity, Universal, Universe

BECOME THE OBSERVER When you become the observer, everything will have a different meaning. By becoming an observer, you become non-attached to all the happenings around you and the lower layers of your mind. You become non-attached because that Spiritual Force is permeating the lower, grosser levels of the mind. Then you do not need to love. You are love. There is no need, for need is a conditioning. It is not freedom. You are just love. You have just surrendered. That is how man is awakened. That is how man is unfolded to his higher self. He just cannot help loving. He just cannot help being charitable. He just cannot help crying through your eyes when there are tears. He just cannot help smiling when a smile is on your lips. He just cannot help feeling the pain when there is pain in you. To meet such a man, your life would have been lived well. For example, it is a privilege for me to have met my guru. Perhaps the many lifetimes I have gone through were a preparation leading me until the ripe moment came and I met my guru. BE A MAN When you talk of a guru and chela relationship, then, as I always say, it is a love affair. An unpatterned, unconditioned, undemanding and non-possessive love affair, just an all-giving of the entirety of oneself, not to the personage but to that which he represents. For whom are we to recognize the spiritual level of anyone? We cannot. And the greater the spiritual personage he is, the more humble and ordinary he becomes because of his contact with ordinary people. He lives a life of duality and yet of unity, a life of individuality and yet of universality. To use the words of Shakespeare in “Julius Caesar,” the elements were so mixed in him that the world could stand up and say, “He was a man.” Yes. Do not become gods. Become human, and that is what I mean by being a man. By reaching the highest limits or the pinnacle of how far a man can achieve. When you have captured the entirety of the Superconscious Mind, you become one with the personalized God. You find the ability at will to take on birth again, or you do not want to take on birth, and you merge away into the Impersonal God, which is the Absolute. IT IS A DIFFICULT PATH, AND YET SO EASY When they tell you that you transcend the relative and merge into the Absolute, they are talking bullshit. Promises, promises, promises. That is what they all do. All our churches: the Hindus, the Moslems, the Christians, the Buddhists, the Jews. The whole lot of them. What are they giving you? Truth? No. Experience? No. But promises, so well-fashioned. They are so made plausible. Because we do not understand it, that is why it seems plausible. Do you see, my beloveds? It is a difficult path, and yet so easy. Illumination is around the corner, for you are already illuminated. It is just to turn around the corner and find it standing there waiting for you, wanting to embrace you. It welcomes you, and you can call Grace. No one gives you Grace. You talk of the Grace of God. There is no such thing. I am giving you a lot of revolutionary ideas here. Grace is forever there, for that which you call God is Grace. He does not give it to you. God is Grace. God is love. God is compassion. God is kind. God is everything you can think of. It is all there. Right there. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All there. Everywhere. WHEN YOU GO BEYOND ALL PATTERNS, YOU ARE FREE Some of you may feel yourself so individual and apart from the guru. No. No. There are no parts in totality. It is not parts that make things total. Parts do not make the total in spiritual life. In spiritual life, there is only the total, but the human mind cuts it up into parts, which is fragmentation. Reaching the totality again and unfolding oneself to the totality is to get rid of fragmentation and find integration. Integration means realizing this is one vast continuum without any dividing lines. Man’s mind creates these boundaries where boundaries do not exist. Patterns upon patterns upon patterns. Layers upon layers upon layers. Those are the boundaries. When the final realization comes that there are no boundaries, you go beyond all patterns; when you go beyond all patterns, you are free. You feel that freedom, you experience that freedom within yourself, and you are free to do whatever you want to do because then you become a law unto yourself, and that law which you become unto yourself is the Law of Divinity. Then you become like a poem. Though set in its metric system, it has total freedom of expression. You find freedom in bondage and bondage in freedom because you are embodied, not only physically, but you are embodied also in a subtle body. That subtle body you could call the mental body that is the furthest man can reach. To reach the highest level of himself, which is the Superconscious Mind, where you have embraced the entire universe since its inception or instead since beginless time, and when you reach the realms of beginless time, at the same time, you also get endless time. BECOMING THE OBSERVER, YOU ARE SO UNIVERSAL There is no time. Time is connected to space. Space cannot exist without time, and time could not exist without space. These are conditionings. You measure six thousand miles from here to England, which will take eight hours of flying time. If there were no space of six thousand miles, there would not be eight hours; if there were no eight hours, there would not be six thousand miles. But you have to live it. Charles and Linda had to fly six thousand

