THE MIND IS A BUNDLE OF IMPRESSIONS

I have said many times to you that samskaras are impressions formed in the mind through the process of evolution over millions of years. All the experiences gained over ages of time are left in our minds, and those are called samskaras. The mind is not an outside entity but a collection of samskaras. 

We are not talking about the brain; the brain is just an organ through which the mind can flow. So, if you ask what the mind is, you can very safely say that it is a bundle of impressions gained, not only in this lifetime but through many, many lifetimes, in many, many different forms of existence, right from the mineral to the plant to the animal and to man. 

These experiences that we have gained and carry with us in the form of impressions have to be refined. Whatever experience or impression man has gained could never be annihilated or destroyed, for every thought or impression is indestructible. We have said in many lectures before that it is not a question of annihilation or getting rid of, but the answer lies in refinement, so that these impressions are gradually refined to such a level that they become integrated with your inner self, and that is the purpose of meditation.  

SWITCH ON THE LIGHT, THE DARKNESS TAKE CARE OF ITSELF

The first thing that happens when a person starts meditating is that harmony and integration begin to take place between the mind, the body and the spirit. It must be remembered very well that these are not three different entities but three aspects of oneself. So even God, the body and the mind are but one. In other words, the mind and the body are contained within Divinity and are divine in themselves, and it is only when our perception is refined to the point where this divinity is perceived that the entirety of the mind, with all its impressions, and the body, with all its defects or strengths, are also accepted as divine. This can only take place through specialised meditational or spiritual practices, where we gradually release certain energies from within ourselves, from the Kingdom of Heaven within, which make the impressions of the mind expand and become refined. This, of course, also has its biological and physiological effects. 

So, our method is based on the age-old principles of all theologies. Our methods are based upon what Buddha taught, what Krishna taught, and what Christ taught, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven within, then all else shall be added unto thee.”

Do not worry or be concerned about your samskaras. I always say do not be worried and concerned about the darkness; switch on the light, and the darkness takes care of itself. Do not worry about the impressions that are you, which is your mind, for even at our level of perception there could be good and evil – but at that level of the Absolute, it has transcended all good and evil, for being a mutual force it knows of no good or evil. Only the mind assumes things that are supposedly good and supposedly evil. 

HARMONY BEGINS WITHIN

Any spiritual process begins from within and then allows those energies to filter outwards, for the first thing to gain is harmony within ourselves, and only then can it be harmonious with the environment. This, of course, is different from psychological processes, from forms of psychoanalysis, which begin from without. 

Psychologists themselves admit that we have not touched the fringes of the mind; we know so little about it. All these various psychoanalytical processes that deal only at the mind level will do one thing; they will work on the surface of the mind, and it is possible, although not conclusively so, that a certain imbalance on the surface could be corrected. But it is also more likely that you are just transferring an imbalance from one end to the other, curing a headache and developing a toe ache, as I always say.  

As in the other analogy, when you put pressure on one part of the balloon, the air shifts to the other end. It may seem that a person undergoing certain psychoanalytical processes might think, “Ah, I have got one problem resolved.” But has it really been resolved? Because the problem was not truly resolved, only pushed onto a different level, it will, after a while, re-manifest. It is like a cancer germ or a syphilitic condition, where, for a while, the problem may disappear through certain treatments, only to re-manifest again. It is like catching a cold or the flu. You feel well today, so you get out of bed because your mind says you are feeling well. Yet the germ is still there, and a week or two later it will erupt, and your flu may return in a more severe form. 

GOD ONLY HELP THOSE THAT HELP THEMSELVES

These various processes, which are very common the world over, have certain values in them. There is good in them. They have their methods, and we do not condemn anyone’s method, for our movement always advocates mental freedom, or freedom for the man. If a man wants to practise something else, we do not stop the person. Sheep can stray but will always come home. Any teaching should be based on teachings that have been tried and proven over millennia, thousands of years up to today. Christ’s teachings cannot be disproved, neither can Krishna’s, nor Buddha’s, nor Mahavir’s. They cannot be disproved through the test of time. 

Millions of people have benefited from these teachings, while psychoanalytical processes are something new that started yesterday and should offer only surface release, a little balm on a sore. Okay, nothing wrong with that relief, nothing wrong with that relief. It might aid you if you have a severe headache. Nothing wrong with taking a pain reliever, but also know one thing for sure, what is the cause of the headache? For the headache is nothing but an outer manifestation of perhaps a much deeper problem below the surface of the mind, which the mind itself cannot solve. 

The mind is limited, and we know that man uses only 10% of it. It is so limited within itself that it cannot probe deeper than that 10%, yet some say we go to deeper levels. But what is the depth, and what has been proven about the level to which the mind goes? Rather than depend on divinity, through meditation, by diving deep within ourselves, we bring out that force, helping ourselves in daily life. As the old saying goes, “God only helps those that help themselves.” This is what is meant by self-help. Everyone knows what the immediate problem is. A man is unemployed and has no food to eat. What should he do? He should find a job, and it is not impossible to find one. It is possible, perhaps not the thing he likes at that moment, but he will still find something to provide him with his daily piece of bread, which we pray for every day, do we not?  

YOU CANNOT DISSOLVE A SAMSKARA, BUT YOU CAN WASH THE DIRTY WINDOW

Only scratching the surface of the mind, the possibility that the problem might re-manifest itself is so great because it could be so deeply rooted within the mind. Today’s knowledge of psychology tackles only the surface level of the subconscious, but the strata are so vast. I have said this over and over and over again that the extent of the mind is as vast as the entire universe, and can your little analytical ability know all of existence, which is the universe? That alone goes to show that you are scratching the surface of the mind. As a sore, you put on a balm; as a headache, you take a pain reliever, and you are relieved, but what is the real symptom? It might go far, far beyond into so, so many different lifetimes, and man’s mind, up to today and in the present state of its evolution, cannot go so deep. 

The great teachers and masters of the world view that man’s mind is incapable of analysing his problems entirely. Temporary benefits are fine; nobody denies them. But dissolving a samskara, dissolving an impression, is a different matter altogether, for you cannot dissolve a samskara; you can refine it and wash the dirty linen so that the sheet is clean. You can wash the window so the sun, the light of divinity, shines through in its full force, and that is why the masters of all the world’s religions, portrayed on our symbol here, always said, “Thy will be done, not my will.” 

THE PATH OF LOVE, FAITH, SINCERITY, DEVOTION AND SURRENDER

In the practice of mantra techniques, you are actually exerting your personal ego. My will, I am going to cure this, I am going to help myself with this, and yet they do not realise that going to a doctor for help is actually putting your will in another man’s will, putting yourself in someone else’s hands.  

That has some value; undeniably, it is needed, but how much greater and more powerful to put yourself in the hands of Divinity? This should not be on the basis of wishful thinking; this should be on the basis of practice, and practice means meditation and correcting the errors we see in our daily lives. The combination of spiritual practices and self-help automatically draws Gurushakti, or the power of Grace. That helps you to refine the samskaras. That helps you to wash away the dirt. Nothing that man does can be done by himself; he cannot even lift a finger. That is why, over and over and over, the great masters, not ordinary psychologists who spend a few years at universities, but real, self-realised masters, have always brought the message of love, of faith, of sincerity, of devotion, of surrender, and that is the message for the present age, that is the message much more applicable today than it was during the time of Christ. 

Because of the technological processes and the technological progress that man has made, his own mind is now denying that which is divine. So, if a person really feels that he needs some kind of psychological aid, some do, by all means they are free to do that, oh they are free, but it will not be done under the auspices of this organisation. That is an individual’s own business. Someone might have gone to another group this morning before coming here to practise some psychological technique. What are we to know and why should we? Why should we? Man should exercise his free will. Under our auspices, he has been given the message of love and devotion. Under our auspices, the message is conveyed in a very systematic manner by deeds within, and here all that our meditators know is how they benefit by becoming closer and closer to Divinity. 

You can see a meditator a mile away. There is that beautiful softness in the face, and that lovely devotion to an ideal. There is this love radiating from them, and those with eyes to see can see it. Thousands of letters pour into us, letters of gratitude that their lives have improved so much through the techniques. So, the proof of the pudding lies in the eating, that is what we always say. Has it not been said in all religions that do not serve false prophets, do not create graven images of divinity, do not, because it is all graven images? Anything that drives you away from the divine is a graven image. 

THE GREATEST QUESTION EVER ASKED, “WHO AM I”

The first thing to remember is the values of your meditation, which, by diving within, automatically bring out that subtle, indefinable energy that brings harmony and smoothness to your life. This is not achieved overnight. If Divinity were to be attained overnight, or in a week or a month, then everyone in this world would be self-realised. Yes, everyone will be, but “Nothing for nothing and very little for six pence,” as I always say. 

Self-realisation is a gradual process, and the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Sincerity plays a part. The more sincere you are, the more honest you are, the greater your love and devotion become. At first, it might not be so much, but as meditation progresses, you automatically become more sincere, more open, more loving, more devoted, more surrendered. That is what meditation does. In the process of cultivating these great virtues, you become more and more integrated. You are being healed, and the real meaning of healed is to be whole. 

That is the process. That is the way to truly find one’s Self, for the greatest question that could ever be asked, or will ever be asked, in the thought of man since man began is “Who am I?” It is through meditation that you will be able to answer that question and, in essence, realise that I am divine. But let not the mind tell you this; it is just a play of the mind. You have to experience it, feel it, live it, and meditation gives you the strength and awakens those energies so that you can live it. 

WHEN WE DO OUR MEDITATIONS, WE BRING THE MIND TO A LEVEL OF QUIETUDE

If you have a headache, there is nothing wrong with taking an aspro. The simple chemicals in those aspros will be eliminated by the body on its own, but do not forget Divinity. Do not forget Divinity. 

When we meditate, we are not putting pressure on samskaras or pushing them to the surface. Instead, we are bringing our minds to a level of quietude where we can assess or look at our faults objectively, for when the mind, as everyone knows, is in turmoil, you cannot look at a problem objectively because you are too involved in it. 

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang SA 1979 – 101

The post The Path to Wholeness: Quieting the Mind, Discovering the Self appeared first on FISU Meditation.

WHERE THERE IS IMBALANCE, THE UNIVERSAL POWER COMES TO CREATE THE BALANCE

The personification of a divine spirit comes from time to time to this planet and to every other form of existence to preserve and create a balance where an imbalance exists. If we study, we will find that throughout the history of the world, great men have come, such as Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Christ. Great men have come here to bring a teaching, and through this teaching, by creating in man an understanding or by implanting in man a spiritual force through grace, a balance is brought about.

The cause of the imbalance is the three Gunas that exist in this universe. There is the power of inertia, the power of light, and the activating force, which empowers both inertia and the power of light. In the process of evolution, as the primal atom proceeds to acquire its fullness, it automatically comes into conjunction with various other atomic and subatomic substances in the universe, and when this combination takes place, an imbalance is created, apparently to us from the relative level. To right these imbalances, a force is required.

The eternal teacher, or the Christ, as we would call it, or as I would call him, The Eternal Wanderer, never rests. From one planet to another, he goes on and on and on, and where there is imbalance, that force comes to create balance. This force has total free will, whereby it could merge away into unity consciousness, yet it would sit on the fence because it is the helper of mankind, and all universal forces would always help the progress and the evolution of mankind.

To bring down a Christ or a Krishna to our planet, certain prerequisites must be in place. Man himself, and the imbalance that exists on the planet, create a magnetic force, a kind of force that attracts this balance. For example, in the human body, if you cut your finger, you will find the white corpuscles rushing to it to mend the wound. In a similar way, this force is drawn by the magnetism of the imbalance created, so that this healing power, this universal power, is drawn to us.

THE AVATARA OR THE INCARNATION IS BORN FULLY REALISED

This universal power is ever-present, but being abstract, how could it make contact with man? So, in order to appeal to man’s mind at a particular stage of evolution, and to his heart, that universal force concretises itself, because who can contact man better than another man? That is why this universal force comes again and again, after a period of every 2,000 years, or a few thousand years, rather. From time to time, you find a personage coming to give meaning to life.

From His perspective, for example, in the modern age, where the world is progressing so much technologically and there is so much intellectual development at the expense of heart development, the teacher would come to open people’s hearts to this force, to the personification of this force, so that an equilibrium could be maintained between mind and heart. The world today is progressing at such a rate that if the mind keeps on developing more and more without the support of the heart, then this world will definitely end in a very major catastrophe.

Who is this personification of Divinity? Can one man, in a small body and a small mind, capture the essence of Divinity? That is the question. This is possible for everyone; everyone is a potential Christ, and everyone has the Divinity within them. But the Avatara or the Incarnation is born already fully realised. He does not require evolution; all his actions in life are non-binding. They carry no karmic bondage, and yet the Incarnation, although he is in the bondage of mind and body, still enjoys the freedom within that bondage. As I always say, like poetry within the framework of a metre, yet so free in expression.

The Incarnation can necessarily express Divinity through him as a channel. His mind and body can do anything they like because they are beyond the law of opposites. Beyond that law, he has the power to live in a small, confined body and yet, through that body acting as a channel, he can reflect the entirety of what Divinity is. When this teaching of such an incarnation begins to penetrate people’s minds, some change definitely takes place.

These incarnations are very different from reformers. Reformers normally try to change circumstances or the condition of man from a collective viewpoint, while the incarnation always starts from the individual viewpoint, for if the individual is bettered, the world could automatically become a better world. So, this is the purpose of the Incarnation. Firstly, he is drawn by this force of imbalance that has been created; he is drawn to come to right the imbalance. Secondly, being totally realised before he was born, being in that Unity Consciousness and yet exercising the choice of becoming embodied, he is beyond the law of opposites and has the power of will to manifest himself.

