TRUE LOVE IS A GIVING When you say yearning for love, the whole perception is wrong. Love is not yearning because when you yearn for love, you seek a particular possession you want. Love is not wanting; love is giving, so yearning cannot exist. True love can never be associated with yearning, and when that concept disappears of yearning for love, then you will experience true love. True love does not want anything. True love is not wanting; true love is giving. So where is the yearning? Yearning is necessary primarily. Without yearning, these are the stages one passes through to find true love. You still have to yearn first before you can earn. Take the Y away. You yearn for true love, and then the yearning stops. That is the time you earn the actual value of love. To repeat, love is not wanting, never. Love is giving; you give to yourself because you cannot help it. You are giving, giving, giving. DIVINITY NEVER ANALYSES; IT IS JUST THERE IN BEING, GIVING, GIVING, GIVING My Pushpanee loves me not because she yearns but because she just gives of her heart to my heart in total purity. That is the secret; by that, you will pass and find peace beyond understanding. The mind creates understanding. But we do not want to interfere with the mind; it is shit. Love does not come from the mind at all. The mind is too analytical; we analyze things and say, “Ah, this is nice, and that is not nice, or this is fine and not fine and not fine.” But the heart does not analyze. The heart just gives. I love you all, but not with my mind; I love you all with a heart that does not analyze anything. You might be the greatest sinner in the world, but I do not care a damn; the only thing I know is that I love you without any analysis. That is the secret of becoming closer and closer to that Divinity. Divinity does not analyze. Divinity is just but an energy. What do we, as little humans, have to do? I do not belong to this planet; I am from somewhere else. Love knows no analysis. Divinity never analyses; it is just there in being. It is just there always, giving, giving, and giving. BE REGULAR IN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, AND YOU WILL FIND THE PEACE THAT PASSETH ALL UNDERSTANDING WITHIN YOURSELF That is the way you find the peace that goes beyond all understanding. Understanding is a quality of the mind, but peace is a quality of the heart. The mind will never give you any peace because the mind is filled with all kinds of complexities and conflicts. But when you go inside, there is peace that surpasses all understanding. So, what do we mean by understanding? It is analytical. You understand this, or you know that, or you understand whatever. Peace does not need that. Peace needs no understanding. Therefore, to repeat, we say the peace that passeth all understanding and that peace is within you. It is there. You are born from peace; you must live in peace and leave this world in peace. Let me tell you another secret of life: that peace has nothing to do with understanding – nothing at all. As I said before, understanding is analytical; you try to analyze and work out your computerized mathematical problems, which is not essential. That peace is felt here within, and your Spiritual Practices gain it. Be regular, and you will find that peace. When you find that peace, you will feel so much at ease. That is what you need. PEACE IS GREATER THAN UNDERSTANDING What is understanding? You read Schopenhauer, Spencer, and Kant and all those bullshitters that try to analyze and analyze and analyze. But what peace have they found, nothing? I have studied their lives, and they were the most disturbed people in the world. I do not know if I told you that while traveling around, I might have talked about this in some lecture, but I cannot remember anything. For me, the moment is the moment, and nothing else is. Going through this village, I met this village potter. He was making clay pots, which are better than all your aluminum, and food cooked in those clay pots is far, far tastier; I can assure you that. I know I talk of experience. So, I saw this village Potter turning out his clay pots, and I sat down there watching him, feeling the beautiful serenity. He did not know at all, had no education, and was just an ordinary little Potter, but his very presence emanated that deep peace, although he had no understanding of all the Scriptures or anything. He was very poor, and we had one chapati together; chapati is an Indian bread, and I sat there for three days with him. He had a little hut to live in. I slept on the floor; I did not mind just being in his presence. I asked him to teach me something, and he replied, “I know nothing.” Yet he had everything, which was a peace that passed all understanding, and in that peace, I found so much knowledge in his peace. Because through the mercy of our Lord, I absorbed some of his peace, and you are absorbing my peace. So, what is more extraordinary, ask yourself? Peace is more significant than understanding. TO FIND PEACE, YOU HAVE TO GO BEYOND REASON Of course, we need proper understanding in today’s modern world because our minds have become very analytical, and we want to know the reason for everything. I will tell you something else that might be surprising: do not be reasonable; become non-reasonable, which means without reason, non-reasonable where all the different kinds of understandings gained are nullified and then going beyond the mind that keeps on reasoning and reasoning. Here, reasoning disappears, and then you reach
The Flow of Love: Awakening to the Living God
SPIRITUAL PRACTICES ARE AIMED AT BRINGING LOVE TO FLOW Can real love be blocked? If I love someone and that someone leaves the mortal frame or for any other thing, should I regard that flow within me to be blocked? That love can never be blocked if it is genuine and not just an emotional attachment. People do not seem to understand what love is all about because people are self-centered. They are forever thinking, what can I gain out of it? How much will they love me? Or how much will they not love me? That becomes the predominant thought in man’s mind. But the idea should be this, “How much do I love? And what is the quality of my love?” You could never ask what the quantity of my love is because love knows in no amount. But in the various facets of life and according to man’s evolution, man’s awareness of love categorizes itself into quantities as we perceive it. In reality, there is no quantity of love. Language is so limited, but for expression, we would say that love depends on our awareness. The greater the understanding we have attained through spiritual practices, the greater the love. What is the measurement of man? How do you measure the greatness of a man? How many million is he in the bank? Or by whatever possessions or external show, facade, that there is? That does not judge the greatness of man. Hitler achieved world fame, did he not? He had millions of followers. But was he a great man taking the lives of millions of people? Bloodshed