The Kingdom of Heaven Within: Awakening to Our True Nature

Awareness, Buddha, Christ, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Force, Guru, Heart, Karma, Kingdom of Heaven within, Krishna, Law of Nature, Love, Meditation, Mind, Peace, Relationships, Religion, Self, Spiritual, Spiritual Practices, Spiritual Teacher, Spirituality, Universe, Wisdom, Yoga

RETURNING TO THE SELF ALL CONDITIONS ARE BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE TOTAL CULTURAL KARMA If one of you desires to become wealthy, it is not only your inner desire that motivates you to do so, but there are also outside forces influencing you and strengthening that desire within you. This is because when you walk around, you see material prosperity everywhere. Thought forces are floating around you all the time, that you also want to be like that. Now, a different force has taken place. There is a certain force, and sometimes it acts very abruptly. Some countries, for example, have become very permissive, to the point of being permissive with things that you would not find in other places. Like pre-teen porn and what have you, things I have heard and read sets my hair on edge. So, what have you attracted? You have attracted an extreme fundamentalist government now, have you not? All extremes are bad, but by reaching one extreme, you automatically draw the other extreme, where a total moralist government has come in. You have attracted that by having gone so far in the other direction. And this is necessary. It is a very good thing that has happened. If the government continues to fulfill its promises, this will help bring the country to a middle ground where it is neither too permissive nor too fundamentalist. The admixture of the two can lead this civilization and culture to greater and greater spiritual heights. Likewise, in every civilization, these things are necessary. Dictatorships develop in the world for several reasons, where the entire culture requires a harsh reality check very quickly. So, all conditions everywhere are brought about by the total cultural karma of that particular country. IN ACTIVITY BUT NOT IN ACTION Many times, people have asked me, and they say, “In India, you have all these yogis sitting up there in the Himalayas and meditating, and you have such holy men. Why do you have all these problems in India?” I say, “What holy men are you talking about, and how many are there? You only hear these stories. You are very, very backward. You are talking of two, three, four, five thousand years ago, not today.” Yes, we have a lot of these so-called yogis sitting there in the Himalayas. We have a lot of them, but are they real yogis, or are they escapists who cannot face the problems of the world, so they escape, people who do not want to take action? Yet they are full of activity. Their minds are chattering away all the time inactivity. They are in activity but not in action. Action is a spontaneous act, while activity is something that you are compelled to do. IN INDIA, THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION, CIVILIZATION HAS GONE, ONLY THE CRADLE IS LEFT People ask me why there are so many problems in India. You have all these floods and famines and riots, people killing each other by the hundreds because of so-called religion, Hindu, Moslem. Why, if it is such a spiritual country, can it not generate a karmic atmosphere of peace? So, I tell them that India is not what you imagine it to be. You would find a few holy people because, in some past ages, people were oriented towards a spiritual way of life, so there is some essence left, but most of it is covered up by extreme materiality. When I was in India about fifteen or eighteen months ago, I found that, from the rickshaw driver to the cabinet level, everyone was corrupt. The rickshaw boy will try to get a rupee or two extra out of you, and so would a cabinet minister try to get a few million out of you if they can. Corruption, corruption, corruption! There is no honesty left. No sincerity left. India, the cradle of civilization, as I often say, civilization is gone; only the cradle remains. That is why all these calamities are drawn upon you. That is why collective karma brings about all these calamities. So, you have these holy places of pilgrimage. I have been to Benares, which is supposed to be the sacred city. I do not know what is so holy about it. Benares is renowned for producing the finest saris in all of India. These are called Banarasi Saree. But you go into a sari shop, and “Oh, just let me show you the factory, this, that the other…” And can they catch you, oh boy! Something that you can find in an ordinary shop for fifty rupees will cost you five hundred rupees there. Where is the holiness? You have a little guide taking you around those dirty, narrow lanes. They have never heard of hygiene, and you are swindled from left, right, and center. Where is the holiness? So, I say India deserves all this that is happening to it. Let more floods come. Let there be more famine; perhaps that is what you need to learn faster. That is why India also required a dictatorship in the form of Indira Gandhi when she was first elected. It was a must, for there comes a time when even the most cultured of societies required to be controlled by an iron hand. These are all the contributing factors of civilizations rising and falling, cultures rising and falling; because when a certain height is reached in a particular field, then a significant amount of ego develops that “We have done this,” things become too easy for people. And how will they pass their time? They are going to pass their time in decadence. WHEN THINGS BECOME TOO EASY, A SOCIETY BECOMES DECADENT That is how all the permissiveness in America has developed, and, of course, it has spread to other countries, such as England and Germany, and many other places. It has flowed over. Because things are too easy, people must remain active. They do not want action, but they must be

