People think that giving up hearth and home is renunciation. This is not what Vairagya (detachment) implies. Whatever we do should be done in a spirit of goodwill and service. It should be for the wellbeing of the nation. And the welfare of all must be looked upon as the motto of the nation. From very early times, Bharatiyas have lived up to the ideal: "May all the worlds be happy!" To uphold this ideal, rulers, scholars, sages and everyone made many sacrifices. Today the spirit of sacrifice is not to be seen anywhere. It is selfishness that is the root cause of all the cruelty and violence today. All that we have in this century are strife, disputes, riots and violence. Selfishness has reared its head. Embodiments of Love! Get rid of selfishness. Regard yourself as an integral member of society. Develop the faith that your welfare is bound with the wellbeing of all.
Today it is warmer and I got that tired after lunch, can hardly keep my eyes open, so if I write I wake up again. It is really a beautiful text we look at tonight in the study circle. Thinking over that thought for the day I wonder why Baba said, 'I am in Africa?', because we are both not African. It was for me out of question that it had to do with me. It had to do with you, because you are in Africa and some of you family as it seems as well. Everything has to be done for the wellbeing of the nation. That is the way we were thinking as TM-teacher and I had been in a relationship with the national leader, it was all about the nation only.
To keep high up his function of the national leader they offered me a course as assistant teacher on a teacher training course and I went. I was focused on the higher self and Maharishi had nodded when I said I felt like just going on and on. So when they offered me the course, I thought it was about just going on and on and I saw it as an opportunity to get closer to the higher self and on that course everything broke into pieces, because the movement was thinking only about the role of the national leader and his former 'engaged' came back. Until then I believed it was all okay and in direction of 'going on and on' and take it as it comes. It was on that course that the air broke into pieces and it felt like hell. The motivation was the mind and the mind game of that guy, he was only an actor, there was no integrity or whatever there should have been. The others acted in his name and about the worst happened what could happen, the principle of yoga broke in pieces, it was all wrong. We didn't know that this was possible. We thought with regular meditation everything was done and we knew that he should have checked it because of that reason with the Maharishi, because he was no present and he didn't do it. I remember still how tired and exhausted I felt. I went in direction of the higher self and thought it was the right thing to do and in the insight reflected that they didn't know what they were doing and that they were just puppets on a string and the hand not there which should have been holding them and the whole thing broke into pieces and instead of friend, they turned in no time into enemies. It was a shock and it ended with the insight that there was a black hole in meditation. After that course I went back to the TM-center in Zurich and I hoped it would go on as before, but it was clear that it was no possible, something was wrong and I was very afraid of those experiences.
It was awful that tiredness, I was afraid to lose my mind or to die of that tiredness and I had no idea why. With vibuthi I got in touch with Sai Baba and he was present as inner divinity, so I went to him and still hoped that it would go on with TM as well until Baba said that it is not the right path and that I should only think about God and that it is very difficult to understand. I put Om Sairam in front of the TM-mantra to feel okay.
Being with Baba I had the feeling that my life was gone or what I thought it was my life and when I met Charles I was even glad that he was American, because I was glad to leave that national awareness what had turned into hell with the TM-national leader, because they all looked like enemies.
It was awful to face that reality and to not know why. Every time when I tried to know why, I realized I couldn't understand it and when Baba said it is very difficult to understand I had no idea how difficult, because it is practically impossible to understand it without listening to his words. I listened, but that is not enough, we have to think it over, we have to see it in our own life, we have to reflect on it and find the meaning of it behind in the background and that is what I am doing in writing you.
In the air was I don't know how many times 'cut off', but not why and how?
In Darshan was 'uprooted' and I always thought it had to do with TM. It got lost with TM, but it had been already a problem before because of my family and being let down by them.
Whatever the fear of TM and the negative experiences was that big, I couldn't meditate relaxed anymore as I did before, that is why I put 'Om Sairam' in front of the TM-mantra and went on meditating like that and the sutras and siddhis I stopped. Baba has merged with it in the meantime and seeing divinity behind it feels different again. With that thought for the day of Ganapathi and him telling, 'I wanted to fly', it does make sense and it is not any more dangerous.
