Peace is an Aspect of the Higher Self

Fire emerges when one wooden stick is rubbed against another. Can two sticks placed next to each other produce the fire? No. Fire though latent in them, emerges only through the act of rubbing of the sticks. What do these sticks symbolize? The sticks represent the human body. The fire of wisdom (jnana) is present in subtle form within us since our birth and is inert. Spiritual effort (Sadhana) is the process of rubbing the sticks. Where is the butter present in the milk? Butter has always been present in the milk and could be obtained only after the milk had been converted to curd and the curd was churned. Once butter is obtained from the buttermilk, it remains as butter without becoming milk. Likewise, in the human body, a divine power pervades every part of the body, which, after the experience of a Sakshatkar (vision of the Divine) will not be attached to the body.

Baba (thought for the day)

I liked to get aware of the three levels in Veda we have to search to understand it as action and the consequences, orderliness and the place and divinity and its absolute reality.

The question is how to see it in our own life and a way is to just write down what comes in our mind and today it is still on my mind. I remembered how I was waiting for the higher self to be there in the watcher, but I still remember the emotions, because I went beyond my own limitations and the fear, because I didn’t know where I went and it feels also somehow reflected in the father. In the mother early childhood was joy and the orderliness has to do with the father. When my mother came back from Spain she didn’t bring with her that orderliness which had been present due to my father before. It was like we had in not time lots of problems and everything went upside down and not the opposite as it had been with my father.

Spiritual effort is in Baba’s words related to rubbing the sticks. If I do not care about the Baba dreams and I do not think it over and see it in my own life, there will nothing come out by it. But the same value has meditation, if we do not meditate, the consequence will be that we are in the mind only.  If we face the first level of action and consequence, we have to be aware of what we are doing. The second level was in Baba’s presence, whatever happened had to be seen as his doing and we were challenged in understanding that level of divine orderliness.

If we are approaching the Veda as watcher we will find three levels that need to be explored. The first is the study (jijnasa) of action and its consequences (karmajijnasa), then the search for the divine order that what assigns all things of the phenomenal world at its rightful place (dharmajijnasa), and finally the search for the understanding of the Divine Absolute (brahmajijnasa).

Each one is essential to get to the next step. Only through appropriate action within the divine order we learn to understand it and from this point only arises the understanding of the nature of Brahman. The relationship of karma, dharma and brahman is ... illustrated by the flower growing into a ripe fruit. The flower is first a bud. After the petals fall off, what remains is the kernel from which the fruit develops. The unripe fruit is just acidic. Only when it is ripe, it is soft and sweet. Flower, kernel and ripe fruits are steps in the growth process and essentially one and the same. Therefore, the action (karma), the divine order (dharma) and God (brahma) are nothing else but three different manifestations of brahman. During action, even in harmony with the divine order, conflicts can arise. From the third level, after recognizing Brahman there alone is the bliss of perfect balance and equanimity (ananda).

(Baba)

First watching was on the level of action until the consequence was the insight of the higher self in the dream, it is what we want, and the level of wanting, but in the dream it cannot be reached by action. That is why I began with meditation to reach it in an indirect way.

That second part, the level of perfect orderliness or divine order had been a big issue during the TM time. It was about that orderliness in our understanding and intellect if everything seemed just right and everything seemed taken care off just by meditation. It was called invincible, but it anyhow turned into the opposite and that probably belonged to that part that even conflict arises when in harmony with the divine order.

If we talk about bliss, we do not talk about conflict. If we read about bliss, we want to know how to get out of conflict to live in peace in our own self, because peace is what we need to get close to bliss. In that quote Baba tells us why we want peace, it is closest to the nature of Atman.

Peace is the innate nature of man. Peace is the energy that helps those who are trying to discriminate (viveka), who look for a clear understanding (vicakshana) and detachment (vairagya). Peace is nothing more than an aspect in humans of the true Divine Self (Atman). Just like the Atman is peace (Shanti) without beginning or end; no evil can disturb it; it is equal only to itself and not comparable to anything else.