The New Ascent: From Outer Achievement to Inner Realization

Compassion, Eternal, Force, Happiness, Karma, Kindness, Love, Mind, Philosophy, Religion, Self, Spiritual, Spirituality

TURNING INWARD FOR PROGRESS CYCLES OF CIVILIZATION If you study history, you will find that at specific periods, India was at the forefront, and then its civilization and culture waned, and it moved on further to the West as the sunset. Then, Greece emerged, and Egypt experienced a resurgence of its culture. It moved to England and America, and now, today, Japan is the most significant focal point on Earth (considered in the 1980s). There are many factors that contribute to a specific country reaching a certain level of development. It is a process of ages, and yet the certain focal point of development does not come from within itself. There are many contributing factors of surrounding countries. For example, during the time 2000 years ago, when the Middle East was at its height, it never reached that height on its own. However, being at the crossroads of world trade, many cultures were brought together. There are only three cultures in the world that have contributed to the so-called progress of the world: India, China, and Greece. Those are the only three cultures, and what the West has received are its philosophies and various theologies, metaphysics, and so on, which originated in Greece and were transmitted to the West. It is said that all this stemmed from India, where certain cultures went to Greece and others to the East, including China and Japan. This is, of course, what the Indians would like to claim. But the question is, can cultures arise simultaneously at various places, or do they have to follow a linear pattern? Cultures could rise simultaneously. If we study the Inca civilization, it was a highly advanced civilization that existed at that time. The world as we know it today was not the structure of the world some thousands of years ago. For example, India was located right alongside South Africa. When the incredible explosion occurred, the force of Atlantis’ destruction pushed that portion of land or broke it off and forced it northward. The impact was so significant that it pushed up the Himalayas, and it is believed by many today that part of Atlantis is under the Himalayas. But when it comes to the rise and fall of a particular civilization, what could be the cause of it? When a civilization rises, it rises because, as I said, contributory factors of other civilizations that preceded it and that are alongside it, and the people in that particular sphere would gather. Civilizations are not composed of a large number of people. There are very few people whose driving force propels them to put forward such advanced ideas that they automatically find a following, which in turn uplifts people in a certain way, what we call civilization. To be honest, there is no such thing as civilization. It is all barbarism in a more refined form. HOW DO WE MEASURE CIVILIZATION? A civilized person is a person who would have within him all the great virtues of kindness and compassion and sympathy and love, that is a civilized person. But how many are there? Therefore, I say they are rather barbaric, and what we regard to be civilization is just the surface value or technological development that we see, and we call them civilized. You find people who eat with their hands while others eat with knives and forks. Can we say that people who sit on the ground and eat with their hands are less civilized than those who sit at a table with a knife and fork? They are not. So, the upsurgence of civilization is a fallacy. This world has been as it has been for thousands of years, and we measure civilization only by a different way of living; yet, fundamentally, it is the same form of life that has been lived all along. Customs change, and we call it civilization. We call that civilization, and then again, civilization is measured by technological processes, by technology. A person flies in an airplane, so he is civilized, more civilized than a person who travels with a donkey cart, and yet that person traveling with a donkey cart could be more civilized. He is more human. Civilization should be measured by how human you are. We do not want to make people into gods; it is not necessary. However, we need to transform people into human beings who understand the value of humanity, and that is the ultimate test of a civilized person. WHEN CIVILIZATION FORGETS HUMANITY When technological progress is made in certain countries at a specific period due to factors that have contributed from outside sources, such as other countries, it will lead these people to a different standard of living. Not a higher standard of living, but a different standard of living which could make things easier for the five senses or where less labor is involved in achieving or doing something, then we say it is a civilized country. In my opinion, all the various highly technological countries, such as America, England, Germany, and France, are they truly civilized? No. I find them more barbaric than very, very backward countries. Traveling around the villages of India, for example, or perhaps in some of the backwoods here in America itself, where people are filled with love, you are made to feel you are loved. But in so-called modern civilized countries, what you find is: what can I get out of it? Is that a human being? It is an animal because that is what animals want. I am feeling hungry, so I have to go and get some food. That is the basis of it all. Civilized countries today do not base their civilizations on eternal truths like love, charity, compassion, sympathy, and similar values. No. All these countries are based on economics: everything done in the so-called societies, nations, and communities is entirely based on economics, and economics has become the norm. The stronger, the more powerful a country is economically,

