Janujee, Author at FISU Meditation

How to Find Happiness? Tricked by the Mind, Freed by the Spirit

Acceptance, Attachment, Awareness, Belief, Conscious Mind, Divine, Divinity, Eternal, Evolution, Evolve, Faith, God, Grace, Happiness, Joy, Karma, Kingdom of Heaven within, Laws, Love, Meditation, Mind, Omnipresent, Path, Peace, Self, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Practices, Spiritual Teacher, Strength, Subconscious, Superconscious, Surrender, Unfoldment, Universe

THE ILLUSION OF UNHAPPINESS Happiness is latent in man, but he cannot find it. Happiness is synonymous with Divinity. Happiness is joy, and if that joy, that Divine something, is omnipresent, then what is there to find? It is there, here, and now. But why do we feel sad, why do we suffer, and where does that suffering come from? The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. The peace is always there within you, yet that peace is so clouded over, coloured over, that we do not seem to see it. What comes in the way? Most people think that the suffering they have is always external – the mother-in-law is terrible, the boss is awful, you want to punch him in the nose. The wife sometimes gets cross and gives you a sour face, and the husbands are not too perfect either. So, we blame all our suffering and misery on the environment, but there is no suffering and despair in the environment. If someone swears at you, you will feel hurt, and that hurt is done; you will be unhappy. But if you are deaf and do not hear him swearing, will you be disappointed? No, you have not heard it. So, the point is this: the unhappiness is in your mind. Happiness is not in the mind, but unhappiness, so-called, is in the mind because it is only the mind that interprets and evaluates a situation. So, what qualities of the mind can assess a situation? Can the mind evaluate a situation? No, because every situation is evaluated differently by different people. Something that might be joyful to one might be painful to another, yet it is still the same situation and environment. If you go to live in the Himalayas, you will find it so cold, unbearably cold, while the people living there will find it very pleasant. I might come to England and find your weather so overcast and dull. It gets dark at half past three or four o’clock, while in South Africa, the sun shines until late, at seven, eight, or nine, even in winter. So, it is ‘I’ that interprets things. The man is in business trouble; for example, he has a load of creditors knocking on his door, and it worries him, and naturally, it should. But how much do we allow circumstances to affect us? There lies the secret of a good, happy life. AWARENESS TRANSFORMS EVERYTHING One’s previous experiences usually guide the interpretation of a situation. In the subconscious mind, we have these cubbyholes of stored information, so when any situation arises, the conscious mind immediately and automatically transmits the present situation to the subconscious. It draws out from those cubby holes things that have happened before, distasteful things. So, the distastefulness of the present situation is amplified and strengthened. What is the answer for us human beings? What can be done about it? There is only one way, and that is to go beyond the mind, for then only the peace beyond understanding can be found. Understanding is of the mind. As greater and greater awareness is gained, as more and more of the brain cells, twelve billion of them, in this little box up here, as more and more of them are enlivened through meditational and spiritual practices, more and more of the Inner Self can filter through, and greater awareness develops. Greater awareness means not looking at anything from a narrow perspective. When we stand down here and view an object, it appears small. However, when we reach a greater height of understanding, as if standing on a hill, a more panoramic view becomes visible. This occurs through meditative practices. So, when this happens through meditational practices and greater awareness develops, all happenings assume a different proportion. A greater understanding filters through into the conscious, evaluating mind, where things will be seen more positively. There is nothing in this world that is bad. I told someone the other day that even human excrement is not harmful. Without that ability, that biological function, you will die, so is it not good? It can then be used as a fertilizer to aid in plant growth. Various manures are recycled into the food, and the energy is given to the ground and the food you eat. So, what are you eating, and what is so bad about it? Everything goes in cycles. This entire universe exists in its cyclical form, which might seem like misery today, but looking back on it in retrospect, you will find that it was not misery; it was an excellent lesson. Why did I not have the sense at that time to recognise the lesson contained therein? Why did I look upon it as misery? So, my wife divorced me. Being human, it will naturally be a jar; she runs off with another man. But because of a lack of understanding and looking back at that temporary hurt, you will find that you have opened yourself more and more because of the hammering you received. Examining the hatred poured upon you, you will discover the meaning of love. Sometimes the opposite is needed to bring out certain truths that lie within you, and the knowledge of truth, the knowing of truth, brings you happiness. I want to share an example from my life: I was involved in a large business, and my partners took nearly two million Rand from me, leaving me financially broke. But what an opportunity in that adversity. I might still be wallowing in that mire of wealth, not doing what I am doing today, serving humanity. Do you see the great advantage in everything? I felt very miserable. They were thieves. We find thieves like that in this world. One day, a woman was in church and left her handbag behind. She got into her car and suddenly remembered her handbag, so she returned to the church. When she looked where she had been sitting, the handbag was

What Is a Miracle? Unveiling the Power of Faith and Divine Grace

Bible, Christ, Consciousness, Dharma, Divine, Eternal, Evolution, Faith, Force, Grace, Gurushakti, Heart, Incarnation, Joy, Love, Meditation, Mind, Philosophy, Religion, Scriptures, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Teacher, The Three Gunas, Unity