TO LOVE YOUR BROTHER MAN, YOU HAVE TO TRULY KNOW YOURSELF

The teaching of all theologies reverts to one point, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” The teachings of all theologies converge on that point, and if you study the teachings of these great masters, you will find that it is the pivotal point of all their philosophical teachings. This pivotal point is so important that, because the incarnation comes as a man, he teaches you to love your brother men. To love your brother men, you have to know thyself. That is the second teaching of all religions, because when man knows himself and, through spiritual and meditative practices, gains self-integration, the integration achieved is knowing thyself. The integrated man functions in totality, and it is only when man can function in totality that he can recognise or appreciate the totality in his brother.

So, that is how, by knowing oneself, a man loves his neighbour as himself. In other words, the distinction between “I” and “thou” ceases and oneness is realised. This oneness is not a matter of mental gymnastics. Philosophically, we could analyse it and see its beauty, but it has to be realised. When the principle is realised, it assumes its practical value and becomes practical.

In the beginning, effort is required, as in our programme of self-help, to realise this. As one progresses on the spiritual path, this realisation becomes spontaneous, and the spontaneity that arises does not require the thinking mind, for every action you perform becomes a natural action. No thinking is required, and you automatically do right. Automatically you follow the principle, do good, be good. It becomes a spontaneous action because the whole principle has been realised not only by the mind but also by the heart, and this combination of mind and heart can only take place when man functions as an integrated person, where mind, body and spirit act as a whole, as a oneness.

WHEN MAN IS A TOTAL BEING, THEN ONLY CAN HE APPRECIATE THE TOTALITY

These few principles are the basis of all theologies in the world. They are also the main principles of every incarnation that comes down to Earth to teach. The rest is the philosophical side of things, which goes further to explain how these principles become workable so that man’s inquiring mind can also be appeased. When the inquiring mind is appeased, the heart is pleased, and that is the oneness that is created. Through this integration, man experiences joy and bliss, because only when man is a total being himself can he appreciate the totality, not only of his environment but of the entire universe. And from there, when he appreciates the totality of the entire universe, he can truly say, “I and my father are one.”

That realisation is to be cultivated in the ordinary man. The incarnation is born with that realisation, and because he is born with it, he is in a position to teach it, speaking from experience. Normal human beings are on the path to this realisation. The incarnation has already travelled the path, and from that vantage point, standing so high on the mountaintop that the whole city of Cape Town can be seen, he has a panoramic view of the entire universe.

THE INTEGRATED MAN GOES BEYOND THE LAW OF OPPOSITES

The force that is imparted creates another force, which is called Anti-Christ. How real is this force? When you study the theory of motion and the theory of force, you will always find opposing factors. If there are no opposing factors, then this force becomes non-existent. So, what we term a good force must have its counterpart in the not-so-good force. When we light the lamp, there has to be the shade. Where there is day, there has to be night. But can we really call it a bad force? What we call a bad force is rather an interpretation of our minds. Our minds analyse it as a bad force, and the analysis of the mind, as I always say, is such a cunning animal that today it will find this answer, tomorrow it will find that answer, and, being limited, it cannot be total, and not being total, it cannot be stable in its judgement.

But from the point of view of the spirit, the unchanging self of man, these forces in relative existence are necessary. The idea is first to establish a balance and equilibrium between the forces of good and bad, then to infuse goodness into the so-called badness, and still further to go beyond good and bad, which means going beyond the law of opposites.

The integrated man goes beyond the law of opposites. These forces at work in the universe will always be there. They can never be destroyed. Electricity cannot function without the positive and negative wires. We cannot call the negative wire bad; it is a necessary part of the mechanics of electricity. It is our viewpoint only. Because it causes certain friction within ourselves, within our lives and within our environment, we immediately label it as bad, but without that so-called bad, good might not have existed. Without the negative wire in an electrical circuit, the positive wire becomes useless.

EVERYTHING HAS COME ABOUT BECAUSE OF FRICTION

What is man to do? That is the question. These forces are indestructible. That is how the theory of Satan came about, in which Lucifer actually means light. But this light later became transformed, according to man’s interpretation, into bad light, because it had friction with that which is called good light. Because of this friction that has been created, we term one good and the other bad. But really speaking, as I said in a lecture in America, nothing could exist in this universe without friction, because friction is the basis of motion, and the universe could never exist without motion, because motion, the changing quality of relativity, is the manifestation of that which is changeless. So, change and changelessness can join hands in our daily lives.

The entire universe is caused by this friction. This world itself is caused by friction. If there had been no explosion in the sun, these particles would not have coalesced to form the solar system. In this very moment, this world is hurtling through space at thousands of miles an hour, and it is in continual friction with other forces of nature around it. Because of this friction, it can re-rotate, it can revolve, and it can preserve a balance. So, everything is created by this friction. From the first big bang, from the first explosion, the explosion itself is friction, whereby the present cycle of this universe is in existence. Every human being is born because of friction. Everything is friction, friction, friction.

Our problem is that we are too deeply involved in friction. We intellectualise; we analyse with our limited 10% conscious mind, and what do we observe? We observe only friction; we observe the surface waves of the ocean and not the calmness deep down inside. So, what is the solution? You cannot get rid of motion; it is indestructible. Motion exists because of friction; friction is caused by two opposing forces of contraction and expansion, of attraction and repulsion. These forces are eternal, and these very forces constitute what we call nature, for it is the nature of nature to have this friction and this motion. There is only one way out, and that is through meditational and spiritual practices, by which we gradually gain integration within ourselves, the integration of mind, body and spirit. The more this integration comes into being, the more we can stand apart and observe the friction.

TO LIVE IN THE WORLD, YET NOT OF THE WORLD

When man can objectify this friction, whatever kind of friction it may be, from the smallest to the largest, and observe it, it would mean that he is standing apart. You are sitting in a cinema; you are enjoying this drama on this vast screen. All the pathos and the comedy, all the happenings, the heartaches and the headaches, are on display, and yet, while you are sitting watching it, you are moved by these comedies and tragedies of life, and yet you know that it is a play. Yet you know you are sitting, observing it.

When we, through self-integration, develop the power of observation, we find the secret of life, which is non-attachment. We become, we live in the world, yet not of the world, in the world but not of the world. We can stand apart and watch this motion, watch this friction, watch this play, and not be affected, because it is only by being affected that we would experience joy or sorrow. If you have the capacity to experience joy, then be sure to know you have the capacity to experience sorrow. The deeper the joy you can feel, be sure to know the deeper the sorrow you can feel.

BY BECOMING NON-ATTACHED TO THE LAWS OF OPPOSITES, YOU WILL NOT BE AFFECTED BY EXTREME JOY OR SORROW

But this is the process, and in this process of evolution, the evolving being has to go through these experiences. It is only by going through them that you will know their value. You will appreciate their meaning; you will appreciate their words. And when you reach that stage, where, by knowing the words, these experiences seem worthless, then you really stand apart, and you laugh, you laugh the laughter of love, you laugh the laughter of joy, you laugh the laughter of creation itself. How beautiful this flower grows. The particles and molecules that composed this very flower are forever in friction and in motion for it to be an entity, for it to have that adhesiveness, for it to have this cohesion. And when you see that, you know, “Ah!! Creation has these opposing qualities,” but if I become non-attached to these laws of opposites, then I will not be affected, neither would I feel that extreme joy and the extreme sorrow, because of self-integration I will have the equilibrium.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: SA 1978 – 73

The post The Divine Reformer: The Divine Response to Human Imbalance appeared first on FISU Meditation.

APPRECIATE THE SIMPLICITY OF LIFE AND THE GREATNESS OF IT WILL DESCEND UPON YOU

Vivekananda had given a discourse in a hall not far from where he lived, and on the way back they were talking and walking. He said, “Hey, I have got it!” They were all so excited and wanted to know, “You know, he has made some great discovery.” He said, “You know, I was wondering about that soup that I had eaten tonight, and the secret of that soup was the bay leaf.” What a momentous discovery.

It all means that if one can learn to appreciate the simplicity of life, the greatness of it all just descends upon you. He enjoyed that bowl of soup and wondered why it was so wonderful, and then he said, “I have made the most momentous discovery. It was the bay leaf, ah.”

Why do we not find those bay leaves in our lives, the simple, lovely little things that would make us so, so happy, that would make us radiate an inner joy, inexplicable?

TO THE GREAT SPIRITUAL MASTERS, THE BODY IS MERELY A VEHICLE

One of my chelas wanted to know about the relationship between the Guru and the Chela after the Guru leaves the body. Many tapes have been made on that, but of course we could always approach it from a different angle.

The Guru never leaves the body, for he has found the secret that the body, the mind and the spirit are one. He does not leave the body. He would transform the forms in which he exists, but he never leaves the body, because his body is not the material body that you would think of. The true Guru lives in a body, which you could call ethereal, which you could call by any name you like, but he is not this physical flesh and blood, for that means nothing. It is a conveyance.

You want to ride from here to Vancouver. You get onto the ferry. How important is that ferry to you while you are on it? You will go to the restaurant and have a cup of tea, a snack, and a sandwich. But that is not the point; you want to reach the other side. You want to get from Victoria to Vancouver. Likewise, the Guru does not care whether he has a body, whether he has a beautiful big ferry to drive into, a big car, perhaps a Cadillac, so comfortable to ride in, or whether it is just a little Volkswagen, which is just as important as the Cadillac. What difference does it make to the Guru between a Volkswagen and a Cadillac – none at all. The difference or the purpose is to go from Victoria Island to the mainland called Vancouver.

The Guru never bothers or worries about his body at all. If you study the lives of great Masters, such as Ramana Maharshi, he suffered very severely from cancer, a great Master, a self-realised soul. If you study the life of Vivekananda, in the last years of his life he was a severe asthmatic and could hardly breathe. If you study the life of Ramakrishna, he suffered greatly from throat cancer. If you study the life and the works of Christ, of Jesus, he suffered from thrombosis in the leg, so when those nails were driven through his leg, he did not feel any pain at all; it was totally numb.

You see, these great Spiritual Masters do not care for their bodies because they themselves do not live in their bodies. It is not necessary for them, because the spirit is so eternal within them that they have found the eternity of that spirit. They have found that, and they use the body just as a vehicle, a conveyance, like your ferry boat going up and down from Victoria to Vancouver. That is all. But if the ferryboat can be kept stronger, well oiled, it could last a bit longer.

Many of these people do not bother with that at all. They say, “My work is done. I have come to do what I had to do, and here I go.” Take the life of Ram Tirtha, who was appointed a Professor of Mathematics at the age of 22. What a brain he had, and he taught and taught – and when he felt he had finished his teaching at the age of 32, he walked into the river, sat down in a lotus position, and just stopped breathing.

THE TRUE GURU SYMBOLISES AND SHOWS THE PATH OF ONENESS IN ALL LOVE AND IN ALL PURITY

There is a difference here. The desperate commit suicide; the enlightened leave their bodies. It is not suicide; it is “Godiside,” if I might coin a new word. So, what relationship is there when a Guru leaves his body? Why do you talk of relationships? Whenever you think of a relationship, the thought behind it is separation. Let relationship be itself. It is self-existent in the relationship, but the motivating factor behind relationship is separationship. When a Guru and a Chela have come together in that Divine bond, not a physical bond, not a mental bond, but that Divine bond of the recognition of the spirit within each other, they would find that my spirit as the Chela and his spirit as the Guru are non-different. It is one.

So, wherever there is that oneness, how can there be relationships? The word falls away. It has to fall away because when you talk of relationships, it means two people communicating in whatever way, mental, physical, spiritual, whatever, but there are two. But when the realisation dawns that we are but one, at the highest level, the spiritual level, where I, my Guru, my God, my universe, my everything is one, then you reach the stage where you do not give and you do not take, because who is giving to whom and who is taking from whom? There is only one. If you have five dollars in your left-hand pocket and you transfer it to your right-hand pocket, where is it going to? Only to you. You are just transferring it from there to there. It is still in your own pocket. In the same way, the relationship between Guru and Chela works when the stage is reached where you feel that oneness and closeness, a total at-one-ment, a total at-one-ment, at-one-ment. And I am not referring to after-dinner mints. One-ment, totality.

Once that is realised, you feel oneness with the entire universe and all of creation, with manifestation and the Manifestor, for the true Guru only symbolises and shows you the path of that oneness in all love and in all purity. He will teach in so many different ways, some of which would not be recognised, while others would be known, but the finality would be that “That, ah, on reflection, looking back, you know, that old boy said that. It means something.”

MY PRINCIPAL AIM IN LIFE IS FOR YOU TO KNOW YOUR REAL SELF

It becomes applicable to your life, and you start realising more and more the oneness, because you could never establish oneness with God, which is a mental concept, as I have told you so many times before. But you could establish oneness with a human being such as you, who could inspire or give that human impulse by a glance, by a look, by a touch. That is the difference. That is why true Masters are needed in this world, not these false multi-millionaires, money-makers. They are running a racket, a business, and I tell them to their faces. Maharishi shivers in his pants when I speak to him. He does not wear any pants, in any case. It is easier to have this dhoti for his purposes. And the same thing with Muktananda and you name them all. I know them all.

“Are you making religion a business?” I went to Muktananda’s Ashram, and they had all those lights, you know, the infra-red and that ultraviolet, and all that, creating the mood and the pearl, and they had musicians playing lovely, soft music to get you into a mood. Is mood-making making you go closer and closer to the spirit that is within you? No. You can make any kind of moods. You could create devices that could create these moods. My principal aim in life, my mission, is for you to know yourself, your real self, and that does not come from mood-making. Moods have nothing to do with your spirit. Moods only have to do with your mind, because that is where moods are created. That is where moods are regenerated, and that is where moods are powered and empowered. But there is no mood. You discard the mind, you discard the moods, you discard the body, and you flow away into your real self. And when you flow away into your real self, you know the essence of yourself. The essence is there, brilliant, sparkling, joyous, and even for a few moments you mix yourself with that essence. Your life becomes so beautiful. You are baking a cake, say a two-pound cake. You do not need ten gallons of vanilla essence to put into your two-pound cake. You only need two or three drops, something like that, that is all. It gives the cake its flavour. That essence that you can draw from within gives you the flavour to the cake of your life.