Surrender is the Culmination of Spiritual Practices: Surrender is a Happening

Acceptance, Awareness, Buddha, Christ, Compassion, Conscious Mind, Devotion, Divine, Eternal, Evolution, Force, Freedom, God, Guru, Heart, Humility, Integration, Kindness, Krishna, Law of opposites, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Oneness, Path, Philosophy, Purity, Relationships, Relative World, Self, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Surrender, Unfoldment, Universe

WHAT IS TRUE SURRENDER? From the time of birth, every person is committed to something. When he is conscious of his commitment, that very commitment establishes itself in his little conscious mind, and as he gets older with a greater understanding, the commitment becomes stronger. But what is the nature of commitment? You are committed to your husband or your wife. In what sense are you committed? You are committed to love. You are committed to protecting. You are committed to being together. So why are there conflicts? Are these the qualities of genuine commitment? Genuine commitment is synonymous with the word surrender, for commitment can never exist without surrender. What does one surrender oneself to? Do you surrender yourself to the object of your love? No, that is only the side effect. You surrender to yourself. What do we mean when we say, “You surrender to yourself”? Which self? You are a compilation of many layers, and there are many selves within yourself. You have your physical, mental, and, of course, the eternal Spiritual Self. So, where do we start in self-surrender? Some schools of thought would say you start with the physical self, which the mental self would empower. But when it is empowered by the cognitive self, which governs your act of surrendering of mind, which reflects in bodily action of surrender, it is still not true surrender because you are forming specific patterns in your mind. And when patterns are formed in the mind, know that those patterns can change. So, for the moment, you might feel surrendered to some idea, and that idea starts in your mind, so your mind creates the idea or ideal, and if your mind makes it, then it is subject to change. What validity is there in the mental idea? The idea is a thought, and what validity is there in thought? Today, you might feel committed to something you like or love. Tomorrow, circumstances might happen where you do not think that fondness or that love for that ideal, and then your ideals would change. It changes because it has been an ideal. The secret of self-surrender is not the ideal of an idea or the ideal of an object but that which is within which requires no surrender. ONLY A FREE MIND CAN COGNISE FREEDOM There is not a question of surrender. This is what theology says: “Surrender yourself to man or God or some ideal.” But all theologies are trying to put you into a groove, a particular line of thought, a specific patterning, and all patternings are not freedom. But patternings are the basis of all bondage. So, you get out of a particular bondage and enter into another bondage. True surrender is free. In surrendering, the leading quality that should be within you is total freedom, and this totality of liberty can never be gained until we reach the inner self, the true, unchanging self. And when we get the accurate, unchanging self, our minds and