Desires are a Prison and the House of Self-Realization

Every one of you must ask yourself, ‘What is the purpose I have come for?’

If it is to study, are you following the path and learning sincerely and thoroughly? Never forget the purpose of your existence. Humility is the very core of education, and its the most important aspect. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a renowned educationist in India grew up amidst many challenges. He lost his father, and his mother raised him with a lot of difficulties. She taught very important lessons to her son. She used to say, “Child, education is not as important as virtues. For the sake of education, do not make the mistake of giving up virtues. In a difficult situation, it is even okay to give up education if it entails compromising on virtues. Good qualities are the most important for any person. Humility is the true ornament of an educated person.”

Baba (thought for the day)

We had interview with Baba and I had to translate for a devotee, a permanent in the ashram living older lady, she had a room in the ashram. And I talked about myself and I thought that it must be about the mind, whatever. 
He asked who I was, that is the most spiritual question and it has the aim to awaken us. It is on three levels and repeated three times. He asked about the relationship and to whom I belonged. 
We didn’t know why, we got closer afterwards and only a few weeks later we drove with Baba in the hot Indian summer to Kodai. On the way Baba stopped the car and he was standing beside the car and watching the country side and he had a small uprooted tree in his hand. I wondered why. 
Was it about the past or the future? I noticed that we look for an interpretation of the dreams and we are never really sure about it. 

In Kodai we lived all in the same house, not like in the ashram, it was all separate and he was from the US and we sat in the garden, lake view, beautiful, Baba’s ashram and on the other shore and lot of lotus flowers and we were in a forest of eucalyptus trees, high thin and white tree trunks, the leaves high up like parasols, making it possible for us to sit in the shade and to be outdoors. 

We sat in the garden of that house, enjoyed the beautiful view and talked about lots of things and also about that interview and the spiritual questions Baba had asked, only when we spoke about it, that got on another level and he misunderstood it.

He had in mind to get a new wife and therefore, I guess it was easy to say when he said that we belonged together or better I belonged to him. 
And in that atmosphere of only love that made even sense and I went for it, even if I didn't know, but I went for it hoping it would be right. 
And we wrote a letter and gave it to Baba and he took that letter and so I thought everything was fine and we would get the right answer. 
Who am I is the most spiritual question and basic knowledge and about self-realization, but we still didn’t know how to get there. 
I was still meditating in the morning, we had done TM for years and after a group meditation we had an interview. Baba spoke about ‘Soham’ and its meaning, ‘I am God’ and ‘I am Shiva’ and ‘I am That’ and also that all mantras are okay. It was no need to change or worry about mantras. 

But with TM the inner view or dream became challenging and there was no means to understand them. I was that scared because we couldn't get any answer, I put OM in front of the mantra to make myself feel better. Everybody said that OM was the direct dial to divinity, but I took it away later again as I knew it was okay as it had been.

It was all about who am I? And that question we didn't ask with TM.

The other questions about belonging and relationship were still open and it seemed yet far away. 
The parents in Spain, coming back nobody there. The job as TM-teacher was not really gone, the Maharishi had said I could stay a TM-teacher after I went to Baba, because there was an experience with divinity in the heart, anyhow with all those insights and visions TM was not the right place to be, because there were really no answers, only meditation. 

The experiences began on a nine months course. It began to reflect in the inner view as pictures and I didn't know what to do with it.

There was a sunshine environment, but something broke in pieces and it sounded like thin air and later I just got the info that it was cut off and it didn’t make sense. It was not possible to get the right answer. 

But with Baba we also didn't get just a right answer and in writing we have to be careful, because we can get also to wrong conclusions, but we get a feeling for it. It is still the question of seeing it in our own life, and with meditation they called everything stress only.

Once all looked like puppets on a string, but the hand was not there which should been there holding them. 
And they even turned all into enemy and nothing made sense really until we heard from Baba that, 'yogis are our friends'. 

It had turned into the opposite. I didn't know if it had to do with the family involved or not. And finally there was a black hole in the meditation and that meant also no way I would ever get like that an answer. To get an answer we have to ask questions and TM didn't ask questions.

We went to Noida. The Maharishi was at that time in Noida, still we hoped to get a better feedback, but that was an illusion, it was just confirmed. 
After a few month difficult relationship I went to Baba. 
The experiences didn’t make sense. 
And I had no idea that it would take that long to get there. 
Tapas is first discrimination, second seeing it in our own life and third, going on no matter what obstacles are there. 
If we would know what are obstacles and what not. 
It began all with just a French test and more meditation and we went from course to course and in the beginning it looked all good. 
In all that the source got lost and it was not anymore clear how we got into it. It was in the inner view as, ‘cut off and if we don’t know the source, we cannot understand it’.
And that is the same with the inner view, if we don't know the source and find another source, it changes totally. 