IN THE COMPANY OF A SPIRITUAL MASTER

So, stop being cookies. I was a cookie too, and what a cookie I was. They just loved me to pieces. That is the world I came from – I had to work in Film Studios, starting as a sweeper and then as an Assistant Scriptwriter, Assistant Director, Assistant Casting Director, Assistant Producer, Assistant Cameraman, and all this, that and what-have-you, to pay my way through university. So, I know it all. And these little cookies used to run after me night and day! I think I have savoured more cookies than I have had breakfasts! And I am honest enough to tell you this. I have known life in all its facets, but that was the play of life I had to experience. It was necessary for me, because my Guru told me, “Your destiny is to be a Spiritual Master, but go into the world and experience everything, and then you are a Spiritual Teacher for the people. If you have not experienced things yourself, how are you going to advise and how are you going to teach?” It makes no sense being a monk – because that is what I wanted to be, a monk living in the caves – so Parvitranandaji said, “To be a monk is monkey business. Go out there, down there, experience life, and from your own personal experiences of life you can teach and help humanity.”

Here is a girl who is a qualified Psychologist, but when she speaks to me about the human mind, she will admit to you, even now, that she cannot even come near to touching my toes. Am I right? Experience, and this is what I want to give you, experience, experience, experience of your inner self, not false beliefs. When they talk in the Scriptures of false prophets and false Gods, that is what is referred to, false beliefs, because you could never have a false God or a false prophet without you first having a false belief.

Once in the company of a Spiritual Master, you gain a little. There is no magic wand we can wave. It takes its own time. Gradually, it seeps in, and in that seeping you will find that life begins to assume a different meaning. Things that seemed so dark to you before will seem brighter, a little at a time. “Lead thou me on, kindly light, one step at a time.”

THE FINAL REALISATION OF MAN IS TO FIND THE CHRIST, THE KRISHNA, THE BUDDHA WITHIN EVERYONE

That wall there might seem very dark to you now, but as the sunlight gradually catches it, it will become lighter. So what are we actually doing? We are allowing that sunlight to infiltrate our lives, and that is how Les, for example, could compose such wonderful music, or how Caroline could play her flute – when she played it for me last year, I got so lost that, to me, she became Krishna. Because my perception was not of Caroline when she started her flute, I melted away in her flute and went into the time of Krishna. I am trying to tell you that Ramakrishna, Buddha, Christ are here and now. What is not here is your perspective of life. That is not here. That is missing.

And that is what we humble Yogis try to impart to you, the perspective in which, after a few notes, Caroline transformed for me into Krishna. I would see a humble beggar on the road with a staff, sitting on the wayside, so tired, and I would look at him. I would wash his feet. I have done this many, many times in all my travels in the Himalayas, trying to find God. Sit down, wash his feet, give him whatever food I had with me, a little bowl I was carrying, which was a begging bowl. You would go to a house, you would say, “Ma, Mother, I am hungry, have you got some food?” Some of them closed the doors; some of them did give you. So what?

So, I would share it with this beggar sitting under the tree, but to me he was not a beggar, not a poor man, but a Buddha sitting under that tree. This is the final realisation of man, to find the Christ, the Krishna, the Buddha within everyone. This is one thing I have against theology; it separates you from God. You are not separate from the Lord. If you were separate from Him, you could never live, because the very lifeforce in you is the Lord. The very lifeforce is God, and because of the commercialisation of various Theological Schools and Theologies, they separate you.

Realise, for once and for all, that He is there in you, within you, in every cell of your body. You are permeated by Him. And when you realise this, that I am not only of Divine origin but I am the origin of Divinity, I and my Father are one, one, one, one. I do not know who invented all these damn zeros. You can have a thousand zeros on your cheque book, but if you do not put the one in front, your cheque is worthless. That One. That is the important thing. And where is that One? Not somewhere in the sky. Forget all that. That One is here and in here. Because of that oneness, there is contained, is filled and is full with all your skies and your trees and all the beauty around us. It is all there.

DO NOT FEAR GOD, DO NOT LOVE GOD, BE GOD – YOU ARE IT

So, what does all this mean? It means this. Do not fear God, because that is what they try to instil in you. When they could not capture you with love, the theologies tried to capture you with fear, eternal damnation, which is actually a contradiction of terms, and that is what all of them have done so far. I say to you, do not fear God. I say to you, do not love God. I say to you, be God. Be God. Because you are It, but the veils are obscuring your view of yourself. The only thing you need to see is yourself, and everything else is seen. Is that not in agreement with theologies? Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven within. Man know thyself. Tat Tvam Asi, Brahmasmi – I can give it to you in many languages. It means the same. “You are It.” Realise that.

Realise you are It, that great It, which is indefinable, neither male nor female, that Divine energy, and that you are that Divine energy. And when you realise this, when you realise the divinity of this Divine energy, you will be rid of all your guilt, all your fears, all your shortcomings. You will be rid of the thing that bugs you most, lack of confidence. You become confident, you become strong. You have that when you realise that I am It. And if I am It and everything is It, what can defy me? What can defy me? Nothing. Nothing can defy me. There is no such word as defy in my dictionary, and if I should use words such as defy, it is only for definition. So fine, it is so fine, so subtle, so beautiful, so fine, then why do you defy? “De” is a negation of fine. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.

Life is beautiful. There is one certainty. Worry as much as you want to about life, worry, worry, worry about life, I do not give a damn, worry about life. But know one thing for sure, you are not going to get out of life alive. So why worry about it in the first place, damn it. Can you imagine the stupidity – the stupidity of this human so-called mind? Take it as it comes, and everything is good; there is nothing bad.

A TRUE GURU HAVE NO FAVOURITE CHELAS, THE LOVE IS EQUALLY SPREAD

If I stand up here now and slap my daughter’s face, you will say, “Oh, God, Guruji, you did this.” But can you really understand the relationship between the Guru and the Chela?

There is a little story you might know. This Guru was sitting with his Chelas around a fire in those ancient days, and one of his favourite disciples was sitting next to him. Actually, a true Guru has no favourite disciples or favourite Chelas; to him, all are the same. Everyone. Some are very close to him, of course, to look after his needs, so they are closer. I can shout and say, “Hey Vidya, I want a cup of tea now, please, if you do not mind. Is my shawl ironed? Wake me up at this time if I am gone into meditation.” That is a different thing, but the love is equally spread.

So, this Guru was sitting around the fire with some of his Chelas, and he pulled out a burning stick and stabbed a burning coal into the arm of one person who was supposed to be his favourite Chela, someone he was very close to, who used to serve him. Everyone was in turmoil and said, “Oh Guruji, Guruji, what have you done? Why did you burn this man?” And he said, “Oh, please shut up, go to bed, do not ask me those questions.” But they persisted, and then the Guru said, “OK, let me tell you something now. This man’s destiny was to be burnt to death in fire, and by jabbing him with a little fire, that calamity has been averted.” On this Course, you will find that a very, very dear friend of ours has suffered a certain loss, and I promise you one thing, that loss will be made up tenfold. Yes. You will know it in a few months’ time; I do not even need to be here.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang CAN 1984 – 08

The post The Spiritual Master: Beyond Belief to Experience appeared first on FISU Meditation.

PURE LOVE REQUIRES NO RETURN

To be able to love truly, completely, and in one’s totality, one has to first find the totality, the completeness, in one’s Self, because love is an expression of what one is. There are various levels of love, ranging from the grossest physical level to the highest spiritual level. One can love in a very limited way, confined to the physical. One can love in a still higher form, where the body and mind are involved, and the highest form of all is when all three aspects of man are involved, mind, body and spirit. That would form the totality of love, and the totality of love can only be expressed if we are total.

That is a form which some achieve, because in attaining the totality of love one has discovered the secret of the universe. One has become one, or at one with the universe, and therein lies the completeness of love. When one finds the completeness of love, one could truly say that “I am love” and the need to love an object disappears. Need does not remain. It is like a flower that gives off its fragrance not because it wants to, but because it becomes its very nature to give off the fragrance.

When one reaches that level of love, one knows no separation. The object of love disappears, and the subject of love disappears, and only love remains. To put this very simply, it means loving for the sake of love. All the loves we go through, if they are not complete, contain some seeds of motivation. I love a woman and want that woman to reciprocate my love. That kind of love, which is most common with ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine percent of people, is a kind of business; I give you this and you give me that in return, while pure love requires no return.

LOVE KNOWS NO ANALYSIS; LOVE IS A WELLING OF THE HEART

When a Sage says he loves the world, he loves humanity and every creature, and he expects no return whatsoever, because he loves for the sake of love. That love within him is so powerful that it simply expresses itself. In other words, he cannot help loving because he is love.

In ordinary life, when we have not reached that stage of Sagehood, within our boundaries we can still elevate the form of love we are capable of. When it comes to reciprocation, the very idea of what I want in return can be carefully examined. I love the woman so much, and I ask myself, “How much does she love me?” With that loving of the object, we go through a self-analysis, evaluating how much I want in return. Do I want more in return, or do I want the same, or do I want less? The common fault of the ordinary man is that he always wants more in return. To him, even love must be a bargain, at sale price. So I love so much and I want back so much. Therein lies the mechanics of how to love in totality. The mechanics are that when we love someone, we do not expect that person to love us more, but rather accept a lesser love. I love my wife, and I want that love to be reciprocated, not necessarily to the extent of my love for her, but to the extent of which she is capable. If we find that the woman loves me in return to her fullest capacity, I must appreciate that as reciprocation to her level, and any form of reciprocation is always at the level of the object and not at the level of the subject. So here the greatest of honesty is required. The greatest of sincerity is required. The greatest of acceptance is required. A married couple or a boyfriend/girlfriend who intends to get married always have this argument within themselves, if it is not outwardly expressed. “I love you so much,” and a question that is always asked is, “How much do you love me?” Another question that is also always asked is, “Do you love me?” And with couples that are so close, they always ask, “Do you love me?” The reason they ask this question is that they want to reaffirm to themselves the love of the object. The reason they want to reaffirm or reconfirm to themselves is that they are insecure in the love that they are giving. So the mind says, “I love this woman,” but even within the mind there are certain doubts, and that love is being analysed. I love this woman. Why do I love this woman? Is it because she has a pretty nose, or is it because she has lovely hair, or whatever you would regard as lovely? We will not go into details.

So, remember this. This is a very, very important point. The moment I start analysing my love for someone, love ceases, because we have taken love to the mental level, to the mind level. The mind cannot love. The mind can only appreciate the mechanics of love. What loves is the welling of the heart. The heart feels the closeness; the heart feels the oneness, where your heartbeat spontaneously feels the heartbeat of your beloved. But once the mind enters and analyses even the heartbeat, then the heart stops beating in the flow of love. Love knows no analysis.

FROM NEED TO UNDERSTANDING – THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE

The other day, a little teenager was talking to me about love. He said, “Guruji, I know everything about love.” I said, “You do. Please tell me.” So he said, “They talk about tickling the brain and something about the heart. It tickles the heart and affects the brain.” And then he went on to talk about something about the spine, and I said, “Stop, stop, stop. That is not love. That is not love.” It is a profound experience felt between two people, and the profound experience that is found between two people can only be expressed in a profound communication which is beyond the analysis of the mind. And if it is beyond the analysis of the mind, it is beyond all expression. That is love.

So, love exists on various levels. It begins with the need for a return on the love given, which is the common experience. But we have to advance, to progress, so that the need for reciprocation becomes less and less and less. When a couple gets married, they might have had a courtship for a few years, perhaps, and when they get married, in the honeymoon period, they require that entire reciprocation, but as the marriage settles down, the need for that reciprocation diminishes. Why does the need for reciprocation diminish? It is because a beautiful understanding has been developed. After all, love, in its finest analysis, in its finest relative worldly value, is nothing more than an understanding, where you understand the workings of the mind, the workings of the emotions of your spouse, and that is commonly known as love.

If two people know each other for a little while, a few years, and say that “We love each other deeply,” that is not entirely true, because it comes from the mind. A man and a woman can really love each other only after they have lived together for many years. It is such a beautiful sight for me to see an old couple walking down the road, perhaps along the banks of the river Thames, hand in hand, with such tenderness, such communication, and such understanding, where that separation no longer exists. At that age, they have realised, to some extent, what that love is all about.

To reach that stage, to love in this world even without needing any reward, is in the realms of Divine love, where you love for the sake of love. That is for sages, for the yogis, for the gurus. But in worldly life, when one reaches that understanding, one sees an old couple walking down the road hand in hand, and every few minutes they turn their heads to glance into each other’s eyes. What beautiful poetry, for love is poetry? What beautiful poetry? But this has to be worked at over a period of years, during which they slowly begin to understand each other. They begin to understand each other’s faults and frailties, and in understanding them, they accept them. So, when one accepts each other’s faults and frailties, a beautiful friendship is born, and that companionship is also one of the constituents of love.

SACRIFICE, SURRENDER AND THE GRACE OF LOVE

As we progress along the path of married life, we experience many ups and downs. Although people are closely connected and, to a certain extent, understand each other, they inwardly feel that this is the right person for them. Even so, ups and downs persist. What causes these ups and downs? They stem from a sense of ego, the belief that I am better than her, or she is better than me, or I am better than him. This small ego stands in the way. It blocks the natural flow of love or communication from heart to heart.

When we become immersed in this ego, we become self-centred and start believing that the whole world revolves around us. We are the centre of the universe, and everything must pay attention to us. So, when the wife becomes demanding for attention to feed her ego, or the husband becomes demanding to feed his ego and self-importance, friction begins. To avoid this friction, one has to learn surrender. When one surrenders oneself completely to one’s beloved, love is felt, and that love is akin to Divinity.