WHAT IS A MIRACLE? Christ did not perform more miracles than other Masters. We feel that because we are more oriented to our background and what we have learned. But if we study other Scriptures and mythologies, we will find many more miracles being performed. But what is a miracle? I have said before that there are no miracles whatsoever. We regard things that we cannot understand to be a miracle. When a person reaches a very high level of consciousness and can become one with subtle forces, he can direct these subtle forces into certain acts, which would seem to be a miracle to our eyes. The typical examples would be the aeroplane, the television, and the telephone, which a hundred years ago would have seemed a miracle, and today, it is such a reality that we hardly notice it. So, there are no miracles. But what did Jesus do? I am sure that thousands and thousands of people were blind at the time of his ministry. Thousands and thousands of people were lame, and I am sure thousands and thousands of people had died during that time. Why did he not cure all of their blindness? Why did he not make all the boring walk and not raise all from the dead? That is the question to consider. We know that he was a man of love. Why did he love one more than the other? Why should he give sight to one or legs to another and not to others? Therefore, Jesus always said one thing: “Thy faith has healed thee.” It is your faith that heals you. Jesus was the focal point for you to gather that faith within you into a togetherness, and when you were ready, these things just happened. When the child passes standard three, he goes to standard four, but if he has passed standard four, you cannot put him in Bachelor of Arts. So, that faith was there, that faith which defies all analysis. Science demands pro, of which religion defies proof. A LITTLE STORY I will tell you a little story. The Prime Minister of a particular country had passed away. The Prime Minister was a very, very wise, a very learned man. You can be learned and yet not wise. But here, there was a happy combination of being learned and wise. He passed away, and it was difficult to find his equal. So, they searched and searched and searched, and these three were the best choices that could be found. There was a scientist, one of the world’s most brilliant mathematicians, there was a philosopher, and there was a man of religion. These three were contenders to become the new Prime Minister. The King said, “I will have to put you through a test, and whoever passes the test will become the Prime Minister.” They were all given a few days to rest, so the Scientist was worrying all the time about what kind of problem this was going to be that I would have to solve. He worried and thought and thought and thought, and he had sleepless nights, and by the time he reached the Palace, he was exhausted. The Philosopher, the second contender, tried to work all kinds of theories. He had studied Plato and Socrates and Shankaracharya and Aristotle and Ramanuja and Madhva and the whole lot put together, and he said, what possible problem could this King pose to me? He was worrying and worrying, and even before the problem was presented, he created problems in his mind. So, when they both went to the Palace for this test, they were still worried and exhausted. But the man of religion did not care anything. He did nothing during those few days that they gave them to rest. He sang, and he ate, and he drank, and he was happy. So, while on the way to the Palace, the Scientist and the Philosopher asked this man, “Look, you have been doing nothing.” He said, “What is there to do? There is nothing to do.” So, these two felt so confident; he was a natural loser. In the meantime, the King had built a room where all three would be locked in. The lock did not have a key, but it might have been one of the number combinations or some such device whereby safe doors are opened. The three got locked in the room and asked to find their way out. The Scientist immediately took pen and paper and started working out all possible solutions, all the permutations of the numbers, and he was so brilliant that if he existed today, he would have won every horse race with all his permutations. The Philosopher was busy with all his theories, so there must be a theory on how this door can be opened. There must be some theory because there is a solution behind every problem, which necessitates a theory to work upon. Meanwhile, the man of religion just sat back in a corner, and he was so happy within himself, meditating away and such a joy. A few hours passed, and the Scientist and Philosopher looked at him and said, “Oh, he is out; he is just sitting still doing nothing.” Then suddenly, the man of religion thought: let me go to the door and try to open it. And he went to the door, and he opened the door because the door was never locked. So, the scientists and the philosophers were creating non-existent problems, but the man of faith just knew within himself without using analysis or logic. Because the Scientist experiments, the Philosopher uses logic, but the man of truth, the man of religion, he experiences. Experiment, logic, experience. While he was meditating, he just experienced “let me go.” Something pushed him, and he did not know, and he did not care either about what pushed him. He just had faith to get up and open the door. He

The End of Fear: Embracing Unity and Letting Go of the Ego

Attachment, Awareness, Devotion, Divinity, Ego, Evolution, Force, Free Will, God, Happiness, Heart, Integration, Love, Meditation, Mind, Oneness, Path, Self, Self-Realization, Separation, Spirit, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Subconscious, Yoga

