The Husk of Delusion (Maya)

The life principle (Jeevathathwa) is like the grain covered in the husk of delusion (Maya), as that rice is enveloped in the paddy. The husk (Maya) has to be removed. The grain (Jeevathathwa) has to be boiled and made soft and assimilated so that it might add to health and strength. 

The softened rice can be compared to the Supreme Soul (Paramathma). The mind should be employed in this process. It has to be fixed in the Truth (Sathya) and the Ever-lasting (Nithya). To remove the husk, Discrimination (Viveka) is an effective instrument. Develop the power of discrimination and find out, which is beneficial, and which is not. Seek the light always – be full of confidence and zest. 

Never yield to despair, for it has never produced any results!

Baba (thought for the day)

We have the husk and the grain and how do we separate the husk from the grain? 

I write down what is coming up in my mind, whatever is present and try to relate it to the thought for the day.

Often in study circles we here that it is about love only or truth or both, and everything is right, but what is clear is that in a study circle we are not finding faults with others. 

We have a theme and we share thoughts, it is not a discussion and if it is okay we can share thoughts in the end, but if not, it is better not.

That happened last time, I was not aware that the person who wanted to do the study circle didn't know the guide lines. I thought she knew, because she is someone who is always singing Bhajans, but she didn't and in no time we had someone who was finding faults.

If we look at it in the light of that thought for the day, we have on one side the husk and on the other the grain.

If in a study circle we have a discussion instead of sharing, we have a problem and we have to separate the husk from the grain to find the reason, to get to the right conclusion, because the problem was projected on the surface level of the mind. It was like, something is wrong, but the people bringing it up and searching faults are usually not those who are aware that it should not be like that, because the once who know just keep quite and watch and talk only when necessary.

It is about discrimination and finding truth, that is Baba, it means in a practical sense, here it is not about a philosophical truth, but we have to get to the right conclusion.
 

If we are in the mind, we are not able to see the difference. We think we will get 'there' in questioning the situation, but that is only one level.

First step is to separate the grain from the husk. The second step is to get aware of the principle in our own life, the third step is to go on no matter what obstacle is comeing up.
Tthe problem was, she didn't know it enough (that was the obstacle) or she just wanted to do it her way, whatever.
I had to tell her that she has to let people talk and not involve into discussion about spiritual topics, it is not the aim of a study circle.
She was nervous, but she went on in the end into a conclusion telling the others what they had said, like evaluating it, what we really cannot and should not do, but I didn't tell her anymore.
She is not a leader, just guiding the study circle. We tell our thoughts, our feelings, we can tell our insights, but we let it open, we don't conclude the other has said and therefore ...

We can tell our own experience and we find ourselves in it.  

We cannot have the experience of divine love, which is based on Sathva, if we are not established in Sathva and that is a peaceful mind.

The person who got upset, was upset because of the questioning and she had not been there for a long time, and it shouldn't be like that. She was emotional and not calm inside and enervated by the process, it felt like a volcano and that is ego.

I still have difficulties to take that process, because I know in that moment there is no meditation experience, because her mind is not settled, but gets wild for nothing. I definitely don't like to come back with a headache. When it gets like that already at the beginning, it is like the meetings I come back usually with a headache, everybody talks and all together.

In our usual life it is mixed, there are three Gunas and we are under their control. The love we project on the feeling and mind level is not 'divine love', but colored by the three Gunas if it is calm it is sathva, and the difference is if it is passion, activity or inertia. 

 

The mind should soften the rise to get to the supreme soul.

 

First we have to separate the husk from the grain and afterwards the rise, that is the grain after the husk has been removed should be softened to get to the supreme soul.

That is done by sadhana or meditation, but in a study circle it is his presence in the Group, we have to feel his presence and how do we get there, in softening the grain...

Can you tell me what that means 'softening the rise to reach the supreme soul'?

It is just a metaphor it doesn't tell us how to do it.

To get to the experience of the study circle as we had it till now, we have to be in peace during it and such discussions don't come up. Now I know, next time if someone wants to do it I will ask if they know how.

 

How is it to be fixed in that truth and to be based on the ever-lasting? How do we remove the husk? We cannot be in truth, if it is not practiced and if we are on the Level of the mind finding faults, we don't get even close enough to get anywhere close to the supreme soul.

Meditation is a way to remove the husk, but also doing it the right way helps the group to experience the supreme soul. 

We have experience with meditation and meditation practice, it is rooted in the believe that if we meditate, all is done what needs to be done, that is what we had learnt with TM.