bodies become so saturated by its force that the mind also starts feeling free. For whom cognises freedom, or what cognises bondage? It is only the mind. But what level of the mind cognises what? That is the question. It could only be a free mind that could recognise freedom. A mind bound by various conditions or patterns can never realise this freedom. SURRENDER CAN ONLY TAKE EFFECT FROM A STABLE STANDPOINT By bringing the mind into more significant turbulence through various forms of analysis, multiple forms of intellectualisation, and various forms of rationalisation, surrender would not be possible. Rationalisation and intellectualisation are directly opposite of surrender. Surrender is unconditional, while rationalisation is conditional. Today, you might follow a particular philosophy which becomes your ideal, and tomorrow, you might find something different, something better. You might have been using “Palmolive” soap all of your life and found that to be the best, and then one day you discover “Body Dust”, which you would find to be better. So, the ideals change because you are changing. So, the whole point is missed in surrendering. The approach is deep within ourselves, where you are forever free, and surrendering can only take effect from a stable standpoint. That stableness is achieved through meditation and spiritual practices. As you become more and more stable and integrated within yourself, surrendering does not become an object of thought but a spontaneous act. It just flows from your body, mind and spirit. There are no obstacles. There are no hindrances. There are no rationalisations, and there are no intellectualisations. TO FIND ONESELF IS TO SURRENDER TO ONESELF “I love my guru because he is a nice chap.” As soon as you say that you do not love your guru, you say, “My wife, she is so beautiful, and she is this and that,” there is no love and neither surrender. So, the object at first could attract our attention. It could be attractive in some form with a certain amount of mental and physical compatibility. But these compatibilities do not remain forever. The man might go through some illness whereby physical compatibility is gone. Or the woman might go through specific mental traumas so that mental compatibility is gone. So, what you feel today to be compatible is a fixture of your mind. It belongs to the fiction department. But we take it to be so real, and the reason why we take it to be so real is that we base all our experiences upon what the mind dictates to us. Not a pure, unconditioned mind but a conditioned mind, and whatever a conditioned mind dictates can never be lasting. So, until man realises or learns the value of the unchanging, stable inner self, he will forever be conditioned, and his surrender will be conditioned. I love my guru because I might find stability within myself through him. This is very partly true because there is a condition. There is a motive. There is

The Only Reality: Discovering the Divine Within

Attachment, Bliss, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Divinity, Ego, Force, God, Guru, Happiness, I am That I am, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Law of opposites, Light, Love, Mind, Non-Attachment, Oneness, Path, Samskaras, Self, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Unfoldment, Universal, Universe, Yahweh