was an expression of hatred and personal aggrandizement to achieve his ends. I tell you this: we are all Hitlers in miniature because we all want to achieve our ends! This comes about because of a lack of awareness, and spiritual practices aim to bring greater clarity and expansion to awareness so that that indefinable quality, called love, can flow through. Like the usual analogy, I use the carburetor in the motor car. The more you open the carburetor, the greater the amount of petrol will flow through. Similarly, when our awareness expands, a greater love flows through, and what does that flow through? What is that love? That love is none else but Divinity, and only our thought processes, self-centeredness, and attachments that color the love that is forever flowing through. It is like a crystal. You put a red flower behind a crystal, which will seem red. You put a blue flower behind the crystal, and the crystal will appear blue. So, our spiritual practices are a cleansing process of the mind so that real love can flow through, and by understanding the philosophy behind it, we also understand one thing: that unless I do something about myself, I block the love from flowing through – for love is forever there. Love is not only within but without. WE WANT LIVING GODS If I love you, what am I loving? I am not loving you as a person but loving the Divinity within you. So, if love is God, it can only communicate with God, and you are just the exterior frame. Therefore, love knows no difference. If someone does you wrong and you have the strength to love that person just as much, then you have some idea of love. Someone might besmirch you. Someone might do anything to you. As Christ would say, “Love thine enemies, even.” It is easy to love a friend. Learn to love thine enemy. That is the mark of greatness; that is the mark of truth. That is the mark of portraying and living the living God. We do not want dead gods. We want living gods. WHEN YOU TRULY LOVE, THE OBJECT OF YOUR LOVE IS LOVE When a person passes away or a person is away, what is away? Love is not away! Only the body is away. The outer frame is away. But love is forever there, and love knows no separation. If one’s dear one dies, it does not mean the dear one has perished. That Spirit within man is immortal, and if something is infinite, how can it pass away? It is there everywhere. So, when you love someone, you bring that Divinity within you to oneness with the Divinity within the object of your love. What is the object of your love? It is not the person. The object of your love is love! The object of God can only be God, and how can there be two Gods? Therefore, that within you is at one-ment with that within me. When you realize this, you become that love. There is a difference between understanding and realization. You can understand the mind, an intellectual concept. But a realization is assimilation. It permeates every pore, every cell of your body. So, when you realize this, you become that love. You do not need to love anymore; you have become that love. Then you are that love. Then, if anyone harms you with distortions, malice, or whatever, it does not hurt you, and you will keep on loving because that is your nature. You have become that. So, the hurt we suffer when we lose someone is the hurt not of love, but the hurt of the mind, for the mind is a patterned mind, a conditioned mind, an expecting mind, the mind that has expected so much or so little or whatever from the object, from the person. But if there is no expectation, love could never bring about suffering, for love itself is an offering. When you offer yourself your inner being, which is love, you have no right to expect any return! If you love, you love, or you do not love. Otherwise, you think you love. Many believe that they believe, and many people feel they love, which is not the spiritual path. THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING IS IN THE EATING But
Duty as an Act of Love: The Path to Effortless Action
EVOLUTION AND ITS OPPOSITE INVOLUTION There is no difference between the individual ego and individuality because it is the individuality that creates the ego, which in turn creates individuality. One’s ego or individuality is unique because each soul or mind has undergone different experiences throughout evolution. However, one must know that there are specific laws involved in evolution. There is a path that one has to follow, but what one encounters on the path is unique to that person. One might have different kinds of experiences, while another could have different kinds of experiences, yet they are all on the same path, on the path of evolution or unfoldment. With evolution, there is one factor that is always forgotten, and that factor is involution. Evolution is on the relative level, so it has to have its opposite, involution. So, as a person evolves, there comes a time when he is involved, and that involution is the period of rest for the journeying soul. In that period, an excellent evaluation occurs whereby it starts growing again and becoming stronger and stronger, for evolution is always working in a spiral fashion. In his evolutionary process, a person sometimes reaches a plateau, and that plateau means that the person is now going through a period of involution. It is like the tree existing in an involved state in the form of the seed, and when the seed bursts, it is in the form of an evolved state; it is growing into a tree. Yet the entirety of the tree is existent in the seed. When the seed bursts into the ground, the planter can do nothing about it. The planter cannot make the seed burst in the ground to grow. An explosion occurs in that seed so that it might succeed. This very process of explosion in the involution state is necessary for you to evolve because there would be no evolution if there were no involution. So, the journey through the tree’s life is to become the seed again. That means that after evolving into the tree, it produces itself in seed form again, where the entire tree’s essence is self-contained in that seed and comes to a state of stillness. So, in the process of evolution, one tries to reach the seed that will never explode again. When the finality has been reached, when man has reached the totality of evolution, when man has become one with the universe, and the entire universe is encapsulated in that seed, then rebirth for evolution is not required. LET DUTY BECOME A LABOUR OF LOVE This applies so simply to the duties of life. What do we mean by duty? Firstly, is duty a chore that one has to do? A mother has to send off her children to school in the morning. She might feel like sleeping late, but she has to send her children to school, so she reluctantly makes an effort. And many mothers get up in the morning shouting, “Johnny, go brush your teeth, go wash your face. Go do this, go do that.” Because it is a duty, it becomes a stress; it becomes a strain upon the mother to do that, yet the mother loves the child. But she loves the child at her