Sweet and Devoted to the Universal and That

People resort to vows and rites, hoping to ward off the evil that stars may bring about! But no effort is made to win the grace of God. Let the pomp and the paraphernalia of worship not be merely superficial, if they are, they will not confer lasting benefits; at best, they prevent you from using that much of time and money in harmful ways! It is the 'why' of these rites that matters, not so much the 'how'. The 'why' has to be the realization of the reality of the individual, which is also the reality of the Universal! So be devoted to the Universal; be eager to become 'That'. When you pray to God for a job, or a son, or a prize, you are devoted, not to God, but to the job, to the son or to the prize. Pray to God for God; because it is your nature to love. Expand your Self, take in all! Grow in Love.

Baba (thought for the day)

How do we win the grace of God?
Baba said that God's grace is a tank and we have to know how to connect that tank.
We need three things, the tank of God's grace is always there and we need water taps and a connection between the water taps and the grace of God and that is pure love. How do we make the experience of that 'pure love'?
We have to understand peace and we have to accept right action and if we accept the path of right action, we have to accept truth and if we have those three things, truth, right action and peace, we can make the experience of pure love.

There has to be an effort in direction of Sathva. Only Sathva knows truth. If we are on the level of passion, Rajas, we have to realize that it is passion and if we get aware of it that it is passion, we are in Sathva again and Tamas, ignorance, has to be avoided by all means to get to that experience of pure love and the grace of God.

So be devoted to the Universal; be eager to become 'That'. When you pray to God for a job, or a son, or a prize, you are devoted, not to God, but to the job, to the son or to the prize. Pray to God for God; because it is your nature to love. Expand your Self, take in all! Grow in Love.

If we want God, we pray not only for love, but pure love, to be able to connect to the tank of god's grace. If we ask for a job, we are devoted to the job. And if we want to make that sweet experience of Baba's presence in the study circle, we have to make sure it is a circle and that people do not discuss some other matters during the circle. 

Here a small example, if we are nine people in a circle and we all share words of Baba and think it over and try to see it in our own life. Everybody tells his experience about 'that' and I tell mine. As I thought it over in writing, I know what Baba tells about 'pure love' and how it has to be connected to the grace of God and I will tell it to share the joy of it with others and there are questions of someone present who is new and eager to get answers and one person is disturbing for whatever her reason.
She said she didn't know what to say anymore, whatever her problem. But there was anger and frustration in the air and I know that state of mind in her already and it probably has to do with her life and her husband, who is also a singer and he likes to disturb.
So what is their problem? It seems they are thinking that they are that devoted to Baba that we all should feel it and probably it doesn't come back as they would like to or there are expectations. They always find a way to disturb the others in the name of their devotion to Baba.

It is very strange and it feels like they are rather doing too much and not too little.

She disturbed and she said afterwards that she doesn't want to disturb, but she disturbed anyhow and behind was not peace, but anger.

I thought that it is an example of it that hell is paved with good intentions and eighter she is not honest or she doesn't know what she is doing?

We have nine people instead of staying with the text and the questions in the text, we have now two or three people and we are lucky that they don't comment and the others begin to comment about her problem and about what she is telling and one is telling, but we have a leader and I tell them, we are not talking about the text anymore, but about her problem and one guy said, let her do it if she thinks she knows it better, delegate it to her.

And I said that it was not about delegating, but about going through the text we have to share until next November and it doesn't make sense that I do the translation, she is not able to translate and she is doing the circle, if she doesn't know the text I translated.

We were not talking about the text anymore and the wisdom in the text, but about the study circle what is for me an opportunity to go more into it and to think it over.
With meditation we call that entstressing. People arriving for meditation and trying to talk and bring in all their sorrows into it and we just said, we sit down and meditate and afterwards it was all different, because the mind had settled down.

One concern coming up was that she was not happy and I said afterwards to that person that I don't know her different, she was never happy. Another lady said to her, but you are the one who is disturbing now.

