Love in Action, Listening only is Dull

It is only through action that devotion can be deepened. Action cleanses the mind and makes it fit for spiritual knowledge. Merely listening to noble thoughts (sravanam) is a tamasic act. Recapitulation (manana) is Rajasic and complete assimilation (nidhidhyasana) is Sathvic.

When you are simply listening, quietly receiving without reflecting or responding, you are dull (tamasic). When you turn the thought over in your mind, attempting to assimilate it, then you are active (rajasic), and when you are sunk in the sweetness of experience, you enjoy pure exultation (sathwic).

That Nidhidhyasana is the fruit of devotion. To overcome obstacles in the spiritual path, you must have both, Sadhana and Sankalpa – Self-effort and Divine Grace.

Baba (thought for the day)

 

How often I wondered silently why we think his words are clear and after thinking it over or reflecting on it here in the blog, I get to the surprising conclusion that the result is different from what I first thought.
It is not only like that in our dreams and with interviews, the mind gets to a wrong conclusion, but it is like that in general.
Baba doesn't talk on a mind level ever. He always reflects the Atman and that means for us, we have to go to those three above mentioned levels to get there.
Often we think it is all clear and no question and understood, but that is very deceiving.
In this thought for the day he tells us why not. It cannot be that easy and without any effort. How should we understand Baba's words right, if we don't do any effort to put it into practice and to know truth. 
He is rooted in truth, we just don't know the difference between 'I am that' the level of truth and the mind. He explains that merely listening is tamasic (darkness and dull).
It is on three levels, listening, think it over and absorb.

Infact, it seems we are not even listening really and we think we understand it all, that is nothing but illusion, that is dull, because we don't do any effort to find truth or reality behind the appearance level of our mind.
Thinking it over often I have to get the connection to dreams, to insights and in the end it is about my life and the theme in my life, my lesson and that is an individual level. Like he said not long ago that it is the lesson and the wisdom in the Bhagavadgita. It is eternal wisdom and the principle is true for everybody, but our lessons are individual.
We should get enough wisdom to know that principle behind Krishna and Arjuna and be able to apply it in our daily life. It is Sathva only if we put it into practice.

I use the experience in the study circle. It grows in writing the blog and reflecting on Baba's thought for the day in the light of my own life. It is very different if we integrate it in our own life.
 

To think it over is Rajas, therefore, it explains the level of passion which seems present in thinking it over. I have to get aware of it on different levels and get over the passion, it can be reflected in this or that Situation, the past and it looks all different in that inner light and with Baba.
I was myself surprised how much it had to do with integration and understanding experience in the light of the self and not in the light of the mind and how different it is. One is like the view from above and the other is in it, in the mind. The inner view has to do with dreams, quite a lot of dreams and not only Baba in the inner view, but the inner master.
Those insights grow, it is a different light, it is the light of the self and not the mind. The past has a different color in the light of the higher self and to understand it that is the question.
It is like a puzzle, a difficult puzzle and we have to put it together, that is more or less the work done here, by that we absorb and it makes the study circle easier.  

That is how we put it into practice. The echo coming back is joyful, when it mirrors the full absorbed level of the reality of highest peace, Prasanthi Nilayam, in our own life and experience. There is quite a bit self-effort involved.

We are  wrong to think we know love. It is sathva and that is not the type of love we think we know, but that pure love, which is in the reality of 'I am that' and we know that we don't know. It is a wrong conclusion that we do not have to do anything at all, just our own mind and ego fooling our own self, it is the monkey mind.

Why it felt like understood, but it is not understood? It feels like we understand it, but we don't know it. If we don't know, we don't know and it means it is not understood. It seems some cannot live with the fact that they do not know, but that is part of it. We do a self-effort to change it. We have to go through the three levels mentioned above
It feels likes a blow to the ego to get aware that we don't know and nobody likes to get aware of that, therefore, it should not lead to questions and answers, because who are we to tell others what they know? And that creates passion. 
It has to be a sharing in the circle and everybody can get to the insight, that way we don't feel bad and frustrated, but fulfilled and happy. It is not nice to get aware that we don't know, but it is great to get aware of Baba's presence in it and that he knows. Everything else is just frustrating and we get a headache. 

 

Thinking it over often I get aware that it is not what I think first and he explains why, it is the level of passion coming up. If we are not aware of it, we just get on that level of passion in people and afterwards they want to avoid it.
It is therefore normal, that we bring up passion and that some become that passionate, especially those thinking we are family and it is allowed to speak out our mind, and there are quite a bit of those.
It gets into wild discussions and I always come back with a headache just listening to, no discipline, but here he tells us why.  
By thinking it over it is possible that the mind gets upset, but we have to go through that process and we have to absorb and that is putting it into practice. It is different than we think it is. 

After thinking it over it changes, there is transformation.
As Baba said in the interview room, follow the master, fight to the end, finish the game.

It feels like listening, follow the master, thinking it over is the part that fights to the end and complete assimilation is finishing the game. 

Nature is controlled on those three levels, Sathva, purity, Rajas, passion and Tamas, dullness.   

It is not enough to just listening, we have to think it over and to see it on a practical level in our own life and that is how the transformation happens and we have to absorb it and understand the lesson in Baba's light.

It is not possible to understand it, if we do only one or even two parts of it, we have to do all three. But every time looking at it again I get aware of the level of passion, here he tells us why and we are all in the same boat.

If we read it only and think it is all understood, that is as he tells us here, tamasic and that alone, thinking it over brings passion in our mind, who likes to be in Tamas. If we think it is done and we just can go on as we always did without transformation, it is also tamasic, because we do not put it into practice.
We might think it is all done and it results in delusion, we would like it to be like that, but it is not. It arranges our mind for some reason, it always is pleasing to the mind and the ego, even if we think it is not, because we are attached to our lifestyle of what we are used to do. 
Tamas is upside down. It makes out of a vice a virtue and looks at the virtue as vice, we are fooling our own self.

Follow the master, fight to the end and finish the game, listening, think it over and absorb. We think we have a choice?
We don't really have a choice, either we are in Tamas or in Rajas or we get to Sathva..., but that is not a choice.