Although in our outward, worldly life the ego rears its head, do not let it rear its head in bed. The incompatibilities between man and woman in their sexual life are only because of the lack of the sense of surrender, and it is this lack that causes incompatibilities. These things have a far-reaching effect on householders because the sexual urge is one of the strongest urges in man and woman, and it has to be given vent. They have to be given vent because the experience gained in that total surrender between husband and wife can lead you to total surrender to God.

So, at every stage, right from the physical level to the highest level of the soul, man has been given the equipment, the necessary tools, to progress to higher and higher and higher levels. But going to bed requires a lot of preparation. Surrender does not start in bed. It starts the morning you wake up. It starts in daily life, everyday work-a-day life, every day at home, where one of the qualities that leads to self-surrender is self-sacrifice. We perform little sacrifices for our wives or our husbands. We do that, not as an arduous duty but as a dharmic duty. We make these sacrifices. If you want to go to London and the wife says let us go to Scotland, let us land up here in the Midlands, that actually means a compromise, and compromise requires understanding. If there is a mutual attraction at whatever level, this understanding can be developed, because the most important thing that should be in the woman’s heart and in the man’s heart is “I want to please my husband or my wife.” If that thought is dominant, then you are capable of sacrificing, and when you are capable of sacrificing, you are capable of surrender, and when you are capable of surrender, spontaneously the grace of love dawns upon you. These are the mechanics. These are the mechanics of self-help in the sphere of love.

THE DAY WILL COME, PERHAPS IN ANOTHER LIFETIME, WHEN WE CAN FUNCTION IN TOTALITY

These are the mechanics. These things are easy to follow. When a man and a woman get married, nobody forces them to do so. There is a mutual attraction that makes them want to marry, and at first this attraction may be on a superficial level, with minds that think alike, similar tastes, and bodies that are attracted to each other. These are superficial levels. But when they get married, these superficial levels must be elevated to super levels. From superficial levels, one has to elevate oneself to super levels so that the relationship becomes enduring and endearing.

One has to start from where one is. That is the important thing. If we keep dwelling on superficial levels, on physical or mental attractions, or similar tastes, remember this. You can marry the most beautiful woman in the world, or the most handsome man in the world, but that beauty and that handsomeness will fade in a few months’ time. Something only seems pretty at the beginning, but afterwards it becomes a common thing because of the familiarity that is created. You do not keep on looking at your wife’s nose or her beautiful legs.

That is practical. That is how it works, but what you keep looking at and what endures is the quality within, and the qualities within are the sense of self-sacrifice, the desire to please, and the self-surrender to one’s spouse. Those are the enduring qualities which constitute love as we progress on the path of love, and one day, perhaps not in this lifetime, perhaps in some other lifetime, we will be able to function as a totality. Our meditational practices are designed to bring about an integration of mind, body and spirit so that we can function as total beings, where even the sex act can be elevated to such a degree that it becomes a meditation, a complete mergence.

AS HOUSEHOLDERS, IT IS PART OF OUR DHARMA TO TRANSFORM OUR INITIAL ATTRACTION INTO A SPIRITUAL ONE

Someone came to me and said, “There is no God. I do not see Him. Prove Him to me.” So I said, “Well, look, you only take things that your senses can observe, see, touch, or smell. There are many things in life that the senses are incapable of perceiving, yet there are higher things that the senses cannot perceive but which can be experienced and known through another sense, which everyone has within himself.”

The same applies to loving each other, and this sense is systematically cultivated through a few qualities we have to cultivate, and it is worthwhile doing so. When we marry someone, there is an initial mutual attraction, and to enhance this attraction, these are the things one has to do if love is to become enduring. The reasons for the divorces we see are that people are just romanticists. They see the beautiful face, get attracted to someone they think alike, with similar tastes, both like playing tennis, or both like playing golf, or go fishing, or both like the same kind of music, but tastes keep on differing every day. They keep on differing. For one year you might like to play tennis very much, and the next year you might like something else very much. These tastes are not from the heart. These tastes are from the mind, and being so fickle, the mind is subject to change. When the mind changes, it develops other kinds of tastes, and then our spouse becomes incompatible with us. Because every mind is an individual mind, when your tastes change, it does not mean that your wife’s taste has also changed with yours. It could change with yours if self-surrender, self-sacrifice and service are there when tastes change together.

So, the major cause of this sociological problem of divorce is that the marriage was entered into at a superficial level, and instead of moving it to a deeper level, the couple remained on that superficial level. And anything that is superficial can never be lasting, which is why we have divorces. Let us take the example of a man, say he is a drunkard. The wife will start hating him for his drinking. The man could have a serious problem, for alcoholism is a disease. So instead of hating him, if she could develop an understanding with him and help him to understand his problem, even if professional help is required or professional help is to be called in, and one can do something about the problem, then that would be helpful. But no, because the love had been on the superficial level, the wife is not prepared to help, she is not prepared to help him find a solution. So, what happens? The marriage goes on the rocks, although the husband liked his scotch on the rocks. Those ice rocks are dangerous rocks. It can take anyone to the rocks.

So, love has its various levels, ranging from utter superficiality to a superlevel. As householders, it is part of our dharma to elevate the initial attraction, the initial physical, mental, mundane attraction, and lead it gently to a spiritual attraction, and then one could say, “Ah, so well have I lived in my home”. The wife could say, “How well he has cared for me with all his love.” She cannot define love, but she can really define and view, in retrospect, his self-sacrifice, his support in times of trouble, his extreme care in times of illness, for example, self-sacrifice, self-surrender. The woman can say that he has been good to me. Those are the words they use. The husband can say the same thing, that how wonderful she has been, she has taken so much care in the home to make me feel comfortable. She has reared the children so beautifully that I can be proud to say, “Ah, this is my son.” The wife has helped him to make the son a son, when he can say, “My son.” The support the wife has given him in his work. The wife has been so busy at home with her housework; she might have had tons of problems with the children and the nappies and washing them, all kinds of things, yet when he comes home there is always a beautiful smile on her face. And all the tiredness of work-a-day life at the office or the factory just melts away in her smile, and he feels refreshed, rejuvenated, regenerated by the power of love.

WE PASS THROUGH VARIOUS STAGES OF LOVE TO REACH DIVINE LOVE, WHICH IS OURS

So, love is not something that just comes and is thrown in your lap. One has to work at it, especially when it comes to marriage. No marriage needs to fail if we are prepared to work at it, and this has been proven over and over again. If my marriage fails, I must admit to myself that it is partly due to my own weakness. Everyone must admit that fact, and if we do something constructive to overcome those weaknesses, then the marriage will not fail, because even the discrepancies in the wife or the husband will be accepted in love, with love, for love. Why? – to preserve love.

These are all the levels as we live, as we go through the various facets of love towards Divine love, which is ours. We are born with it, and because of our mental and heart limitations, we cannot yet express that Divine love. But as the mind, the cobwebs, and the pinching heart are more and more opened, the Divinity of love shines through more and more, until it can shine through completely. Then that old man and woman, holding hands and walking down the road, occasionally glance into each other’s eyes, and a flicker of a smile appears on the lips, so beautiful, the beautiful feeling of oneness that, through this life, we have gone together. And I can see a picture, a beautiful sunset. They are towards the end of their life now, at that age, and what a beautiful picture that would make, seeing them walking through and melting away into that sunset, into that Divinity, into Light. That is Love. That is the path of Love. Thank you. We like to mix a bit of poetry with philosophy. It is not apart, for life is a poem itself

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1978 – 12

The post Hand in Hand in Love: The Journey Toward True Togetherness appeared first on FISU Meditation.

BEHIND EVERY PAIN THERE IS PLEASURE, AND BEHIND EVERY PLEASURE THERE IS PAIN

Do you know that every experience a man has gained has always been pleasurable? Even the severest pain has pleasure in it. Here is a new proposition. Write it to all the psychiatrists in America. They need to learn that behind every pain there is pleasure, and behind every pleasure there is pain, always. A woman goes through hell giving birth to a child. The pain is so unbearable to her, and yet after the baby is born, the pleasure that comes with the creation of this lovely life, pulsating there in the arms, is great pleasure. How does it nullify the pain? That pleasurable impression outweighs the pain that was felt, and that is why, in a year or two, or three or four years later, she would not say no to having another baby. What does she remember? What impression has been left strongly? Not of the pain, but the pleasure of having the child. If the impression of the pain was stronger than the pleasure attained, then a woman will never have another child again. Likewise, in every circumstance, even if a person is ill in bed for a few days, when you get better, do you know how beautiful you feel? You feel beautiful because that beauty, that nice feeling, has now been accentuated by the pain you went through, so there too the impression of the pleasure is stronger.

THAT WHICH IS TEMPORARY CAN NEVER PRODUCE ANYTHING WHICH IS PERMANENT

In every experience man has, there is always an overbalance of pleasure. There is always that little bit extra on the credit side of pleasure, and that is why you cling to your ego. That is why you do not want to lose the ego. It is like a fish that swims in the river, thirsty. Or you are standing at the riverside, dying of thirst, thinking of these little pleasures, when there is bliss there for you to attain, to have, which is your own nature. What a great sacrifice?

Actually, it is foolish to stick to these little pleasures and then forget or ignore the great bliss that is there, because all pleasures and all pains are temporary, and they are temporary because they are of the mind, and the mind is temporary. That which is temporary could never produce anything which is permanent, while bliss is permanency. And once one tastes bliss, once one has the taste of permanency, then who wants to be impermanent? Then only does man realise that “Ah, I have been chasing rainbows.” Then only does man realise that “That which I took to be real is in reality unreal.”

YOU MUST ALL REACH THE STAGE WHERE A GURU IS NOT NECESSARY ANYMORE

Reality is not known by the mind, but by itself. You feel it. To feel Divinity is an experience, not an analysis. But man has the gift within him that, at a certain moment, he becomes so centred that mind, body and spirit are in such wonderful alignment, even momentarily. Then he feels this yearning, he feels drawn, he feels this bliss. He feels it, and after that feeling he will start yearning more and more and more for it.

That kind of yearning is justified, yet it stems from the mind. Although it stems from the mind, it has a deeper quality, because that yearning does not analyse. Although it is within the framework of the mind, it is beyond analysis. A man loves a woman; he is away from her, and he yearns for her. He is not analysing why he yearns for her. He just yearns. He wants to be with her. He wants that togetherness with her. So that yearning is an experience in itself, although it emanates through the mind.

That experience is self-existing, self-subsisting. So, when we make post-mortems on our experiences, we lose much of the value of the experience. This is necessary in the beginning stages. It is necessary to analyse in the beginning stages when one has genuine experiences. But let the analysis be such that it leads to greater yearning. Let the analysis be such that “Let me have that experience for the experience itself.” Then the ego starts fading away. Then the ego has no rhyme or reason to start interfering, and when the ego stops interfering, then you are really you. Then you have known, in spite of what the outer object has been. And that is how the external guru awakens in you the internal guru.

As I always say, a housewife goes to the supermarket, makes up a list of the things she wants to buy, and after purchasing, she throws the list away. It is not necessary. I want you all to discard me if not in this lifetime, then in the next, or in another two hundred lifetimes. But you must! You must all reach the stage where a guru is no longer necessary. Yes, yes. Oh, you can think back, “Ah, he was a good old chap, you know.” That is fine.

THE REAL TEACHER IS EXISTING WITHIN YOU ALL THE TIME

I do not know how the educational system works in America, but in South Africa you have Standard One, and the child starts off in Kindergarten, then Standard One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, up to Ten, which is Matric, and then from Matric he goes to university. He would have his teachers in all these various standards before he goes to university. When he goes to university, he does not need those primary or secondary school teachers anymore, but he remembers them. We all remember our teachers, do we not? When we were in Standard Two, Three, or Four, we remember Miss So-and-so and Mr So-and-so, who was our maths or geography teacher, or whatever. We remember them, even though they are not needed now. That is what should happen. The stage must be reached where you have discarded those teachers up to Standard Ten, discarded but not forgotten.

And then, when the internal guru is awakened, when man starts knowing himself, his real self, a new set of values develops. Then the external guru, too, becomes unreal. How does the external guru become unreal? How does the external guru become non-existent? Because he has merged with the internal guru. And in the mergence, there is no externality. And then there is a step further. There is no internality either. There is nothing external and nothing internal; it just IS. Where is the outside and where is the inside? It depends where you are standing. Looking through this window, those trees are outside to you, but if you stand at the tree, this would be inside, or this would be outside of the tree. It depends where you stand. And in this spiritual life, totally merged or merged within one’s real self, there is nothing outside; there is nothing inside; it just all IS. It all IS. There are no squares, no triangles, no rectangles and no circles. What a beautiful feeling. That is bliss – how to describe it: there are no words? We can only talk about it, but we have to experience it.

So, when we have these glimpses of being drawn by an infinite force, which the teacher represents, we shall not resist it. We shall not resist. But be drawn to that force, because you are not drawn outside yourself; you are, in reality, drawn within yourself. For where does the real teacher exist? The real teacher exists within you. The one sitting in the chair opposite you is only a projection. It is only a projection. And his body, mind, the bag of bones and skin and flesh, is just as unreal as yours. So, the real teacher exists within you all the time, and the external object is there in the form of the teacher to make you realise that I, in my own right, am a guru. I, in my own right, am self-subsisting. I, in my own right, am self-existing.