We have nine different people and we have nine different ways of looking at it and the unity created by sharing and divine love in the text is gone and instead we have to deal with nine different minds of people and all have to say something about it and that is why we come back instead with the experience of the presence of Baba, we come back with a headache, but it didn't go that far, I went with the others back to the text, but it was in the air nevertheless and the others talked about it after the circle.
We will change and go through the text in the circle in a different way in three or four different sections and we go only on to the next section when all is said in the first one. That is how we stay with the text and the questions we have in the text and if there are comments or critics about it, I mention we should talk about it outside of the circle and we do not disturb the circle.

We should tell in a way that they understand that talking about the circle is disturbing and it is not an issue which should be addressed during the circle, but if we have something to tell, we should tell it afterwards.

Until now we were reading the text and afterwards we went through the circle and in the end we shared thoughts if it was possible, when it was not, I asked them to stay in the circle and with the text and the questions in that text.

If we stay in the circle the sharing is a great and fulfilling experience of Baba's presence and 'pure love'.

It is like in a meditation. During the meditation we don't question the way we meditate, everything what happens during meditation is good, because it is the nature of our mind and we cannot change that, but by getting deep rest, it calms down and it gets purified.

During a study circle it is the same, we have to focus only on the text and Baba's words and the questions which get us into sharing the text and we don't talk about the way we do meditate or we do not question if it is good or not and that is the same with a study circle, we just focus on Baba's words and we use his words. It seems most people look for their own words or once. When the same person did a study circle we had four pages of text and it was just about reading and what we thought about it, but I didn't get any feeling for it, just that they wanted to prove what good devotees they are in giving us too much text.  

And telling us in the circle that it was not as Baba wants it, what does Baba want after all, but pure love. With the interruption the mind is present it is not anymore about Baba and truth, but something else, disturbance of the mind and people begin to comment and nobody is with the text anymore.

Even to just think about it I feel the headache remembering how it felt to work with them.
She is kind of overwhelming with her focus on playing the violin and singing and like she is the only thing existing.

Not long ago said to me that I should maybe sing and I told her that there are enough people singing. I didn't ask for her advice she should not have said that. 

She was telling me years ago that for her feeling something was missing, but it was in her and I listened but I didn't tell her it was the same for me. I went into singing in a way that there was nothing missing, but that I felt Baba's presence during singing, otherwise, I didn't go.

I close my eyes and I listen to them being part of the same self and that is how we sing and the same with the study circle, trying to see them  as part of the same self and it was also that with dancing, the focus on 'that'.

In the focus on 'that' only it feels like Christmas; the intensity when focused only on 'that'.

It is usually a feeling of Christmas, also during dancing, when we get aware of love and all are the same one.

The 'why' has to be the realization of the reality of the individual, which is also the reality of the Universal! So be devoted to the Universal; be eager to become 'That'.

It is in the experience the 'I am that', it is just 'that'. It is the experience of it and yesterday Baba said what it was, sweetness.
In his words  God's love is the same sweetness as the love for God - that is the key.

We have to 'experience', feel, and get aware of that 'sweetness' and the presence of Baba, because it is the same, we are one in it.

In the study circle if we go into something else, whatever the reason and there are as many reasons as minds are, the mind will always find something to finding faults if it is in its mood. It is just moody and giving expression of that mood and even worse imposing that mood on others.  

From meditation we know the mind is always projecting something and finding outside the reason for the mood of the mind, therefore, we have to meditate regularly to get rid of that moodiness in the mind and to keep it pure. If we do not meditate, there is no way we can get rid of it in the mind and that is why people are in Rajas and not in Sathva, they do not meditate.
She is nothing but singing, but nevertheless in Rajas and other think they have to do nothing but singing a bit Bhajans once a month maybe or once a year, they don't do any Namasmarana, that means repetition of the divine name, but they think that Bhajans is repetition of the divine name and Bhajans are devotional songs and not Namasmarana, also that is not understood really and made no difference.

And people in a mood of Rajas are in the mind, even if they are vegetarians and they sing, the mind is still loaded with stuff which has nothing to do in a study circle and if one is disturbing the circle, we have after a chain reaction and what Baba tells it is only half a circle and if we don't go deep into his wisdom, it will stay half a circle and can go on forever.

