Enjoy - Meditation - Pleasure

It is creditable if a human behaves as a human being. It is laudable if they behave as God, that they really are! But to behave as a demon or as a beast is despicable indeed! For, people were long born a mineral, died a mineral; then they promoted themselves to be born as a tree and died as a tree. Subsequently they got promoted as an animal, and finally rose to the status of a human being. This rise from one scale to another has been acknowledged by science and spiritual experience. Now alas, they are born as human and die as human. It is a greater shame if they slide into a beast or a beastly ogre. Praise is due, only if they rise to the divine status. That is real fulfilment of one's destiny. Therefore resolve today to avoid contact with vices, develop attachment to virtues, and transmute your heart into an altar for your beloved.

Baba (thought for the day)

In our last study circle someone mentioned that he doesn't think we need to be aware that it is about truth, right action and peace and only then will be there 'pure love'. We get to that idea because we relate love to a feeling. There was no opportunity to talk about it, because another person began to disturbed on another level and we had to take care of that and the focus was interrupted.  

In the insight he said, 'use my words'.

In his words is truth and in our words is mind. If we use his words, we get to the insights, because we use truth. There is no difference of height. There is another difference, the difference of insights, not of height, the difference of inner view.

Baba has no mind, no clouds, there is sunshine and his words are talking about inner vision and truth. We have to understand that the level of insights is more developed in Baba's consciousness than in ours and why, the obstacle are in the mind. He has no mind. The mind is like the clouds overshadowing the sunlight. For him there is only sunlight.

If he is in the insight on the podium high above everybody like sitting on a stage and the people all were on a lower level, it is like he is acting God, that was on the mind level and just the reflection of people thinking he is higher and they are only people.

We cannot get there if we see differences. We have to go inside. The mind sees differences and that is the illusion. We are in the outer sense perception or we see it in the inner view, that is not the same, not higher and lower, but inner and outer.  If we use his words, as he is a realized master, it is the light we share and we get out of the mind.

Pure Love and Using His Words

Listening to expositions by a speaker who has had the thrill of genuine experience is a blessing. The speaker’s face will blossom with joy; their eyes will shed tears of exhilaration at the very contemplation of the Lord’s glory. Listeners will easily catch that inspiration and experience the joy themselves as tears stream down their eyes. When an infant smiles, everyone around the infant also smiles in unison. So too the words of those who are saturated with devotion to God will saturate the hearts of the listeners too. Through that process of listening, a dirt-laden heart will be transformed into a clean and illumined heart which shines with genuine light and love. To the foul odors of sense-pursuits, keenness to listen to the glories of God is a valuable disinfectant, besides being in itself so full of sweet fragrance. Listening will effectively cleanse your heart.

In the study circle is not a speaker, but the sharing of thoughts and experiences.

I never went to the study circle before, because it felt boring. We had to talk a certain time and the next person was talking and I didn’t feel okay in the circle, I was scared of it and I didn’t get any answers or I was scared to expose myself to the others. So I was nervous usually when it was my turn to talk and that spoilt it.
It was the same with singing, as I never get to the experience I had with group meditation I had before, I didn’t want to sing. It didn’t feel good and it felt disturbing that we had to go over those fears to not remember the sound when it was my turn.
I refused to do it, because I didn’t want to think during all Bhajans, now it will be my turn. I cannot enjoy it that way, but if I just repeat the Bhajans and I don’t have to lead it feels okay and we can enjoy it.

A Christmas Wish

Jesus sacrificed His life and poured out His blood to instill Love and Compassion in the heart of man, so that you are happy when others are happy and sad when others are sad. Let Me call upon you today, to give up, in honor of this holy occasion, two evils from your mind: self-praise and talking scandal! Give them up! Instead adopt one habit: the habit of loving service to the distressed. If you spend all your time and energy in worldly comfort and sensual delight, you are disgracing this human existence. Do not spend your life in just enjoying food; eat as much as is necessary for living. Maintain your body as temple where God resides. Keep it clean, fresh and fragrant by developing compassion and love; Let holy thoughts, words and deeds emerge from you. Do not demean it by using it for low, trivial and unholy tasks.