convenience, which is not love. But if the mother wakes up in the morning just because she loves the child and wants to send the child to school, not as a chore, then duty ceases. We do many things at the office or the factory, for example, as a duty to our boss. We do our best, but there is no love involved in that duty; it is just work, and that is why work is something people do not like. In the lives of many people who go to work, there is not a single day where they do not think, “Oh, when is the weekend coming so I do not have to work.” That is a performance of duty, but real duty is where one does a thing so spontaneously that work does not seem to work anymore. This has now been incorporated into modern education systems, which is a perfect thing. I am deeply interested in various educational methods where the teaching becomes a play for the child. Those of you who are teachers know about this. So the “irk” is taken out of “work.” And then what is left is the “w”, which stands for wonderful wonderment. For what is more significant than wonderment? You go outside and wonder how these beautiful flowers and plants grow the breeze, and all the beauties of life. And all the most incredible things in life are supposed to be free. In these modern times, nothing is free. You even pay for the air you breathe in taxes. DUTY AS AN ACT OF LOVE So, there are times when one has to be dutiful and force oneself to preserve stability in the home and society. But how do you take the boredom out of duty? We can only stop pushing ourselves to do the duty and do it spontaneously by merging ourselves in the act to be performed. This mergence occurs when an identification can come about between the actor and the action. When the actor joins himself in the action or becomes the action, no duty is left at all. For you are then acting for the sake of acting. For this mergence to take place, it requires spiritual stamina or the expression of the Spirit. The Spirit is contained within the action itself, and the same Spirit is within yourself. The only difference is that the Spirit within yourself manifests in the act. It finds expression in the act, which is one of humanity’s greatest gifts, for it is our nature forever to express ourselves in whatever way we are capable. Love is always trying to burst out. A person can never feel well if he cannot love, and a person
You Are the Trinity: The Oneness of Body, Mind, and Spirit
GRASP THE ESSENCE, THEN DIGEST, ASSIMILATE AND PRACTISE When you read good books, like the Holy Scriptures, you just need to understand the meaning, the essence of words and that very essence you formulate in your own words. In Sanskrit, we have three words meaning: listen, ponder and practise. That can only come about if you grasp the essence of what is said and interpret it according to your understanding of it, and that is how your understanding will grow. But just by using words and words and words, they could be parrot-like. Yet, we need those words for inspiration. It could inspire us. But of course, the main thing is to get the gist of the essence and digest the essence, and after digestion, the essence should be assimilated. Only when incorporated, could it become part and parcel of practical living. THE DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF MAN ARE BUT ONE CONTINUUM Eastern philosophies have divided things up, and people, philosophers especially, try to analyse and break things up into pieces. They have about five sheaths in the realm of occultism, which we in some way agree with and in some way we do not agree with. You will find this in theosophy and amongst the Rosicrucians, and it is unnecessary for man’s evolution. In our philosophy, this has been significantly simplified; we say that there are three aspects to man: the physical body, the subtle body, which is the mental body and the Spiritual Self. It is much easier than breaking it up into all these various things because they are of no help, and they do not explain anything. TO EVOLVE, WE NEED A PHYSICAL BODY The subtle body, or the mental body, is of a subtler substance than the physical body, so when we pass over, it goes back and exists in the subtle sphere, and there, it will not evolve at all. It evaluates its progress since its very beginning, since the primal sub-atomic particle, up to that stage it has reached, and that evaluation might take two years, five years, ten years, five hundred years, a thousand years. And when it finds the suitable medium, it will be born through that medium of two people. I have said that our parents do not choose us, but we prefer our parents. One could never evolve without having a physical body because Divinity is forever like a flower expressing itself, and it has to have a concrete vehicle like the body to evolve. Everything is but a continuum from the grosser to the subtle to the subtlest sphere, and that is what evolution is all about. In the process, one goes to finer and finer levels, and philosophers have divided these levels of the subtle body up in these various phrases, but it is not necessary. There is one significant danger: it verges on occultism, and you can be stuck at a certain level of the mental Self and remain there because too much emphasis is on it. YOU ARE THE TRINITY We use the words physical, mental and spiritual in the context of just explanation. Otherwise, there is no such thing as it is one wholeness. You do not own the physical Self; you are the physical Self. You do not own the mental body; you are the mental body. You do not own the Spiritual Self; you are the Spiritual Self. These three aspects are but one interpenetrating each other: the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are all there, you. They are not apart from you. They are you. They are not only a part of you, but it is the wholeness that is you, inseparable. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are but three aspects of the same. THE FATHER, THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT IS BUT ONE When we speak of the Holy Spirit, we speak of it as eternal, as an excellent energy which is always there, and the Holy Spirit permeates the Father and is the Father. The Father permeates the Son and is the Son. There could be no separation between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the Father, too, is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and we had discussed before that the Father represents the entirety, and the Holy Spirit is one with Him, and the Son is one with the Father. And being one with the Father, the Son is automatically one with the Holy Spirit. So, these three aspects are but one, but we seem to divide it or compartmentalise it for definition. It is but one. The human mind cannot abstract the Holy Spirit, but the Son and the Father can be. This leads us to deeper devotion and more profound prayer, for all prayer can never go to the abstract. In meditation, you can, but prayer has to go to something concrete that can be visualised. For in sending forth your