Knowledge and Silence

When Yajnavalkya resolved to go into the forest to live as an ascetic, he called his two wives before him and proposed to divide the riches he had earned between them. Before accepting her share, Maitreyi asked her husband whether the riches will help her to realise Truth and achieve immortality. When she understood that they will not, and in fact they are mere hindrances, she refused to be burdened. Nachiketa refused the gifts of empire, affluence, and years of healthy life. Prahladha taught the same lesson to his playmates. Buddha solved the mystery of suffering through renunciation of attachment as the first step in his Sadhana. All of them had implicit faith in the existence of God; their lives revolved on the axis of that faith.

Baba (thought for the day)

This thought for the day is about attachment and that riches can be hindrance. We prefer to see it as a gift given by God and that we are able to take good care of it usually than to renounce it. It seems easier, but what is about attachment?  

There are lots of stories in the Puranas about famous people who refused the gift of empire, affluence and even years of healthy life in the purpose to get liberation. It is definitely easier if we talk about it in the Puranas than it is in our life.

If it is about an empire we cannot just renounce it like Buddha and meditate for the rest of your days.

If we talk about, knowledge, courage, volition and silence, the four pillars of the temple, we get to 'insights' only with silence and not with mediation or what we call Sadhana, spiritual practice. It is just 'silence'; it helps the mind go quiet down and it definitely feels better, because we do not have to argue about it with anyone and we do not have to explain things, the commitment is silence.  

When we have a study circle we go around in the circle and share, but usually in the end they like to just talk and no more in the circle. So we go around and we try in the end to share on an easy level, but it is always possible that 'rajas', passion is getting into the circle and it is no more circle. Usually some people get quickly heated up in the mind and if they begin to argue, we are no more in a circle, because the principle is the non-argumentative exchange of view. Sathva always wins, but only if it remains sathvic and Rajas doesn't know, it is between Sathva and Tamas and Tamas turns it upside down… we can see the arguing in it. Tamas makes out of a vice a virtue and out of a virtue a vice.  

In a circle we share and do not discuss matters, but as people like to just exchange thoughts, we often exchange in the end to get over that frustration of not being able to just share, but in the risk that it will turn into Rajas.

I like to see it as, knowledge, courage, volition and silence. The four pillars are short and precise and it is about the basic principle and if we cannot meditate nor do any spiritual practice, we can do that. It is Tapas, spiritual work.

Silence is the practice. In silence the mind cannot express itself. With silence we get to the right knowledge, it is the mirror in the heart, it is the observer. That we do not learn in books, course, classes and in the news. As it is silence, we can only get there in our own mind.

And in the beginning that scared me. At that time we were working in Geneva and in that silence at night in my dream appeared out of nowhere a wall of fear and I could see that someone intended to commit suicide. Next day the son of the GM went under the train. That was real scary, because I didn't know him, I never had talked to him and I got to that insight because we were working for the same firm. Afterwards I tried to change my life and I went into direction of spirituality. It felt like a wrong environment and I began to meditate to feel better. It was as Baba said yesterday when he mentioned Seva that we feel better if we do something about it. With meditation it was possible to clean consciousness and at least I did something and they said that it was the best we could do. The insights on that level of silence were that real and scary, it felt like a shock and if we are in shock it feel like we cannot think clearly anymore.  So that was the first touch inside with reality of life and it needs courage to go for it.

In the meantime I got the answers from Baba in listening to his words and thinking it over he explains the 'insights'. And he said in the dream that he is the insight and the following step. So the following step is to listen to his words to get a feeling for the 'insight'. He was at that time in his forties only and the GM, his father was notorious angry, old school, too authoritarian, screaming at employees. It feels like the son was forced into a role as follower of the GM he didn't wanted and as it seems also his marriage we not working, as he was Jewish he probably had to marry that woman and he had practically no free choice of life.

But the insights were that scary. It was the result of that 'silence' and not talking about it and it was not clear why it was in my dream, that was a shock, because inside in the 'inner view' there is no difference, it felt like my own self, we are all the same.