Wherever you are, make this resolution today!

Baba (thought for the day)

Wishing you a merry Christmas and a fulfilling Holiday Season.

Listen, think it over absorb, that is spiritual Tapas, spiritual work that is what Baba is telling us.

We have to listen to the 'insights', they are like stepping stones in our inner view to get to the inner vision, which is about his message and understanding his words.

We have to use discrimination and in seeing it in our own life in the inner vision, as Baba also said, if we see our life with insights in the inner vision, attachment slides away.

We all have to get detached. If we follow the stepping stones of the insights and see it in our own life we get to the 'inner vision' and whatever the stepping stones, in the end only the inner vision matters and his message.

In that way we can get to an experience of inner peace, as he is the insights and the following step.

It is about that experience of pure love.

Love - Listen and Think it Over

The quintessence of the scriptural texts is this: Realise that the awareness of Divine or Brahman cannot be won by the accumulation of wealth nor by giving away the riches. Nor can it be achieved by reading texts, rising to power, acquiring degrees and diplomas, or performing scriptural sacrifices and rituals. The body is an anthill, with the mind inside as a deep cavity. The mind has hidden in it the serpent named ignorance or nescience (a-jnana). The serpent cannot be killed by resorting to satisfaction-oriented works (kamya karma). Spiritual wisdom (jnana) is the only weapon that can kill it. To achieve spiritual wisdom, you must have 'Steady Faith'. Shraddhavan labhathe jnanam, states the scriptures. Meaning, that person alone, who has steady and unwavering faith, can certainly secure wisdom.

Did you think it over or just read it or not even that? Reading is not enough.

So what does he wants us to do if reading is not enough? If we look at this thought for the day and Baba's words and we just read it, how does it look? If we read it in our mind is pictured an anthill and inside a deep cavity and there is a serpent named ignorance, we take note of it and forget the picture on the spot again. We maybe even read that the serpent cannot be killed by resorting to satisfaction-oriented work and we wonder how to understand that? How can any work be done without going in direction of satisfaction? That is just reading and not listening and thinking it over.

We also read that spiritual wisdom is the only weapon that can kill the serpent and we wonder how we have to understand that wisdom.

And that we must have 'steady faith', and here we probably relax, everybody thinks he has study faith, so everything is fine, if we have study faith it will be there, even if we do not really understand what we just read.

That about study faith is stated in the scriptures and maybe we wonder what scriptures he talks about, it seems there are that many scriptures.

And now Baba makes it clear, meaning that person alone, who has steady and unwavering faith, can certainly secure wisdom. Everything understood after just reading it, we just hear steady and unwavering faith and that we will probably therefore one day secure wisdom. We think we know what to do, keep the faith unwavering and steady, the question is only how and that doesn't even come to our mind that our faith is probably not unwavering and steady and what we should or could do about it?

That was just reading it. It is all different if we listen and think it over to be able to absorb.

Attachment and False Knowledge

People have forgotten their real nature and believe that they are the body, the senses, etc. When these (instruments) crave for objective pleasures, people ignorantly convince themselves that this pleasure is wanted by them! Under this mistaken notion, they seek to fulfill the cravings. They delude themselves that they can secure bliss (ananda) by catering to the body and senses. However they are rewarded with disillusionment, defeat and disaster, and reap pleasure and pain. Though the objective world appears real, one must be aware that it is deluding us. As a result, one has to give up the yearning for deriving pleasure from the objects that appear and attract, both here and hereafter. The false knowledge (a-jnana) can be destroyed only when one knows the Atma (the Divine Self) principle. When the false knowledge disappears, the sorrow produced by one’s involvement in the ups and downs of the world of change (samsara) also gets destroyed. 