Peace has to be present equally in the mind (manas), speech (vak), behavior (kaya) and action (karman). Then peace can becomes highest peace (Prashanti), it is real peace. Without peace we cannot hope to win worldly, mental or spiritual levels of bliss. Peace is the source for all happiness and joy. (Baba)

And what if we suffer bad company?

It was a heavy lesson we had to go through. We lived all a certain time in the ashram and in Prasanthi, the highest abode of peace and when I met another devotee who said that he had asked Baba for a wife and that I was that wife, it kind of looked ideal, same interest, same master, as it felt like same background, like the same breeding ground and even more so, because he said that he was also meditating and that he did TM. That was the base to the illusion that we hoped to go in direction of peace, because the is what we want if we get to happiness in living in peace. We have to know how to live in peace.

But he took only advantage of it. That was what Baba said in the dream.

First it was a shock, to be in such a situation that was long before I knew that he took only advantage of it, it was such a shock that it was not possible think and I just said it hoping to understand it one day. As it had been in Baba’s presence, I said, ‘it happened in his presence, he will know a way out of it’. I wanted to know why I was in that situation, why everything went wrong as it seemed. It had to be a reason for it and those insights have not to do with action, but with the divine order and the question why chaos in that divine order.

The answer Baba gave in the dream, he said that he took just advantage of it. That is on the level of action and the consequence, it is not the same level.

On the second step we went into it, because we thought it was in harmony with the divine order and we had to see that divine order. He took advantage of it and the question was why he didn’t know what he was doing, trying to find an answer to that question to be able to see it in the divine order.

In fact, in the end he did about everything to disturb and to destroy it.

So it was stupid and wrong to think that in Baba’s presence it would just be okay, because of him being present. We didn’t know him good enough.

There were still the negative TM-experiences, I had to find an answer and my ex began to tell there is no problem, avoiding it, because it put him in question. TM was also on that second level of perfect orderliness, just going on and on I was working with the national leader, who had asked me to search for a hotel for the Maharishi and that is how we got in touch until the whole thing crumbled and broke in pieces, the people were puppets on a string, he could do with them whatever he wanted and he did. In going with him to the Maharishi, above the master was ‘criminal’ in the air that is all about disturbance of the divine order.

I left that special place, nobody could visit without being invited  and I went to Baba in the hope to get it in order again. It seemed the best we could do in that situation. The negative insights had become such that trust was gone, but I didn’t know why and how to see it, because everything was hidden behind yoga and no problems and nobody saw it. I still hoped the Maharishi would be able restore the disturbed orderliness. But instead of getting better, it got worse, therefore, it was clear that it was right to leave and it was not about the consequences of those acts, on that level I had no choice anymore, but the consequences were such that I had to search for the answer afterwards.  

To understand it seemed nearly impossible because of the Yogi involved. In a way he protected the national leader, he looked like a criminal and the leader who did what he wanted with the people, was protected by that. It seemed that he tried to find out how far he really could go. It was after the Maharishi had left Seelisberg, he left in 83 and in 84 things fell already apart and in pieces. But at that time I had no idea how long it would take to get the right insight and to be able to understand those negative experiences, based on Tamas. in the mean time we know that Tamas is very difficult to understand and it is not something we want, it turns our normal world upside down. I had to question everything coming my way, we should not leave anything open and unaddressed, because how should we know if it was not just that part of it missing, if  it was about that orderliness and it seemed rather like a puzzle to get to the right answer?

The question was not action, not the first part of it. It was in the frame of the divine orderliness in Baba’s presence and it didn’t make sense. That part was difficult to understand, the divine order seemed to be interrupted, it was the chaotic part in it or better the Maharishi who appeared as criminal when in reality it was the other.