HOW REAL IS REALITY? People usually try to project themselves into things they are not, and when one projects oneself into something which one is not, one lives in a false world or unreality. You always find that every man thinks he is more handsome than he is, and every woman thinks more pretty than she is; we have made or created an image of ourselves, and what reality is there in an image? Image is imaginary, and most people imagine themselves to be what they are not; his imagination can be used for personal upliftment, for life is nothing else but this instant we are at about. The real am-ness is within you; therein lies total reality. One has to go beyond the imagined reality to reach that total reality. Imagined reality is conceptional, while total reality is experiential. When you can really and truly experience yourself as you are, you will find that vastness where you transcend all limitations. You transcend the limits of your body; you transcend the limitations of your mind. And in image making, the central letter there is the “M.” image making the “M” in “I-ma-ginary.” In the authentic self, you have the “A” before the “M,” not the “M” or “A” image. And when one realises the “A” before the “M”, you are, and you would find such a beautitude in this realisation. You would discover total bliss, ecstasy, and joy, which is proof enough to tell you that you are not finding that total joy or bliss because you are imagining. You are image-making. While the real “I” within us has no images, it is formless, immortal. But in creating the images, we develop a form simultaneously; we are bringing that formless reality within everyone into imagined unreality. ANYTHING YOU PICTURE TO BE REAL WILL BE A REALITY TO YOU Now, look at the process. So, you are lost, totally lost. And no one could tell me that they do not feel themselves to be lost. Sometimes, you feel so lost that you become lonely and not alone. There is a significant difference between being alone and being lonely. Loneliness has a need, while aloneness subsists with itself. It is non-dependent. It does not need any crutches. Meanwhile, the imagined self, the so-called false reality, will always need crutches. So, you become dependent instead of independent, and we see in people’s daily lives that there is some kind of crutch that everyone carries. It could be a physical crutch, or it could be primarily a mental crutch. When we have these mental crutches on which we depend, life becomes a phenomenon, and when you proceed with this phenomenon, you land up in greater and greater unreality. The process is not to go outward to that which is unreal; the process is to go inward, where we find actual reality. It is an indescribable experience. We seem to think that everything in this world is real. Because we picture it as accurate, anything you picture to be genuine will become a reality. But remember, it is a false reality. THE GREATEST QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF: “WHO AM I?” So, we proceed from darkness into light, from mortality to immortality. It is all dark here, while in there, it is all light, shimmering, glowing. And life becomes different when the light is brought forward and that inner reality is realised. Then it assumes the quality of reality, and then only, and never before then. You are all sitting here. Are you genuine? Everyone will say “yes.” I say, “No,” you are not real. You have emphasised the surface waves, forgetting the depths within you, the depths of the ocean, which are calm, blissful, and joyful. One has to dive deep within oneself through our spiritual practices to find the real me. And when you discover the real me, the question, “Who am I?” will cease immediately. The most significant question a person can ask himself is, “Who am I?” And it is the most challenging question to answer. No one can tell you who you are. It is by self-inquiry only, through the imaginary mind, that one reaches a certain level where you have a glimpse of who you are. And then you jump, you leap into the unknown, for the unknown is what you are. When we use the word “unknown,” we mean it is not conceptual. It can be experienced. For example, this little thing, say sugar, you can analyse sugar, take it to the laboratory, and find out all its components. But by doing that, you are not knowing the sweetness of sugar. You have to taste the sugar, which means experiencing the sugar and its sweetness. Then only will the question cease, “Who am I?” The way to start knowing who you are is to move away from the little self. Moving away from the little self means you become an observer of the little self. So here, reality is observing unreality, the play of life, for life is nothing but a play. You sit in the audience and see the actors doing their play. It could be Macbeth or Hamlet or whatever. How much do you identify yourself with what is happening on the stage? I was in show business for over 20 years, and if there is a tearjerker, as we call films, that brings tears to your eyes, you will find so many hankies drawn from their pockets and wiping their eyes. They have become involved in the play, yet the person in the audience who is crying knows it is just a play enacted. It is not the actor, but it is just the acting. And yet you start crying. TO BE IN THE WORLD AND YET NOT OF THE WORLD That is what is happening in daily life. You become so involved in this unreality, and being involved in this unreality, you get all kinds of different feelings and emotions. You suffer pains and

Overcoming Weakness: The Inner Path to Strength

Acceptance, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Force, God, Grace, Guru, Humility, Joy, Meditation, Mind, Philosophy, Scriptures, Self, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Surrender, Universe