He was not my problem and I didn't know him personally, I had never talked to him, he was part of the same environment and business. We were related by the job and therefore, it felt like the same. It felt like me, like my 'insight' and my thoughts and that was real scary, because in reality I had no such thoughts, I was just focused on 'silence' and the observer. Afterwards I wanted to change the environment. But as long as I didn't understand that level of oneness really, it was not possible to feel okay about it. It felt that strange. There was insight, but not the right knowledge.

That is why courage, it needs courage to face it.

I went on search for knowledge, with meditation we began to feel better, but there were more 'insights' and it still didn't make sense and ended up in shock and shame, it felt like inexplicable. It was not in the mind, as it was based on silence and the right knowledge – Atman – was not there. Baba is the megaphone.

With his words or in thinking over his words, we get the knowledge and we feel it if we get absorbed in it. We get to know the insight and why the following step is also him.  

So with time it began to make sense. The knowledge was in silence and that is Baba's level and Atman. But we have to listen to his words, it is imbedded in his knowledge and if we listen carefully we get to know it. It is the knowledge of the Sun as he has called it not long ago. And we begin to get the feeling for it and how difficult that 'level of silence' can be really for us to get aware of it and not lost in it. It is not at all funny, it is real, it has to do with truth and life and we need courage and knowledge to get to the reality of it.

So we have first to see that it is right 'knowledge' and that it needs 'courage' to face the reality of life, it has to do with death and going beyond death and we have to be ready to go on no matter what obstacles are there.

That is how we get back to Tapas (spiritual work), first discrimination, second seeing it in our own life and third going on no matter what obstacles are there.

Volition is seeing it in our own life, taking Baba's words, thinking it over and by that being able to absorb the knowledge.

That is how we get 'knowledge'; it is the knowledge of the Sun, wrong knowledge is not called knowledge, but 'illusion' or Maya.

What we see in the dream and in that silent observer, in the mirror of the heart, that are often shadows, they move with the light. The light is divinity, he is the ocean of light, everything else has a different color and it moves in that light, but it is not only light. So if we first we get aware of the light in the silence of the heart and afterwards we know that he is present in the light and he does exist, we afterwards have to get aware of it how it looks and what we see. These are the shadows moving in the light. It is the light of the higher self and the shadow or colors tell us something.

We begin to see things in the light of the self and see if it is red and colored by passion or if it is black, colored by Tamas. It is the reflection of the sunlight in the mirror of the heart. We get the right knowledge with him. He is the doer, he is the knower and if we listen to him, he is telling us what it is. The knowledge of the sun is not understood in just reading it, we have to listen to get there, it is a process of understanding or getting the right knowledge. But if we listen to Baba's words and we are able to think it over, to see it in our own life and to absorb, we understand the reflection in the mirror of the heart. This is all based on silence, what means 'silence of the mind'.

And if the mind is in silence, there is love.

But that 'silence' is for all, not only for devotees. We work at it and try to understand it; we listen to his words to get the message.  Knowledge, courage, volition and silence is Tapas, spiritual work.

If we see it only with devotees as brothers and sisters, but not with others, the direction has changed, it is the mind and the energy is not flowing in direction of silence but in the mind reality, there is no silence, but only mind and sense-enjoyment.

Either it is for all 'silence' or for nobody. If we keep in silence with devotees, but with others we communicate freely, we are on the wrong level and that is the mind only, if we are aware of it or not. Baba said that between the father and the son is gold. If gold has become more important than God and silence is a means to not get aware of it, that is the mind avoiding it and that sounds very much like attachment and identification with work and job.

Nachiketa refused the gifts of empire, affluence, and years of healthy life. Prahladha taught the same lesson to his playmates. Buddha solved the mystery of suffering through renunciation of attachment as the first step in his Sadhana. All of them had implicit faith in the existence of God; their lives revolved on the axis of that faith.

We can see in that thought for the day that it is a hindrance and to call it Baba's gift and that it all belongs to Babas only and to refuse to talk with devotees, because of 'silence', that doesn't make sense, that is upside down and Tamas.

'Silence' makes only sense if we talk with devotees, because with them we can share it, the others are in the mind and don't want to hear about it. If we understand Baba as silence, only devotees will share that and the others. The 'silence' level can only understood on the level of Atman, that is the knowledge of the Sun and we get it with Baba and if we do not listen to it, it is all in the mind again.