Work, Worship and Wisdom

Since ancient times, emphasis has been laid on three aspects: work, worship, and wisdom. What is wisdom? All that is related to our senses - the fleeting objects of the material world and our actions, speak of our ignorance. Wisdom dawns the moment the mind is withdrawn. The thoughtless state between two consecutive thoughts is Spiritual Wisdom (Brahma Jnana). People are not able to experience this thoughtless state and are carried away by fleeting, ephemeral, and momentary things. All the knowledge that one acquires is not true knowledge. Knowledge of the Spirit (Atma) is true knowledge. True wisdom dawns when all thoughts are decimated. However all three of these - work, worship, and wisdom, begin with service. No matter what service it is, if it is done with love and divine feelings, it becomes upasana (worship).

Baba (thought for the day)

Remembering that thoughtless state in meditation, it is not something we know or we have, it is something which is present, we maybe get aware of it after meditation practice and maybe not and if it is present, we can be lucky about it.
We had been for years already in a meditate practice, and therefore, I went on meditating after I went to Baba. I did TM before and that was regular meditation morning and evening twenty minutes and the advanced program was even longer and we got used to it.

But when I began to meditate it was, because I wanted to get in touch with the higher self. It felt good that it was regular and so I never intended to stop that, even after I went to Baba and it was not about routine anymore and technique, but in the morning waking up I meditated always and in between before and after Darshans all together I was probably more in meditation than not.

I just wanted to understand the insights and those insights are in that thoughtless state between two thoughts and with meditation we get aware of that transcendental state between two thoughts. We cannot just experience that thoughtless state without meditation and I also liked it, because it went in direction of the higher self and I knew it was the right direction. It felt like space or an empty room in my own inner awareness, filled with light and love and beauty, but there was not direct path to it and therefore, meditation made sense to me as a constant effort to get there, wherever that will be.

That was easy, it was just about discipline and getting into a habit of doing it, it was easy compared to what happened afterwards when the insight was there between the thoughts in the space we don't even know that it exists. But that insight was present as an inner view, only it was between thoughts and nobody is aware of it or able to tell how to understand those insights and it felt like looking in a mirror, there was something written, but in mirror language and we needed to stand on the head to be able to read it right.

That was another problem.

Going to Baba I thought it would get clear, but I had no idea how difficult it would be what I wanted to know. And I had no idea what effort would be needed to be able to read that upside down mirror view, which put everything in question we knew and thought to be real on the mind level. 

First I thought it would be on a verbal level and as we heard always of love, I thought the Guru would just tell me and everything would be wonderful and fine.

There was love and it was wonderful and amazing and exceptional to be in his presence, but the answers were not just there and given by his presence only, I had to get to the right conclusion in my own self and that was self-effort, because it is about self-realization.

It is now what we think the Avatar to be, it is what we know and that has to be realized. 

The teaching on that inner level was not on the word level, but it was teaching in the inner view and it is exactly in that space between the thoughts and most of people do not even know that this space between two words is that. It took time to get aware of it and after it had begun, we had to just go ahead and it was not a question of changing the mind. But of course, I didn't know how. We didn't even know how to ask questions, we had not been used to think like that, it was all new and we had to get used to it first and we knew even less how to get answers to those questions.

All the knowledge on the outside level or on the intellectual level is in that sense no real knowledge, it is just fleeting and ephemeral and momentary.

It means if we think all our life about math, on a certain level it will be done and we will not use it anymore, there is no deeper value to it, but if it is real knowledge, that is in touch with our higher self and therefore, it is real and not just passing by. 

And that knowledge we get between the thoughts, therefore, it is of great help to meditate to slow down the mind activity and to get aware of that transcendental state.

Since ancient times, emphasis has been laid on three aspects: work, worship, and wisdom.

I was observing to get a self-experience. I was decided to not stop until it would be very clear and beyond doubts.

I had before an experience of self-realization. It was in the air during writing a diary, only I didn't know if it was because I wrote, or because I thought about the boyfriend next door and when I would see him, indirectly waiting for him or if it was just in my own thoughts, all that came together and it was present as a feeling of self-realization.

It was also about insights, the feeling of self-realization had been an insight and as we know by now that only the self can realize itself, therefore, it was already done by the higher self and that difference was difficult to understand and I couldn't find that level of the higher self anymore, it was gone. Even if I still lived in my family, nevertheless, it was gone. 

It means when it was gone, it felt real awful and I tried in vain to know all my life what was wrong and where it had disappeared. It seemed impossible to find it again.

Whatever we tried and died and hoped for, everything seemed on the mind level and no way to get back to that higher self level. The feeling that it got lost was real painful.

And my family they always avoided it and their only answer was, what do you have, there is nothing. 