This truth we have to accept it is a must. Only when false knowledge disappears, the sorrow gets destroyed and how is that sorrow produced? It is by our involvement in the ups and downs of the world of change. 

And that is why we have to see it in our own life and accept truth, because without getting aware in our own life we don't get aware of the involvement in the ups and downs of the world of change, we are trapped in it and it is false knowledge. We have to find the reason for false knowledge and on that level we can only solve it with the divine principle of Atma, the 'I am that'. 

The false knowledge (a-jnana) can be destroyed only when one knows the Atma (the Divine Self) principle. When the false knowledge disappears, the sorrow produced by one’s involvement in the ups and downs of the world of change (samsara) also gets destroyed.

Joy and Sorrow

Sorrow affects you because you feel you deserved joy and did not acquire it; but there is one impartial distributor of joy and sorrow, who gives you what you need, rather than what you desire. You may need the tonic of tragedy to set you on the road to recovery. The Compassionate One, the eternal all-knowing God, He knows best. Welcome the tragedy and fight your way through, with the armor of the remembrance of the Divine. As all rivers hurry towards the sea, let all your imaginings wend their way to God. The play is His; the role is His gift; the lines are written by Him; He decides the dress and decoration, the gesture and the tone, the entrance and the exit. You have to act well your part and when the curtain falls receive His approbation. By your efficiency and enthusiasm earn the right to play higher and higher roles - that is the meaning and purpose of life.
(Thought for the day)

How do we see that or think it over in our life to be able to absorb the truth in Baba's words.

What questions to ask? What are moments to remember when we felt joy and thought we deserved more joy and we did not acquire it?  

So Baba explains that the distributor of joy and sorrow, gives us what we need, rather than what we desire.

Developping inner Vision

Mere reading of spiritual texts is not enough. You may master all the commentaries and you may be able to argue and discuss with great scholars about these texts; but without attempting to practise what they teach, it is a waste of time. I never approve of book-learning; practice is what I evaluate. When you come out of the examination hall you know whether you will pass or not, is it not? For you can yourself judge whether you have answered well or not. So too in sadhana (spiritual effort) or in conduct or in practice, each of you can judge and ascertain the success or failure that is in store. The moon is reflected in a pot, provided it has water; so too the Lord can be clearly seen in your heart, provided you have the water of Love (Prema). When you don't see the Lord reflected in your heart, do not say that there is no Lord; it only means that there is no Love within you.

SSB

During the Hare Krishna experience we were reading verses of the Bhagavad Gity by heart and we read from the scriptures or the master that three verses are enough to be able to preach. 
If we don't practice, it is a waste of time.

The routine of cooking and preparing food for Krishna, was all about purity and constantly changing and taking showers and eating a lot. But there was still something permanent in it and divinity is not changing, otherwise, it is the mind and not divine.

That felt good, based on such principles and it felt okay, but the identity was Hare Krishnas, as soon that was gone, it was not there anymore.

I still went in direction to truth, I hoped to find inside with TM-meditation in the silence of the heart. I was looking for a way inside and that is why I began with TM to be still in a spiritual identity.

When we left the Hare Krishnas that identity was lost and it was not attractive, whatever the attraction. It felt like too much problems left, whatever that was, money problems and other problems.  

The attraction was gone, but because of the Hare Krishnas, as long as we lived in that identity everything seemed okay, no differences, we were part of it. We were just part of the momevemt, whatever we did. But as soon as we left another side came up, the mind reality in society or the field, if there was no proper profession it was just lick attracting lots of problems, whatever that was. To not lose the spiritual identity I went on with TM.

It was not attractive also to just be part of that society, in a fact, we liked that Hare Krishna environment, only not the cooking and eating and the constantly taking showers.