YOU CAN NEVER LEARN TO BE A MASTER UNLESS YOU HAVE LEARNED TO BE A SLAVE

For the true teacher teaches you independence, not dependence. In the beginning stages, for the novice, a bit of dependence is needed, where the little school ma’am will guide the infant in the A B Cs. That is needed. So the child is dependent to a certain extent on the teacher for guidance. But after the child has learnt how to read, it will read on its own. Then the teacher does not need to stand behind the child’s back and watch them read. No, and the child will read everything that they want to read, according to their understanding, right from James Hadley Chase to Socrates and Plato. So, the real teaching is to teach a person to become independent. Do not take this literally, because only those who are strong enough to be independent can be so. But those of us who are not strong enough to be independent, let us be dependent. Why not? What is wrong with that? We have been dependent all our lives. Were you not dependent upon your mother to change your nappy for you? Were you not dependent upon your mother to give you your food? Were you not dependent upon your father to earn the bread and beans to feed you or to send you to school? Have you not been dependent upon your teachers? Are you not dependent upon your boss to earn a salary? So why not be dependent upon a guru who teaches you the path to independence? Does it make sense? That is the teaching, that is the way. That is the way to live the life, and that is the truth, and the truth can never, never be changed.

But when that overwhelming feeling arises, do not suppress it. Flow with it, because you can never lose yourself. If you can lose your ego, that is the greatest blessing you could ever have, because regarding yourself as the ego is nothing but false identification. The real identification should be with your real self, your inner self, your permanent self. The immortal soul that the Scriptures talk about all the time, over and over and over again, is your real self. Not these puny little beings that walk this earth and fight and squabble over nothing. Absolutely nothing, really. They do; they do. So, to find this independence, be dependent. You can never be a master unless you have learnt how to be a slave. That is a very old saying. I think it was an old Egyptian saying. You can never learn to be a master unless you have learned to be a slave.

If a young man comes to me and says, “I have ten thousand dollars, or a hundred thousand dollars to start a business” – let us assume it is a clothing business – and he says, “I have got a hundred thousand dollars and I want to start a clothing shop.” You know what I will tell him? I will say, “Sorry, you do not start the shop. Put that hundred thousand away in the bank, in a fixed deposit so you cannot draw from it, and go to work in a shop that sells clothing for three years,” or whatever the case might be, depending upon the capacity and the ability of the young man. “Go and gain the experience. Become a servant of the boss and learn. And when you have learnt enough, then go to open your shop; otherwise not. And if you do it without having the necessary experience, you will just land up in the bankruptcy courts.”

SURRENDER OF THE HEART TO THAT WHICH IS TRUTH

So, you need the experience of dependence to become independent of all kinds of dependency. What is the primary requisite in this dependency? Surrender is the primary requisite. It is a passing phase. It is not something that is held on to permanently. It is temporary. It is meant to be used so that we can rise from dependency to independence. And all forms of dependency have surrender as an ingredient.

What do you surrender? That is the question. You have movements in the world that demand all kinds of surrenders. Our movement does not. Our movement requires one thing only. Surrender of the heart to that which is truth. Other movements might require you to surrender all your estates and your fortunes, and I do not know what all. Cut off your hair, put on orange robes, and all kinds of things like that. And they say, “Oh, well, this is a mark of surrender”. We do not want marks. The American people are supposed to be such brilliant people. No wonder all these movements flourish here so much, and they become multi-millionaire movements, and Americans are such brilliant people.

Our organisation demands surrender of the heart, surrender of the heart in love and devotion, not necessarily to the guru, not necessarily to the teacher, but to the teaching. Is that clear? Not to the teacher, to the teacher, okay, if you wish to, that is your choice. It is not a demand. It is not a demand, nor is it a request or a suggestion. That depends upon your heart. So the best you can do is surrender to the teaching. If you find even a single bit of truth in the teaching, surrender your heart to it, for that will lead you to greater and greater truths. For in reality all truth is one. If you know a bit of truth, you are on the way to knowing the totality of truth, for the totality of truth is contained in that bit of truth. Have an open mind to accept what seems truthful to you for the moment. At least that is a start. Surrender to that teaching by having an open mind. An open mind is always a non-conditioned mind. An open mind is always an unbiased mind. Have no bias. I know the contents of your heart, beautiful, beautiful heart, beautiful. I am happy if you are happy. Your happiness is my happiness always.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1978 – 07

The post Surrender to the Teaching: The Paradox of Surrender, Dependence and Freedom appeared first on FISU Meditation.

DO NOT ANALYSE, JUST ENJOY THE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES

At the beginning of the relationship between a chela and the true guru, certain glimpses are received of how much one is capable of, how far one can go beyond the limitations one is placed in. With these glimpses, there is always a dawning of light, and that light is the hope that shines eternally in the human chest. So, when a person develops this longing and feels at times a total mergence with any object – not necessarily a guru – if one just lets go, one will experience far greater bliss and a far greater one-ness, although to say a far greater one-ness is a contradiction of terms.

We contradict these terms simply because an analysis is taking place here. We are analysing the feeling that one has experienced. Mental analysis of the feeling that one has experienced is always a post-mortem, and such post-mortems can become very, very limiting. Therefore, the next time the feeling wells up again, you are reminded of the post-mortem more than of the experience. If you have enjoyed a certain dish of strawberries and ice cream, fine, you love strawberries and ice cream. When that is served to you as dessert, your mind will immediately associate it with the previous experience of the taste of strawberries and ice cream. In that case, your very experience of the moment of eating the strawberry and ice cream would be limiting, because you are comparing an experience that wells from deep within with the thought processes of your own mind.

If we could live a life where every moment seems new, and it is the first time you are seeing that bowl of strawberries and ice cream, how much enjoyment there would be, because it would be devoid of all association of ideas. The first dish of strawberries you had might have been very sweet. The second lot of strawberries might not be so sweet. So a conflict will arise, and that conflict will hold you back from fully appreciating the value of strawberries. Then you will say that “Oh, strawberries are sometimes sweet and sometimes sour”. If you had not known the sweet strawberries, you would enjoy the sour strawberries now, because you would think that it is the inherent nature of that strawberry to have that bit of sourness in it. There are people who enjoy sourness more than sweetness. It is just a matter of taste!

Likewise, when it comes to spiritual experiences, one should simply enjoy them. Enjoy them and do not analyse them later. By analysing, to repeat, we are limiting them. Under these limitations, expectations are bred, so the next time you have a similar experience, you will expect it to be of equal stature or even greater, and, with his inherent greed, man will want more. Then you feel disappointed, then you feel cut off, then you feel that why can this not be a continuing, permanent experience?

AS SOON AS THE MIND STARTS ANALYISING THE EXPERIENCE, THE VALUE OF THE EXPERIENCE IS LOST

As we have said so many times before, the mind comes between reality and your real self. What has recognised the experience? Has the experience experienced itself? Or has the mind experienced it? That is the question. For any experience to be translated through the mind, you would not get the full impact of the experience, because it is being filtered through the mind, and the mind is not pure or clean enough to give it, or put it through, the total impact of the light that is supposed to shine through it. And this is, of course, the limitation.

When a person experiences something for its own sake, there is no experiencer. There is only the experience. And who enjoys the experience? The experience enjoys itself. This is very difficult to understand with the mind. But it could be very well understood if one has experienced it.

So, to repeat, the limiting factor is the mind, because it tries to analyse. As soon as it starts analysing the experience, most of the value of the experience is lost. It is lost because the mind refuses to surrender to the experience. The mind is nothing but one’s ego self. The totality of one’s mind is the totality of all the impressions gained through various lifetimes. That is the mind, and the mind is the personality of the person, and the personality of the person is his or her ego self.

So here you find the ego self, with the analysis cropping up, forever associating itself with other experiences, forever whirling around within itself. The mind is capable of very few limited things. The one thing it is capable of is whirling thoughts. It just whirls and whirls and whirls.

Everyone here has experienced this: a thought arises in the morning and keeps circling in the mind all day long. What does the mind achieve through this? Nothing at all. It is as though the mind is caught in a whirlpool, and so it continues to spin.

WITHOUT FAIL, THE MIND SUCCEEDS IN ASSOCIATING IDEAS ALL THE TIME

The other thing the mind is capable of doing is the association of ideas, and you will be surprised how it runs away with you, so that you will start thinking of one object and end up somewhere far away. You will start thinking of an apple. From the apple, you start thinking of the colour, then that colour, the redness of the apple, will start making you think of the red dress you bought, and then that red dress you bought will start making you think of the shop assistant who served you. She was nasty. And then that nastiness would be associated with the hurried kiss your husband gave you, and he just ran off to his bus, and then from there you will start thinking of buses. “Why must I travel by bus? My husband should buy me a car.” And once you start thinking of the car, you start thinking, “Now, what kind of car? Look, a Dodge is no good because Mrs Jones next door has a Cadillac.” You see how the mind works? From the apple, you have reached a Cadillac. And that is what the mind succeeds in doing all the time, without fail: wasting time.

USING THE OUTER TO REACH THE INNER

That is what the mind does. So you can see how limited man’s mind is. Man’s mind, or the ego self of man, keeps one away from one’s reality. When one has this experience of being drawn to an object, say to a guru in this case, so deeply drawn, you are not drawing yourself out of yourself, but you are drawing yourself deeper within yourself, by using the outer object. It is like a child who learns addition and has the little addition thing with the marbles on it. What do they call that? Abacus. So it uses an outer object to count, but the counting goes within himself. The abacus is only the outer object. Likewise, when you feel so closely drawn to the object of one’s adoration or love, or whatever the case might be, one is in reality going deep within one’s self, because you can only express that which is within you. You cannot express any more and neither any less. So the love a man feels for his wife, or the love the wife feels for the husband, is just an expression of how much there is within that person himself, and that person uses the wife or the husband as the object to express that which is within oneself.

This applies not only to love but also to hate, and to every positive or negative emotion one has. There, too, one is limited by the mind. There are moments when the husband could feel so tender towards his wife, and yet a thought crops up in the midst of this beautiful tenderness, a thought about something at the office. How discordant it could become. It only shows that the tenderness had been on a very superficial level. There had been some tenderness, yes, but only on a superficial level, because if it were at a far deeper level, all the thoughts of the office, the work, the business, whatever case might be, or the car that has to go for service would never crop up. You would be totally lost in tenderness, not because of the wife, and not because of yourself, but because of tenderness itself. You are not there, the wife is not there, only tenderness remains, only that love remains.

IN THE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE, FLOW WITH THE CURRENT

Likewise, in the spiritual experience, when the person is so drawn, he should just let go. Let things happen as they would, and stop trying to save oneself from the experience. You are actually missing a wonderful opportunity to experience your real self. Holding on, the horse is running so beautifully, what a lovely run, trotting down the road, and you are pulling the reins so abruptly. That must be avoided. That must be avoided at all costs. Go with the experience, flow with the tide. Flow with the current. And that current is very, very sweet. It is very sweet. And it multiplies. As it flows, greater and greater momentum is gained, until the river merges completely into the ocean.

It is like the example Ramakrishna gives of the salt doll that dives into the ocean and melts away. Where is the doll? It has merged into the waters of the ocean. That is the experience one has to have, and you can only gain that experience if you lose the ego, if you stop clinging to the little self, which seems so important. Why is the little self so important? Why, why? Because you have lived so many lives, and you have identified yourself not with reality but with unreality, and that which is unreal has become real to you. So nobody wants to be devoid of reality. Everybody wants to be real, but what they have taken to be real is unreal. And so the ego, which is just a mass, a concoction of various impressions that have been gained, has become so real to us that we cling to it.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1978 – 07

The post Let go and flow: The Journey from Ego to Self appeared first on FISU Meditation.

THE INWARD PRACTISE OF MEDITATION MUST BE RELATED TO PRACTICAL LIVING

The purpose of meditation is to bring about self-integration in man. By self-integration, we mean that the three aspects of man, the mind, body and spirit, should become and function as a unit. Meditation helps to bring about this state of being, which is very important and very strengthening. The integration produces harmony in man and helps a person function as a total human being. Most people do not function in this world in a form of totality. Every day, we see people who think one thing, do another thing, and of course, their words would also take the form of something else. That is not functioning in harmony.

To produce this state of harmony, we find meditational techniques to be beneficial, where, by repeating again, man functions as a total whole, which is the purpose of meditation. Meditation can be very useful to us in forming this harmony within ourselves, but that harmony that is within also has to be interpreted without in our actions in the waking state of life.

Though meditation is an effortless practice, the waking state of life requires some effort to bring about and interpret the harmony within our relationships with people and the environment, and to do so consciously. So, meditation and the effort in the waking state of life should go hand in hand. The analogy I would like to use would be of a person who is addicted to drinking. He can meditate as much as he likes, which will give him some strength, it will produce some harmony in him, but if he does not try to make that little effort of trying to push the bottle a bit further away every time, then he will never be able to experience the sense of sobriety that he requires.

So, the inward practice of meditation must be related to practical living; therefore, we find in all our scriptures the dos and don’ts of a practical life. If we take philosophy at its own value, it could very well result in mere mental gymnastics, in which a person operates only on the mental level. But functioning on the mind level only and using what the mind tells us is right, in that coordinated state produced by meditation, this too requires a conscious effort in daily life. So, to make meditation really worthwhile and to give it its fullest value, we also have to improve our daily living with a little effort; in other words, look forward to betterment rather than relying solely on meditative practices.

The same thing would apply in many forms of prayer that most religions advocate. It is no good going to church on Sundays and praying, and then throughout the week, everything which we have prayed for or the worship we have done is entirely forgotten, and our lives are entirely contrary to that which we have prayed for. This would mean that we have been insincere to ourselves. We have been dishonest with ourselves. That is what it would mean.

Through meditational practices, we activate the subtle powers of the mind

Any person wanting to learn to meditate using a proper technique, given to him individually, must first have the sincerity and yearning for self-betterment. That is why he wants to meditate. Many people want to meditate to correct the weaknesses they might face in life and gain strength to replace them, as light replaces darkness. But to find the light, we still have to make the conscious effort to switch it on. So, meditation is an internal process which will give you the strength to extend your arm to switch on the light and thereby banish the darkness. So, both meditation and a practical, lived philosophy would be the ideal ways to make some progress in life and find that integration.