DO GOOD, BE GOOD A way to gain discipline would be through devotion and surrender. That devotion takes the form that, “Not my will but Thy will be done,” and when man fully appreciates and says, “Thy will be done,” surrender to that will come spontaneously. That is one way of self-discipline. Because the emphasis or importance is not put upon our little self, but the emphasis and importance are put upon the big self. That is one way. Then, there would be another way where you are not concerned about whether there is divinity. You are not worried about all the various heavens the scriptures talk about. Your principle in life would be, “Do good, be good.” To do that, one has to exercise conscious effort because doing good does not always come spontaneously because, as we have said before, we are a product of conditioning. So, we have to repattern our minds. Man is usually a creature of habit; most things we do are without thinking and just an automatic reflex created by habit. These habits have to be changed, and that requires effort. In doing good and being good, effort is required; very consciously, we curb what we would typically do. A Chinese proverb says, “Before you say an angry word, roll your tongue nine times in the mouth.” Because by the time you roll the tongue nine times in the mouth, your anger is gone, and you will not say those angry words. So, in effortful living, where we consciously try to do good and be good, follow the precepts of morality and ethics, and live that kind of life, you do not need to believe in anything. THE GREATEST DIFFICULTY IS TO ACCEPT OUR WEAKNESSES OURSELVES What shall we do when we recognise our weaknesses? That question would be difficult to answer because one has to describe the weakness specifically, and by knowing the specific weakness, a specific method of overcoming the weakness can be given. It is like going to a doctor and saying, “I am sick,” which would make it difficult for the doctor. But if you tell the doctor, “I have got a stomachache or a headache or a footache,” the doctor will know exactly what kind of medicine to give and for what purpose. But we can talk of weaknesses in general. Weakness does not allow us to cope adequately in life, and when we cannot cope adequately in life, it means that instead of running on four pistons, our motor car runs on three pistons. It is straightforward to say that if the one piston of the vehicle is not working, fix it up. But how to fix it? That is the real question. When our weaknesses are brought face to face in front of us through our meditational practices, and it could be any weakness, then half the cure is done. Any Doctor will tell you that proper diagnosis is half the cure. By facing our weakness honestly and sincerely, we are halfway to overcoming it. It does require some courage to look at ourselves squarely in the mirror. Meditation and spiritual practices give us courage and strength, which is the primary purpose of meditation and many other purposes. When we face the weakness, there is a cognition of the weakness. That means that our minds have started acknowledging and accepting our weaknesses. I have been doing a lot of work in various kinds of hospitals. Hospitals treat cardiac and nervous troubles and all types of rehabilitation programmes, and by teaching them the proper forms of meditation, a more fantastic calmness dawns on them. This calmness gives them a greater chance of evaluating their weakness. The most significant difficulty one finds, even after knowing the weakness, is accepting it ourselves. I am referring primarily to the work I have been doing with alcoholics. The biggest problem I have with alcoholics is to make them admit that “I am an alcoholic.” Once the man sincerely acknowledged that the person must accept the first and second points that “I am not capable on my own to deal with my problem.” NOT MY WILL, BUT THY WILL BE DONE It means, firstly, acceptance and, secondly, admitting that I am too weak to do it on my own. We have only used the alcoholic as an example, but the same two principles apply to every weakness. So, when these two principles are accepted, when we accept the weakness and admit that “I am not capable of handling it myself,” then because of that sincerity, the power of Grace automatically dawns upon us. When that power of Grace dawns upon us, it acts as medicine. So, accepting, admitting and being able to use the power of Grace helps us immensely, but the most incredible realisation it brings to us is to feel a confident presence that I am walking through life, and I am not walking alone; my hand is held by the hand of superior power. That means there is a Spiritual Force, a spiritual energy; you can call it God. That Spiritual Force is with me, and when we come to these realisations, we do not feel alone, and because we do not feel alone, we find the strength. But to admit to ourselves and accept to ourselves that I am not alone, there is another quality that develops: self-surrender. We surrender ourselves to this higher power, and then we can honestly say, “Not my will be done, but Thy will be done.” And when His will is done, the weaknesses disappear. IT IS ONLY WHEN WE FEEL HUMBLE THAT WE ALSO GAIN STRENGTH When people pray, they are always doing business with God. They do business. They say, “If my son passes the examination, I will give 10 pounds to charity. It means, “Lord, you do first, then I pay.” No, it must be the other way round. “I will do my charity, and lord, you be the judge to

There Are No Obstacles: How the Spirit Transcends All Barriers

Attitude, Awareness, Devotion, Divinity, Eternity, Force, Happiness, Heart, Karma, Kingdom of Heaven within, Mind, Purity, Self, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Wisdom, Yoga