IF FREE WILL IS USED POSITIVELY, THEN HATRED WILL BECOME LOVE When we suffer from emotional problems, we do suffer them without the realisation of Divinity. In other words, fear suffers within itself. Jealousy suffers within itself. Any form of negativity is perpetuated by itself. If there was a recognition of what Divinity was, and if those fears had to come about inspired or energised by it with a conscious knowledge of it, then these mechanisms of fear, greed and lust could be used to overcome various defects in us. In other words, with a defect, we overcome another defect. As in homoeopathy, we use one thorn to remove the other. But when the thorn has been taken out, what do we do? We throw both thorns away. This comes with a higher realisation that all this happening within us is also the work of Divinity. With that realisation, fear becomes fearlessness, anger becomes love, hatred becomes love. The same energy is converted within us in its positive aspect. Having certain pent-up feelings does not mean we will get rid of the negativity within us by releasing those feelings. We have to release the pent-up energy, and the pent-up energy can be released positively. So why not choose the positive path? There is a skinny dividing line between love and hatred, and there is a skinny dividing line between fear and fearlessness. A fragile veil separates the two. The whole crux lies in the energy that brings positivity or negativity. The crux of the matter, the basis of the question, is based upon energy and how that energy is used, utilised, and expressed. There comes free will; if free will is used positively, then that hatred will become love. ALL FEARS STEM FROM OURSELVES How do we use free will positively? Any energy can be used positively if an understanding is gained of that energy. Without understanding the power, we are in confusion, and whenever anyone is in confusion, you can be sure that that is within us. So, we start by getting rid of the confusion, and the best way to get rid of the confusion is to understand the situation, why do I fear? Once one has an understanding of the reason why one fears or why one hates, then half the problem is solved because of the very process of analysing the reason. If you go to a good psychiatrist or a good psychoanalyst, he makes you talk, and while he makes you talk, he will guide you slowly, he will guide you very subtly sometimes, to make you see the faulty reasoning that you have. He will make you see the fallacy, the misunderstanding you have. On the spiritual path, we do the same; in Jnana Yoga, the yoga of discrimination, we can actively discriminate. With discriminative power, we can find the reason why we are hating, angry, and afraid. Once we know why, I fear, it would be getting rid of half the problem, and the other half can be got rid of by gaining strength within us. It is like a person walking through a dark road, and he sees a rope lying there. At first sight, it might seem to be a snake, and he has that fear. But when he looks closer, he sees that it is not a snake but a piece of rope, and immediately, his fear vanishes. This situation can be applied to everything in life. A woman fears that her husband is going out, the husband says, “I am going out with the boys,” but in the heart, the woman fears that he might see a girlfriend. She fears that. Why does she have that fear? The fear is there because of her inadequacy. It could be a conscious inadequacy or a sub-conscious inadequacy planted in her mind since childhood, perhaps because of happenings in her environment. She might have had specific experiences in life that would produce that fear in her. The fear stems from insecurity. She feels insecure, and therefore, she feels inadequate. She feels I cannot please or look after my husband in the way he should be looked after, and consequently, he might find another girlfriend. When that woman fears this, she has to analyse herself. I am not talking of morbid fears or fears that are created by an imbalanced mind. However, some concerns come about in people’s well-balanced minds, but the thinking process is wrong. In that fear, so much attachment could make her think that her husband will be unfaithful to her. Meanwhile, he could be the finest man on earth. If she analyses the situation, “Where have I gone wrong to produce this fear in me?” If she analyses herself, she feels that she has been doing her duty correctly, that she has been loving as a wife should be loving, and that she has been caring for the husband as she should be caring. Firstly, he married her because he was attracted to her. Is she doing her best to remain just as attractive as in the honeymoon period, or is that past, and is she taking things for granted? If she analyses all these things and the answer is in the affirmative, that fear would be lost. Then she would say, “John, why are you sitting around at home tonight? Go out and have a good time with the boys.” That is good; she will develop. So that very fear that caused this attachment, insecurity, and inadequacy can now be turned to love and adequacy and security, where she would say, “Stop sitting around watching the telly, if you feel like going out for a game of snooker with the boys, go!” She will say that. It is the same energy that has been used, but it has taken a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. So, all fears stem from ourselves and not necessarily from the environment, and even if the climate creates a fear, it depends upon our ability

The Role of Christ in Easing Karma: Understanding the Spiritual Force of Grace

Avatara, Awareness, Belief, Buddha, Christ, Consciousness, Divine, Divinity, Eternal, Evolution, Evolve, Faith, Force, Grace, Happiness, Heart, I am That I am, Incarnation, Joy, Karma, Krishna, Law of opposites, Laws, Light, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Oneness, Path, Religion, Spirit, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Practices, Spiritual Teacher, Strength, Universal, Yahweh

DID CHRIST REMOVE KARMA? Healing is meant to bring about wholeness. Healing does not necessarily mean that if you are lame, your leg will grow again, and you will start walking. We call it healing, but it is just part of it. A person has cancer, and healing is done, and the cancer disappears. That is just a superficial, superfluous physical manifestation of a force that already exists, always there in everyone and everywhere. Real healing is finding the wholeness of body, mind, and spirit. Did Christ take over their karma by doing these healings or bringing wholeness to a person? This is an impossibility. No one can take over anyone else’s karma. This principle is difficult to accept because we have been raised in a tradition where we have expected something for nothing. Why should any being no matter how evolved he might be, or the incarnation of Divinity take over your karma and not the karma of someone else? Man has not changed so much in history. People are the same today as they were two thousand years ago, two and a half thousand years ago when Buddha existed or five thousand years ago when Krishna existed. People today are still basically the same, and technological advancement is no criteria or measure of evolution whatsoever because people commit the same follies. People of today do the same things that they did ages ago. THE SPIRITUAL FORCE MAKES THE REPAYMENT OF KARMA EASIER A child writes an examination, and the teacher knows that the child has been doing very well throughout the year, but at the time of assessment, the child might have been nervous. People get these frightened feelings when writing an exam, and instead of getting a passing mark of fifty percent, he gets forty-eight. Knowing the child’s history throughout the year and learning the record, the teacher would award those two or three percent extra and push the child over to the following standard. That is possible. There is a little pushing but no taking away of karma. We cannot judge a holy or righteous person because we can never understand his actions. His actions might seem so contradictory to us. But he knows what he is doing. He is a law into himself. But in the presence of such a person, there is a force that emanates. He does not do it consciously. It is an automatic emanation like heat from fire or fragrance from a flower. It is an automatic emanation, and by being near that person, that Force has some effect upon us, and the impact would be enlightening. It gives a lightness of Heart. It spurs one on to betterment, to better ourselves. That one little thing happens. But the proper removal of karma has to be done by oneself. But by being bathed by this Force, by this Grace that automatically emanates from this being, it helps us to smoothen our path. The karma is not taken away, but because of that spiritual Force, because of the attunement of mind to mind, Heart to Heart, it makes the repayment of karma easier. KARMA IS GOOD ACTION AS WELL AS BAD ACTION The word karma has always been very confused with bad action. Karma means action, and there is good and bad action, but a good action is enhanced more. The beautiful flower is there, but it is so well dressed up in the vase with the lovely leaves and looks gorgeous. The beauty of the flower is enhanced. So, in the company of a righteous, holy person, he might not need to be near because that Grace, that universal Force, is forever there, everywhere, although people are thousands of miles apart. But there has to be that attunement whereby we open the window to allow the fresh air to come in. Good karma is enhanced by giving it more extraordinary beauty, and by giving it more excellent beauty, life can become more joyous. Every joy becomes more enhanced. It is like having a meal. The Missis might cook a lovely meal, but the feast will lose some value if the table is not nicely laid. So, dressing the table for that lovely dinner is very important. That is how good karma is enhanced. When it comes to bad karma, by this Force, we lose the sting of the reaction, for every action must react. Suitable action will have a good response, nasty action a lousy reaction. Still, we automatically repent by being aware of our wrong actions and tuning in to that grace. If I realise that I have done something wrong, that realisation is a form of repentance, and that repentance is strengthened by not performing that same action again. GRACE CAN HELP US UNPATTERN OUR MINDS AND MAKE OUR KARMA EASIER Of course, most people do not do that. To use an analogy from Ramakrishna, he says, “The camel loves eating thorns. It knows its mouth bleeds but still keeps eating the thorns.” Many people do that. But as soon as the sincere seeker realises this action is not good, he has a dawning realisation that I should not perform this again. But the mind is so patterned that he will want to achieve that action again because of the patterned mind. How many alcoholics are there in the world that does not hate every drink they take? They wish they could get out of it. They suffer, but because of the chemistry built up in their system, it could be physiological as well as psychological, and they just cannot do without that drink. The same thing applies to drug addicts. They hate themselves for it. So, what can they do because they cannot unpattern their patterned mind? They need outside help, and that outside help is Grace, and to draw that Grace, one has to have some faith, as the people had in Jesus. They must believe, “Look, I cannot do anything anymore; I have tried my