thoughts in prayer, there has to be an object to which it is transmitted. These things are essential. YOU ARE INFINITE, AND THE MIND CAN NOT COMPREHEND THE INFINITE Through meditation and spiritual practices, prayers, one starts realising that there is no separation. These boundaries that are created are created only by man. They say oh, that man’s mind, body, spirit, or whatever. These are boundaries created only by the thinking processes of the mind, and philosophers have the habit of trying to break up things to prove points rationally. And yet that which is beyond oneself, one’s authentic Self, is beyond all rationalisations. The finite mind could never comprehend the infinite, and you are infinite. How many people can say, “I understand myself,” for understanding requires a mental process? It requires thinking when your real Self is beyond thought. The fragrance does not analyse the flower, nor does the flower analyse the fragrance. DO NOT TAKE NOTICE OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA It is said that people speak in many tongues. It has been
The Past and the Present: A Journey of Awareness
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HOW TO TREAT THE PAST? When we say let the past be the past, it contains a very great truth. It means forgetting because by remembering the past, you will be living the past in your mind, and by stirring up those old memories, you will only suffer in the present. The suffering would be in the present because you always remember the past. Some incidents have happened in your lifetime, and if you keep on thinking about it, that memory is sure to bring about guilt in your mind and the most significant disease in the world today is not heart disease and neither cancer but a sense of guilt. Why am I feeling guilty at the present moment because of something happening in the past when the past is not here anymore? To get rid of guilt while forgetting the past, not remembering the past, we analyse the sense of guilt. But as soon as you think of examining the guilt, the past reappears again on the screen of your mind. Remember the word “analyse” and not “live” in the past when we examine the past. The analysis is different than remembering the past, for you know well that the greatest gift God could give to a man is the ability to be able to forget. If we had to remember everything that has happened in the past, life would become miserable. So, we must discriminate between rearing and analysing the past. In analysis, you objectify the past, while in remembering, in the past, you subjectify it. You re-live the past. In analysis, you observe what has happened in the past, and you try to analyse what were the causes of it. Perhaps you are not to blame for your actions. You might have been in a particular mental turmoil. There might have been circumstances that surrounded you at that time that forced you to do the action you did. You know the lovely story by Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables,” where Jean Valjean was forced into the circumstances; seeing his children starving, he went to steal a loaf of bread for which he suffered a lot. Did the character in Victor Hugo’s book do something wrong? Which was the lesser or greater evil? Which was darkness, and which was light? Should he allow his children to die of starvation, or was it better for him to steal a loaf of bread for them and not for himself? THE SPIRIT WITHIN YOU IS FOREVER DIVINE AND FOREVER GOOD In life, one has to choose between two evils, and we choose the lesser evil. If that produces guilt in your mind, then you feel guilty: why did I do this? What caused me to do this? What was the mental chemistry then that forced me to do this? Because inwardly, every person has that goodness and underlying the goodness, there is also darkness. You know the old saying, “Nobody is so good that there is no little bad, and no one is so bad that he has no good in him.” So, remembering the past is not the answer. That leads to greater misery, and it leads to guilt. But analysis of the past means we are trying to understand the past. We try to understand the motivation that made us perform such an action, and if you find that you are forced into certain circumstances, which ninety-nine percent of all actions would prove, then you do not need to feel guilty about it. I was invited to one of the biggest prisons near Chicago to give a talk last year. We have a prison programme in America to rehabilitate prisoners – because a prison is not where you punish someone. A prison is a place where you rehabilitate someone. So, we introduced this program in this Chicago prison. I believe it to be one of the largest in America, and of course, from there, it is spreading to various other States. I had to give a talk there, so I told those prisoners there, “You are in prison, why are you in prison? You might have been a rapist. You might have murdered someone. You might have stolen. You might have done one of so many things. Why did you do it? It could have been due to many reasons. Firstly, the force of circumstance. Secondly, through an imbalanced mind, where at that time you could not discriminate between right and wrong, and all your actions were regarded to be anti-social because of the social norms society has put upon us. But does that make you a bad person? You are judged by society to be bad, but are you terrible? No. The Spirit within you is forever Divine and forever good. So do not think of the actions you have done in the past. A better thing to do is to repent, and repentance itself has analysis built into it, to try to find the cause, and when you find the cause, the guilt will disappear.” IN THE EYES OF DIVINITY, WE ARE ALL EQUAL Sometimes, it is a fallacy to say that we can learn from the past to build a future. Yes, you can. But it will become fallacious if you just remember the past. Then, you cannot build upon it. The secret is how to get out of the darkness and into the light of life; how does one reconcile this issue? Firstly, by analysis. Secondly, with the analysis, you come to the cause of things and then ask, “Was I forced into this? What was my mental condition?” I personally would love a rapist. I love a murderer. I love everyone. The saint or the sinner. For who is a sinner? You are not a sinner. You never have been a sinner. Only society brands you to be a sinner. But are you a sinner in the eyes of God? Do you think God’s Grace would fall equally upon those considered flawed and
Thoughts and Meditation: Observing Thoughts and Discovering the Self