I couldn't agree that it was lost and therefore I began to search for it and I tried different things fist and it ended always with the same insight, it was 'not that' and finally I decided to just watch, go on doing my work, at that time I was already working in an office and to just watch and to not change anything anymore if it would not come from inside out of the higher self.

That was the first struggle into freedom, because I had to wait for it would be there, if ever it would be there, whatever that would be. I had no notion about it and I couldn't possibly know if it ever would be there, before I began.

My self was in focus, my self was everything, my own self should it be, but how do we get there?
I tried to meditate, first I did exercises stopping thinking, focused on the third eye for I don't know how long until I saw the thoughts like far away and small and coming from the outside, that was a good feeling and it changed the emotions and I was glad if it changed my emotions, because I didn't liked how I felt, whatever the reason. 

And that I did already before leaving the parent's house. I was most of the time in my room listening to music and focusing on my third eye to get out it, whatever it was what I wanted to get out of it, I was not even twenty years old. I thought it could be that easy, but it seemed not easy and I didn't know why.

When the thoughts changed shape and came from outside and were all small, it was different and it seemed at least easier.

That was still in the parent's house, and afterwards I was in the French part learning French but every time I came back from a visit to my family, I felt empty and that was really not enjoyable, that was real disturbing, because it cut me off my childhood, after a while I couldn't remember anymore how I had felt during my childhood.

With mother we talked about death people, about work, whatever it was, the feeling was not okay afterwards and with father we didn't talk at all and it felt that superficial and somehow there was something missing and I was looking for that, I wanted to know what was missing. 

No answers, I didn't know why that feeling of self-realization had been there long ago and it felt like a dream only. I didn't know why it felt empty after visiting my parent's house, but I knew there was quite a bit of disturbance in the neighborhood and it was not possible to talk about it. It felt just empty. It was not possible to talk about it, and mother anyhow always seemed to know the answer for everything, there was nothing to learn, but nevertheless, we felt empty.
That was frustrating or painful, it was empty, desolate, tyring, upsetting, it was just not okay and how it should have been. 

That is how we went on, a bit upset, a bit surprised, a bit frustrated and a bit angry, because we never could get there, whatever that was. We couldn't talk to her, she refused to listen to it, to look at her own mistakes, but ours she always saw and she was even sure, we could never do what they had done. I didn't know what she was talking about. She avoided to see it, she wanted not to know about it, she wanted to stay only in her world and in her own way of thinking and her version how life should be and that was mother's law.

We had to listen to her complaining about the father, also used to it, she complained on and on, already as kids, we had to listen to that never ending song of hers.

But we couldn't tell about how we felt, it was not fair and when it was about our life, she didn't wanted to know, she always avoided it and said, what do you have, there is nothing. Whatever it was, we didn't know if she was offended, too proud, too upset, too much work, doing too much effort to make it for herself look a certain way, she was very decided that it had to be like that, she was not able to listen to what we said, if we said something and isn't match her expectation, her effort, her believe, it had no room in her life.

She avoided it and therefore, she said, what do you have, there is nothing. It was kind or tyring to always get the same cliche answer all life. In the dream after her death it said that it was an avalanche, it covered everything, there is no difference in color, it is only white and it felt awful. 

Baba said avalanche means attachment. She said always the same thing and I wondered how she didn't get tired of it, but she didn't get aware of it, because for us it felt like always the same conclusion and that was the avalanche, there is no color, it is only white and cold and snow and it covered everything. It was kind of awful to get aware of the influence of attachment. The teaching and insight about attachment and my mother was kind of alarming, because it had a devastating influence on the family, because in such an attached state, we are never able to listen to others and we are not able to take in whatever is coming from the outside, because of attachment. Looking at that avalanche how it was cold and empty and covering everything, it was awful to get aware of it and to see what it had done to us, she got always to the same stupid conclusion, no matter what.

It was not possible to reach her.  

We knew that she was working hard, but we didn't know why she was not able to listen, why she said it again and again to enforce it on us until we all couldn't listen to it anymore.

She wanted to be recognized and respected for hard work and great effort, for the result of it, even if we tried to tell her that we understood how much it mattered to her, she still was not happy. We had to listen, to agree and to tell her wonderful and that she was right, but it was impossible to make it right for her, because in the same moment she said that we could never do that and she had that kind of laughing, when I first heard it it pained me to hear the sound of it. 

It always ended somehow sarcastically in putting herself above everything telling us, we could never do what they had done. It felt like arrogance and pride and even bad manners, it felt unjust and blind. Most of the time I felt she meant well, but she couldn't handle it differently. She was caught in that mind prison of attachment. 

It didn't make sense, she was talking on a different level, living on a different planet and I always tried to know what it was and wrote letters and it was all in vain. 