Listen, Think it over, Absorb

The Kaivalya Upanishad declares: "Not by means of works, not by means of human power, not by means of wealth, but by renunciation alone can immortality be attained." The 'works' referred to are rituals like sacrifices, vows, charities, donations, pilgrimages, etc. Through such activities, one cannot achieve liberation; that is to say, one cannot get rid of the veil of ignorance. 'Human power' means acquisition of positions of authority, of skill and intelligence which can manipulate people and things, of fame and supremacy, of personal charm, of health and happiness, or of a large family with many children - these cannot confer liberation. The works mentioned above and the acquisition referred to can succeed only when one has 'wealth'. But the Upanishad announces that spiritual wisdom is not related to riches. So liberation cannot be earned by means of wealth. Renunciation alone can confer immortality.

(Thought for the day)

Do we understand that thought for the day? Understanding in the sense of getting Baba's insight and seeing it in our own life. 

Baba's words are about truth and insights and we have to read it a very different way. I guess we just read it and think we understand it or if we don't, we think we will understand it later. But listen, think it over and absorb - is a different meaning.

If we read it and think that we understand it, we are in the mind.

It is a mind conclusion, because we just think we know, it has nothing to do with right or wrong or good and bad or truth and untruth. 

But when we listen to Baba we see it all differently, because we know that it is the mind only getting to that conclusion that it does understand and as he told us in a thought for the day just some time ago, we have to resort to scriptures if we want to know the difference between good and bad, and if that is the case for good and bad, we also have to do the same with right and wrong. 
If we just read it and think that we understand it or maybe we will understand it later, we are in the mind and it is illusion. 

When This Truth Dawns ...

To discriminate between good and bad, one must resort to scriptures. The Vedas emerged from the Divine Himself and were ‘heard’ by sages attuned to the voice of the Divine, who in turn, taught them to their disciples. This process of imparting the Vedas and the wisdom enshrined in them has continued through many generations of Gurus and disciples until now. The Upanishads, the Brahma Sutra and the Bhagavad Gita contain the very essence of the Vedas. Hence these are designated as ‘three fundamental texts (Prasthana traya)’ of the science of spirituality. Acquisition of higher knowledge alone can fulfill the main purpose of human life; it makes one aware that one is not the inert non-sentient body but an embodiment of being-awareness-bliss. When this truth dawns and is experienced, you are freed from the fog of ignorance and are liberated, in this very life.

Baba (thought for the day)

Baba is telling us we must resort to scriptures and where are the scriptures in the West? 

Maharishi was teaching the same thing.

If you google ‘Apaurusheya Bhashia’ there are lots of Maharishi pages. What is the consequence of that truth.

We know we have to accept truth. Now we have two levels, one is what he tells us and Baba’s words and what is in the scriptures and on the other hand we have our own wisdom and insights and finding truth in it is realization.

How do we get to insights?

If we take the scripture or Baba’s words and see in the light of our own life and in the light of our insights, the insight in the scriptures will come alive.

To discriminate between good and bad, one must resort to scriptures. The Vedas emerged from the Divine Himself and were ‘heard’ by sages attuned to the voice of the Divine, who in turn, taught them to their disciples. This process of imparting the Vedas and the wisdom enshrined in them has continued through many generations of Gurus and disciples until now.

Are we able without the scripture to discriminate between good and bad, if we read his words we get to the conclusion that we are not. Why are we not able to discriminate between good and bad? Because we are in the mind. We are always in the mind. It is the truth in the scriptures which gets us beyond the mind in accepting that truth (that is a must) and it doesn’t work without it, and if we have accepted that path of truth, we also have to accept the path of right action and only if we accept the path of right action we are able to understand peace and only if there is peace, there will be the experience of ‘pure love’.

