Union with the Divine, the Return Journey

For anyone to remember the Soul (Atma), food is very essential. From Divine Soul (Brahman) Ether emerged. From Ether came Air. From Air was born Fire. And from Fire came Water. From Water, Earth emerged, and from the Earth, various plants and food. Finally from food, human beings evolved. To attain union with the Divine, one has to cross all these stages and take the return journey. 

The life principle present within our gross body, is called Prana. Within the sheath of Prana (Pranamaya Kosha), is present the sheath of mind (Manomaya Kosha) and within it, the subtler sheath of intellect (Vijnanamaya Kosha). Latent in the Vijnanamaya Kosha is the sheath of bliss (Ananadamaya Kosha). Many people stop journeying after reaching the Mind sheath. To attain bliss you must proceed onward, beyond food, mind and the sheath of the intellect.

Baba (thought for the day)

We can ask ourselves how to get first beyond the body and the mind and as Baba tells us here we have to process onward even beyond the sheath of the intellect. We have to use discrimination. 

We are three people, the one I think I am that is the body, the one others think I am that is the mind and the one I really am that is Atman (Baba)

The I is identified with the body, if I get aware that I am not the body, just watching and observing, in time we get aware that the 'I' is different from the body. 

What can help to get beyond the body is discrimination, everything what is conceptual is different from the self and belongs to the objective level of our being. The body is made out of food and it is material and therefore also nothing but and objective reality. 

If we discriminate between material, relative and manifested level and the non-manifest and absolute level, and we think about truth in that moment it is just a concept. 
The manifested level belongs to everything what is not-that, it is called 'neti, neti', to get to the infinite reality which is 'that' only, we have to take away what is not-that. 
It is not something we think, it is not a thought, it is what is left after we take everything conceptual away. 

Therefore, it is not a thought, but it is an insight and that is not the same. 

If we go on thinking 'not this and not that', we finally get to 'that'. It is not a thought, it is the result, it is what is left, it is transcendental being, it is being, because it has no name and no form, it is just called 'that'.

Thoughts are part of the reality of not-that. In taking everything conceptual away we get finally to a place, there is just being-consciousness-bliss, it is beyond name and form.

It is in the mantra Soham, 'I am that', 'I am God' or 'I am Shiva'. 

We call that level 'that', because we cannot give it a name, it is beyond name and form, it is just 'that', a level of being, consciousness, bliss. 

To realize that being, we have to us the intellect, it is the difference between thoughts and just being. In pure being are no thoughts. In meditation and a transcendental state are not thoughts and not feeling for time and space, we are beyond it and when we get back to our mind and the body, we are again in the mind. 

It can help us to see it as he tells us in this thought for the day. First was Atman, the soul level, followed by ether. It means for us when we reach Atman, we go beyond that state of ether, and it was followed by air and out of the air was born the fire, born out of the fire is water, followed by earth and plants and food and we are the result of food. 

To get back to divinity we have to take the return journey. 
The material level is food, the big fish is eating the small fish. 
Prana is in the breath and the life principle. Life begins with the first breath and ends when our breath stops. 
The mind inside of that life principle it is about everything around us our environment and in that we have the even more subtle sheath of the intellect. Only after going beyond it we can reach the bliss, that non-ending and unlimited happiness.

When we take a mantra and repeat it we transcend the mind. We sit comfortably and begin in our mind silently to think the mantra, we just repeat but do not try to focus on it, it flows in and out with the breath. If we get aware that we are in thoughts, we just go back to the mantra. 

Thoughts are part of meditation, it is an effortless process and whenever we notice that we are thinking thoughts, we remember the mantra again and go on for usually about twenty minutes. 

Important is the practice and that we do it and it is not about a result. Baba always tell us that the result belongs to divinity, it means we just do it and in that sense we do nothing wrong.

After twenty minutes we feel usually better, relaxed or fresh and meditation can be deeper than sleep. 

When we come back out of our meditation practice in our daily life, are we beyond the body and the mind? That would be great, wouldn't it? 
But as soon as we open the eyes, the I is again in the body, the reality of the mind is still there and it is not just by meditation that we go beyond the Koshas.

In the last few years before Baba left the body, he was more often in my dreams. The writing began after we came back from the US, he was holding up a book and I had to write it. 
First I didn't know where to begin with, I liked writing and I had done it long ago in my parent's house, but that seemed such a long time ago and in the mean time I was talking more English, I had somehow to find a way again. But it began with Baba holding up the book. 
Baba made an inside relationship, he said 'engaged' and I began to write to get into a relationship to that magic person behind that 'engaged'. And that is how he began to be present in my dreams. 
One dream he said he was the insight and the next step, but in the beginning that didn't even made sense to me, because I was not yet used to think of it that way. 

But in writing about it, it began to make more sense. And I began to understand that it was all about that, it had to make enough sense that we go on and we realize, yes, I do understand it and if I do understand it, I can do it. 

It was that step between us. He said in an interview, that was not in the dream, 'follow the master, fight to the end, finish the game' and he asked all of us in the group, 'why are you here?' But we didn't know the answer and he said: 'Self-realization'.

I had that feeling of 'self-realization' years ago as teenager in writing a diary and I knew that I wanted that. I didn't know how, but I thought, if it was present during writing, it will be present somehow. But later it was gone. 

It was Baba in the dream who said that I was let down by my family and ever since I tried to realize how it began and why. 
Actually, I was not aware of it. One one side it was about self-realization and I couldn't find it anymore, on the other side let down by the family.

