WE ALL KNOW THAT THOSE WHO WANT TO HEAR SHALL HEAR
It all depends upon one’s awareness, how much one is aware of things. If we unfold our awareness through meditation and spiritual practices, we can view anything from its larger perspective.
At present, we might find many things so wrong, but are they wrong, or are those things required to teach man some lesson for his evolution – for his progress or the development of awareness?
Many people might view the same object and find different meanings in it, which also applies to all scriptures. There are so many eternal truths, and truth will forever remain eternal.
But people interpret them differently, which is why so many denominations exist in one faith.
INTERPRETATION IS OF THE MIND
Interpretation is solely of the mind, of the analytical ability one has, but how complete or how pure is your power of analysis because most things of life are not a matter of 2 and 2 makes 4 or 4 and 4 makes 8. There are more profound and subtler levels where no amount of mathematics could answer a question or probe into a problem. Yet it is the very mind, the analytical power, and the intellectualisation of things that create problems where no problems exist.
In interpretation, the quality that would be added would be discrimination. How do you discriminate between things that you wish to interpret? How can one discriminate in what the mind interprets because interpretation depends greatly upon discrimination? You discriminate this and that to be that, but how valid is that discrimination?
With a limited mind, discrimination or interpretation would naturally have limitations. In other words, we view something in its limited aspect depending on how much we are aware of it. If you stand outside this building, you will only see the frontage, but if you can stand high up on some tall tree, you will see the entire building.
That is how differences begin in this world where no differences exist. It is the old story of four blind men going through a forest where they encounter an elephant. One touched the tail; one touched the trunk, one felt the ears, another touched its legs. The one at the tail said, “God or truth is like a rope.” The other at the legs of the elephant said, “Oh, truth is like a tree stump.” And like that, everyone had a different viewpoint of truth, and they were quarrelling, and that is what is happening in religions today: that I am right, and you are wrong. Then a man with eyes came along and explained, “You are all right and yet wrong, for you only have a limited view of that which is.”
AWARENESS IS SOMETHING DIFFERENT
These blind people’s awareness was limited to what they were touching. Awareness is something different—it is that quality that everyone has within himself. It might be dormant, but it has potential, and it is developed to a lesser or greater degree. Awareness has nothing at all to do with mental analysis, as it is only when we go beyond thinking that we become aware of the truth.
When we look at this beautiful flower and try to analyse it, we see a lovely yellow centre, beautiful white petals, and a green stalk. That comes within the range of our five senses: seeing, touching, feeling, smelling, hearing. But being aware of the flower is a different thing altogether where you would see the entirety of the flower and yet not exclude your five senses. You would be mindful of the energy of this very same flower. You would be aware of its molecular structure and mindful of the life pulsating in this flower.
Your awareness, being able to feel its very pulse, identifies it with your pulse, so you find oneness with the flower as with everything else, with this glass, this table, and these chairs. You would find that oneness for awareness is not of intellection or analysis; awareness stems from the deeper within, the “Kingdom of Heaven” within.
You touch that area that is your inherent right through meditation and spiritual practices. You are made of that sap of Divinity that is within you, just as this flower is made of the invisible, colourless sap, yet assuming different forms and aspects in its petals, stem, and roots.
Everything in this world has its place. The mind has its place, and within the mind, that quality which we call the intellect also has its place. However, the misplacement is that we assume whatever the mind can analyse and what the senses can perceive or conceive as the totality of things.
Awareness brings the essence so close to you that you are identified with the essence in a flower, a thief, a murderer, or a prostitute. Then, you will not judge. Discrimination is gone. Intellectualisation is gone, but a deep feeling would remain, not a sense of emotions, for emotion is also a part of the mind. Still, from the core, the central point of your personality, which is connected with the entirety of this universe, you are aware of the universe because you are aware of that which is within you – for the entire universe exists in you, and you in it.
Awareness does not expand; it only unfolds for all within you. Man is divine, and when that awareness unfolds, your perspective changes and then the murderer and the rapist are no more than to you, for those are surface values. Those are the waves upon this vast ocean of Divinity, and then you perceive it in totality. You do not miss the ocean for the waves and discriminate whether this is a big or small wave, for they are just waves playing, frolicking, and enjoying this vast ocean.
JUDGE YE NOT THAT YE BE JUDGED
How beautiful; that is awareness. Through spiritual practices and meditation, one becomes aware of the essence of things. Then you do not say this man is good or this man is terrible, this man is a murderer, or this man is a thief, or this woman is a streetwalker. You say, “He or she is also the child of Divinity as I am.” We will stop judging spontaneously when I say he or she is as I am. “Judge ye not that ye be judged.” Very spontaneously, it is no effort of the mind. It is not a thinking process we go through but a spontaneous act, and nothing is a vacuum when judgment is not there. What comes in its place? Love. Love comes in its place, for this universe has no vacuum. According to your mind, every bit of measuring space and time is filled, forever full. But to find fulfilment in this fullness, which is ever filled, is the secret of life.
Only by bypassing the mind through meditation, experiencing that Divinity in the form of Grace or Love, can we truly practice the injunction, “love thy neighbour as thyself.” If you try to do it with your mind, you are a hypocrite. It is not valid. The neighbour has been kind to me because he did not throw the garbage over my fence; he is a good man, and I love him. Tomorrow, he might whisper a word you might not like; then, the neighbour is no good. The love is gone. That love is just pure mental analysis of things pleasing to you. Why must things only be attractive to me? It must be satisfying to all. But then again, why is pleasing or pleasantness only the other side of the coin? Pleasantness is always accompanied by unpleasantness. Happiness is the other side of misery. So, we must go beyond happiness and unhappiness, for both are transient. One is the blood brother of the other. Going beyond that, we enter the area of joy, which has no opposite, and that is the essence of everything that exists. That is the essence, and that essence is love, that essence is truth, that essence is God.
WHO AM I?
When the awareness unfolds, we become aware of everything and find within itself the true essence. Then, the question that everyone has in their mind, spoken or unspoken, “Who am I?” will be answered.
Who am I? The answer can only be one: that I and my Father are one. That am I – Tat Twam Asi, Thou art That – Brahmasmi, I am That. – We all are That, without quality, quantity, or attribute: a neutral energising divine force.
When things go wrong, we blame our wives, bosses, and children. We blame this one, we blame that one, and when we are tired of blaming everyone, we blame God. This cunning little animal called the mind does that.
As we grow in this awareness, everything assumes a different aspect in this beautiful unfoldment. Everything assumes a different glory. Then, we would truly know the glory of God. When you say these words, your blood must pulsate, and your heart must quiver in the beauty of that glory, for you do not perceive glory. That is a matter of the mind. But you are experiencing this glory, this glory divine, inexpressible, inexplicable, inexpressible, ineffable, but experiential.
TRUTH NEVER CHANGES
Truth forever will remain the same. Truth never changes. For if truth changes, then it is not truth. It has to be eternal. But we change. The mind changes in its unfoldment of awareness. This world has not changed at all. The same things that happened in the time of Krishna five thousand years ago, the same things that happened in the time of Jesus two thousand years ago, are the same things that are happening today. People are non-different than they were non-different. Technological progress does not mean expanding awareness or becoming closer to Divinity. Technological progress has done a lot of harm to the world. It also has its other side because, with every harm, there is also something beneficial. It is an ongoing process, an unending process.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1981 – 16