Inner Vision and Attachment slides Away

People suffer because they have all kinds of unreasonable desires and they pine to fulfill them and they fail. They attach too much value to the objective world. It is only when attachment increases that you suffer pain and grief. If you look upon Nature and all created objects with the insight derived from the Inner Vision, then attachment will slide away, though effort will remain; you will also see everything much clearer and with a glow suffused with Divinity and splendor. Close your external eyes and open your inner eyes - What a grand picture of essential unity you get? Attachment to Nature has limits, but the attachment you develop to the Lord when your inner eye opens, has no limit. Enjoy that reality, not this false picture.

Baba

We had study circle last night. It was the highlight. We had great questions and listening to Baba's words we first went around the circle and afterwards we were just like sitting together talking about it and enjoying. 

Baba explains if we want to make the experience of pure love, we have to understand peace and if we want to understand peace, we have to accept the path of right action and if we accept the path of right action, we have to accept the path of truth. 

That kept us busy and in the circle. 

We always got back to it that we have to accept truth, whatever the truth and if it is not okay, to accept the path of right action means we have to act accordingly. 

In thinking it over we get to the right insight. 

Reading is not Enough, Spiritual Effort

Mere reading of spiritual texts is not enough. You may master all the commentaries and you may be able to argue and discuss with great scholars about these texts; but without attempting to practice what they teach, it is a waste of time. I never approve of book-learning; practice is what I evaluate. When you come out of the examination hall you know whether you will pass or not, is it not? For you can yourself judge whether you have answered well or not. So too in sadhana (spiritual effort) or in conduct or in practice, each of you can judge and ascertain the success or failure that is in store. The moon is reflected in a pot, provided it has water; so too the Lord can be clearly seen in your heart, provided you have the water of Love (Prema). When you don't see the Lord reflected in your heart, do not say that there is no Lord; it only means that there is no Love within you.

(thought for the day)

What is Baba telling us with these words?

Mere reading of spiritual texts is not enough. You may master all the commentaries and you may be able to argue and discuss with great scholars about these texts; but without attempting to practice what they teach, it is a waste of time.

We have to practice and he takes care of it that we practice? 
If we just read his words it is not enough and mastering or learning by heart or discussing it is a waste of time. So what exactly are we doing, as he said, we close the external eyes and open up the inner eye to the inner vision and if we see it in the inner view it is different and as he said attachment will slide away.

There had been a beautiful pirate in the inner view and the big hand reaching in the sand on the shore and the ship sailing into the sunshine of the ocean and love is the wind in the sails. Our heart has to go out for that beautiful picture in the inner view, like a great adventure journey instead of being just in the external idea of it.

What is the conclusion of the pirates of the Caribbean? 

After all the path of the pirate seems better and more right action than living in a sick society of stupid conventions, where the dress has to be that tight that she faints because she doesn’t get enough air.

Crossing the Ocean with Eyes Shut

Enter upon that task of Sadhana from now on; that is the lesson you must learn here. Otherwise yatra (pilgrimage) leads only to the accumulation of patra (objects and souvenirs). Devotion is something sweet, soothing, refreshing and restoring. It must confer patience and fortitude. The devotee will not be perturbed if another is blessed with more grace. The devotee is humble and bides one's time, knowing that there is a higher power that knows more and that it is just and impartial. In the light of that knowledge, the devotees will communicate their troubles and problems only to their Lord; they will not humiliate themselves by talking about them to all and sundry, for what can a man, who is as helpless as another, do to relieve them? It is only those who have that implicit faith in God, who will deign to communicate only with the Lord and none else, who deserve Amrita (nectar of immortality).

(Baba, thought for the day)

 . 

How do we listen to it, in ignoring it or in not understanding it?

If he asks us to enter upon the task of Sadhana from now on, meditation, from now on and that this is the lesson we have to learn here and now. Please tell me, why we are not on the spot beginning with that mediation and why not? Don't we know enough English or is it our mind obstructing it. I guess it is the mind and the mind is louder in our conscious being than our heart. 
And he is going on and he is telling us why.

Otherwise yatra (pilgrimage) leads only to the accumulation of patra (objects and souvenirs).

