LIKE THE FLOWER
There is no separation in this entire universe. Here, we are talking of our universe, for there are millions and billions of universes. Every atom is connected. You splash around here on this shore, and that effect will be felt on the other shore. Everything is connected.
When man betters himself through meditational practices, he benefits himself and all that is connected to him. It is like the flower I always talk about. It is the nature of the flower to be beautiful, but that is not the only thing the flower does, as it also enhances the garden’s beauty. That is the purpose of life. That is the service we perform for mankind: improving ourselves and becoming more integrated. Only when we are integrated can we function in totality, holistically, and as human beings.
HOW TO BE HUMAN?
I do not teach any religion. I want you to become a better Christian if you are a Christian. If you are a Hindu, become a better Hindu. If you are a Buddhist, become a better Buddhist. Theology has nothing to do with it.
What I am teaching is humanness—how to be a human. We think we are human, but we are not human, not totally human. All the lusts and greed that are awake within us are not the characteristics of humanity. From animal to man to godman, that is the path; although we use these words for explanation, all three aspects are one. In everything, the trinity is there.
When we really become human, how do we judge whether we are human or not—really human? There are specific criteria: first, how integrated we feel; second, how smooth and harmonious our lives are; and third, and most importantly, how much we can love.
Dante said, “The greater the man, the greater his love.”
Do not judge. It is better to see rather than judge. Observe how much a man or a woman can love. How deeply and selflessly can he love without dependency, without the need to love, but to love for the sake of love? For in that experience of loving for the sake of loving, you are living the living God; for that very love, selflessly poured out from you, expressed from you, like the flower expressing its fragrance, is none else but Divinity.
LOVE IS DIVINE
Love is Divine. Love is Divinity itself. For that Divinity, that neutral force is so abstract that the human mind, or the soul, could never conceive of it. It is abstract. So, we need something concrete, and in the very concreteness of daily life, we see the abstract, we perceive the abstract.
With every morsel of food you put in your mouth, you know that the Divinity in it nourishes you. With every breath you breathe, you know Divinity, through the forces of prana, gives you life force. For there is only life; there is no death. There is only life. If the Manifestor is eternal, its manifestation is immortal, too. And that which is infinite is deathless. It is beginless and endless. So, you see the capacity man has?
Within the depths of ourselves resides this Force, and this Force does not only reside in our depths, but it also resides in a grosser form in the body and the soul, but it is in a grosser form. So, suppose we allow ourselves to penetrate ourselves, dive within ourselves, bring forth greater, subtler, finer energies to ourselves, and allow it to permeate the mind and body. In that case, the mind finds greater peace, calm, and rest.
Then, the mind is not needed anymore. The mind is not required for survival. The soul is not needed for survival. It just is, for you are now beyond the mind. You are beyond the mind. You use the mind as an instrument, and when you use the mind as an instrument, you are the master of the mind, master of the soul and not a slave of it. To achieve this mastery, the easiest and the simplest way is meditation and spiritual practices designed for individual needs, for no two people are alike. Every one of us is unique. Each and everyone is at a different stage of evolution. The guru would have to prescribe, like a doctor would, the proper medicine for the particular kind of illness.
We are all sick. We all require healing, and healing is wholeness. We must incorporate that Divinity in our daily actions, first with effort and then it becomes spontaneously. For example, when a child learns to play the piano, it will play with one finger: ping, ping. Afterwards, when it has mastered the keyboard, it will just play any symphony that it has mastered without even attaching its total concentration or consciousness to it. No effort is required because its fingers and the keyboard form part and parcel of the one consciousness. It becomes a spontaneous, creative, automatic process. That is the use of the soul. If the window is dirtied, we clean the window and allow the Light to shine through.
Everything is a trinity. The soul has three aspects, one of which is the mind. You have the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, and then the superconscious mind. This can also be termed with another set of three: tamas, rajas, and sattva. Tamas is inertia; rajas is the activating Force; and sattva is purity, the Light.
RELEASE IMPRESSIONS
All the impressions you have gained through all these lifetimes lie within the various layers of the subconscious mind. They must be expressed, and without expressing them, they would remain there and express themselves in some way or another. It could manifest in so many types of organic diseases, perhaps, or mental derangement, depending on the power of the impressions that are there.
Dreams release a lot of those impressions. Do you have nightmares? Have more, and get rid of the negative, hurtful impressions. If you had to live that dream state of the nightmare in the waking state, life would become hell. Man has been built with all these release valves. But it will take time to get rid of these millions of experiences. You do not want to wait another two million years to become happy.
We want that happiness; we want that joy in this lifetime. That is why meditation and the power of Grace dissolve all those impressions in the mind, in the soul. All the cluttering is dissolved; when they are dissolved, the more scope you give for that spiritual Self, that spiritual Light to shine through. It is so forceful, so powerful that it overrides, overcomes, and dissolves all those impressions.
This is so well portrayed in so many mythologies. For example, we could use the Hindu mythology of Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Shiva, the dissolver. It is all there in the mind – all there in the soul. Where you have created, by your thoughts and actions, those impressions. It has its life span, and it could live for a very, very long time. It is preserved. Then Shiva, the dissolver, comes along; that spiritual force inside comes along and wipes away the dirt and dissolves it.
That is the only way society can be improved—not collectively but individually, for every individual is a unit, and a collection of units forms society. That is how the standard of life and living, the value of life, could assume a different proportion. That is how life can really be experienced in its true form, in its true Divine form, and not in the form of that little knotted-up ego.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1980 – 21