I guess it was that what Baba called not the right path, the chaos hidden behind the frame of perfect orderliness and invincibility, what was held up by the Maharishi, but what had not been present, and the consequence was still felt, it was present as tension and mental pressure, it was present as fear, it was present as hell and it had turned into the opposite. What was for others invincible and yoga and friends only and good, had with the national leader turned into the opposite, he was the enemy, it became criminal, the reason was not seen behind the Maharishi and he was later in the dream as actor that is how the yoga part got lost. For me it was a question how to understand it. It is said that sathva alone wins, so it was about how the orderliness would be restored by sathva and how it would be true, it was such a long waiting time involved and that difficult to get those insights that I lost already hope that it ever will change. How the orderliness was restored?

One day in the Darshan was that I had the ‘strength of an elephant’ and I wondered how that had happened. It was a sutra, the strength of an elephant and it had to do with TM. When we became TM-teachers it was in the dream as insight, what I didn’t know yet at that time. TM had nothing to do with insights or visions, it was only about regular meditation and a technique, whatever was present as insights or vision got lost in it.

There was a huge big elephant (elephant is also the sign of ignorance), it went into a jumbo jet in purpose to fly to the US, in the trunk it had a vacuum cleaner and we should go and clean consciousness. That was the insight and waking up I was surprised how big that elephant had been, it was that big, I wondered it if had enough room in that airplane and it was about flying to the USA to clean consciousness. It didn’t tell my why it was the USA, because I was at that time not in the US. But that was the insight after we became TM-teachers, it was the strength of an elephant. Remembering that and the Darshan when it was in the air that I had the strength of an elephant and during Baba’s birthday he was sitting that year on his elephant Sai Gita and that is how the awareness was there that it had to do with TM. It was the same sathva and light and the difference was gone, that is how it became meaning that ‘Sathva always wins’, it was just about the same light, Sathva is light and in the divine order.    

With my ex we had to face the bad mad monkey mind in action, jumping bumping around as it pleased the mind only, using Baba for his own purposes. As it was a sick conditioning of the mind, it didn’t even serve himself, he destroyed himself as well. We had to get out of it that he was able to take a better direction, it felt like he couldn’t stop what he had started and if it didn’t end it would go on like that until the bitter end, in the insight it lead into an amok run on the mental level talking everybody with him who got near him. That is not exactly the peace level Baba is talking about.

In looking at the reality of shame and the evil in toxic shame, that mind conditioning, a kind of mind-hole, emptiness that began in the past and we didn’t know what it was, but he couldn’t let go and everything coming his way was just to fill that empty hole in the mind, but he never got aware that he lived not in the present and that it had nothing to do with peace or with Baba’s teaching, blaming others for his conditioning, getting always worse and deeper into it, instead of getting out of it, it was present in the inner view as a mud hole. Baba said in the dream he is the insight. So we had to go through those insights to get to that divine order behind everything finding the right place for it.  

In the book of John Bradshaw, ‘Healing the Shame that binds you’, he describes that mind pattern as self-aggrandizement, it has to do with will power acting out its will only and enforcing it on others, devoid of self-critics and reality, a dream world which he thinks is real, when he sunning himself in it. He sees it as real, because he sees himself in a big house or he feels good in thinking that he will get a job and get rich, but he is living in the projection only promising things which have no reality. Just because it makes him feel good to dream with open eyes and if someone tries to tell him or make him aware of it, we endanger his dream world and that turns into a potential enemy, he got violent trying to enforce his rules. That resulted in a state of life which seemed to have been a kind of prison which lasted for five years in which he tried to make his dream become real always trying to find stranger ways to get it, like in the end it were my parents who should look after all of us, because he was not able to. He seemed to be totally unaware of what he was doing destroying the relationship going on in a dream world and a pattern of self-aggrandizement, devoid of any reality and if it doesn’t happen as he thinks it should, he projected it on us and gave us the blame for it. He seems not able to learn from it. It was a shock to face such a bad mind state, inflexible and directed by his own will and way of seeing it, whatever I said to him, it never reached him.

After years with him together it felt like I had been all the time talking to a wall only and nothing went in and nothing came out but troubles and it was an awful conclusion of a relationship . As long as it arranged his way of seeing it there was nothing wrong and if something went against it, he got violent and tried to enforce it and everything was our mistake and not his.