We both thought we did TM and that sounded good as I had to get answers. He was initiated into it, but as we found out only later, he didn't do it. It was strange, because it didn't make sense to me.

We went ahead with the relationship, we got a daughter and that was a beautiful moment. 
We travelled a lot, went from Spain to the US and back to India. 
But it didn't last very long, we had a fight and he hit with the pot on my head that was the and of the dream that we belonged together. 
Lucky that head was strong and it didn’t result in a skull fracture. 
Strangely enough that devotee Baba had asked the questions I had to translate in the interview room died that way, she changed a lot of cash and someone followed her, she was hid on the head with a bottle and died.

That was not only sad, but alarming. 

But we were in India with the child and we didn't leave and Baba was present and somehow it went on, even if that was not really how it should have been. There were no roots in my own country.

It seems it turned into a prison. There was something about 5 yrs. of prison in the dream and I had no idea why, but in listening to his words we see it out of an other angle and it seems to make sense only the way he knows it. 
So finally after all he said, he took only advantage of it. 
He turned it as it arranged him best. 

The answer was, we didn't listen, but how to listen? And in writing it over and over again I still get to the wrong conclusion if I see it out of the wrong angle or source. Somehow those words seem to explain it. 

People are deluded by unlimited desires. They live in a dream world, forgetting the Supreme Consciousness. It is very important to keep desires under control and place a ceiling on them. Instead of inordinately spending for our own pleasure, we should offer money for the relief of the poor and needy. Do not make the mistake of thinking that giving away your money for good and noble purposes is all that is needed to practice ceiling on desires. While giving to the needy is good, it is equally important that you do not allow your own desires to continue to multiply; both should happen.

You must curtail your desires, as materialistic desires lead to a restless and disastrous life.

Desires are a prison. You can be freed only by restraining your wants. Limit them to only what you truly need in life. This is the real meaning of ‘Ceiling on Desires’

After Baba left the body it was about prison and I tried to think of all levels and experiences of prison to understand it. 
But he had a dream and it said, give, give, give, I will not give, you lived a dream that is your problem, not mine. That is this desire level and we were not happy about it. 

We think we understand, but it grows and really we do not know, but we go on trying to understand it anyhow. 

There was that dream of 5 years prison, it was difficult to talk about it, I didn’t like that prison issue but when seeing it in relationship to desires it does make sense and it is another prison. 
It is not a normal prison like being sentenced by a judge, it is a mind prison which results out of desires, there is no way out, we have to transcend it. 
But there is also the atrocity of it in that inner view.

We didn’t know how to listen, I went on with meditation and had people committing suicide in my meditation that didn't feel good and it seems even it lead to a nervous breakdown at least that is what Baba said in the dream. 

Seems not very tempting to learn like that. We seemed easy had turned into the opposite and he also said we were let down by the family.

Now that prison issue is not something we can talk about with the family. 
But with Tapas, spiritual work, we had to look at it, no matter what obstacles are there, see it in our own life to get to that truth in the background or at least a feeling for it and learn to discriminate.

Maybe it would have been different if the family would have been there, at least we had to go on to get a right answer.

If it reflected the nervous breakdown, it felt like atrocity and I tried in vain to make it look nicer.

That is the first time we look at it like that and see it as a mind prison and that was not funny at all. If we see it like that, it is really disastrous.
And it had to do with ruin, nothing left of the house, no roof left, the walls had crumbled and also the floor was not okay anymore. He was wearing a red skirt and a black fur jacket like a woman and he said, 'that is all I could get in garage sales', the focus still on desires and not on the house of self-realization. 

The colors tell something about the level, red is passion, the red skirt and rajas, activity and therefore probably his motivation and not the house at all and black is ignorance and upside down values and dullness and Tamas and Sathva, purity and knowledge, truth, self-realization is the house, I guess, only a ruin left. That was not a good result. 

It was strange that in Baba’s presence the house seemed for a moment okay again, because he was the house of self-realization and with Baba it is always present.
That way we get aware how self-realization is possible and how it gets destroyed and it leads to ruin.    

You must curtail your desires, as materialistic desires lead to a restless and disastrous life.

Desires are a prison. You can be freed only by restraining your wants. Limit them to only what you truly need in life. This is the real meaning of ‘Ceiling on Desires.’