THE WORKING OF THE SPIRITUAL FORCE You do not need an outside force to activate your Spiritual Self, for the Kingdom of Heaven is within yourself all the time, and that is the force we have to realize through our spiritual practices. When this realization dawns, we recognize that the Spirit is always within us. The mechanics of that spiritual force work in different ways – firstly, it works in the purity you develop within you; then, it works in the way of your lifestyle. Then it also works in the knowledge, the Jnana, you gain. And it also develops in the Bhakti, the devotion you develop within yourself. These are the simple principles of the mechanical workings of the spiritual force. But this might just not be understood. So, we must go into greater detail. When understanding develops, the awareness develops. When devotion develops, the Heart opens up. When Karma develops to its highest degree of purity, all actions become pure. And all this leads to the royal path of Raja Yoga, which is me. When you have developed to a certain degree, you will find progress in life, leading you further into more excellent and more significant progress until you reach the goal for which your life has been meant. EVERYTHING IN LIFE IS COMPOSED OF THE SYMPHONY OF DIVINITY The goal is to go through all these aspects through the various vicissitudes of life. The water of the river flows, but do you know how many rocks, stones, logs, and other things it has to flow over? That flowing over is the difficulties you find in life. Those are the miseries because you think only of the rocks, stones, and boulders and logs instead of the freshness of the water. So, where is your attention now? I tell you where, do you want to hear it? Your tension is in your backside because the backside bumps in the river of life. But raise your head to the heavens and see the eternity, the vastness of the blue skies. Let your concentration be there and admire the blue days. Some days it will be cloudy, some days it will be sunny. So, what is the difference between the sun and the clouds? Because it is the sun that has produced the clouds. Do you see the combination that exists between sun and clouds? You worry and worry and worry and go into misery because you do not discriminate between the clouds and the sun when the clouds and the sun are one. Have you ever thought the clouds are nothing else but one? One has created the other, and the other has created the one. When you realize the oneness between the clouds and the sun, you will understand that everything in life comprises the Symphony of Divinity. And when this is realized, you will find nothing ugly. THERE ARE NO OBSTACLES The secret of life is to find Divinity in everything. There is nothing in this world that is ugly. Everything is beautiful, depending on what attitude you develop. So, on the spiritual path, there might be obstacles that you might feel, but the obstacles are no obstacles at all because the Spirit, being Divine, would be devoid of all challenges. The obstacles are created by your wrong thinking, way of life, Jnana, the wrong way of life, action, Karma and wrong devotion to wrong objects, Bhakti, and all these things constitute the misery of your life. When you find the simple secrets, they are not too difficult, at least for me. When you find the secrets of these simple principles, then your life can be so, so, so happy. Is that not what you want? So, your husband, or boyfriend or whatever, I do not know, smacked you last week, and he was very angry with you. Now, ask yourself why he was angry and why he slapped me. Have you ever thought that I might have done something wrong so that my woman slapped me? Here comes self-analysis, and self-analysis means not being judgmental. So, he slapped me. I must think, why did he slap me? Is it because of some Karma that I did, perhaps voluntarily? Or involuntarily, or by just impulsion? Then, you will find that I deserved to be smacked. We say we are sensible, but remember there are other parts to it: sense, common sense and nonsense. Which is most important? Sense, common sense, or nonsense? Nonsense because sense involves the mind. So, let us get away from the mind; it is nonsense, but let us get to the Heart, which makes the most incredible sense because the feelings of the Heart transmute themselves to the mind to give you good sense. So many things happen in life, and we are all grown-up people. Many things happen to people because they work on common sense, but let us have good sense. Good sense removes all the obstacles on the spiritual path, and good sense not only removes the barriers on the spiritual path but also gives you a better understanding of life. A better understanding, not only of yourself, but of your beloved ones, your environment, everything. So, get away from sense and common sense and nonsense, and develop good sense through your spiritual practices, which will remove all the obstacles in your spiritual path. And when those obstacles are removed, you will feel like a better person. I promise you that. That is the secret of life, for you can only develop in life by destroying the obstacles. If you have a thorn in your foot or a pebble in your shoe, will you limp around with that stone? No, you pull off your shoe and throw away the pebble or stone or whatever is there, and you will walk comfortably. Is that not what you want, to walk through life comfortably? It is all so, so simple? INVEST WITHIN YOUR SPIRITUAL SELF Why can people not understand the

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