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THE IMPERSONAL VERSUS THE PERSONAL GOD The God we pray to is the Personal God, the entire manifestation or the emanation of the Universe, and beyond the Personal God, we have the Impersonal God, that energy. Everything radiates or emanates something; the flower emanates fragrance, and everything emanates something. You are emanating something all the time. A city will be emanating, a country will be emanating, the entire world, the whole Universe is emanating, and the totality of that emanation is what we call the Personal God with attributes. But the Impersonal God, the source of the Personal God, is attributeless. The Impersonal God is the finest of the finest energy, sub, sub, sub, sub, a million times sub-atomic energy and that Impersonal God has not created this world, but it was its very nature; it manifested the Personal God. Like the flower does not create fragrance, it is nature to give it. The sun does not produce heat; it is the nature of the sun to provide light and heat. That is how the Personal God, or the Universal Mind, was manifested from the Impersonal. I rather like to use the words the Manifestor and manifestation. So, the Impersonal God is the Manifestor, and the Personal God or the Universal Mind is the manifestation. So that was the primal universal mind which, through various factors, I could explain to you scientifically, diversified and many of those minute atoms joined together and multiplied, and they were replicated and duplicated. That is how the world and man as we know man today came about through a long process of evolution over millions of years. THE MEANING OF ETERNITY The world works in cycles, the Universe works in cycles, as the human being does, as the soul uses the body for a while and drops the body, but the soul within remains eternal to assume another body. From the point of the Big Bang of the incredible explosion, the next cycle began, and the evolution started, which again will be drawn into what we call the black hole. And yet there will be fine vibrations in the Black Hole, which will build up and up and up, a form of combustion that will explode and bring forth another universe. That is the meaning of eternity because it is an eternal process, and the totality of the process is the Personal God with attributes. ATMAN, THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL, IS BUT ONE WITH BRAHMAN, THE UNIVERSAL ENTITY We reach the finest relative, the superconscious level, through meditation and spiritual practices, and then we reach the Personal God. You feel Him, experience Him, and then you just melt away into the impersonal energy. So, who are we praising? We are praising the Personal God. We praise the Personal God because, being the primal manifestation, we are part and parcel of Him. There is something, and Christianity, for example, always teaches of love, peace and hope. Everyone will find that salvation, but that process can be expedited, and of course, when you pray to an object outside you, you lose consciousness of yourself and project it to something outside. In that way, you gradually become free from bondage. Everyone thinks that they are the centre of the world and the whole world revolves around them, which, of course, it does not. So, prayers are necessary in the proper systematic way. Meditation is essential, and the spiritual practices that lead you within are required. Once you can be within, that which is within and that which is outside becoming one becomes unified, and then you can say, “I am Thee.” “Thou art me.” “We art but one.” No separation. Separation stems from creating boundaries, and we are the ones who misuse the mind; we make the boundaries. We have got to go beyond that. Certain people at certain stages need that; ninety-nine-point nine percent of the world’s population needs a Personal God, who we can worship as Krishna or Buddha or Ishvara, Allah, Christ, whatever way. But it remains the same consciousness. So, by worshipping and having that devotion to the Personal God, we reach that stage of consciousness, which can be described as Christ Consciousness. And once we get to that stage, then after that, very automatically we go to the stage of Brahman, as the Sanskritists would put it, the Impersonal God, and then when you reach there, you realise that the Atman or the individual soul is but one with the Brahman, the universal entity. THOUGHTS ARE A NATURAL PART OF MEDITATION As you are embodied, the mind will always be related to the body, for there is no separation between body, mind and Spirit. It is just a matter of gradation from the grossest level of the physical body to the subtlest level of the Superconsciousness. In meditation, some schools of thought tell you your mind must become blank, but that is impossible unless you become unconscious. That is easy to do. You do not need to meditate; just ask your husband to bop you in the head with a hammer. We do not want to become unconscious, but through its transmission to the lower level, we want to appreciate the joy and ecstasy within us at the higher level of the mind. So, in meditation, the mind should not be blank; it is not meditation. It is not Dhyana. If you are on mantra meditation, you will find that as your mantra recedes away, a thought will come up, and a thought is like a story; it has a beginning, a middle and an end. And when it reaches the end, you very gently pick up your mantra again, and then you dive deep within with the mantra – and you cannot stay underwater all the time, you will drown – you cannot breathe, so you come to the surface level again. Meditation is a rhythmic procedure, thought, mantra, thought, mantra, thought, mantra. And every time you dive down, you bring
Finding Your Own Path: Dharma, Faith, and the Freedom to Choose
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JNANA-, KARMA- AND BHAKTI YOGA Apart from the known religions, there have been many other unknown teachings. Man is entitled to form his philosophy. There is nothing wrong with that at all. Conviction, honesty and sincerity in what you believe are the most critical factors you must have. This can be achieved by studying various religions and philosophies; from there, you extract what you would find essential to you. Like a bee that goes from flower to flower, you would extract the nectar from all the different flowers. Man can live his life that way. That is good for the thinking man, the jnana yogi. But then you have the person not endowed with that kind of intellect; then he would simply follow the path of karma yoga: do good, be reasonable. If there is a God or no God, who cares? He formulates no philosophy; his philosophy would be, let me live as a good person in this world. Those who are devotionally inclined would choose a deity and surrender themself to that deity, and having total belief in that deity, they could select Krishna, Rama, Christ, or whatever. So, on the one hand, we operate from the mental and intellectual level, examining the world’s philosophies. On the other hand, we exercise at the heart level, where you do not want to know but are just devoted. It is not the deity that is so important; your devotion is important. For example, when the chelas of Sri Ramakrishna arrived, they usually touched his feet and put flowers on them, so he was asked by a chela do you allow this? So, Ramakrishna replied, “This is not for my sake. I do not need the devotion. But it is for the sake of the devotee. I