It is difficult to get things together, many reasons why it was constantly present as, not-that. 
After I tried about everything to just get there and it was not possible, I decided to do everything I could to find it again.

I began to watch and observe. 
Writing was not possible, because it didn't make sense and if it doesn't make sense our motivation is not there. Writing the dairy made sense in the beginning and later not anymore. It was not possible anymore and it felt like impossible to repeat that experience. 
The relationship was gone, the worst was, that it was not possible to talk about it. My mother gave the answers and she said, there is nothing, whatever the reason, it put her in question, or she always said, you should not ... I guess that is how it felt to be let down. 
What do you have, there is nothing, was one thing she said more or less until she died and what do you have, there is nothing. She had a problem and made it look like I had a problem and the family still reflects that. 
There is nothing, what do you have? I didn't know what she was talking about, my life was standing head and that is Tamas, as I know by now. 
There was never nothing, there was also a reason I couldn't write anymore, it was in the same source, being let down.

They projected it in a relationship with a neighbor, we were teenager and he got married with a lady from that same village and he had been already before controlling and imposing and lived more or less afterwards all his life in front of my parent's door and always in my surroundings. That means he didn't let go, he was still disturbing years later. I always left and didn't want to go back, because it felt that disturbed. It was not possible to see the difference between my mother's answers and her problem and his strange attitude, and why he was disturbing. She always related both things, him and whatever that was. 

I had nearly forgotten it, but when Baba said, 'self-realization' I remembered it again and began to question and noticed that something was wrong, because he sad indirectly that I was right and not the others. 
That is how we began to follow the dreams and the attitude of the neighbor was somehow separated from the attitude of the mother. After she came back from Spain there was a precipice in the air and that means pride. 
In that sense it had to do with pride that she said always what do you have, there is nothing and attachment, it was in the dream as avalanche. It was cold and icy and it covered everything and it just missed me by little. 
And in the dream Baba said, if a mother falls, all children fall with her, that means my brothers and sister a pitch dark black, Tamas.

She was too attached at work, her effort to make everything okay, to be able to take it that the neighborhood said something else, not what she lived. She was working too hard non-stop to be able to accept that the neighborhood was not like she would have liked it to be, therefore, we lived in another reality, or she was holding on to an illusion. 

She refused to see it as it was and it was all based on illusion. 
It was difficult to get that. But it was in the air when my father build a house Spain, he said he would build a very beautiful house and in that moment I saw above him in the air 'illusion'.
But it was not easy to find the reality of that illusion. After there had been the avalanche and attachment in the air, that was based on illusion, it made more sense and nothing was based on harmony, it was attachment. 

Once coming back from a meditation course I did some shopping for my mother and in that shop I met the guy who had been my teenager relationship and first boyfriend and his wife. 
I felt actually happy to see them and said hello, but the response coming back felt awkward and disturbing, looking at me like I was not existent, but at the same time he didn't look away also and they were just like staring and didn't say anything, only afterwards it felt disturbing, ad in the night was in the air that he had a village consciousness. 
A long time I had no idea what that meant. 
That reaction came afterwards. I hated it how I felt, but my mother went on and said, what do you have, there is nothing. But there was never nothing, she just didn't want to notice it, because of pride and attachment. 

Later it was in the dream as manipulation only.

After my mother came back from Spain it seems everything came up again.

She had asked me to drive with her to the brother who was in hospital, it was in the air at night that he does the worst he can do. 
I was worried and asked him, what he did? That was the reason he got that nasty that it turned into abuse. It ended in abuse, that was difficult to understand. Tamas is very difficult to understand.  

In this world, you must perform both great deeds and good deeds. The vagaries of modern life are rather mysterious and beyond understanding. They are called 'Dushta Chathushtayam or Akara Chatushtayam' (Evil Quartet) which comprise of: Lack of faith (Avishwasam), doubt (Anumanam), jealousy (Asuya) and ego (Ahamkaram). 

Lack of good character makes one develop bad thinking. Lack of faith leads to doubt. Today, many people are ready to trust a stranger on the street but refuse to believe the scriptures and noble commandments of great saints or their own parents. They do not believe even in the words of those that love and care for them. Be aware of these pitfalls and develop good conduct. For good conduct, truth and righteousness are essential. Undertake meritorious deeds with noble motives and immerse yourself in the feeling of love.

That is what we find in yesterday's thought for the day and it is about that pitfall we are talking about here. 

They trust a stranger on the street and refuse to believe in those who care about them. That does describe it quite right. 

It is probably the lack of good character the makes develop the bad thinking, but it is hard to understand it. 

I had to face that in my family and it felt kind of difficult to be immersed in our own self and in feelings of love, but that is just what this is all about. 

And once Baba said that ever object seeks for its reflection and whatever it was, that is how we went on to get to truth to get that reflection of the object. It was in the insight, for just a moment but we know it all too well. 
They had the problem and tell us we are the problem. 

We have to get to the point where we can see that it does make sense to be able to understand it and afterwards we are able to go for it. 

To attain union with the Divine, one has to cross all these stages and take the return journey. 

He leads from the inside and it is He, we experience, not our body, and that is how it got beyond the mind and expanded to, 'I am the One'. 

If he is the 'One' it means he is that universal truth of oneness and there is nothing but that. And being that, how can he not be present, just because he has left the body?