It was impossible to get there. Out of my view there was a problem, but it was not possible to know what it was, only after her death it was as avalanche in the dream and it means only I get aware of it and not the others. It is kind of painful, because nobody was okay and great and everybody saw her effort and still it was not okay. It seemed all to not make sense, it just didn't feel right and that was all about attachment.

It was not possible to talk and if I said something, it was usually wrong understood, I said one thing, they heard another thing. 

And what mostly was disturbing that it didn't feel good. We couldn't talk, because she didn't allow us to talk anymore. She got upset before we even said something or she new it as usually better. It was not possible to reach her behind her wall of attachment, because of that attachment she looked at herself as a hero and we were all zeros.

Once only I mentioned 'self-realization', it was highly sacred for my feeling, a holy feeling and great and the answer I got was that I was a communist.

After I had understood that I tried in vain to get to them, but it was nevertheless hard and that had just been the beginning, they lived like on another planet, with the time I got more and more aware of it and couldn't remember my childhood anymore.
I guess with the attachment my mother was gone, what was left that looked like her, but she didn't act and think like my mother anymore. It was impossible to talk in my parent's house. There were no words to get there or no use trying to get there, it was of no use, they didn't want to hear it, there was no time, nor the space, but it was the conclusion that I was let down by my family, that was what Baba said. It was always the question, how to go on and how to live like that, that is why the self got lost and I guess I didn't know anymore to whom I belonged. It was like the confirmation was missing that I belonged to that family.

However it turned out later on, nothing what really mattered to me was shared with my family. 

I watched and worked and watched and wondered. 

I just went on working, but I watched and it means I was not allowed to change it until it would be there by my own self. .
It took time until the higher self reflected in the dream and in the inner view. That was the confirmation that it was possible and it had been there also sometime long ago before I don't know what, before she had been attached, because I didn't understand that attachment. 

But it didn't work also to go away from it. 
After I had met the higher self I noticed, that it was in itself an answer, but it was also a question.

My form of worship was accepting life as it was, it was his will only, whatever the karma, if it would not be his will, I would not have been in that situation. If it was not meant to be, so I had to make the best out of it, the question of belonging was much harder to answer.

Being aware that there had to be a reason for everything, we went ahead and lived in connection to the higher self and it was only possible to get there, if we watched and got aware of what it was not and the family body level it was not. What felt kind of hard in the beginning felt better later on. 

The wisdom began with insights, with the experience of the higher self. That is what we had to know, that is it where the answers are and that is what we have to understand.

Anyhow, it was beautiful and love and great and white light, and that we cannot forget it again, it was all what I wanted, it was that precious and amazing, it was that great, but there was no way telling me how to get there again.

So I followed whatever I met on my path and that were the Hare Krishnas, they were in the office selling books and I got the Bhagavadgita and with that more questions came up and I went for a visit and decided to go for the experience.
There was lots of worship, but it was like a cult and it didn't get me closer to the higher self and the wisdom I was looking for and so I began with regular meditation and was initiated in TM. It felt like great in the beginning, until it broke in pieces in the inner view and it had to be understood, how it all broke in pieces and how often we think it over until it does make sense. 
The insights got stronger on that meditation background, but the understanding not. There were no answers, there was no way to understand what I had experienced between the thoughts with TM, it was not possible to understand insight in only meditating. 

How to get closer to truth?

We had to ask questions and with TM we didn't ask questions, we thought they were answered, it was lazy and easy going, but there were no answers.

And I came to Baba and it began and it is still going on. He began to give the answers from the inside, out of the inner view and I began to write to get an answer out of the insight and the inner view. 

If we ask and read his words and listen to it and think it over, we finally get there, we are able to absorb it. And it is a process, because it is not just like that absorbed, it grows with time and as time goes by it gets more complete and right. By following the inner master we get there, we get to the right insight.

It is a process to get the wisdom and to be able to absorb it. 

One day Baba was in my thoughts and asked, 'I am hungry and you'? It was an incredible question and in my thoughts. What did he do in my thoughts? And it was not possible on my side to answer it, there were two and still it was only one and it went on until finally he said in the inner view, 'I am the One'.

It is the 'I', but it is not me, I am just an instrument.

It was just the beginning of him using the 'I' to get finally to the insight, 'I am the One', it means there is nothing beyond and it cannot get bigger than the biggest, because the 'One' is bigger than the biggest and the 'I am hungry and you' that was that level of smaller than the smallest. He was even beyond my I. It is just relating what is smaller than the smallest to what is bigger than the biggest. It is the 'I' on an universal and big level.

That is how He began to be inside in the inner view as 'I', but it was always such that it was clear beyond doubt that it was not my body and not who 'I' think I am, but who 'He' is and he knows, and the I on the level of the body knows nothing at all and therefore, I am just an instrument, but He knows and he is the One and the universal Being.