How to Make Divinity Concrete? Embodying the Infinite into the Finite

Acceptance, Awareness, Buddha, Christ, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Devotion, Divinity, Duality, Ego, Enlightenment, Evolution, Evolve, Force, God, Guru, Harmony, Heart, Impressions, Kingdom of Heaven within, Krishna, Law of opposites, Laws, Light, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Oneness, Path, Peace, Self, Separation, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, The Absolute, The Three Gunas, Universal, Universe, Yahweh, Yoga

IN MEDITATION, THERE IS NO FOCUS REQUIRED Focusing does necessarily involve some kind of concentration, and concentration is something which is at a level not as deep as meditation. In meditation, we go beyond focusing or concentration; we go beyond contemplation, and then we enter into the field of meditation, where it just is. When we focus our attention, specific mechanisms of the mind start functioning. In that very focus process, we activate the brain’s left hemisphere. In the process of focusing, you will find various analyses coming up. Rationalizations will take place, and a weighing takes place, while in meditation, we go beyond the process of weighing or analyzing. When we start weighing, we want to see which weighs more or less. So, it is a complete mental process which would lead one into contemplation. Contemplation is reasonable, and I have often said that true contemplation is like pouring oil from one vessel into another in an unbroken stream. When you think, you will always have thoughts that do not deal with the subject. The mind floats away onto other topics, and then you bring it back. For example, you start reading a book, and the mind will think, “What am I going to cook for supper tonight?” Then you bring your attention back. Your focus goes back to the book. When you are meditating, there is no focus required at all. If you are contemplating accurately and adequately, the doorbell will ring, you will be alert, answer the door, and then sit down to meditate again. The very process of getting up and answering the door forms part and parcel of your meditation. If your mind focused on something, you would not hear the doorbell. The ears and inner organs of perception are there, yet you will not hear the doorbell because your mind is focused. THE FINITE MIND IS INCAPABLE OF CONCEIVING THAT WHICH IS INFINITE Focusing serves its purposes, but when it comes to consciousness, you are not conscious of your consciousness. You and Christ have the same consciousness as I would have; the difference is that you are unaware of what consciousness is because your awareness is limited. In other words, the finite mind, the little section that is not even 10% of the mind that you use, cannot conceive of the infinite. The limited is incapable of creating that which is infinite by mental processes, and total consciousness is infinite. So, if rationalization, or the workings of the mind, cannot reach that level, then we cannot conceive of the whole. Then, with our rationalizations, we become judgmental, start judging, and start comparing. I DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN JESUS AND CHRIST Embodied beings like Krishna, Buddha and Christ have limitations, for the very consciousness becoming embodied implies limitations, and in an embodied form, there can never be a perfect man. It is impossible. Therefore, I differentiated between Jesus and Christ. If we study the life of Christ, we will find him doing various things in the embodied form. He was given to great anger. He was a passionate man, and he was a loving man, loving as a man would love. As Jesus, his love also required a kind of reciprocation. When he was tortured and tormented, his emotional self also felt the torture and the torment, and that was the suffering that theology speaks about. Theology speaks about all those tortures and torments as far as the embodied Jesus was concerned. But one thing is sure: what differentiates you and me from Jesus is that he had developed that awareness; he had gone beyond the 10% conscious mind and delved into deeper and deeper realms of that mind, which is universal. Having explored all the territories of the various layers of the conscious mind and all the various layers of the subconscious mind and reaching the subtlest, the finest layer of relativity known as the superconscious mind, he could conceive of, perceive, and comprehend the entire universe. So there lies the difference. Our view is narrow because the conscious mind acts only as a vehicle for the upper strata of the subconscious to flow through it. In other words, the patterns in the upper strata of the subconscious mind are expressed through the conscious mind. That is why you have different behaviour patterns, which are dependent upon the conditioning of one’s mind. Meditation and spiritual practices are designed to rid oneself of the patternings, and the patterning is the stains or the dirt on the glass window. The spiritual practices help one to cleanse the window so that more profound layers of the subconscious mind come to the fore. That dirt is washed away until we reach the superconscious level, which is closest to what we could describe as the Absolute, and the full force of the Absolute can shine through. But when the personage, the embodied person, has reached that level, we are beyond the area of questioning such a man, for he becomes a law unto himself. He has transcended the law of opposites and the polarities; he has brought into a oneness between himself, the entire universe, and the Absolute, the Father. This mechanism is essential. The reason why one person is born with a limited consciousness or awareness and another with a vaster awareness is not only dependent upon hereditary factors, but it goes further back right to the time of the Big Bang where all these minute particles, all this sub, sub, subatomic matter was expelled in this explosion. This very expulsion, this very force, is what constitutes evolution. That mere particle can duplicate itself, replicate itself, and interchange itself with other particles so that various forms of life occur on this planet and everywhere else. But let us think of this planet where it progresses from the mineral to the plant to the animal and the kingdom of man. THE ONE CAN ONLY BE EXPERIENCED We are not after a comparison between the embodied person or the guru or

