Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Virtues and Self-Respect transform the Mind

People practice various forms of worship and rituals following their family tradition and culture. However they do not transform even a bit in spite of months and years of spiritual practice. Frustrated, they change the Name they are chanting, because they are tired of waiting for results. At times, people change not just the Name they chant, but also their religion. Know clearly that you cannot attain God's Grace by changing the Name you chant or the religion. You must transform yourself. The dog in the home always recognizes its Master, no matter whether he or she wears a jogging dress, office uniform or party attire. It has no doubt about its Master, despite the dress worn. So too, you cannot convince God by merely changing your external appearance.
You have to acquire virtues and conduct yourself righteously. Only the one who transforms the mind pleases the Lord and attains Divinity.
Baba (thought for the day)

He explained to us not long ago in the Vedas we find three level and they are dependent on each other. First it is the level of action and consequences, the law of Karma, the second level is about divine order and the third level the nature of the absolute divine, and we talked about different levels of bliss. What we have to understand is that the first part will lead to the insight that he is the doer and we, if we are in the higher self are part of that higher divine order and we are already on the second step. We had been meditating and the discrimination was about inside and outside, about absolute and relative and about perfect orderliness and if we knew how to use more of that potential in our own mind, our health level would improve and we would get younger, more successful, it was called a lever of no problems and all wishes could get fulfilled.
That is all on the second level of divine order. If we get on the third level of the divine absolute nature we have to ask question and the most important question is 'who am I'?
That is about the reality in the Veda and to get there, we have to ask questions. We cannot just meditate and expect an answer if we do not ask a question. The question is, 'Who am I'?
The 'I' is that universal principle that has to be realized as 'I am the One', there is nothing but that universal 'I', it is an universal principle, all entities in this creation have an 'I' feeling.



Usually the 'I' is related to our body consciousness, we look at the body and think, I am the body and what the others as different from my body and what the others are that is the mind and what we really are that is Atman. 'I am the One' is Atman. There is no limitation in time and space, just being.
If we do not meditate and we do not enquire, there is no practice. If we just meditate we get in touch with the level or perfect orderliness, but it doesn't tell us 'who am I'. If we all meditate together we have an influence on consciousness no doubt.
What is the problem if we do not transform even a bit during the years of spiritual practice?

Frustrated, they change the Name they are chanting, because they are tired of waiting for results. At times, people change not just the Name they chant, but also their religion. Know clearly that you cannot attain God's Grace by changing the Name you chant or the religion. You must transform yourself.