So I have my own story with the national level and I was afraid of it and it had to do with the national leader.
It should be for the wellbeing of the nation. And the welfare of all must be looked upon as the motto of the nation. From very early times, Bharatiyas have lived up to the ideal: "May all the worlds be happy!" To uphold this ideal, rulers, scholars, sages and everyone made many sacrifices.
It was all upside down in no time in that relationship with the national leader. He didn't uphold the ideal, he was no ruler or leader, but he was just and actor. It was not real and the others followed him, so the whole TM-movement felt like 'enemies', when in reality yogis are our friends.
For sure it was not about sacrifice when they offered me that course; it was because one was too much. It was against the ideal of yoga. It must have been the ideal which was not uphold, because afterwards we went together to the Maharishi and there was that 'criminal' in the Darshan above his head and also didn't understand it, because we had no Darshan with Maharishi. It was there because of the National leader, it reflected above his head because the master was not present as master, only for the national leader not for the others and that guy was only an actor. Maharishi told him that if he would not hold up the light, someone else would do it. He also had no idea what he did it seems. I left and went to Baba and in coming back got some instructions to keep it for myself and to not mix, but I could stay a TM-teacher.
I only realized in that moment that nobody would go to another master with TM and go on as I did, but I didn't want to go on, I just wanted to get out of it. I went to Baba a few months later and that is when I had the first interview and I asked him about it and when he answered, TM is not the right path, just think about God and that is very difficult to understand. I planned to fly back in September 86 and during Darshan he was standing in front of me and made a big smile and I couldn't leave. I cancelled the flight and the national leader when I didn't come back began to threaten me with my own sister, what I somehow had expected and in December he wrote that he would get 'engaged' at his birthday in December. So he replaced me as fast as he could and it was not about love or ideal or truth or yoga or sacrifice, but it was all about him acting his role.
And before I had Baba in my dream and he asked why I was that old and not yet married and he mentioned Al Drucker, which was even older and not yet married and the rest you know.
I went to get a visa in Singapore and on the way there the problem family and neighborhood came up and he said he would come back and marry me and soon after I met Charles and he really wanted to get married and he said, 'you belong to me'.
I was glad to leave Switzerland, because of that national level I had been into with the TM national leader and all turning into enemies, it was much worse than I thought it was.
But because Al was American, it was a way to get out of it, Charles was also American and you are American and my daughter is now American and Baba tells me, 'I am in Africa'?
So why Africa?
Nobody else is in Africa, but you. Al is not in Africa, the national leader made some more mistakes as it seems and lost his job, he is no more the national leader since years and he was living in Holland afterwards and now I don't know where he is, I never asked if he returned to Seelisberg or if he is still living in Holland? I don't know.
But I met once a guy who had known him when they were younger and he had left as well and he asked me what would happen to him if he is still in that TM thing and I told him, but he has no choice anymore, he cannot get out of it, he has to stay there, wherever that is, if it is in Timbuktu or in Holland or in Seelisberg, he cannot get out of it anymore.
You see by thinking it over I got the answer about the house, it had to do with getting a room in the ashram, no room really, when Baba said, 'I know what I do, I will give you a big house'.
The flying after all seems to have to do with the Siddhis, when Baba said, 'I wanted to fly' and that Baba is the motivator for the siddhis as well. The sutras help us to control the mind and to stay in that silence you like that much, you should try it. As you like silence you are like me, even if I sing also Bhajans I like silence much more and most of all silence and keeping the mind on the sutras, that is what I really like and there is that pleasure of the mind, because the anxiety of the mind is not present. It is kept under control with the 'strength of an elephant'.
What else is there still open? I am in Africa. That is open. Because Baba is the principle of 'attraction' and we go in his direction as he is bigger than the biggest and smaller than the smallest, so if he is in Africa his power of attraction is also in Africa. Are you that much in Africa and are you that power of attraction? I don't know if I will ever understand that part of it.