Preparing for Grace: Finding Grace Through Spiritual Practices

Attitude, Belief, Bliss, Buddha, Christ, Compassion, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Evolve, Force, God, Grace, Guru, Gurushakti, Heart, I and my Father are one, Joy, Karma, Krishna, Light, Love, Mantra, Meditation, Mind, Oneness, Path, Philosophy, Purity, Self, Self-Realization, Separation, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Subconscious, Superconscious, Unfoldment, Unity, Universal, Universe

THE POWER OF GRACE CAN ONLY BE KNOWN THROUGH EXPERIENCE All problems in our lives begin the way we live in duality, viewing everything as separate from us. Speaking, all issues have their solutions built in. No man needs to suffer. No man needs to drive grace away from oneself, for it is there, it is there, it is there. Look how the sun gives off its heat to draw up water to shower the earth with grace so food and flowers can grow. Everything in the universe is in motion; everything is working. We are supposed to be the highest species on this earth, the so-called most evolved, because we can think; we should be able to be in a position to believe in the right way so that we can draw grace far more quickly to and understand it better than the flower which is non-thinking or the stone that is non-thinking or the poor little animal. Do you know how much a dog or a cat does not think and showers their love to you? Do you know how close they can be to you? Even before the master turns the corner, the dog runs to the gate. Even the cat will come and curl up in your lap so lovingly. Why? Because it does not think. It feels, and what feels is the Heart. So, when we approach the core of our personality called the Heart, that can never remain a vacuum, then as the Heart expands or unfolds more and more, it becomes more and more filled with grace. Grace is something one can never explain. Never mind how intellectual you are; the mind can never demonstrate grace. One can talk about it, but one can only know the power of grace when one experiences it, and the preparation for this is within oneself through our spiritual practices. REWARDS WILL COME ON THEIR OWN No obstacle cannot be overcome; obstacles are the most outstanding teachers. It is not the pleasures of life that teach you much, but the pains of life teach you, and if there are obstacles, you should develop the attitude that this obstacle is necessary for you to experience grace. Funny enough, all Spiritual Masters go through severe pain. Take Ramakrishna, who had cancer, Vivekananda with asthma, and Ram Thirtha, who had some incurable disease. Many of you do not know that, but Jesus Christ was a very sickly man. He was very emaciated. He had very little strength, travelling from village to village and town to town on foot. Many times, there was food for him, and many times, there was not – many times, feasts and many beggar’s bowls. He went through a lot of torture, but finally, he could say that “I and my Father are one. I, this little body, and that father within are one.” That is the final realisation of Unity Consciousness. Despite his theory of relativity, even Einstein had to admit that “There is a vast field which I cannot explain.” He was a spiritual man, or he would not admit to that unified field he mentioned. For that, you had an excellent series on British television a little while ago where this man, Don Cupid, spoke about Jung, Darwin, Freud, and all these people. They, too, especially Jung, after going through all the various facets of psychoanalysis, had to admit that there is a power, there is a God, there is something that moves the world. I think the Greek Philosopher Archimedes said, “If you can give me a standing place apart from the earth, I could move the whole earth.” But there is no standing place outside the earth. The upright place is inside the planet, and you have got to move the earth, and it can be done by pushing yourself. Whenever you do your spiritual practices, never have the desire for self-realisation or passion for grace because that will only breed begging and bargaining. Just do them innocently, and you will find the rewards on their own. Try chasing your shadow, running away from the light; you will never catch it. But try running towards the light, and your shadow will be behind you – behind me, the devil. I stand free, and you, the devil, stand behind me. By the devil, I mean all the suffering and the obstacles, for that is the evil created by ourselves, by our little mental selves. And yet, the mind is so vast. It is as vast as the universe; even poor old Einstein could only use eight per cent of it. So, what is the sense of chasing that little mind when even Einstein could reach eight per cent only? You will not even be able to get one per cent. Instead, pursue the Heart within and capture it. YOU ARE GRACE I do not know if I told you this story before. There was a King who had a big gala party in his Palace. He was generous, and all kinds of beautiful things were displayed in his Palace. The King said that anything you touch will be yours after the party. So, of course, people went for the jewels, diamonds, various golden statuettes, and all the fine things. But the King had a maidservant who, when everything was over, went to the King and asked, “Sire, you said that anything that people here would touch would be theirs.” The King repeated his promise, and the maidservant touched the King. The King was hers; if you have the King, you have all his treasury. Touch the King through your spiritual practices so that grace is there; you have caught grace and got grace. Kiss her, cuddle her, love her, for no one else but you are loving you. It is the small self of yours loving the big self. But that love becomes so strong that the big self interpenetrates the small self and makes the small Self Divine. So, the

The Freedom of Not Needing: Let Life Flow Through You

Attitude, Awareness, Belief, Buddha, Christ, Effort, Force, Freedom, God, Guru, Happiness, Heart, Joy, Laws, Love, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Oneness, Religion, Self, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Universal, Universe