Inner Vision and Tapas

People suffer because they have all kinds of unreasonable desires and they pine to fulfil them and they fail. They attach too much value to the objective world. It is only when attachment increases that you suffer pain and grief. If you look upon Nature and all created objects with the insight derived from the Inner Vision, then attachment will slide away, though effort will remain; you will also see everything much clearer and with a glow suffused with Divinity and splendor. Close your external eyes and open your inner eyes - What a grand picture of essential unity you get? Attachment to Nature has limits, but the attachment you develop to the Lord when your inner eye opens, has no limit. Enjoy that reality, not this false picture.
(thought for the day)

How do Baba devotees read Baba's words?

People suffer because they have all kinds of unreasonable desires and they pine to fulfil them and they fail. They attach too much value to the objective world. It is only when attachment increases that you suffer pain and grief.

When he tells us that people suffer of all kinds of unreasonable desires, what are for you unreasonable desires? We have to think it over. If we don't know, are you doing it like me before thinking, not now, one day I will know?

But that will not change if we do not enquire and that 'day' will just not come, because we do not the work required to get there. So what is not understood by devotees avoiding listening to Baba's words, they don't know that we have to see it in our own life first. Only if we see it in our own life we get the meaning of Baba's words.

The principle of Tapas (spiritual work) is first discrimination, second seeing it in our own life, third going on no matter what obstacles are there. That is spiritual work. How do we get into that spiritual work? We have to discriminate, see it in our own life and go on no matter what obstacles are there.  

Why people do not hear that?

It is not enough to read Baba's words and to read that we suffer because there are all kinds of unreasonable desires and that others pine to fulfill them and ail, it is not enough to think I will understand it 'tomorrow', whenever I will be understood. That doesn't work, because if we do not Tapas, spiritual work today, we will also not understand it tomorrow.

Most of devotees sing Bhajans and even after many years of Bhajan singing they still don't understand what Tapas means. If so far we have understood the first sentence, we see that there is the reason for failure, what is an important word in the US and also that they pine to fulfill unreasonable desires, it means not normal or reasonable desires and it is the reason that they are suffering.

There is a lot of information in that one sentence of Baba. Now we get to the second sentence.

They attach too much value to the objective world. It is only when attachment increases that you suffer pain and grief.

Pictures of Unity

People suffer because they have all kinds of unreasonable desires and they pine to fulfill them and they fail. They attach too much value to the objective world. It is only when attachment increases that you suffer pain and grief. If you look upon Nature and all created objects with the insight derived from the Inner Vision, then attachment will slide away, though effort will remain; you will also see everything much clearer and with a glow suffused with Divinity and splendor. Close your external eyes and open your inner eyes - What a grand picture of essential unity you get? Attachment to Nature has limits, but the attachment you develop to the Lord when your inner eye opens, has no limit. Enjoy that reality, not this false picture.

(Thought for the day)

First I read that thought for the day and it didn’t tell me anything, so I was thinking it over in writing it down. I would probably not have the patience to think it over if I would not write about it. The question is how do we open our inner eyes?

Or how do we see the different to our outer eyes? 

People suffer because they have all kinds of  desires and they pine to fulfill them and they fail. They attach too much value to the objective world. It is only when attachment increases that you suffer pain and grief.

It is failure on all levels if we go for unreasonable desires and try to fulfill or impose them. He came with the expectation to Baba that his unreasonable desires, which were a dream only, would be fulfilled and he imposed it on us. 

And Baba tells us why; it is because he attaches too much value to the objective world. And suffering, pain increases if the attachment to the world increases.

The newest insight on that level is about ‘belonging’, it is the level of divinity and Krishna and therefore, the insight ‘we belong together’.

If you look upon Nature and all created objects with the insight derived from the Inner Vision, then attachment will slide away, though effort will remain; you will also see everything much clearer and with a glow suffused with Divinity and splendor.