How do we transform our own self? If we read those words, we can take it like information like that is what others do, they change the mantra because nothing is happening? Why is nothing happening? Is something in my life happening?
What should be the result?
If it is about, 'who am I', how do we get to the universal insight, 'I am the One'. In following the inner master and how do we follow the inner master? In listening to him and his dreams and in enquiring about it and trying to get the right answer, in not getting stuck in the wrong answer and thinking that doesn't matter … Like my ex, he said in his dream that he warns him that in this room he will not get the right answer. What did he do? He went to an official person in the ashram he knew and asked what was meant by that. Nobody could tell him and afterwards he forgot about it.
The warning was that it was a wrong room or a wrong level.
I had an interview with Baba and I had to translate and he talked about me, he asked the other devotee, who I was and what our relationship was and to whom I belonged. It was kind of strange that I had to translate and I thought talking with others I would maybe get an answer. It seemed to go in the right direction, the answer was not in Baba, she was also not without him, but it was in the 'brother' devotion. We went shortly after to the mountains because it was hot Indian summer and we lived in a house at the lake with ashram view, it was beautiful. In the house I met an American, he was three years older and when I talked with him about that interview, he had an answer, he said that I belonged to him and that Baba had asked that question, because he wanted a wife that was his interpretation.
If we see it on the three level of Veda as described by Baba, he was on the first level, action and the consequence, he took action and years later Baba told me in the dream that he took only advantage of it and that created confusion. I knew I had to get an answer that was the last level about absolute divinity.
I was just meditating and not asking questions as I had been with TM, it was the level of perfect orderliness, but there were not answers and the insights had changed during that TM time and it was not possible to understand it without asking questions and for that reason I had to be on the third level and that is, 'who am I'? I had to start to ask questions.
So I began to ask questions and on the spot I met someone who claimed he know the answer.
He said he did TM and that is why I thought he would be a friend and it would be possible with him to get an answer.
On that last level of divine absolute reality we needed the brother, the mirror to get the answer. I thought he was that brother and if he would be on the right level, probably it would have been possible. But as it turned out, he was not at all on the right level, it was all different. As he took only advantage of it, he was not on the level of divine order. He didn't question if it was right, he was only on the level of action and wrong action, he just took advantage of it, he didn't care about divine order, and he didn't care about God-realization.
He was in his regressed child. Baba told him he had a mental depression and a bad monkey mind, but I had no idea what that was all about and that I would have to make the experience that way in getting into his game. His attitude was, the regressed child, 'I need help and you have to take care of me'.
And I had to find the right answer, that was clear after that interview and I had no idea what he was talking about when he said, 'I need help and you have to take care of me'. It was not that clearly said of course, that got clear only later on. If it would have been that clear, maybe we would have noticed it. But it was not about divine order and it was not about Baba giving him that wife, it was about him only, he wanted to be taken care of and he made it look like Baba's Lila and that I was the wife Baba gave him. He was just like a mad monkey mind jumping bumping around from one branch to the other, whatever arranged his mind best and called it Baba given.
There was that brother level needed to get the right answer, as Baba said, you and I are we and afterwards there is no more I and no more you, but just we and that is he and from there we get to 'I'. What is he talking about?
If we don't practice we cannot possibly understand it, somehow it's out of question. It does not make sense if we don't  ask the question, 'who am I'?
He also tells us when two or three are in his name together, he is in the midst of them.
If you and I are we and that is 'He' the insights are 'He', Baba is in the dream and he told him that he lived a dream, 'give, give, give, I will not give, you lived a dream and that is your problem not mine'. It was all not true and after all looking back we can even see it.
But he was present in his dream not only as 'he', that was because we were two and together, but also he was present as 'I'.
The problem is only my ex is not enquiring about it and he doesn't questions his dreams. His dream told me more than him. He told it to me and forgot about it.
He was not in the divine order, it was not Baba who gave it to him, I was not the wife he had in store for him and of all what had happened, that I spoke about the interview and that Baba had asked to whom I belonged, that was all his imagination, it was a dream and not real and no reality in it.
As we have to do with Baba and the three levels of Veda and self-realization the requirement was actually to get aware of it. He didn't know what he was doing.
And he went on like that. It took me time to see the self-aggrandizement in it, when he thought that Sai Baba gave me the interview especially for him because he wanted a wife …, it made just his ego blow up. At that time we went for walks, there was the ashram around and it all felt okay and I really thought it was Baba behind, even if I didn't understand it. I always talked about truth and that we had to get answers and he said yes to everything and in reality didn't understand a word of what I said. That was kind of a shock to get aware of it later on.
I went ahead and thought I would know in time, but life went on and I got pregnant and in the end it was not anymore about him and his way of seeing things, but about the unborn baby and I would have liked to stay in Baba's presence on a permanent basis in the ashram and there we couldn't live together without being a family, so we got married finally because of that reason. I had no idea of self-aggrandizement and that it was only about what he wanted and when I tried to tell him one day that I thought that is was wrong and not what he had said, he got in a fit of rage and hit with a metal pot on my head and I was actually glad I survived it and the baby in my arms, she fell asleep on the spot, was not an orphan already. I sat on the floor and couldn't get up and I didn't know how many times he hit with that pot on my head. The next weeks I was walking around with black rings round my eyes, wearing constantly sun-glasses that nobody should see it and that is how I went to Darshan. I don't remember why we went to the US, I think nothing mattered anymore afterwards what I wanted, only to somehow pass that time by and to find a way out. As it seems the next five years were more or less a prison for me, I knew I couldn't get out of it. As things didn't work out as he would have liked it to be, it was me who was blamed for everything, his past life as well as his present, all the problems he ever had, if he went in a fight, even if I was not present, he asked me what I did etc. To avoid turning nuts and getting in a kind of physical amok run I tried to make the best out of it, I listened to Mafu tapes until I began to dream of suicide, even in my meditation it was suicide and I felt like homeless and a beggar on the streets of New York City. In the meant time he made fun of that he could do that to me, because he said no American would have been that stupid to go for it. That it had to do with Sai Baba was not in focus anymore. I always avoided any further confrontation because it felt constantly dangerous as he had nearly killed me already.  That I felt like a prisoner that I was not even aware of, but I was afraid he would not let us go.