WHAT ARE YOUR NEEDS? GOD NEVER CONTROLS MAN’S MIND, YOU CONTROL GOD God never controls man’s mind because what you regard as God is a neutral bio-chemic energy. It could be definable in scientific terms, but at its subtlest level, it is indefinable. So, God never controls man’s mind. You own God by your perceptions of what you regard to be God. In some religions, you will find someone saying God has six arms, holding a lotus there and a bell there and something else on the other hand, and what have you. Other religions picture him differently. So, by your conception, you are conceptualising God according to your belief pattern. You are controlling your conceptions and conceptualisations. God is not. Whatever belief pattern your mind is fettered into, that belief pattern would be your reality. How accurate is your reality? You would believe Vishnu with six arms. You might think someone is hanging on the cross. You might think someone sits on a throne with a long beard and a dozen bookkeepers. “Ahh, Laura, you did this today. Doris, you did that today.” And then St. Peter, of course, up there would be admitting you at the gates. Your mind is working and functioning as a computer all the time. Your total metabolic rate, breathing rate, and everything happening to you is computerised by a mechanism. So, do you belong to yourself, or do you belong to the computer? The difference lies in the differentiation between what you are and what you are not, and when you discover what you are not, you find yourself knotted up, and these knots that you are involved in cause all the problems of your life. So, in this process of meditation and spiritual practices, we are only trying to unknot the knots. Have no knot and be not. When you believe yourself to be, you are not because your mind’s belief system is causing the knots! So, where are you when you are not there without the knots – K N O T S? You are somewhere far beyond your belief system. BE UNCONVENTIONAL WITHIN YOURSELF The more you believe in your belief system, the more knotted you are up because your belief system becomes dogmatic. Your belief system governs your life, and why should your life be governed? Everything around you, your entire environment, is governed, and you cease to exist. You have to pay these taxes. You have to pay the road bills. You have to pay for car licenses. You have to pay this, this, this and whatever. What independence do you have? No independence. You are dependent upon convention. Living in this world, we have to follow these conventions for the stability of society. But try something else. Be unconventional within yourself. To be unconventional within yourself, you are obeying the laws within yourself, the law which is you and yet not governed by you. That gives you a sense of independence. That gives you freedom. Freedom is a word very much allied to the kingdom. The king is free, and he has a kingdom. You are the king, and you have freedom from specific processes of dogmatism. You are free from it. When you are free from all these dogmas, you will find that you live, not just exist. When you start living, you will automatically and very spontaneously develop a feeling of life. Life is to be felt. When you feel like it, you will feel that dynamism. You become dynamic, and you can say, “I am Joe. I am Jack. I am Jean. I am Gina. I am this one and that. I am me! I am independent, and no power or force in this world will rob me of my independence!” Your fear of losing dependence is the only thing that robs you of your independence. You fear losing dependence because you are always reliant on others and those that are around you. You depend upon your wife, husband, children, friends, and whoever. And that very fear is a thing that gnaws at your Heart. Fear is nothing else but that cancerous complex within you that bites you, that kills you from the inside – fear that is killing you. That is destroying your independence. Yet, when you could develop the attitude that I am free – I am free – I am me. I am Gina. I am Laura. I am Jack, John, Dad. When you develop that feeling, you will be free of fear. LOVE FOR THE SAKE OF LOVING So, what is ruling your life at this moment? Not freedom, but fear. Every moment you step forward, you are fearing and fearing and fearing. “Oh, this will go wrong tomorrow. That will go wrong the next day. I come home, and my wife will have a nasty face because, you know, she burnt my toast in the morning, and I felt a bit angry, and I guess I will have to face up to that.” All kinds of things. Simple things. Simple things which contain no meaning at all! Your fear is meaningless because it could be discarded and dispensed quickly. I love Gina. I love Jerry. I love Doris. I love this sweetie pie here. OK. But within me, there will be a fear. Does Gina love me, or am I wasting my time? Or Jerry? Sweetie pie? Doris? Laura? So, mixed in that love that I have for them is the quality of fear, which breeds anxiety because fear and anxiety are blood relations. But if I should say to myself, I love Gina. I love Jerry. I know these beauty bums. I love Doris. I love her there and all of you. OK. I will say to myself that whether I am loved or not loved, I do not care, for I love for the sake of loving and not for the reward thereof. And when I have that thought in my mind, in my Heart, when

Raja Yoga: Modern Light on Ancient Truths

Ancient Sages, Awareness, Buddha, Christ, Consciousness, Divinity, Duality, Effort, Eternal, Force, Freedom, God, Grace, Guru, Harmony, Heart, I am That I am, I and my Father are one, Integration, Joy, Krishna, Love, Meditation, Mind, Oneness, Purity, Self, Self-Realization, Separation, Spirit, Spiritual, The Absolute, The Abstract, Unity, Universe, Yoga