That self-integration is self-realisation. Self-realisation could be termed God-realisation. These are various labels only, labels which would define the ideal state of the totality of man. All problems in life stem from the three aspects of man not functioning harmoniously. There are certain vibrational set-ups in our systems. We do know that the whole universe is composed of nothing but vibrations, and vibrations can exist in a subtle form or a grosser form, such as vapour. The subtle vapour could be solidified into ice, which is a grosser form of the same substance, wherein H2O, the constant factor, remains the same. So, the body could be compared to the block of ice, which is the gross form and the subtler form of the body of matter, which composes the body, is the mind. So here, we would say that the difference between mind and body is just a matter of the degree of solidification of matter. So, mind and body are both composed of matter, one in a grosser form, the other in subtler form.

Through meditational practices, we can dive deeper within the subtler forms of ourselves, which we term the mind. What is the mind? What is the extent of the mind? I would say the extent of the mind is the extent of the entire universe. Where is the mind located? I am sure one could not say that it is located in the brain or in one’s big toe. It encompasses our entirety, and being of a more subtle nature, it has far greater power than any form which is more gross. So it is through these meditational practices that we can activate the subtlety, the subtle powers of the mind and dive deeper within ourselves so that the subtle powers that are resident in the mind can be brought out into the grosser form of life and thereby make the grosser form of life more dynamic, more vital, more powerful, more harmonious and that would be called living instead of existing.

MEDITATION AND THE ART OF DAILY LIVING ARE PART AND PARCEL OF EACH OTHER

So, we do not stop only where the mind stops, but we go still further in ourselves, through meditational practices, to a state beyond the mind. And beyond the mind lies the reservoir of that infinite energy that could be brought through the medium of the subtle mind to the grosser level of the body, whereby the three factors could operate, as I would say again and repeat over and over again, as a totality. To really experience this totality, one can never divorce the practical living and action of life from meditation because, in the ideal state of life, one should be meditating or be in a state of meditation twenty-four hours a day. We practice meditation for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening; that is just a start towards this totality and the experiences. The glimpses we have in that silent state of the mind and body will make us realise from a far deeper level within ourselves that there is something far greater than just that which we know to be the body or the mind, and which is expressed by the five gross physical senses, hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, and touching. Yet there is a greater coordinating factor behind all these senses of ours, and that coordination must be brought to the level of the body so that it can express itself more fully in action.

We draw upon this coordinating factor through meditation. Through a certain system that every individual can use, specific to each, because one starts from where one is. If a child is in standard six, we do not give the child standard ten lessons. And if a child is in standard ten, we do not give them MA lessons. We start a person from where they are, according to their spiritual state and state of evolution, and from there we proceed. In other words, we start from where we are. Man is inherently Divine, and it is the duty, the dharma of man to express that Divinity in all his actions. Therefore, meditation and the art of living, daily living, are part and parcel of each other.

OUR MEDITATIONAL PRACTICES AIM AT KNOWINGNESS BEYOND BELIEF AND FAITH

Our meditational systems follow a scientific pattern of dwelling deeply in our minds and do not require any particular belief. We do say that if you are a Christian, by diving deep within yourself and finding the Kingdom of Heaven within, you will become a better Christian. If you are a Buddhist, you can become a better Buddhist. So, we do not condemn any path but rather embrace all paths that are in this world. There is no particular philosophy to follow because, as you go deeper and deeper into your meditations, you, yourself, feeling the beauty that lies within you, will come to realisations on your own accord. And when you find the realisations coming to you day by day, more and more you will find the path, the theory and the philosophy which will be most conducive to you, and that is where you start. So, we do not advocate following any particular philosophy. As a matter of fact, belief in something can be blind, and we prefer reasonable beliefs. There are many theologies that teach certain beliefs people are supposed to follow blindly. What I would say, believe by all means, but let it also be pleasing to your mind, and when a belief is pleasing to your mind, you will make faster progress.

Belief itself is not enough; belief can lead to faith, and faith, of course, leads to knowingness, and that is what we want. Our meditational practices are aimed at knowingness, which goes beyond belief and faith. I have used an analogy that if we sit in an air-conditioned room, we believe that the fire in the room next door is hot. We believe that it is hot. But as we approach, go out the door into the next room, and get nearer, we start to have faith because we feel the heat. It means that from belief we have progressed to faith, but it is when we jump into the fire that we know what fire is. In this case, the fire is not necessarily the fire that will burn you physically, but the fire of the spirit, which is resident within us. And as we are shown the way, the technique of how to dive deep within us into that spiritual fire, into that spiritual light that is forever burning within us, as we dive into that, you will find very, very automatically and spontaneously, the karmic values that are attached to us will burn away. The negativity that is born of weakness will burn away, and then, when that burns away, we shine as the eternal fire that is within us. And that eternal fire in turn shines so brightly through our minds and through our bodies so that we live again as the integrated human being that not only meditates but puts the value of meditation into practical living. Therefore, we dive within ourselves, and that is the purpose.

THE PATTERN OF OUR MIND TODAY IS THE SUM TOTALITY OF ALL OUR PAST EXISTENCES

The inherent nature of man is divine, and the qualities, the attributes of Divinity, are joy and bliss, and it is everyone’s right to enjoy the joy and the bliss. We enjoy the joy. That is our inherent right. Man need not suffer at all. Man suffers because the animal that is within us, the cunning little mind, is the cause of suffering. So, we find the ability to go beyond the mind and draw from that light, that fire, to burn up the conditionings of the mind. In other words, our mode of thinking gets re-patterned. We do not need to go to the supermarket to buy a new mind. No. We use our own minds, but through meditational practices, we remodel the mind, we re-pattern the mind, because man is a creature of habit. Man is a creature of habit, and this mode of thinking, positively or negatively, is also created by habit, and this is not necessarily done in one lifetime only. It might extend further back into previous lifetimes for those who believe there were.

So, the pattern of our mind today is the sum totality of all of our past lives and perhaps all past existences. So, we are the sum total of the conditioned or patterned mind. If it is conditioned, we uncondition it to its primal simplicity. Does the Bible not say that “We have to become childlike, to reach the Kingdom of Heaven”? Yes, and that is what we mean by simplicity. All complexities are produced by the mind. So, we repattern the mind to its primal simplicity, thereby enabling us to enjoy the joy. We say that it is so simple to be happy, but so difficult to be simple.

THROUGH MEDITATION ONE CAN EXPERIETIALLY COGNIZE THE DORMANT LEVELS OF THE MIND

All of you know that the human being only uses ten per cent of his mind, which we call the conscious mind, and ninety per cent of the mind is lying dormant. Through meditational practices, we dive deeply within the ninety per cent of the mind that is dormant. That percentage of the mind which is beyond the conscious mind, and which is dormant, cannot be intellectually cognised by the ten per cent. In other words, we do not have the tools. Our reception apparatus, our radios, are too weak to be able to tune in to that transmitter, which, to the conscious mind, to the ten per cent mind, is supposedly dormant.

Really speaking, that ninety per cent which to us seems dormant is more powerful, but because we are only able to function with the limited, finite mind, we cannot intellectually comprehend that which is infinite.

Through experience, through feeling, for example, one can cognise experientially other levels of the mind, the so-called dormant levels of the mind and even that which is beyond. So basically, a self-realised man functions not from the 10% conscious mind, but from the heart level.

OUR PRACTICES GRADUALLY BROADEN THE AWARENESS OF THE MIND AND EXPAND THE HEART

Many of our meditators will verify that our practices not only broaden the awareness of our minds, but also gradually lead them from the ten per cent to fifteen per cent and to twenty per cent. It not only broadens the awareness of the mind, of the consciousness as you would put it, but it also expands the heart, and when the heart expands, the power and the force of that which the ten per cent conscious mind cannot comprehend can be felt. It experiences.

It is like another analogy, which is the analogy of sugar. We can take sugar to the Oxford University laboratory, have it broken down, and find out all its chemical components and what constitutes sugar; we can know all about sugar, but we cannot analyse its taste. We got to taste the sweetness. We got to experience the sweetness. At universities, we learn about things but not what a thing is. The purpose of gurus is to show the path, show the way whereby you actually experience that which is within. So, the cognition of our higher self is normally on the experiential level. Yet one thing happens, that with the expansion of awareness, the experience can be appreciated more.

We look at this flower now, and after a few months of meditation, we will look at the same flower, but we will find greater beauty in the flower. We will feel its very pulse. We will be able to identify ourselves with the very flower. That is possible on the experiential level, and that is the purpose of life because if we regard that Divinity or the Infinity or the God, whichever label you want to name it, if we regard that to be omnipresent, present everywhere, then if we through meditation find the presence within us, then we will find that presence within others and therefore the meditation becomes practical in daily living.

BY FINDING SELF-INTEGRATION WITHIN OURSELVES, WE FIND THE WHOLENESS IN ALL AND EVERYTHING

So, one forms an identification. One identifies with oneself through the integration that has taken place, and because of that integration, cognition and recognition, we very, very spontaneously find the Divinity in all that surrounds us, all the time, in the meanest creature that crawls on the floor to the highest evolved man, because then we do not see surface value. Because we have found the ability to find our inner depths, we can see the inner depth of others, and at that subtle, fine level, there would be the identification of all existence. And then it becomes possible to experience eternity in a moment.

When we go beyond all laws of duality, the you and I, me and mine, that all disappears, and it all becomes one complete whole. So, by finding at first the wholeness, the self-integration within us, we find the wholeness within our environment. We find the wholeness within our city, within our country, within the world and then within the entire universe. And then we can say, “Ah, I hold the universe in the palm of my hand.” Yes. Yes. Yes. Because then, you are the universe and the universe is you. And this is what is meant by Christ when he said, “I and my Father are one.” This is what is meant. And then we experience that beautiful oneness, and when oneness is experienced by man, all conflicts cease.

IF THE GOAL IS JOY, THE PATH TO JOYOUSNESS SHOULD BE JOYFUL TOO

Conflicts are only created by duality when man separates himself from man. When there is a subject and an object, there is friction; but when the subject and the object merge into each other, there is no friction, and while we are still embodied beings, our personal lives assume a greater beauty, a greater light. There is another good analogy. You go to a theatre, and on either side of the hall, you have two spotlights shining onto the stage, and spotlights on their own have their amounts of light, we could call them the absolute and the relative, but when the spotlights are brought together and when they converge, that light is so much brighter. So, by meditation, we are actually combining the Absolute with the relative. Then we are living the Absolute in the relative, because there is no separation from the relative to the Absolute.

Therefore, when a philosopher says that “I exist therefore God exists, and God exists therefore I exist”, this is what is meant, the total identification between the relative and the absolute. It is cognised by experience, and that experience is translated into daily living by the expansion of the heart, where you can truly know the meaning of love. Then you not only know love, but you live love, become love, and then flow. And what a beautiful flowing where all is just one, where you and I are one, everything existent is one, all conflicts cease, and then there is joy. And the path to that goal must be joyous too. If the goal is joy, the path to joyousness should be joyful too, and we have it within ourselves. It is not beyond ourselves. It is there, it is just to be accepted and practised. Not accepted blindly with blind belief but by reasonable belief, and the practice of it produces the faith in us and further practice as we get stabilised and established in the practice, then we know, then we speak from a knowing level.

THE MIND CANNOT TELL US MUCH ABOUT THAT WHICH IS BEYOND, BUT WE CAN EXPERIENCE IT

Therefore, I said that you, who are students here at Oxford and have studied psychology and philosophy so much and in such greater detail, would know more about it, but now we try to live it. We try to know what it is and how much more joyful life becomes when conflict ceases. But of course, every Institution, every teaching serves a wonderful purpose because when we know about things, all our energies can be directed towards knowing what it is. We study the components of sugar, and those studies make us want to taste it. So, students here at Oxford are very, very well equipped to really want to experience that level of being that is within us. They are very well equipped because they have the basic knowledge about the thing, and now we want to know what it really is, and that is the goal of life. And that is the inherent right of every man, every woman, every child, and it is so simple. So, so simple. It is actually beautiful, so beautiful in its simplicity, beyond words, beyond description.

So, the mind cannot really tell us very much about it. We can only infer to that which is beyond us, but we can experience that which is beyond us and make it us, in real, practical living and loving.

EXPERIENCE IN THE TRANSCENDENT STATE OF MEDITATION WILL BE IN THE FORM OF JOY AND LOVE

In meditation, one gets glimpses of a greater peace that happens within us. We know that practising meditation lowers the metabolic rate, which shows how the organs and muscles of the body can relax, and the mind follows suit. And how, by using the practices, one does even go beyond that, even body consciousness is lost, and how it does help us physiologically, psychologically, biologically and in all these various spheres, one’s bodies and minds become better. And, because of finding that stillness within ourselves, many psychosomatic diseases could be eased, could be alleviated, could be banished from ourselves because of the strength produced in the mind. Yes, these things happen, and doctors would tell you that ninety per cent of beds in the hospital are not really of organic diseases, but the origin is more of the mind; they are called psychosomatic diseases. I am not well-versed in these scientific terms, but we do know that the basis of most diseases lies in the mind. If that mind could be brought to a tranquil state through meditation, it definitely would influence our whole physical being and our mental being and make us live a more fulfilled life in the action of daily living.

The actual experience of sweetness in the transcendent state of meditation cannot really be explained by my 10% conscious mind. It can be experienced, and that joy and that bliss are indescribable. It is a state beyond mind and body, where the light shines on its own; it is self-luminescent, without any electricity or gas from the mind and body. It is self-luminescent, and it is such a bliss on its own. Therefore, we normally call it indescribable, inexplicable, but it is experiential. It defies all verbal explanations or all intellectual analysis, but it can be experienced, and the experience would be in the form of joy and love.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1976 – 09

The post Meditation and the Art of Living: The Harmony of Mind, Body, and Spirit appeared first on FISU Meditation.

CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH WAKING, DREAMING, AND SLEEP

We experience four states of consciousness: the sleeping, the waking, the dreaming, and the fourth one is the turiya state. That is a Sanskrit term beyond the three we know of.

When a person falls asleep, the question is, does consciousness continue? And if consciousness does continue, why are we not aware of the consciousness that is continuing? So, to know whether it is continuing or not, we have to know what consciousness is.

Consciousness is one’s spiritual self. That is pure consciousness that requires no support whatsoever from anything exterior to itself. So, that pure consciousness is a faculty, if you would like to use that word, that experiences itself, by itself, for itself. In other words, pure consciousness IS.

In the waking state of life, the consciousness that we experience is the consciousness, or the glimmer of consciousness, or the reflection of the consciousness that is put through the filter of our waking mind. So, the quality of the consciousness that filters through our waking mind depends upon the quality of our waking consciousness. If you take a piece of crystal and you put a red flower behind the crystal, then the crystal will appear red to you. Meanwhile, it is pure white and colourless. If you put a yellow flower, then the crystal will seem yellow to you, and if you put a green flower, it will seem green to you.

So, the consciousness that we are aware of is a filtered consciousness, and not necessarily the pure consciousness.

When a person goes to sleep, the continuity is there, but not that of waking consciousness. The continuity of pure consciousness is there. In the waking state we have what is called the conscious mind, that is the ten percent of the mind we have spoken about, then we have ninety percent of the dormant mind, so-called dormant, it is really not dormant, but so-called dormant, because the conscious ten percent of the mind is not aware of the ninety percent of the subconscious which operates on a totally different level. It operates on a much subtler level, and because it operates on a much subtler level, the ten per cent of conscious, waking consciousness have little cognition of it. When we refine the value of the waking consciousness through meditational practices, we can allow the subtler level of the mind, the subconscious mind, to filter through.

DREAMS AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

It is a bit technical, so let us repeat this again. In the waking state, the pure consciousness filters through the waking consciousness. In the sleep state, pure consciousness exists. But if the sleep is deep, then whatever has happened in the subconscious mind is not remembered when we awake. Although they do not remember their dreams, every person is still dreaming or experiencing something in the subconscious. The conscious mind, being of a more grosser matter, or grosser substance, during sleep cannot capture the pure consciousness that is forever shining, and which preserves the continuity in our life through the various facets of waking, sleeping, and dreaming.

In a dream, the conscious mind being dead for the moment, to use that term, and the subconscious being awake, the subconscious mind is stirred by the continuing principle of pure consciousness. In one instance, a dream is an association of ideas. Something that happens during the daytime leaves a deep impression on the mind, and because of this impression on the conscious mind, it has a certain effect on the subconscious mind. When the conscious mind is put to rest, the power of pure consciousness lightens the area of the subconscious that is deeply impressed by the happenings of the day. And we relive the happenings of the day, and not only relive it, but we also associate that impression upon the subconscious with various other impressions that are allied to it. That is one kind of dream.

Then you have another kind of dream, where, with the power, the light of the pure consciousness, certain happenings which might have happened in this lifetime, in a previous lifetime, or in a lifetime before that, depending very much upon how deep that impression is, can be illuminated, and we experience a dream that has nothing to do with present-day reality. So, if we remember this dream on waking up, we find that, “What is this dream all about? I know nothing of this. I dream of a giraffe, and yet I have not seen one. I dream of a rhinoceros, and I have not seen a rhinoceros in this life. Where does this come about from?” So here, the theory would be that you have seen a giraffe and a rhinoceros in a previous life. Perhaps you were being chased by a rhinoceros. The memory of being chased by the rhinoceros can be interpreted in the subconscious entirely differently, because what remains most is the fear that was created in the chase when you were out in the fields, and this big thing was chasing you with its big horn. And your mind was filled with fear. So, you can have this dream as a dream of the experience, relive the experience, which forms a certain kind of dream.

Now, we come to the third kind of dream, in which the impression of the rhinoceros chasing you creates a terrible fear, and you are in flight. You are running away from that animal that is chasing you. This is deeply ingrained as fear. This could have happened in a previous lifetime. But because the mind is so patterned to associate ideas, that very fear that was caused can be translated into something that has happened in this life.

For example, you might have a husband who is a bully. Or you might have a domineering wife. Or you might have a boss under whom you are having a terrible time, but you have to feed your family, so you need the job. So that very fear of being chased by the rhinoceros can be transferred in your dream as that bullying boss, and he is forever chasing you to do your work, and you are fleeing. Most of the time, with such a dream, you will find that that man, as far as he can help it, is always trying to avoid his boss. So, things from a past life, too, can be associated with things happening in the present life, because it is we who divide these little lives, and yet it is just one big home.

DREAMS HELP RELEASE INNER IMPRESSIONS OR SAMSKARAS

The entire creation, the entire process of evolution, is just one big home we are living in. Now we are in the living room, and we are just about to go into the bedroom. Another life, another set of circumstances, other kinds of furniture. Then from the bedroom, we might go to the adjoining bathroom. Another lifetime. But all these lifetimes that we have lived form this one whole. And because it forms this one complete whole, each and every lifetime is connected to and interdependent with the others. And that is why I have said in one of these talks that we are the sum totality of what we have been in past lives.

I have also said that we have a memory box that contains the memories of all these past lifetimes. And when we have a dream of a very peculiar circumstance (a peculiar circumstance can be pleasant), then we say it was an enjoyable dream. Then we might have a peculiar circumstance that was frightening and unpleasant. We call it a nightmare. And these dreams are very, very important to us. They are very important, and psychologists will tell you they serve as a release mechanism. It helps us.

Because of all the samskaras or the impressions that are imprinted or implanted within us, they could drive us insane if they are brought to the fore. It could drive us totally insane. Through experimentation, we have also found, and this you would read in some books, that if we deprive a man of sleep for a certain period of time, we can drive him mad. The reason is not a lack of sleep; the real reason is that during sleep, he has a way of releasing all those pent-up karmas and samskaras that require release. And when we stop releasing those samskaras, we start stagnating, and when the subconscious mind stagnates, it has an adverse effect on the conscious mind, leading it to an imbalance that lands a person in the sanatorium.

LIKE WITH MEDITATION AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, DREAMS ALSO ERASE SAMSKARAS

You have people going about interpreting dreams. You go to a bookshop and titles like, “How To Interpret Your Dream.” Never buy such a book. If you want to spend a dollar or two, and if you have the dollar or two to spend, do not spend it buying such a book. But as you come out, if you see a poor box, put it in there. You will be doing some service. These dreams tell you that if you dream of water, you are going on a voyage. If you dream of death, then such and such. If you dream of a flower, then this and this will happen. This is not true. This is not true at all. It is not true.

Dreams can be interpreted by a person who not only has a knowledge of human psychology but also has an intuitive understanding. He can really interpret dreams, whether pleasant or nightmares. Both are important. Both nightmares and pleasant dreams are important as release mechanisms, and that is how we shed some of the heaviness that has accumulated in the form of samskaras in our minds or perhaps in our chakric system. So, whenever you have a nightmare, and you wake up in the morning remembering the nightmare, feel very happy about it, because you have got rid of a certain kind of fear that was there in the subconscious mind. And the constant factor, the pure consciousness, shed light upon it so that it was brought out. Many people feel very depressed when they have a nightmare. That should be a chance to feel happy: here, in one block, one kind of fear has now been worked out and dissipated.

So, dreams play a very important part in the life of man, because the whole process of evolution is not to accumulate more samskaras. We are trying to find Divinity, or to merge in Divinity, so we have to erase the samskaras. The way to erase samskaras consciously is through meditation and spiritual practices. And the other way that erases samskaras is this very natural, normal process of dreaming.

SAMSKARAS HAVE THE TENDENCY OF BEING SELF-ANNIHILATING

You have psychologists like Freud who would tell you that a dream is an expression of a suppressed desire. That is partly true: you have a desire, you suppress it, and in some form or another, it expresses itself in the fantasy world of the dream that takes place in the subconscious. But this is only partly true, because the desires which Freud talks about are desires of here and now in this lifetime. But many dreams have nothing to do with this lifetime. It goes back into previous lifetimes.

Samskaras have one tendency for which man should be thankful. He is blessed by the tendency that samskaras have, and the tendency that samskaras have is self-annihilation. That is the tendency. The subconscious mind of man is in a turbulent state all the time, and having this inbuilt or inborn tendency, it wants to quieten itself; it wants to rid itself of the turbulence and find tranquillity.

BECAUSE OF THE INHERENT BLISS AND JOY, WE ARE FOREVER BEING PUSHED FORWARD

So, we have the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and the superconscious mind, which is pure consciousness. So, the more tranquil the middle mind, or the subconscious mind, is, the superconscious mind has a direct line, a hot line, to the conscious mind whereby consciously we could experience more and more joy, more and more happiness, because the nature of the superconscious mind is joy and bliss and happiness. And it is because of that nature, because of the inherent joy and bliss that is there, that we are forever pushed onward.

Often, a person has a so-called ‘nasty’ experience that he dislikes. But if you look deeper into that experience, if you unfathom the real meaning of that nasty experience, that adverse experience, you will find that it is a blessing. Here, some of the accumulated samskaras have been pushed out by the power of the joy and the bliss that is within us, and the joy and the bliss forever want to express themselves. The seed forever wants to express itself in the form of a flower. I am sure you know what happens when you plant the seed in the ground. The seed has to explode, it has to burst, before the energies that are in the seed can be released so that it can bloom into a flower. Likewise, when the superconscious mind, which is forever working, is given greater momentum or the passage is opened up for it, it pushes aside all those negative karmas that have been accumulated.

THE SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS IS FOREVER TRYING TO THROW OFF NEGATIVE SAMSKARAS

If we live without any higher ideals, or if we do not practice some form of spiritual practice, then pushing aside those negative samskaras could become hurtful, could be adverse to our way of life. But if we do some form of spiritual practice, even if not only meditation. That is not the only way. There are other ways: going to church, certain kinds of prayers, studying the scriptures, attuning one’s mind to the Divine mind, many ways. There are many practices. When we practice that and hear the rushing on of that Superconsciousness, which is forever going on, pushing aside and trying to throw off the negative samskaras. That is an automatic, spontaneous happening within us. It is the inherent nature man has. So, through spiritual practices, those negative samskaras that are pushed aside dissolve, and the Grace they attract prevents the full impact from being felt.

RUBBING OUT OF SAMSKARAS REQUIRES SOME EFFORT

Sometimes you would find a very rare man who never dreams. He never dreams because it is not a matter of not remembering the dream; he never dreams because his subconscious mind is tranquil, with the minimum of turbulence there, or perhaps none. All the samskaras have been wiped off. The sheet is clean. They have all been rubbed out. Rubbing out the samskaras requires some effort. If you write on a piece of paper, a single swipe with the rubber is not enough. You have got to rub, really rub. And that rubbing could be abrasive, and we think it is hurting, but it is very beneficial. So, every experience that man goes through, that experience he has brought upon himself, and he is responsible for it. So, this responsibility and this rubbing out of samskaras are going on not only in the waking state of life, but also in the sleep state.

THE DREAMER WATCHING THE DREAM

What happens when you witness your dream? A person can dream in black and white, and he can dream in Technicolour. It is quite common to dream in Technicolour. When you are aware that you are watching your dream, it means you are having a double dream happening simultaneously. It is a double dream. The subconscious mind is re-experiencing or throwing out certain samskaras. The conscious mind is not totally asleep. The conscious mind has a certain element of wakefulness, which is a state of stupor, not sleep. And that state of stupor we can call a dreamlike state. So, the conscious mind, not in total sleep but in a state of stupor, can observe what the subconscious mind is doing. And that is why sometimes we experience our dreams.

There is no great benefit to that, because many times when we wake up from such a dream, when we are actually watching our dream, then we normally wake up in a very lethargic state rather than in an invigorated state, because the conscious mind has not had proper rest. It went into a kind of stupor, which is not real sleep, and that is why we can watch the subconscious mind at work.

SARVIKALPA SAMADHI – MEDITATION WITH FORM AND NAME, ACTION AND REACTION

Sometimes, during meditation, when we reach a certain level, we can bring the conscious mind not to a state of stupor but to a state of heightened alertness. And in that alertness, we can stand apart and see all the happenings, all the samskaras, tossing and turning around, jumping and flying and somersaulting in the subconscious mind. When we can watch that with alertness in the meditative state, then the very power released by the conscious mind, by the alertness, overrides that turbulence, and it has a two-way action. The conscious mind is alert. It is in a deep state of rest but is alert. And in that alertness, it forms a combination on the other end with the superconscious mind. So here you have a connecting link with the superconscious mind and the conscious mind. You have built a bridge. And because of the alertness and the power of the superconscious mind, you can stand on this bridge and watch all the meanderings and all the nonsense of the subconscious mind.

When you develop this ability to watch what is happening in the subconscious mind, you are rubbing it out, quieting it, and annihilating all those samskaras that are so negative and trouble-making. That is called Savikalpa Samadhi. Savikalpa Samadhi is a Sanskrit term that means you are conscious of the happenings in the subconscious mind. That is one of the stages of reaching pure consciousness. Here, it is Savikalpa Samadhi, because the conscious mind, in its alertness, has joined the superconscious by crossing the ocean of the subconscious, and because it is alert and empowered by the superconscious, you are aware of name and form and all kinds of happenings. So Savikalpa Samadhi means you are in a state of meditation that includes form, name, action, and reaction. You are aware simultaneously of cause and effect. That is one state of samadhi, one state of the supreme form of meditation.

