THE ETERNAL CONTRACTION AND EXPANSION IS THE SEED CAUSE OF THE UNIVERSE
You say the world is in chaos. Who says the world is in turmoil? Who is the sayer of these words that the world is in chaos? You say with your mind that the world is in turmoil because your perception tells you that the world is in chaos. With an altered perception through spiritual practices, you transcend the chaos. You go beyond the chaos where no chaos remains, and only peace remains. Essentially, there is nothing else but Sat-Chit-Ananda all the time. Total existence. Total knowledge. Total joy.
But your mind is the factor that distorts this knowledge, and you find chaos because the mind is only capable of looking at the surface of things and not below it. You go to the seaside, and what do you observe? The waves are going up and down and up and down. And yet, within that chaos, there is a system if you look more closely. The waves are flowing to the shore and not away from the beach. So even if the mind perceives chaos and the turbulence of the waves, why can the mind not perceive that even in chaos, there is a system, a chaotic system? When things function within this so-called perception of yours, you will find that in that system, there remains a tranquil factor: precision. But the mind is so confused that it does not see the ever-onward flow of the waves, eternally coming to the shore. And there, the waves subside on the shore. Yet, when your awareness grows more, through spiritual practices, you will observe the surface waves and dive deeper to perceive the calmness that lies beneath.
You talk of wars, you talk of pollution, you talk of miseries, you speak of unhappiness; who suffers this? Are you the sufferer? No, you are not. The mental formations and the patterns that you have created over the ages or even in this lifetime are the ones that suffer. Who is the one that suffers? What is the basis of its reality? How accurate is the sufferer, and how real is the suffering? That is the question that we have to ask. As long as man dwells in the conscious mental spheres of life, there will always be this conflict, and without this conflict, this world, as I have said, can never function. There will always be contraction and expansion; there will always be unification and diversification throughout eternity. For that very motion created by contraction and expansion is the seed cause of this universe.
THROUGH MEDITATION AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, YOU CAN RISE ABOVE CHAOS
But where do you place yourself in practical life? Do you put yourself amidst the chaos you observe around you, or do you set yourself within the center of yourself? Despite the chaos that your conscious mind observes, and within the limitations of the observation, you are beyond it all, where the accurate observer observes the small observer observing.
There lies the secret of your tranquillity. This world will continue as it has gone on for ages and ages. Since primitive times, there has been chaos, and chaos is nothing but conflict: conflicting forces, opposing forces; where there is day, there will be night; when there is rain, there will be sunshine. They are two sides of the same coin. But why just observe the sides of the coin instead of taking the coin as a whole? Split the coin and go to try to buy a loaf of bread. You cannot. You could not take the heads alone or bring the tails alone. You have to take both.
So, if the world is in chaos, does it mean you have to be part and parcel of it? There will always be chaos. It is unending. That is the honest Maya, the play of this universe; without it, this universe could never exist. The law of opposites has to be there, and the only thing you can do is go beyond the law of opposites, and that one does through meditation and spiritual practices. You will feel chaos when you are down here amidst the chaos. But when you rise above the chaos, there is no chaos.
DO NOT CHANGE THE WORLD, CHANGE YOURSELF
One of our meditators was telling me a story some while ago. She said, “Guruji, in my meditation, you and I were traveling through the Alps, and the mountains loomed so large, the pass was so narrow and slippery. I was driving, and I was thinking, “How are we going to get through the mountains?” And suddenly the view changed,” she said, “and we were in an airplane high up.” And then she asked, “Guruji, what are those little things down there?” “Those are the mountains and peaks that you were speaking about.”
So, we have to rise above chaos and not be entangled in the web of chaos. You will have these factors forever existing as far as relative life is concerned. For relativity, the manifestation of the Manifestor creates this motion, and without motion, nothing could ever exist in the sense of what we regard to be existence. On the relative plane, everything is authentic: a toothache is accurate, a toothache is actual, pleasures are real, and pains are real to you. The three gunas control this chaos, which is part and parcel of the imbalance created through the non-tranquillity of the gunas, and this will forever be there. Many reformers have come: Krishna, Buddha, Mahavir, and Christ. And yet, despite their teachings, there is still chaos. There was chaos during those times; today, there is still chaos, perhaps in a different form. There was lust, greed, avarice, and covetousness; it was there and is still here today.
So, it is not possible on a collective scale when people talk of getting rid of the chaos in this world. But it is likely on the individual level, where you reach the finer levels within yourself through your meditations and spiritual practices. The conscious mind, empowered by the conditioned subconscious mind, observes the chaos. And the patterning of the subconscious mind dominates and regulates your conscious mind, and your perception in that confusion can only see chaos.