RAJA YOGA PART 2 ASANAS: YOGA POSTURES You will find that Yama and Niyama encompass all the ethical and moral precepts of living a good life. In living a good life, one will see that automatically; one draws upon oneself that indefinable thing called Grace. In drawing Grace to us, our lives do become harmonious. We find a greater integration within ourselves. There are other principles involved in enhancing the good life. The body has to be looked after. So, we reach the third stage, or the third limb of Raja Yoga, which is called Asana. As you know, Asana is the basic thing related to Hatha Yoga. Why is Hatha Yoga necessary in a person’s life? For example, we might have a person who is deformed and cannot practice these practices. Then for that person there is no hope lost that he must undergo these various Yogic exercises. But in India then, when Patanjali started forcing his Raja Yoga, they started aspirants off from a very young age. When you were eight or ten, you went to the Ashram, where you underwent various exercises. Hatha Yoga, which comprises Asanas, gives the body a particular form of exercise. It is not only the body that one concentrates on so much. However, it benefits the body, but ancient Physiologists have found that the outer body manifests all the discrepancies in the inner body, the organic Self. So, where Hatha Yoga differs from ordinary gymnastics: in ordinary gymnastics, we exercise the body’s muscles, while in Asanas, we exercise the body’s internal organs. We exercise or massage or stimulate the liver, the digestive functions, and everything that has to do with that which is inside the skin of our body. Keeping the body trim helps in the meditation process. The purpose of Hatha Yoga, by keeping the body in trim, is to seek union with that which is even deeper within ourselves, the spiritual body. Meditation starts from inside you, and the internal Self is brought to the external Self, while in Hatha Yoga, you begin with the external and try to reach the internal. Many people practice Asanas just to keep fit. That helps keep a person fit, but that is not the sole purpose of Yogic Asanas. The sole purpose is to form a co-ordination between body, mind, and spirit. If a person does these Asanas mechanically, then his only benefit would be to the body and the organism, the organic Self of the body. But, while doing these various Asanas, if his mind is tuned totally in the Asanas, then coordination comes about between body and mind. You would find that all these Yogic Asanas are never really strenuous. They take you from very simple Asanas to more difficult ones. With practice, the difficult Asanas also become very simple. So, this becomes such a natural flow in the exercise of the body that the mind is tuned with the body, the mind is infused in the body, and every cell of the body awakens to the thought in the mind. When a person does Asanas and the mind is tuned to every cell of the body, the mind must contain good, uplifting thoughts. How does the mind have good, uplifting thoughts? Because the person has practiced Yama and Niyama by living a good life, his mind naturally tends toward the higher Self. So here, the mental forces now attuned to the higher Self infuse themselves with every cell of one’s physical body. When that attunement of mind and body occurs through these Yogic Asanas, it leaves the spirit free. It frees the spirit from the bondage of the mind and body, and when the spirit is free, it shines forth. So, a second infusion takes place. The mind is infused in the body, and now the spirit, being free, also fuses itself in the body, and here, while you are doing your round of Asanas, you are acting there with mind, body, and spirit as a totality. That is the purpose of Asanas, and not only for exercise or to lose weight. Asanas is a science on its own. Hatha Yoga is not only Asana itself but a total purification and cleansing of the body, which, at its highest limits, would not be suitable for our present society. There are specific exercises where, for example, a string is put up from one nostril and out the other nostril, and we have what is called “Noli” – cleansing. You are also taught to have an enema without using an enema, where you go into the river, and through the anus, you drop water into the system and clean your entire bowels. This comes in the higher form of Hatha Yoga. We do not need that. There are other exercises where the tongue is elongated, and this little piece of skin keeps the tongue to the floor of the mouth. Then, slowly, slowly, that little skin is cut away. That little skin is cut away so the tongue can be more and more elongated. It is a process that takes years. The purpose of doing this is to acquire the ability to roll up the tongue and block the entire throat with your tongue. And by taking in a breath, you preserve the subtle essence of the breath so that you can live without breathing. This is the secret behind what we hear some of the Yogis do. They get buried underground for forty days, and they come out alive. This is how it is done. PRANAYAMA: BREATHING TECHNIQUES We do not need these things for God-realisation. These things are there for people of certain kinds of temperament. So, Patanjali’s Yoga caters to every temperament; that is what I am trying to say. To do the third stage, one studies the fourth stage, which is Pranayama. Pranayama is to bring the body into a particular rhythm. Many of you do the basic Pranayama exercise, which has a rhythm, and ancient Yogis

Raja Yoga: The Royal Path to Divine Union

Acceptance, Attachment, Bible, Brahman, Buddha, Christ, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Evolve, God, Incarnation, Joy, Karma, Krishna, Light, Love, Meditation, Mind, Non-Attachment, Oneness, Path, Peace, Purity, Relationships, Religion, Self, Self-Realization, Spiritual, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Surrender, The Abstract, Unity, Yoga