It is disturbing the 'sweetness' we look for and the experienced we know from Darshan with Baba, but that is what they want, the experience of that sweetness.
It is the love of God and as it is the same sweetness as our love for God and if we share it in talking about wisdom and Baba's words in a circle, it feels sweet, like nectar of the clear source of pure water, it can be such a delight, it feels great and disturbing it is really like a 'crime'.

And when it gets on the mind level we cannot expect anyone to be helpful, as it seems nobody really knows why it was disturbing and on the mind level. If we know Baba's wisdom good enough, we don't look for a solution, we just go back to the text, but as it was last time they all were looking for solutions on the mind level. That is how the disturbance get stirred up and could go on forever … if we don't know how to stop it.

Baba didn't give rules for the study circle, but only guide lines.

The 'why' has to be the realization of the reality of the individual, which is also the reality of the Universal! So be devoted to the Universal; be eager to become 'That'.  

To become 'That', why Baba does call it 'That'?

If it is experienced as pure love it is still on our individual level, it is the spark of the divine, it is the 'Jivatma'.
If we have to become universal it is the 'Paramatma' and 'That' is on the universal level. If we are the same 'I am That' that is the universal level of divinity, we are not on the individual level, but we are both 'That'.
It means there is no interruption of mind; we have to know how to go beyond the mind and how to help others to go beyond the mind and how to stay beyond the mind, that is the aim of being the same 'I am That'.

We can call it only 'That', because we cannot name it and there is no form, it is only 'That' as it is an universal level, but it is an experience and on the heart level it is sweetness. It is the quality of the experience that matters in the moment we experience it.
It is the sweetness that results from sharing the divine wisdom together in a study circle, if it is not disturbed by some person thinking she has to make all feel what she is thinking. We have no rules, Baba didn't give us any rules how to deal with it, but he said in the insight – use my words.

To use his words. If we do not know his words, how can we use his words?
If we know it good enough and we remember what he said about it in the thought for the day or study circle, we usually get back to wisdom if we are not that interrupted like last time by that person who said, it is not what Baba wants.

She didn't care a moment that it was about someone who is new and therefore asking questions and that it was unconsidered to tell him in such a way that he did it all wrong and afterwards she went to him and said it is not about you.
About what was it if it was not about him? Does it mean he is not allowed to ask questions? It felt like that.

The question is the aim of a study circle and why we study Baba's words. She backed her mind mood up with the words, 'the way Baba wants it' and that is how the discussion began and we were not anymore with the text, but it was all about the study circle and even if we got back to the text again, it was still in the air. I told her that she should stop to interrupt my study circle, she can make her own, but in mine she should not do that again.

Telling me I should sing, her husband is coming in at 7 PM telling that we have an agreement, we should stop the circle at 7 that he can sit down and there a lot of room for him to sit and she was interrupting the circle, I begin to have enough of it.
They did the theater and I came back constantly with a headache and the Sai center felt like Waldorf school and the sweetness of Baba was nowhere to be found.
That is also why I didn't go to often, because it felt only about silly discussions, but no sweetness of Baba's presence.

We have to somehow make sure that people do not interrupt the circle; we should see it like a meditation. During meditation we are focused on going inside and on the mantra only and only after meditation we are in the mind again. During the study circle we should focus on Baba's words only and use his words. We should learn to use his words and everything else what we had in mind can wait until the circle is finished.

We should use his words to make it a sweet experience of sharing together 'his words' only and not put in the circle our mind and if we do that, he will be present in our dreams and in our feeling and we realize by 'That', that Baba will never not be present and that his sweet divinity is everywhere if we sing about him and talk and share experiences, where two or three are in my name together, I am in the midst of them. (Baba)

With a study circle we also learn how to discriminate between his words and our mind, what means between Atman and mind and by that we also have to be devoted to the universe and being eager to become 'That'. 

So be devoted to the Universal; be eager to become 'That'.