Too Heavy, the Burden on my Shoulders

Bad thoughts and habits, bad company and bad food are hostile grounds where disease thrives.

'Arogya' and 'Ananda' go hand in hand. A sense of elation and exultation keeps the body free from ill health.

Evil habits, in which men indulge, are the chief cause of disease in the physical as well as the mental state.

Greed affects the mind; disappointment makes man depressed. Man can justify his existence as man only by the cultivation of virtues. Then he becomes a worthy candidate for Godhood.

Baba

Sometime I just get the feeling that sathva as understood here is of course always right, but too pure for the freedom of the West, because nobody in the West has that experience and we have to live here, that is our duty.

Freedom is also sathva and a complete different approach, but it also leads to self-realization, but the question is if it is real in the end.

The worst thing I experienced with my ex, who wants to be a good man. He doesn’t have a sense of duty. He uses Baba only to take advantage of it. Baba fulfilled his desires. He gave him a room when he needed one, he gave him a wife and a daughter when he wanted it and he gave him the opportunity to live at his sister’s house, when he had enough.

Start Now - Truth will be Reflected in a pure Mind ... only

When you achieve Chitha Shuddhi (purity of mind), Truth will be clearly reflected therein. For this, good company is essential.

Company of pious and holy people leads gradually to withdrawal from entangling activities. When a cold bit of coal is placed in the midst of glowing cinders, and when the fire is fanned, the coal too starts glowing with the fire.

The Jnana Agni or the Fire of Wisdom operates similarly.

 Individual effort and Divine Grace are both interdependent. Without effort, there will be no conferment of grace.

To win that Grace, you only need to have faith and virtue.

Knock - the doors of Grace will open. Open the door - the Sun’s rays waiting outside will flow silently in and flood the room with light.

Baba (thought for the day)

How do we understand it right?

What is good company? We need to have faith and virtue.

If we move in those spiritual levels, we should only meet good people, I guess, but it seems not that easy because of the mind.

We can read, but we have to really listen to what he is telling. What he tells is listen, think it over and absorb.

That is what was mentioned as one hour reading, two hours writing and three hours thinking it over. What is here excluded?

If we think we know 'love' in not even listening properly - that is missing the point of it. 
We will not reach a 'pure mind' without effort..., if there is that effort there will be conferment of grace, it means the mind will not be pure just in waiting, we have to meditate and do sadhana.

Baba talks about a 'pure mind', he talks about 'sathva always wins'.

Peace and a Pair of empty Shoes

Tragedy is that people forget the most critical thing about their earthly career — the key to happiness and liberation.
Man cannot afford to forget the questions – “Who am I? Where am I going? Where did I come from?
What is the nature and purpose of all this?
–SSB, July 14th, 1965

I guess I dreamt of you tonight, but I don’t really know what it was, you were just present.

Baba answered those questions when he left the body in an inside view. He made clear that he would leave the body and he dropped it and it fell into dust and there was Krishna and his brother.

The message is clear, it means we go where he is and we come from where he is.

‘Who am I?’ that is the question, because brother seems to be the role of the devotee, therefore, anyone can be ‘that’ if he belongs to them.

I had to reflect on it, after a while I was convinced that it means brother – devotion. And therefore, it can be also the group, all who are one in that unity. The conclusion of that we are all ‘one and the same’ when being him and that is our relationship with him.

The Answer is Joyful

Human beings are endowed with memory, as well as the faculty to forget. Both are useful skills.

Perhaps, the power to forget is even more important – otherwise people will lament over the loss of millions of parents and kinsmen from previous births, and also the insults and injuries they suffered in this birth.

Luckily the power to forget helps with all of these. People often remember only those things that have impressed them as significant – their birthdays, wedding days, their debtors, etc.

Tragedy is that people forget the most critical thing about their earthly career – the key to happiness and liberation. Man cannot afford to forget the questions - “Who am I? Where am I going? Where did I come from? What is the nature and purpose of all this?”