allow him to develop his devotion.” And as devotion develops, love develops. BELIEF – FAITH – KNOWINGNESS Although they know all these philosophies, I have found professors of the world who are still very, very mixed up; they are confused. Therefore, how far can the mind go? You create your view after studying these various philosophies and picking out the nectar from every perspective. I always say, there are four thousand million people in this world; let there be four thousand million religions, if you would like to call it that. The definition of the word religion is to bind back, and it is you who wants to bind yourself back to the source that you have come from. Therefore, you could start with belief. But do not stop there. You have many people just being stuck there on that level of belief. They believe this, and they believe that, but that belief must develop into faith, and the faith must develop into knowingness, where you just know without analysing anything at all. You just know. Then, all arguments would cease. You argue with no one, even if the other person’s belief is yours. Some might be a dualist, some might be a qualified non-dualist, and some would be a total non-dualist. You do not argue; you say you believe in that Unity Consciousness, and if someone else believes in duality, by all means, that duality is suitable for that person at that particular stage of his evolution. So, you just do not argue. ANALYSE, FEEL, EXPERIENCE AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF This man wanted to find the secret of peace and tranquillity. His friend told him that in the Himalayas, you will find a guru who will give you the secret of peace and tranquillity. So, he went to the Himalayas, and for seven years, he roamed around, up and down, and then, sitting on a high peak, he found this glowing spiritual master. And he felt that, “Look, this must be the man I am looking for.” They started talking, and the would-be chela, this man who wanted to find the secret of peace and tranquillity, asked the guru, “Can you tell me the secret of peace and tranquillity?” So, the guru says, “Yes, you just do not argue with anyone. Whatever people say, you listen with a keen ear and an open mind and do not argue.” So, the chela replies, “That is not the secret of peace and tranquillity.” So, the guru says, “Okay, that is not the secret of peace and tranquillity.” So, you do not argue. The approach of a chela must be one of search. Otherwise, you are not a seeker. A true seeker asks a question because it is burning in his Heart. He wants to find the answer for that peace and tranquillity, but he would not approach the guru with an adamant thought that he believes this is right, and he starts arguing. No. You take what you can get and then analyse it in your mind, feel it in your mind, experience it, and then decide. I never tell my chelas to do this and do not do this. But as they meditate, I can see it on their faces; their faces glow with that inner Force, and I can see the progress. That is what I am interested in, not if they are sleeping on a double or single bed or if they eat breakfast or do not eat breakfast. I do not want to know that, as long as I can see greater integration in them, these little exterior things do not matter at all. You can wear the robes of a sadhu, a sannyasin, or a thousand-dollar suit; what counts as long as there is a sense of non-attachment in whatever you do? And when you have a sense of non-attachment, you do not argue with anything. All argument goes because you are not attached to anything. You become philosophy yourself, as far as it can take you, and as your understanding grows, you will find devotion growing. As your understanding grows, your awareness expands, and you will find greater and greater devotion welling up in your Heart. So here,
One Light, Many Paths: A Humble Channel of Universal Truth
LET THERE BE HARMONY AMONG ALL RELIGIONS When a person talks of spiritual tradition, then traditions could become dogmatic. There, conflicts arise that one would say, I am from the Christian tradition, I am from the Muslim tradition, I am from the Buddhist tradition, and I am from the Hindu tradition. When we study history, so much dogmatism has occurred in the name of religion and tradition that it has closed people’s minds. So many wars have been fought in the name of traditions where rivers of blood have flowed because of tradition that my tradition is proper, and your tradition is wrong. Always a conflict, and speaking, underlying all these traditions is the true tradition, meaning the essence of all religions, but when man goes beyond traditional values, does man know the true essence of tradition, the universal tradition? Let there be harmony amongst all religions because, basically, all religions’ truths are the same. It is like rivers coming from different directions and ultimately becoming one in the same ocean. So, I speak from a position where all traditions are harmoniously. At one moment, I will quote the Vedas to you; at one moment, I will quote the Bible to you; at another moment, I will quote some of the truths in the Koran. WE TRY TO FIND THE ULTIMATE TRUTH THAT IS CONTAINED WITHIN ALL RELIGIONS AND TRADITIONS We try to find the fundamental truths, or the ultimate truth, that are contained within all religions and all traditions. I have spent twenty-five years in a Western country to learn about Western traditions. I have spent the balance of my lifetime in the twenty-five years of understanding and learning; I go back and forth to India and visit my gurus and what have you all the time to learn the various ways of life, the multiple ways of life which form a universal tradition. There is a lovely little story about how these conflicts arise. Four blind men were going through a forest, and they came upon an elephant here in it. The one caught hold of the tail; the one grabbed hold of the leg, the ear, and the trunk. So, the one that got hold of the tail said, “Ah, I have found God; he is like a rope.” The one holding the leg said, “I have found God; he is like a tree stump.” And like that, these four blind men started arguing and fighting. Speaking, each of them had found an aspect of truth, and that aspect of the particular truth they found formed the basis of their tradition. EVERYTHING I TELL YOU COMES FROM MY INNERMOST BEING, FROM MY HEART AND SOUL We try to go beyond or transcend all traditions, and when one transcends the boundaries of tradition, one speaks from direct cognition. Direct cognition supersedes all traditions. If someone asks me, “Are you a Christian?” I say, “Yes.” If someone asks me, ‘Are you a Hindu?’ I say, ‘Yes’. If someone asks me, ‘Are you a Muslim?’ I say ‘Yes’. If someone asks me, “Are you a Buddhist?” I say, “Yes.” Yes, I am all of those, why not? Because there are so many beautiful things in all those traditions, we can go beyond all those traditions, which direct perception of truth can give you. So, my authority is based on my direct experience and communication with that which is within me. I am a Yogi. That is the authority that I speak from. Everything I tell you, Beloveds, is not from what I have read in books. Everything I tell you comes from my heart, soul, innermost being, and things I have experienced. What am I doing here, six thousand miles away from my home and living in a suitcase? Although the English people have been so kind to make me feel comfortable, they have gone out of their way to share this beautiful love. I have come here to share that love and bliss I have experienced with one and all. That is my dharma, and that is my karma-conditioned dharma. I AM JUST A VERY HUMBLE CHANNEL OF DIVINE MELODIES I am not the powerhouse or storehouse of divine energies. I am just a channel. Through my karma, I am just a channel that has developed the ability to draw upon universal forces and pass them on to the person who learns to meditate on our techniques. It is just as simple as that. I am nothing special, nothing at all. I am as ordinary as you are, absolutely ordinary, and even more humble than you are. Because that is what I have been striving for, utter, utter humility, and this is something one does gain by becoming one within oneself; by finding that integration, you become so humble that you can identify yourself with the meanest little creature that crawls on the ground or the highest evolved man. One of the signs of self-integration is that it brings humility within us. So, I am nothing but a hollow reed that could be made into a flute, and there is that divine source that blows through it, those eternal melodies that will pierce your ears, your minds, and your hearts. It is not me. A TRUE GURU IS A DOCTOR OF THE SPIRIT It is not me. Knowing me is beneficial only to the extent that I have developed or acquired the ability to become a doctor, physical doctor, mental doctor, or spiritual doctor. By having developed insight or humility, I can identify myself or attune myself with the meanest crawling creature or the highest developed man, which means an identification. So, when I go into meditation, I can attune myself to your evolutionary status, and in attunement with that evolutionary status, I can assess the imbalance within you. We must not be discouraged about that because ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, I can go on and on, percentage of people are not balanced people. There
One Energy, One Truth: The Ever-Present Divinity
Bliss, Buddha, Christ, Conscious Mind, Divine, Divinity, Force, Freedom, God, Grace, Heart, I and my Father are one, Impressions, Incarnation, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Krishna, Love, Manifestation, Manifestor, Mental Patternings, Mind, Path, Peace, Self, Separation, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Universal, Universe
I DO NOT LOVE, I AM LOVE The limitation is of the finite mind, and the finite mind can only comprehend the finite, and yet when we talk of love, it is so infinite. So why involve yourselves in the level of emotions which is limited? Love is a living reality, moment to moment, to moment, to moment. Every moment should be filled with that love. Where is that love? Where does it reside in you? In your head or your toe. No. No. That love comes from above (inside). You see the beauty of Grace, the Grace of the Divine, the Grace of the infinity of which you are the totality, and if you are the totality of love, why miss it? Are we not damned fools to miss that which is, for love is. It cannot be contrived. It cannot be conjured. It cannot be put together in pieces. It is, it is and is and is, and we need to recognise that which is, for love is. Why do we escape from it? Why do we escape the inherent right we have that is within us? Every cell of your body cries out for love, and you want to be loved; that is human nature. That is where the mind starts working. You want reciprocation. If anyone asks me, “Do you love?” I say, “No, I do not love. I am love.” For discovering the I am-ness of love, you are finding the I am-ness of yourself and the I am-ness is yourself; it is Divine, Divinity itself. Is God not love? And is love not God? You see how simple it is. There is so much beauty, and I wonder why my children suffer. WHY SUFFER WHEN YOU ARE THE PRODUCT OF JOY? Why is there suffering in this world? Why should there be suffering in this world when you are the product of joy? Are you not the manifestation of the Manifestor? What are the mechanics of your suffering? The mechanics of your suffering stems not from your Heart. The mechanics of your suffering stem from your mind that thinks it is suffering, and yet is that mind thinking or is that mind thinking that it feels? And what is thinking? What is thought? What is the process of thought? Freud could not describe the thought process, Adler could not describe it, and Jung could not either. I have challenged hundreds of Professors worldwide on the subject, “What is thought?” Thought is only a reproduction of patterns embedded in the recesses of your brain. CONTROLLING THE SENSES WILL CAUSE REPRESSIONS AND INHIBITIONS WITHIN What do we do? What is the answer? How shall we do it? The recesses of your brain, the various patternings of the brain, contain those impressions which interpret themselves into thought patterns in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind translates them to the conscious mind, and the conscious mind translates them into physical realities through the senses: seeing, smelling, touching, tasting, and hearing. Where do we start? Are we going to start by controlling the senses? Are we going to start by controlling our hearing? Are we going to start by controlling our smelling, seeing, touching and all that? You cannot. That is the greatest mistake of modern Psychologists because they know nothing of the human mind. We do not start there, for if you control any sense organ of yours, hearing, touching, smelling, whatever, you will cause repressions and inhibitions within yourself, which will manifest again in some way or the other. So, you are curing a headache and producing a toe ache, so that is not the answer. We have to infuse the conscious mind, which provokes the senses because the senses can only be provoked through the conscious mind, which turns back to the subconscious with all its impressions and, in turn, translates them into daily living. WE DRAW FROM THE SUPERCONSCIOUS LEVEL OF OURSELVES The answer is so simple, and the answer is that if the tea is bitter, put in a teaspoon of sugar. That is all, and where does that sugar come from? That sugar comes not from the conscious mind, from the subconscious mind, but from a far deeper level within yourself; it comes from the Superconscious Mind, which, in other words, means “The Kingdom of Heaven within.” Everyone has it in totality, but why do we not draw from that vast reservoir, from that superconscious level, so that it could permeate, infiltrate the subconscious, the conscious, and then our actions in life? Teachers will teach you from various angles. Why