If he would have the possibility he would repeat the same all over again, getting again into self-aggrandizement seeing it wonderful like he would like it to be and things are out of reality and self-control and the first sign of problem he would get violent because he wants to enforce it because he is identified with his will and not with his being. It was destroying his dream and it would result to the same thing again, of him getting violent, because it would destroy his dream and he would blame everybody around for it, only not himself, because it would destroy his dream. It is based on self-aggrandizement, dreaming his own life on a not real base and by dreaming imposing it on others, if it looks good it makes him feel good, devoid of reality and not concerned about others at all.

We get scared if we realize how blocked and rigid that state of mind is and that it is impossible to share, he is like not present, just like taking advantage of everything coming his way.

That mind doesn’t make sense, it is jumping, bumping around like a mad monkey and adjusting everything to his own favor, and he cannot see another point of view but his own.

If we want to see the orderliness in it, we have to see it out of the light of toxic shame and a mind-hole, and it does make sense in that light.

And the last part of Veda the search into divinity, we have to ask the question, ‘who am I?’

In our ‘I’ is the unlimited level of the higher self and the light, the first awakening in the heart as ‘I’-awareness Baba said once it Lord Shiva and that is present in every heart.

It is in the breath and the mantra Soham, we breath in ‘So’, the ‘light’ or ‘That’ and we breath out ‘Ham’ or everything dark and ‘I am’ – body consciousness. In the breath is the answer, ‘I am God’. The ‘I’ principle has to be realized on an universal level and that is what Baba’s teaching is all about, he makes us in the inner view aware of that ‘universal I’, the principle of the divine, present in everybody as the same one, unity in diversity, he said in the inner view, ‘I am the One’. If we see it as a vision inside in the dream, it is He. It is an universal level and that is different from the body, we are not the body and not the mind, we are Atman.

If we see it in an inner vision we know that our small ‘I’ is also part of that oneness and that there is no difference, in the inner view it is possible to realize it, what the intellect cannot understand without getting the right answer and the insight. That is why Baba said always ‘inner view’, one day you will get ‘inner view’, not ‘interview’ and he also made the difference between internet and inner net, it is not to find fault with the relative level, but to tell us that we have to go inside and that we have to see it in our inner view, because it is not possible to understand it on the outer level with the mind.

And it is He in the heart, his wisdom, it is universal and we are in the body just instruments.

That is the third level we find in Veda, it is the search about the absolute divine.

He told us as well that it is only on that level that we can get to undisturbed bliss and equanimity in the mind.

Where is the butter present in the milk? Butter has always been present in the milk and could be obtained only after the milk had been converted to curd and the curd was churned. Once butter is obtained from the buttermilk, it remains as butter without becoming milk. Likewise, in the human body, a divine power pervades every part of the body, which, after the experience of a Sakshatkar (vision of the Divine) will not be attached to the body.

We have to think it over and see it in our own life to be able to absorb the knowledge, if we just read it, we will stay on the surface level and not integrate it. We have to do our work or homework, it is called Tapas. We cannot realize it without doing the self effort what he calls in that thought for the day.

Fire emerges when one wooden stick is rubbed against another. Can two sticks placed next to each other produce the fire? No. Fire though latent in them, emerges only through the act of rubbing of the sticks. What do these sticks symbolize? The sticks represent the human body. The fire of wisdom (jnana) is present in subtle form within us since our birth and is inert. Spiritual effort (Sadhana) is the process of rubbing the sticks.

We rub the sticks in thinking it over and in seeing in our own life and after all if it begins to make sense, if we see it in the light of the divine order and if all three levels of the Veda are there, what has to be present with Baba, we are just not enough aware of it, it gets transformed into peace and that is an aspect of Atman in our own higher self and that is why if we get to the inner truth of it, it feels like being in Prasanthi Nilayam and we can feel Baba’s presence in the truth of his words.