One day he got a dream from Baba and he said in his dream that I had to come to him and to make peace with him. He told me and I was glad, but I didn't show it to him. I was very careful to not show any happiness or joy because I was afraid he would not let us go. He went into abusing the dream, making fun of it, making me feel ridiculous, who was that stupid and had to go and make peace with Baba and I didn't tell him what I thought, because I was afraid he would not let us go, that is when I realized I felt like a prisoner and he took advantage of it that I was a foreigner because in his mind he could take advantage of it, it exposed me to him. His mother had been like that dependent and a foreigner, they spoke always an Italian/English mix.
It was not about divine order and that it would be restored in going to Baba and making peace with him, because with that guy peace was not possible. As he always made me for everything responsible, even his dream that Baba gave me interview only because I had to be his wife and take care of him, I was also entitled to be blamed for everything, entitled to take whatever came from his side, the abuse, the insult and to get nothing at all in return, there was no gratitude or to take care of him and if I was not able to do that, my family should etc. It felt kind of limitless and ridiculous and when I realized that he saw an Baba's dream when he asked him in his dream that  should come to him to make peace with him, he found it ridiculous that anyone had to go to Baba and make peace with him. It was a kind of hard waking up, realizing that state of mind and such a shock, I didn't speak a word anymore, that afraid he would not let us go, he had turned into kind of a monster and we were his prisoner.
Before we left, there had been one more dream and Baba send me in his dream back to my lovely husband. That was even more shocking to realize that this guy lived in such a self-aggrandizement that he really thought after all that he was a lovely husband.
I didn't ask him what he thought about it, I just listened and I wanted to get out of it, whatever that was, just get out of it.
So we went to Baba and the divine order was restored because it was clear that we should not go back to him. After began seven until the divorce agreement was signed, he ignored it all and I still tried to do it on the level of Sai Baba, because with him we went into that relationship.
But after all that I was tired of it. It felt like a joke to go and sing Bhajans in the Sai center and it was not comforting, mostly the old and not understood experiences came up and that felt like upsetting, like only problems.
It was not possible to go and see Baba, we didn't see him anymore, we had only summer holidays and we went usually to the parents in Spain.
When we had met years ago it was about being permanent in Baba's presence and the result was the opposite, we couldn't see him anymore at all, while my ex went on once a year to go to the ashram, he never asked if we would come as all and he went on, didn't care about us at all.
I went into a different type of meditation thinking that I had done something wrong and I began with dynamic meditation and dancing and I went to the Dancing Buddhas and became a Sannyasin. It was a good time and I went into inner child work, getting aware of the shadow. I had seen that shadow in the air during an interview. In that time it felt much better to go dancing than to sing Bhajans. I felt bored and I couldn't connect to the Sai devotees anymore, I felt not understood or instead of feeling good, I went home often upset. I didn't like it anymore.
In the inner child workshop it came up that we had to feel it and he was right. If we can feel it we are able to understand it.
So I began to feel it and getting in touch with the regressed child and how the world looks out of such a point of view, we also got aware of the self-aggrandizement.
He went to his sister, she took care of him and that was okay for him, he never cared to ask if we were fine or if his daughter needed something, he was not present, he didn't exist. He said, 'I need help, you have to take care of me', that was his attitude and whoever got closer to him, was just taken advantage of. Also when he went to Sai Baba, it was not to get self-realization, but just to feel good, so he didn't have to worry about his daughter, Baba took care.
Sai Baba told me it was perverted, it felt actually nauseating, sickening, revolting.
His sister was also alone with her daughter and the family somewhere back in Italy.
For him that was Baba again, that he could go to his sister.
When he wanted a wife from Baba, he wanted someone to take care of him. There was not second thought about Baba's teaching and about him taking care of wife and child, there was no second thought about duty, only primitive personal needs.
In the meantime his sister has sold her house and he lives in a small flat and if we would be available for him again, he would come today to our place to be taken care of by us again, and for sure he would again find a way to tell it is Baba. That is sure, no matter what happened in the past, no matter what he did and didn't do, what insults, what violence, what abandonment and not caring, no matter what problems, it would be Baba said in his mind – the bad monkey mind Baba.
I guess that is why Baba said in my dream at the moment leaving the body, no more husband, nothing left but an empty Western shoe. And in the dream there was a pair of old ugly worn out male shoes.  
Being devotees we always meet again, that nearly happened this year. I had forgotten that he was always at that time in the ashram and I had to take vacation time from last year and I had booked a flight, only afterwards already booked I remembered that he might also be there over Shivaratri, but it was too late, the flight was booked. A week before my vacation I had a foot fracture, it means I could not take the flight and later it was confirmed, my daughter got a birthday card in April from him and he told her that he had been five weeks in the ashram. We would have been the same time there and Baba arranges, that is that type of thinking, but this time he didn't arrange for sure. Things went out of order with him together and he sees Baba just in all those things which arrange him only.
It was that bad, it was in the dream present as amok and it happened the same day and seven were killed, I had somehow my problems with it seeing it in my own life and going on no matter what obstacles are there, it seemed that far away, but it was not. With shame, self-aggrandizement and the shadow of the mind we also got in touch with a kind of psychological amok run and incest, it was all present and belonged all to the deficiency hole of the mind.  
There was that much negativity, it was kind of hard to take, but we went on, it is not about acting it out on the outer level, it is just about insights. It had nothing to do with miracle and wonders and gifts and all that stuff we usually listen to when devotees talk about experiences, but it was about reality and truth and not about mystification and it was also present in the dream as, 'I am the One'. Through the up and downs of the waves of the ocean, the stormy and the nice times, in the end it comes to, 'I am the One'.
That is the ocean and we are part of that ocean, we are the waves and we move with those waves and I guess there is no use trying to understand it.
And that is the third part of Veda, it is about the absolute divinity and if we ask the question, 'who am I', we will get the answer. In the inner view it was as, 'I am the One', it is the big I, the universal being, we can tell, 'I am that', knowing there is no difference between our small 'I' and the universal oneness, we are all one and we face the reality that there is only one and love only.

So too, you cannot convince God by merely changing your external appearance. You have to acquire virtues and conduct yourself righteously. Only the one who transforms the mind pleases the Lord and attains Divinity.

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