But the man of peace, the man that has found peace within himself, the man that has gone beyond the conscious mind and the subconscious mind and reached the highest relative, the superconscious mind where the stillness is to be found and viewing life and the world around us from that level, will see that everything is as it should be. Reformers have come and gone, and nothing has been reformed. There has always been de-formation and never any re-formation.
So, perspectives have to be changed. Do not try to change the world. Change yourself. Find your true self that resides within you at the superconscious level of yourself. Uncluttered by samskaras that reside in the subconscious mind, that true self is so evident, uncluttered by it, and the true reflection is felt of that which is Absolute.
YOUR PERSONAL GOD RESIDES AT THE SUPERCONSCIOUS LEVEL
Do not even think of the Absolute. It is a neutral energy. It is attributeless. It has no qualities. There is neither good nor is there bad. All is the same. Therefore, theologies say that God has no favorites. He looks upon saints and so-called sinners in the same Light. Consequently, He is called merciful, compassionate, and kind. But that is not the Absolute I am talking about because to be merciful, kind, compassionate, and forgiving are qualities that do not belong to the Absolute. The Absolute is a neutral energy that the superconscious mind reflects at its finest relative level. When the Light comes through, it is discolored by what is in your subconscious mind, in your samskaras, and in your thought patterns created over millenniums.
So this Light, this pure Light shining from the Absolute through the clear glass of the superconscious level, becomes discolored by your patterning, desires, and perception. And yet this energy is forever permeating all these, for even the gunas cannot exist without this energy, a neutral energy used in a stove for heat or a refrigerator for coldness. It is beyond my control. It is beyond description because it is attributeless. So, when you call God kind, compassionate, and just, you are not referring to that impersonal quality. Still, you are referring to that somewhat conditioned quality of the superconscious level at its finest form. And there resides your personal God.
And even reaching that superconscious level, you still have to go beyond it – beyond into the Absolute, which is nothing and everything.
THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO REACH THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN WITHIN
So, where do we start? We do not begin by being affected by the chaos around us. There is a lovely poem by Rudyard Kipling, “If,” and most of you have read it. I do not know the exact words, but the gist is that the world can turn topsy-turvy, and if you can keep your head in tranquillity, then you are a man. This can also be done by mental conditioning. Many teachers teach that you can go through all kinds of autosuggestions, which puts the conscious and the subconscious mind asleep. And hammering it with specific thoughts, you reach a self-delusion where everything seems to be well. But you are sleeping. You have to find this tranquillity while you are awake.
How is this done? Remember that the conscious, the subconscious, and the superconscious are not separated. They are a continuum from the grosser to the subtlest, most precise possible level. And it is by contacting this which, in theologies, we would say reaching the Kingdom of Heaven within. And all theologies say that. In Sanskrit, we would say Brahmasmi. I am Brahman, that indefinable something. And I have to become that, and to become that, you have to reach that Kingdom of Heaven within.
There are many steps and many ways to reach this. Whoever teaches the way to get that is an authentic way. Therefore, I have nothing against any theologians, philosophers, or movement because whatever movement you are in might be conducive to your stage of development as long as it is not selfishly motivated. As long as it is to unfold man, not uplifting man. For you are forever unfolded, you are forever divine. You are nothing but Divinity itself. And who says that Divinity, the personal aspect of the Absolute, does not contain chaos? That, too, is chaotic, so why worry about this tiny grain of sand that we call the planet Earth when there are millions and millions of planets in this universe that are millions and millions of times larger, and yet on this grain of sand exists four thousand million people—and not knowing that they exist. For if they should know that they exist, then there would be no chaos. This nescience, this lack of knowledge of existence, brings about this chaos.
TO SEE DIVINITY ALL AROUND US, WE NEED TO CLARIFY THE MIND
Now you will ask, where does this greed, this lust, this avarice, covetousness, this possessiveness come from? Where do they come from? Do they exist? They come from nowhere; they are there. They have been there, they are there, and they will forever be there.
So, what do we do? We get off the bus. We get off the wheel and observe the wheel turning and turning and turning. What is the reality of all the chaos you perceive around you? What is its reality? The truth lies within your mind and your perception. I could see a person who would be regarded as the greatest sinner, and I could see that person as a great saint. I could see the holiness and the purity in each and all, for if Divinity is omnipresent, then that Divinity is present within every cell of your body.
To be able to look at things from their proper perspective and to be able to see Divinity all around you, you need that clarity of mind. Spiritual practices are practices that clarify the mind, push aside, and dissipate the conditionings that are already there in your mind. Self-created by the mind, self-conditioned by the mind, the tool you use is also the mind to uncondition the conditioning.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1982 – 07