from the outside in and not from the inside out? Is there any energy from the outside? Or is there more incredible energy from the inside out? We draw from that superconscious level of ourselves; we draw from it, for the reservoir is yours; it is there just to draw from so that it can permeate every cell of our body. Then, the question becomes questionless. I do not love; I am love because the entirety of that Universal Self of the superconscious level is permeating every cell of our being. WE DO IT BY OUR SPIRITUAL PRACTISES When you cry and say, “No one loves me, I cannot love anyone.” Is that not the height of stupidity? How do we do this? This is theory, right? We do this through our spiritual practices, where we dive deep within and draw from that Force, from that Divine reservoir of infinite energy, into every aspect of our life. What more is there? Is there anything more? What more can there be? What more can be more critical than finding Divinity within us? And seeing that Divinity within us is to find that love, and in finding that love, we find God. YOU ARE DIVINE; YOU ARE THE MANIFESTATION OF THE MANIFESTOR You see, my beloveds. My eyes get filled with tears when I look at your faces. Why do you suffer when your
The Power of Compassion: The True Meaning of Turning the Other Cheek
Attitude, Christ, Compassion, Ego, Eternity, Force, God, Guru, Happiness, Heart, Joy, Karma, Kindness, Law of Nature, Laws, Love, Mind, Oneness, Peace, Relative World, Scriptures, Self, Separation, Spiritual, Spiritual Practices, Unfoldment, Universe
TURN THE OTHER CHEEK? If you are slapped on one cheek, turn the other one. So said Christ. This is very good, but nowhere in the scriptures where it says, do not defend yourself. In practical reality, specific measures are to be taken, but not to the extent where it is an eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth. Not to that extent, because that becomes revengeful and will assume all the negative qualities within man. But instead of taking the eye for an eye, one could stand up and with a feeling of total love and forgiveness, one could put the other person right. The life of Christ was extraordinary. He gave an example of a very extreme nature; when an instance of an extreme nature is given, it could only stick in people’s minds. For that, extremism at that time was necessary. What do we do in the present times? Should we become unloving? Should we become vengeful? Should we be filled with hatred? It will only harm ourselves, and instead of bringing some equilibrium in this world, we will disrupt the various forces by creating greater and greater tamas. In the spiritual field of life, one practices these virtues of kindness and compassion, and our spiritual practices are designed so that kindness and compassion have a spontaneous outcome. It is not something forced because forcing sympathy and kindness is nothing but hypocrisy – because you are not true to yourself, you are not being yourself. So, how does one vent these feelings that rise in the face of our daily opposition? It does not mean sitting back and doing nothing about it. There are specific injunctions you cannot follow to the letter of the law as it is written down. OUR ACTIONS MAY CAUSE NO HARM TO OTHERS There was a little railway station on the border of a forest in India. Here, one tiger comes on to the station and attacks a man. The rules are that the station master cannot use the rifle unless he gets permission from head office. So here he was, battling on the telephone to get approval from the head office. By the time he got through, the tiger had killed three people. He was following the letter of the law. He cannot use the rifle until permission is granted from the head office. Therefore, all rules have to be flexible. If we had ignored the sign on the wall, he could have saved the lives of two people who died unnecessarily. He could have used his rifle. So, all these laws have to be flexible, but in that very flexibility, one should never forget that it may cause no harm to others. That is the most important thing to remember. You are home with your wife and children, and say ruffians attack your home. You will not allow them to hurt your wife and children, perhaps even fatally. You are going to defend them. That does not constitute violence. It is a defence for a righteous cause. Because as a husband, you must protect your wife and children. So there, no karma is involved; this is allowed. You could teach those ruffians an excellent lesson if you are good enough. FORGIVE THEM, THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY DO Spiritual injunctions are always aimed at the highest ideal possible. But as the world stands today, they cannot be practised to their fullest value because the environment is such that it pushes us on. If you were secluded from this world, perhaps you could do that, but that would be a form of cowardice where you are running away from responsibilities. Everything that happens in this world must be taken on its merit. If you get slapped on one cheek, offer the other is not to be taken literally. Many things in the scriptures are not to be taken literally. There are symbolic meanings to it. Love thine enemies. Very, very beautiful. It is only when a person can reach a stage of spiritual unfoldment that you can love your enemy. For if the realization has come about within you that all is within you and that there is no separation, then the whole concept of the enemy does not exist, and there is no enemy. Who do you regard as an enemy? In this mundane world, someone who harms you is considered to be your enemy. But if one, through spiritual practices, has reached a stage where you find no separation at all in this entire world or universe, then who can be your enemy? And if you think of an enemy against you, you are your enemy because that person is at one with you, although he might not understand the spiritual laws as you know them. In my personal life in those business days and the days of spiritual work, many people have done things which, if I were not a guru, I usually would regard them as enemies, for they have caused so much harm. But I do not. I seem to love them more. They have brought out a greater sense of forgiveness in me. “Forgive them; they know not what they do.” WHEN ESTABLISHED IN THE REAL SELF, THERE IS NO ENEMY This comes with spiritual unfoldment. Meanwhile, everyone is just battling along. I would never say follow these injunctions to their ultimate limit: love your enemy, never mind what happens. I would never say that to a person. But I would say try, try to understand. Try to understand the other man’s mind; how is it functioning? Try to understand his illness, his sickness, for most actions that are against the laws of nature, or most activities that harm people, come from an imbalanced mind, a sick mind. That sickness might not be so apparent, but it is an illness when a person has greed or lust for power. In this case, I would send love and healing energies so that