But if that is true, why we don't feel okay in the study circle when everybody shares knowledge? And we don't feel okay, because we don't find that level of only meditate and all is done what needs to be done. This is only true if by that meditation the discrimination between the conceptual and non-conceptual is established, but as we did it with meditation, we don't get aware of it, it is just kind of easy, all done, we just close the eyes and meditate. In a study circle we will get aware that it is very difficult and not easy, because nobody is sharing with us the same experience. What seemed easy with TM, because all the same, is no more easy, because we are not confirmed by the others doing and believing the same. 

We are always the same people mostly, not everybody can handle it and one of them was in our last circle, but probably she felt better afterwards, because she screamed her frustration indirectly out of it and I was the one who had to hold the group together, I had to stay inside alone, because the energy was too strong, it was passion and I had to keep calm and that was difficult.

It felt like during darshans, sometimes, if something or someone was bothering us and we went on meditating, but I couldn't forget it anyhow, that was that state of mind, the energy of passion and just a false step and we are in passion too, it feels kind of overwhelming and we cannot control it, but he knows and that is what I did, I passed and spoke later when it was my turn again, but even that was difficult, because that person wanted me to talk and get involved in her passion. 

And finally really it felt like that - Darshan, even if Baba had not been present in his body.

The work of trying to stay calm, to keep the level of sathva, when it was passion, Rajas. Next time if someone wants to lead the study circle I sent them the guidelines first.

It was last year in my dream, he said inside, 'it is passion (Rajas), stay alone'. 

They had to organize a meeting and I didn't go, because people were that passioned to organize it and that same person was one of them, she is loud, she doesn't cares if she hurt feelings and she feels imposing and our guide of the study circle was of no help, she just wanted to get confirmed how good she was.

It feels in such a moment like common agreed on our mind level, that is how we have to be, that spirituality is on the level of socializing, it is understood that we have to work together and do seva together and everything is understood on a social level and that is not it.

In such a moment they think they know everything and the group is enforcing each other, but it is only passion. We have to remove the husk, passion is part of the husk to get to the grain and that is Sathva only.

It was the same again, they went into passion.

And it was not even possible to answer, I had to just keep silent to stay inside alone. I nearly had a headache after, the tension on the mind level was that strong, because they are that convinced on the feeling level that it is right to be on that level and they don't question it.

  

How do we remove the husk from the grain? The light of the higher self was the grain and the question is, how we soften it?

 

The life principle (Jeevathathwa) is like the grain covered in the husk of delusion (Maya), as that rice is enveloped in the paddy. The husk (Maya) has to be removed. The grain (Jeevathathwa) has to be boiled and made soft and assimilated so that it might add to health and strength. 

 

It has to be made soft and boiled to be assimilated, self-inquiry is for me a way to soften it. If I feel like one of them, it is passion, it is not sathva. Sathva is one of them and staying inside alone, and it is a theme for the next study circle.

 

In the Patanjali Yogasutras was said, 'the entire creation is there to give you pleasure and relief', whatever gives us pleasure, will also give us relief, otherwise the pleasure becomes pain'. 

 

And Patanjali describes the grades, tamasic, that it dullness, rajasic is activity and sathva is light and freedom.

If we don't get relief in the pleasure, it will be pain, no pleasure, therefore, it turns into tamas, inertia and lethargy. Even if it looks like pleasure, but if it cannot be relieved, it will result in a state of Tamas and pain and to get out of it is difficult.

And some people I know they are very good in just doing that, taking care that it cannot be relieved to make it painful, instead of 'help ever, hurt never' - what is sathvic, it feels like, make sure that it will be - hurt ever and help never, no relief ever.

It is like my ex, he got in trouble with a devotee, she wanted to give him the Montessori school and he didn't agree. In no time there were only problems and the father of a child was a lawyer, and we had to face a lawsuit and he gave the blame back to me, even thought it was him who got in troubles with her. She was very angry at him and that guy said, 'I will never give that woman any satisfaction...' that is the level of making sure there is no relief possible. In that moment I realized there was a problem, she just wanted to sell her school, and it didn't work out as she thought it would, and I was fooled by him into a relationship and that attitude was make it impossible, no sathva, it is just real stupid and not the level of a devotee.   

The creation is made of the three gunas and the difficulty is to get out of tamas.

Everything is from these three different gunas. If everybody gets together on that level of passion, Rajas and mind, thinking it is about activity and togetherness, we have to be able to stay alone inside, otherwise, or if it is not possible inside, we stay alone outside as well. 

Freedom is not to be forced to think a certain way by the peer pressure of the group, any group, we are not puppets on a string, we have to realize our own individuality and our self and we know that 'He knows', we just think we know.