RAJA YOGA PART 1 RAJA YOGA: THE ROYAL PATH TO DIVINE UNION We are all mechanics. We are the mechanics of our lives. We can tighten screws and loosen them, and of course, the most essential screws to be tightened are somewhere up there. As you would know, Raja means royal, so Raja Yoga is the Royal Yoga, the Royal Path to Divine Union, where the individual self merges with the Universal Self, where man finds union with God. That is Yoga. In the world today, the word “Yoga” is misunderstood. It has only been understood in the term all those fancy poses, all the Asanas, as they are known. Although Asanas have great value, they do not constitute the entirety of Raja Yoga. It is a part of Raja Yoga, known as Hatha Yoga. Hatha means “To be very adamant on one particular aspect,” that is Hatha. So, that is a section of Raja Yoga. Many teachers teach Raja Yoga, but only a particular aspect they tell you about meditation. Now, there are various forms of meditation. Some teachers tell you to meditate for so many minutes in the morning and so many in the evening, and Bob’s my uncle. That is not true. If you meditate so many minutes in the morning and so many minutes at night and everything comes right, it is not true. It is a fallacy, a gimmick given to a susceptible, gullible public who wants everything instantly – instant coffee, pudding, and self-realization. The path of yoga is not as simple as it seems. As Vivekananda has said, yoga is the path of the heroes and warriors. There has to be determination. Krishna has said, “There are few types of people that want to reach me: the one that is in distress, the one that wants worldly gain, the one that is a seeker and, last but not least, the one that has real spiritual knowledge and wants to remain forever in touch with his Maker. He wants to be at home always and not stray away.” Raja Yoga, as we said, is the Royal Path to that union. Why is it called the Royal Path? Raja Yoga combines all the other yogas: Karma Yoga, which is about right action and correct thinking, and Jnana Yoga, which is about intellectual analysis and seeking answers. It combines Bhakti Yoga, devotion, surrender, and love yoga. Wherever one starts from, according to one’s temperament, they all finally merge into one, the royal or the Raja yoga. Some people say that there are eight steps in Raja Yoga. They are not to be regarded as steps, but they are limbs. Raja Yoga by Patanjali was called Astanga Yoga. Asta means eight; anga means limbs – the eight limbs of yoga. Let us examine the eight limbs of yoga as far as we can, as time allows. Meditation is fine, but if meditation is not backed up with the first two limbs, Yama and Niyama, then meditation can be of some value; it can give you some form of relaxation of mind and body, but it is not enough to lead you to enlightenment, or to the oneness that we all seek. YAMAS HAS FIVE ASPECTS TO IT – AHIMSA, SATYA, ASTAYA, BRAHMACHARYA & APARIGRAHA AHIMSA: NON-VIOLENCE Yama has five aspects; the first is Ahimsa, which means non-violence. How shall we define non-violence? We have spoken about non-killing, and we covered a bit of ground there. To be non-violent does not only mean avoiding the killing of living beings or animate things, but non-violence also means a non-aggression upon ourselves and those around us. Having an animal nature, we become aggressive, perhaps not in acts but in words and thoughts. So here, one has to make a very conscious effort to curb one’s aggressive thoughts and one’s aggressive words. A lovely Chinese proverb says that when you become angry and want to say some angry words, turn your tongue around in your mouth nine times. Beautiful psychology because by the time you have turned and twisted your tongue in your mouth nine times, your anger will have disappeared, and you will not utter those words. You will not be aggressive because you can kill with words, and we know how vitriolic some people can become by uttering words of an aggressive nature. We can do so much harm to a person’s entire life. If we are aggressive with a stick, that wound will heal in a few weeks or a month or two, but if we leave a scar on a person’s mind, that scar can remain for a lifetime. We find parents, for example, in the ill-treatment or not proper treatment, or not proper upbringing of the children, leave an indelible scar for which the child, when grown-up, suffers and suffers, and suffers. That is one of those in distress that wants to find a union. SATYA: TRUTHFULNESS After Ahimsa, that has to be practiced consciously, we have Satya. Satya means truthfulness. Truthfulness does not only imply uttering words of truth but acting truthfully. We know how fragmented the human being is. His mind will think of one thing, his mouth will say another, and he will do a third thing. That is being untruthful to oneself. To be untruthful to oneself means you say one thing, think another, and do yet another thing. So, you are pulled to pieces by yourself. If we can consciously combine words, thoughts, and deeds, then we are being truthful to ourselves, and when we are truthful to ourselves, we can be honest with others. One of the qualities of truthfulness is sincerity because a sincere person can never be untruthful. Because of that sincerity within him, every act of his, every word of his, every thought of his will always act with the flow of nature and never against nature. We become truthful and sincere when we act with nature’s flow, which we must consciously do. That is the

The Eternal Now: Finding Divinity in the Present Moment

Acceptance, Attitude, Awareness, Divine, Divinity, Eternal, Guru, Heart, Joy, Mind, Oneness, Soul

THE ETERNAL NOW I only live in the moment. There is no past, and there is no future. People must realize this: there is only the present. Because most people live in the past, they project the past into the future, and they forget the present. What is more important to you? The past is gone, and the future might never come, but to live in the present. Where are you now? Ask yourself this question? You are in the present, and the present is the most critical moment to be considered. I am now in the presence of our family, and I am living here with my family and my Guru in our presence. This is the present. If you realize this fact, you will live in the presence. What is that presence that you live in? The presence of Divinity guides your present moment and makes you live in the present, which is an excellent present given to you by Divinity. Divinity is not in the past or the future, but the present is now, and Divinity is here now. And when that realization dawns on you, you will find yourself to be a much, much better person. That is for sure. THE PAST IS PAST, AND THE FUTURE IS UNKNOWN When you live in the past, you are involved in your worries: “Oh, I have done this, and I have done that, and I have done that.” You mull over it, and you lose the moment of the presence, and then after that, you project it into the future. “I am going to a party next week,” you tell yourself. The party is only next week on Saturday but from now on you are thinking about what kind of dress you should wear and you will wear this, and you will wear that, and you will go shopping to look so beautiful. But everyone is doing that, and you will be surprised there will be five women there, for example, who will have the same kind of dress. So where are you? Instead, be undressed and bare yourself totally to Divinity. When you bear yourself, your mind, heart, and soul, to Divinity, you are living life; otherwise, it is just stupidity. You are stupefied because you do not recognize the presence of life. This is the moment you are living in. Look around you. Look around the room. What have you noticed in the room? What is your awareness of that Divine essence? The essence is here and now within your hearts. So that is where you belong. Nowhere else, nowhere else. The past is past; the future is unknown. But this is here; you live in this present moment and enjoy this present moment, for that very enjoyment of the present moment is to recognize the Divine essence within you, so why beat around the bush and go from here to there, to there, turning around and round in the past and the future when you can just go to the garden and capture the present. OBSERVE THE THORNS OF LIFE, BUT LET YOUR ATTENTION BE ON THE BEAUTY OF THE ROSE A beautiful rose is growing in the garden, but you beat around the bush of life and ignore the beauty of that beautiful rose. Why can you not be one with that rose? Be one with the rose, and there will be thorns; accept it because that is life. But where is your concentration? Where is your mind on the thorns or on the beauty of that lovely rose? That is the idea of life. That is the actual living of life. Observe the thorns; why not? But the thorns will not prick me if my life is lived well. Because my attention will not be on the thorns, my attention will be on the beauty of the rose. Look at life in this way and observe the beauty of the rose and not the pricking of the thorns. There again, we come to the subject of mental attitude. Where is your attention? Think about that on the thorns or the rose. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang CAN 1987 – 04

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