Baba (thought for the day)

What is the nature and purpose of all this?

When I went to Baba I was in a relationship with the leader of the TM-movement and because I thought it was important, I mentioned it in the interview.

The Yogi and the Bhogi

If they emerge A hermit sat in meditation, still, with eyes closed. A beautiful nymph appeared before him and began to dance. This is a recurring theme in Hindu mythology: the confrontation between the tapasvin and the apsara.

 Sometimes, the hermit wins and the nymph leaves disheartened. Sometimes, the nymph wins and the hermit falls into her arms. The tapasvin who does not succumb is called a yogi while the one who does is called a bhogi.

The hermit and the nymph are metaphors.

The hermit is our mind and the nymph is the world around us, seducing us repeatedly. When the mind is controlled by the world, we are bhogis. When the mind is in control of itself, unmindful of the world, we are yogis.

Patanjali was a serpent who sat coiled around Shiva's neck and learnt from Shiva the eight steps to move out of bhoga into yoga.

In samadhi, we see the nymph for who she is, a product of our own imagination, our own fears and insecurities and inadequacies, seducing us by making us restless, jealous, ambitious, lustful and greedy.

We see the truth about the world, and understand it, rather than try and control or discipline it as a bhogi does.

TheYogi and the Bhogi

Somehow I remembered the discrimination between a Yogi and a Bhogi and found that article about it in the Internet. In that light it seems quite simple.

How to get detached

It is the mind that weaves a pattern called “I” - the process by which it establishes the ego and elaborates it into a multitude of shackles which is called delusion.

The mind prompts the senses to project into the outer world of objects, for it builds up notions of pleasure and pain, of joy and grief and constructs a whole array of urges and impulses. It resists all attempts to escape into the Eternal, Universal, and the Absolute. It protests when the individual is eager to become conscious of one’s identity. But when it finds that the individual is determined to oppose its tactics, it surrenders and disappears without a trace!

Diminish your desires – you will be free from delusion. Desire comes from attachment – deliverance comes from detachment!

Baba (thought for the day)

Meditation practice shows that often that special memories come up and they are more important than we first think that they are. That dream that my sister ‘died’ feels like blockade.

I tried to reach her by phone and there was only the answering machine. Maybe she it at holidays, not much contact, how should I know?

The Enjoyer and the Doer

Desires and wishes go on multiplying; they never end.

The fulfillment of one leads to a new series.

Strive to arrive at the stage when His wish alone will count and you are an instrument in His hands. Do not cater to low desires; control your listening.

The Gopis desired to listen only to Krishna's glory and achievements, Krishna's charm and pranks, His words and exploits. When you fill yourselves with love for God, you achieve sarupya (likeness to the divine form you contemplate) and sayujya (absolute merger).

Strive for that consummation, not for lesser victories.

Live with Love, in Love, for Love.

Then the Lord who is Premaswarupa (Divine Love personified) will grant you all that you need in spite of you’re not asking for anything.

Baba (thought for the day) 

That is called Kama and as it seems a reason for problems. Desires are multiplying and never end. The fulfillment of one desire leads to a new series.

Where is the hope to ever get detached?

You cannot trust anyone, because we cannot trust ourselves.

How do we know if we will not get overshadowed by Kama if only one desire gets fulfilled? We don’t know.

We might think we know about ourselves, but we don’t know about others and we should love those others?

How do we bring all that together?

Affirmations and Sutras

O Spirit, teach me to heal the body by recharging it with Thy cosmic energy, to heal the mind by concentration and cheerfulness, and the soul by meditation-born intuition.
Let Thy kingdom that is within manifest itself without.
The subconscious idea-habit of disease or health exerts a strong influence. Stubborn mental or physical diseases always have a deep root in the subconsciousness.