NIRVIKALPA SAMADHI – MEDITATION WITH NO NAME AND NO FORM, NO CAUSE AND NO EFFECT

When we pass that stage of Savikalpa Samadhi and have brought about total tranquillity in the subconscious mind, then, because of the total tranquillity in the subconscious mind, the superconscious mind gathers within its folds the total subconscious and the conscious mind, and the three combine to give you the experience of Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

That is the samadhi that contains no name and no form, no cause and no effect, and that is the highest state that any yogi, any aspirant, can reach. It is a state of total nothingness. And yet that nothingness is the everything of the entire existence, and it is experienced as intense ecstasy and bliss, which is never definable by human language. It is beyond language, where the conscious and the subconscious and the superconscious just become one, because there is no turbulence left, and you are only alert within yourself of this joy, this bliss, which is self-existent – that requires no outside electricity. It burns; it shines on its own.

THE PROGRAM IS TO ALLOW THE SUPERCONSCIOUS STATE TO PERMEATE THE SUBCONSCIOUS AND THE CONSCIOUS MIND

So, these are the three divisions of the mind from a certain aspect. The program is to allow the superconscious state to permeate the subconscious and the conscious mind. And the only way to make it permeate the subconscious first, being more subtle, is to bring the subconscious to a tranquil state, and when that is brought to a tranquil state and because there are none left, it cannot send any of the samskaras to the conscious mind to interpret and translate in daily living. And there are no more problems, because samskaras are problematic. So that is what is happening within us, and I do hope that science will verify it in the near future.

Science today knows very little of the human mind. They are just wetting their little toes at this vast ocean in front of them. So that is what happens in the waking state. That is what happens in the dream state. These are the causes of dreams and nightmares, pleasant dreams and unpleasant dreams. This is why we can witness a dream. These things happen.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1977 – 20

The post Why are We Dreaming? The Silent Work of Sleep appeared first on FISU Meditation.

THE PURPOSE OF EVOLUTION IS TO REACH BACK TO STILLNESS

There are no old souls, nor are there any young souls. Since the primordial Big Bang, all the particles that were shot forth have the same age. There is no old soul, and there is no young soul. The soul is not what was shot forth. A primal energy was shot forth, and the primal energy, becoming duplicated and replicated and mixing with other sub, sub, subatomic matter, assumed certain peculiarities which still exist in you today, and the purpose of this existence is to evolve not because of your so-called soul but because of the propulsion of that explosion. No wonder people explode so much nowadays.

So, because of this primal explosion and its duplication, replication, and intermixing with various factors that accompany it, individualisation began, and each, because of its various combinations, assumed different characteristics. When they assume different characteristics, they naturally seem to separate from one another. Yet there is only one primal source, but because of the mental mechanisms of Manas, Chitta, Ahankara, and Buddhi, they feel themselves to be apart from everything else.

Firstly, they came from a unified state, from that stillness, and the purpose of evolution is to return to that stillness; then one could say, “I am God, be still and know that you are God.”

THE REAL STILLNESS COMES WHEN THE SAMSKARAS ARE TUCKED AWAY, AND THE EGO IS EXPANDED

How does the mental mechanism affect the heart area? By heart, let us not confuse it with our emotions or feelings. The core of a person’s real self is the heart. That which is usually known as the heart is just emotion and feeling. I love you. From what level do I love you? I love you, or you love me, only because of an emotional feeling, or because you have found something attractive in me. He is the handsomest Guru in the World, and he talks a lot of sense, nonsense and common sense. So those feeling of your love for me stems not from your heart, the core of your personality. They stem from the emotions and feelings which are created by your mind, by the ego self within its own expectations, for the ego self can never remain without expectations. It is always expecting more and more and more, all the time.

Because the ego self is being empowered with that Divine energy, it is really searching for the Divine energy, but instead of internalising itself and going deeper to the spiritual level, which is far deeper than the soul, being empowered by it, it is always expecting more and more, and those very expectations is the mother of disappointment. So, you have an appointment with Divinity, but you miss it out of disappointment. When you are disappointed at that level, you try to find it objectively, and you lose the stillness within you all the time. You can never exist without that stillness of the mind. Thank God you sleep; there is some stillness there. Although the subconscious is working all the time, it is churning, churning, churning, swirling, swirling, swirling in its own self. But the real stillness comes when the subconscious samskaras, or impressions, or the memory box, are tucked away,, and the ego is expanded, not sublimated. Remember, you can never sublimate the ego. The word sublimation is a fallacy. You can never sublimate anything. It is just a subliminal conjecture conjured up by the thinking level of the mind.

WHEN THE MIND IS RELAXED THE HEART CONNECTS ITSELF TO THE MIND

So how do we connect the mind with the heart? The mind cannot connect with the heart until the mind relaxes, and then the heart connects with the mind. The inner core of your personality overrides your emotional self, the feeling self, the thinking self, and the intellectual self, and the heart overpowers all the workings there, so turbulent. In other words, it also means that you do not go to God. You do not go to stillness, but that stillness and God come to you. If the mind is placid enough through the expansion of the ego, so that it becomes transparent, then God comes to you; the stillness comes to you, because it is forever there. It is a matter of realisation. You are still as you are; it is just the realisation, knowing that it is there. You start off by knowing the Chitta and the Manas and the ego I, you know or rather, you think you know. There again, knowing becomes a falsity and thinking becomes a falsity. It has its value in the beginning stages, but when realisation dawns, which is a total assimilation of the stillness, where the soul finds that quietude, then that Divinity dawns upon you automatically.

WHEN A CLARITY IS BROUGHT ABOUT THROUGH OUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, YOU BECOME STILL

What is this automatic mechanism? None. There are no mechanics involved in Divinity dawning upon you and finding that stillness and elevating the soul, which is nothing else but the mind empowered by that Divine energy. So, when clarity through our Spiritual Practices is brought about, you become still. I do not know if you have noticed me – you must watch me – I go into meditation before we start our Satsangs, and of course, there is work from four in the morning until late at night, and that naturally produces tension. When I go into meditation for a minute, look at my face, and you will notice that within a few seconds, all my facial muscles will relax. Because in those few seconds, I have touched the stillness, I have let go of the mind and the soul, and I am there within the spirit, and that is what speaks to you, not my little mind or the soul or the ego-self, the Ahankara, the Chitta is gone. Therefore, as I have told you before, if you ask me half an hour later, “Guruji, what did you talk about?” I would say “I do not know.” I might have a dim little memory of it, nothing more. Because the real Self of you does not remember. The flower cannot remember the fragrance it gives off. Ask it if it does. It is the nature of the flower to give off that fragrance, and in that stillness, all is known.

“BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD,” REFERS TO EACH AND EVERYONE

There is a stanza in the Upanishad which says, “What is there which one can know by which everything else is known?” Therefore, quoting Biblical Scriptures again it says, “Man know Thyself.” Which self? Because they do not clarify. Not this body, not this mind that is not yourself, thyself is the inner Self, the Spiritual Self that enforces everything, that makes you walk and talk and breathe, in its own peculiar expression. But when you know the real Self, everything becomes unnecessary. Everything seems such an illusion, and when everything is an illusion, you do not suffer any hurts because all the hurts come from the mind and disturb the stillness. So, the soul is your own personality, your own mental make-up, which is energised with the Spiritual Self, and to be able to recognise even on the mental level, for that is where you have to start, that there is something greater than me. Then you lose the sense of me, and if you take “me”, M E, put a mirror under those words, and the reflection would be “we.” So, we are here. “We” means not just the people in this hall; by “we” I mean the entirety of existence, and when this identification occurs, the soul disappears. Then the mind merges into the heart, the core of one’s personality and what you have to do is so simple.

Your mind takes one step, and the heart takes ten steps towards you. When you open the tap – you call it a faucet, do you not – just open it a little and the water will keep on running and running and running for days and days and months and months. The reservoir is so vast and filled with water that a slight turn of the faucet keeps the water running. Likewise, when we open up just a little faucet of the mind, you will find that beautiful, exhilarating stream just gushing forth through us, and in that very gushing, refreshing stillness comes. So “Be still and know that I am God” does not refer only to our beloved Jesus. It refers to each and every one. He never spoke from the ego self as that little “i” called Jesus. He spoke as all existent humanity. So, everyone has that ability inborn.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang CAN 1985 – 07

The post Rediscovering the Source Within: Awakening to the Spiritual Self appeared first on FISU Meditation.

HOW BHAKTI AND JNANA YOGA INTERTWINE

Ramakrishna, the great master, has said that in this time and age, Bhakti yoga is more important because it implies total devotion not only to your guru but to everyone you are in contact with. The basis of bhakti yoga is to allow the heart to flow in total devotion, for if the devotion is lacking, there is no bhakti. To find true bhakti, in the first stages, requires an object of bhakti; that object can be anyone, even my picture.

So, from abstraction, you bring life to concreteness. You try to love something abstract, and you cannot do it. It is only after you reach a higher stage of evolution that you can be devoted to abstraction, but with the abstraction, you find subtraction and bhakti disappears and when bhakti disappears, your mind starts functioning in contemplation where you could analyse the reserves of your bhakti and in that analysis you will find the full force of your devotion because your devotion or bhakti is governed by thought forces in your mind. How else will you recognise bhakti if jnana yoga or the thought processes are not recognised? So, Jnana yoga forms a part of your bhakti.

As you progress in your contemplation and understanding of your bhakti, your feeling deepens, because bhakti consists of love. When that constitution is formed, bhakti and Jnana yoga, or contemplation, join hand in hand. So, you develop a feeling of love, supported by analysis of the mind, because Jnana yoga is about understanding the workings of bhakti, which is the heart. So, when this combination occurs, it is like mixing colours: you take yellow and blue, and it forms green. Look at the combination. Like oxygen and hydrogen, their combination forms water, which is different from either oxygen or hydrogen. It is a very scientific process. It is not mystical, as some people think; it is practical.

BY BECOMING A MASTER OF YOURSELF, YOU MERGE INTO DIVINITY, PURE CONSCIOUSNESS

To bring the practicality of bhakti and jnana, it must be externally expressed, and that expression comes through karma yoga. So, to repeat again, in practicality, it has to find its own physical expression, and the physical expression of karma yoga can only be through the actions of your lives. Action in life is not only physical, but the action of life originates in the thought processes of the mind, for the mind is also action; every thought you think is an action. The thought is of a subtle level, and the physical action is of a grosser level.

If you can combine the subtle level with the grosser level, what a great difference it will make to your life. So, the conclusion is that bhakti yoga, jnana yoga and karma yoga have to be combined, and when this combination comes about, then you enter the realms of a raja yoga. Raja yoga means the royal path, and when you enter this royal path, you experience the reality of life, and what is the reality of life? Can anyone tell me? The reality of life is to exist in reality. And what is reality? Reality is to be yourself. I might have said in other lectures throughout the world, be yourself. I will never tell you to be like Krishna or Buddha or Christ; be yourself, and by being yourself, you will understand your reality, and by understanding your reality, you will have formed a perfect combination of bhakti, Jnana, and karma, and have Raj Yoga. Raja yoga, raja means the king or queen, the same thing, because a king cannot exist without his queen. So, when this combination is formed, you become a king or a queen unto yourself, and a king can command, and what do you want to command? You want to command that peace and joy in your life. So simple.

So, once you become a master of yourself, you can take bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, karma yoga, and raja yoga, and then you can take out your handkerchief and blow it all away. Then you will not need the thousands and thousands of soldiers in your army, the army of your consciousness, because you can rise above petty consciousness and become pure consciousness. And by becoming pure consciousness, you have merged into this one Divinity because Divinity is nothing else but pure consciousness and that pure consciousness is within you all. It is just a bit folded, that is all. It just requires constant cognition and recognition.

UPLIFTMENT THROUGH SPIRITUAL AWARENESS AND PRACTICE

How many of you go through your day thinking of that purity within you? And that is why you suffer. You idiots. So, in every action, karma, always have a thought of Divinity in your mind and let that be the lighthouse, and the lighthouse is there because the rocks in the sea are all around, and because of the lighthouse, your ship of life does not bump against the rocks. The lighthouse has a light; switch it on so the light can burn, and your ship of life will not smash itself against the rocks. The lighthouse within you is the guiding light, so you can avoid all the rocks that could smash the ship of your life. So simple, switch on the light.

People get into many problems and troubles. Because they do not switch on the light, which is done through your spiritual practices, your life will transform. As I look at you, I can read all your problems. Why must you suffer? Be joyful like me. That is why I am with you to tell the one secret of joy, and the secrets are not private; they are open secrets. A true master opens his heart, and by opening his heart, he lets out all the love to everyone.

No one in this course can ever leave being the same person. They will always leave with some upliftment and joy; my travelling thousands of miles to come here would be useless. My duty in life is to show the way, a real way to make your lives better and happier.

The words I speak to you are not for these forty people in the hall, but they are spoken for generations and generations and generations to come. For truth is always immortal.

THE KING OF GURUS

To come back to the subject again, that you start from where you are, if you are devotionally minded, you start with bhakti yoga, if you are intellectually oriented, you start with Jnana yoga, and if you are a very practical person, you start with karma yoga, which means be good, do good. And then to repeat again, the combination of these brings you the real way of Raja Yoga.

Why do you think my guru, Swami Pavitranandaji, gave me this spiritual name of Gururaj, the king of gurus? Because after mastering the various aspects of life, he called me Gururaj, the king of gurus, and, as a personal note, my life is dedicated to the service of humanity. What do I need? One slice of bread, a cup of milk or tea, a bit of shoes to put on, perhaps, and I only put on these clothes to seem decent because I do not want to insult all these lovely ladies in the audience, because as I told you, I think, I do not know if somewhere else, I could turn up in my underpants or even totally naked, because I have got nothing to hide because what all these guys have, I also got. Oh, I like to laugh.

Do you see the point I am trying to make? It is to be totally uninhibited. As soon as you find the repressions and inhibitions, your problems start, but to be uninhibited, with no repressions, your mind becomes free.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang ES – Los Tres Yogas

The post Switch On the Light: Upliftment Through Spiritual Awareness and Practice appeared first on FISU Meditation.