Illness may be cured by pulling out its hidden roots. That is why all affirmations of the conscious mind should be impressive enough to permeate the subconsciousness, which in turn automatically influences the conscious mind. Strong conscious affirmations thus react on the mind and body through the medium of the subconsciousness. Still stronger affirmations reach not only the subconscious but also the superconscious mind—the magic storehouse of miraculous powers.

Yogananda Paramahansa

The super conscious mind is the level of the miraculous powers of the Patanjali Sutras and the Siddhis.

Yogananda made affirmations out of it to make it easier understandable.

God's Answers and a new Job; Jivatma and Paramatma

Every being is a mixture of two strands - Maya and Madhava (Illusion and Divinity); deha and Dehi (body and Indweller), jada and chith (inert matter and consciousness), and Jiva and Brahman (Individual Soul and Supreme Soul).

Both of these are in fact made of the same substance; they are like the two stones in a grinding mill, the Jiva is the revolving one and the Brahman is the stable one on which the other is based.

The Guru is the Teacher who removes the fundamental ignorance, which hides the knowledge of this truth from us. When you do not find a Guru, pray sincerely, the God inside you will Himself reveal the road and lead you on.

Baba (thought for the day)

Usually first I get to my personal experience with whatever I just practiced or felt and that experience with the Patanjali Sutras felt kind of strong, because it brought up a time when I was a teeny and related the present to that time. It felt like the impression of a walk through woods and we were going to a party, kind of special, maybe romantical, but to get there with a sutra was kind of unexpected, as it seemed it had nothing to do with light or sutra at that time.

Let Go of Shade (and wrong Friends)

Like a lighted lamp, God’s Grace spreads all round, on all who approach Him and love to be near Him. But if you interpose a shade which shuts out the light from you, if Grace does not shine, you have only yourself to blame.

Open the doors of your heart and let the sunlight of God’s grace shine through and illumine all the corners and drive out the vices. To receive the desired program on your radio set, you have to switch on and tune the receiver.

That is an inescapable effort. Believe, strive and succeed - that is the message of the sacred texts.

Baba
This feels like a wake-up call, because often we seem not to be aware when we interpose a shade which shuts the light out and sometimes we are aware of it, but cannot help that it happens anyhow.

If we could, we would open up the doors, wouldn’t we?

Who would not want to be in that light?

Light Body moving in Space and Yoga Sutras

Liberation is just the awareness of Truth, the falling off of the scales of delusion from the eye.
It is not a suburb of select souls - it is not a closed monopoly of expert Sadhakas.
Like the Godavari losing its form, its name and its taste in the sea, Liberation dissolves the name and form, aptitudes and attitudes. You are no more a separate, particular individual.

Baba 

The awareness of sutras went into a vision and it felt like peeling a seed to get to the core. With TM we practiced it in a program. But with Baba it is insight. 

It feels like continuation, getting out and free of programming and being cut off that reality because it was just alowed during a program. 
We don’t know how far and deep we went into practice during all meditation time and the sutras in the Assemblies, it was lots of meditation time. And it was all bound to a program.

Mere Cleverness has no Place in Spiritual Affairs

Realize that mere cleverness has no place in spiritual affairs.
Artifice and artificiality are truly impediments to spiritual progress. It is when cleverness increases and chokes sincerity and straightforwardness in spiritual matters, and in the relationship between God and Man, that the Avatar comes.
You may have a costly transistor or watch with you, but if you do not know how to use it efficiently they are mere lumber.
Now think what a wonderful machine you yourself are! Should you not know how to operate it and get the best results out of it?
Ancient Indian seers discovered the art of operating this human machine, but their descendants have allowed that art to decline. If you have the thirst to know it, you can light the lamp of your life from that of the sages and experience joy and bliss.
Baba (thought for the day)

This morning we had a hail and pieces about two inches thick came down from the sky, the noise was horrendous and I am aware of the nightmare this is for farmers and gardeners, as I remember it from my childhood, when in no time the crop gets destroyed and all what they worked for in the fields this year. And now it is silent and even blue sky again.