Peace, Joy and Inner Fulfillment

The entire Universe is suffused with Divinity. Since your mind is steeped in Prakruthi (worldly objects) you are not able to see Paramatma (Divine). Just as when you focus your attention at a necklace, you shut your eyes to what it is made of, similarly as long as you look at the world with a materialistic attitude, Divinity shuts itself off from us. Once you gaze at the world with a divine attitude you see only Divinity. Who are the thieves that steal from every human being their peace and joy? They are the thieves of desire, pride, greed, infatuation, anger and jealousy, who rob a man of all his riches. But the worst of all thieves who inflicts the worst damage is matsarya (envy). We must win over our internal enemies and turn our gaze to Divinity who pervades the entire Universe.

What is touching to me in reading Baba’s words is first that he talks about the universe, no matter how we hink our personal divinity is, he is telling us the Universe if full of it. 

So we actually should be possible to make that experience, but how do we get the universal experience of it? We have to get the right insights. 

It is also called the expansion of the heart or the expansion of consciousness. 

If we don’t have that experience, we cannot imagine it, but we probably would like to know how to make the experience that the whole universe is nothing but love.

Since your mind is steeped in Prakruthi (worldly objects) you are not able to see Paramatma (Divine).

Thieves of Peace and Joy

There are three stages of sadhana (spiritual practice). They are concentration, contemplation and meditation. Concentration entails fixing your gaze on one form. Contemplation occurs when you are able to perceive the form within you, even in its absence. Meditation means when, as a result of this exercise, this form is permanently imprinted in your heart. If you continue to meditate in this manner, the form will constantly be fixed in your heart. You should not confine your spiritual practices only to concentration and contemplation. While it is true that these are the first steps in your spiritual practices, you must progress further; you must transform concentration to contemplation, and then contemplation into meditation. When you carry this out, you will continue to visualize the form of God at all times. The ancient rishis (seers) adopted this form of meditation. That is why God manifested before them whenever they wished, talked to them and fulfilled their desires.

Concentration is the focus on the mantra and the repetition of it and meditation is the state beyond the mind. Concentration is therefore fixing our gaze on one form and name, in every name is the form.

Contemplation occurs when you are able to perceive the form within you, even in its absence.

Contemplation is when we are able to perceive the from within us, even in its absence. Do we understand it or do we have to practice first to understand it? 

He is the man who comes in our dream to awake us, he is absent in the form and he is present in the dream and he is in the heart.

The insights seem to be part of contemplation.

Meditation means when, as a result of this exercise, this form is permanently imprinted in your heart. If you continue to meditate in this manner, the form will constantly be fixed in your heart.

If that form is permanently imprinted in our heart, we continue to meditate in this manner and we are constantly in touch with him inside.

You should not confine your spiritual practices only to concentration and contemplation. While it is true that these are the first steps in your spiritual practices, you must progress further; you must transform concentration to contemplation, and then contemplation into meditation.

Think it over Again and Again

The entire Universe is suffused with Divinity. Since your mind is steeped in Prakruthi (worldly objects) you are not able to see Paramatma (Divine). Just as when you focus your attention at a necklace, you shut your eyes to what it is made of, similarly as long as you look at the world with a materialistic attitude, Divinity shuts itself off from us. Once you gaze at the world with a divine attitude you see only Divinity. Who are the thieves that steal from every human being their peace and joy? They are the thieves of desire, pride, greed, infatuation, anger and jealousy, who rob a man of all his riches. But the worst of all thieves who inflicts the worst damage is matsarya (envy). We must win over our internal enemies and turn our gaze to Divinity who pervades the entire Universe.

Baba (thought for the day)

In this thought for the day Baba talks about the entire universe suffused with divinity and if we focus on the world, divinity will shut itself off from us. 

The difficulty is, the mind cannot get it.

The whole universe is everything around us and it’s huge, but when Baba is telling us he is God, we have a person in front of us and only love and if it is about the universe, there is nobody. He is an entity in a body and the universe not. 

He is love and we experience that love in him, but if the entire universe is love, why we don’t experience that love, there should be only love. I remember the time in his presence I went back to Zurich and wondered why in his presence was only love and in our world we don’t even know that it exists.

All those questions coming up in just reading the first sentence, hopefully he will tell us later on why. 

And how do we get an answer to all those questions coming up already in the first sentence? We have to go on listening, he will tell us, but maybe not today, but maybe tomorrow. 

Om Tat Sat - and our life

God is not found separately in a temple or in an ashram. Truth is God. Love is God. Dharma is God. When you worship God by following these principles, He will manifest Himself then and there. Do not doubt this. Love God wholeheartedly. Pray to God and make friends with Him. You can achieve anything if you have God as your friend. Learn today to fill your heart with love and adorn your hand with the ornament of sacrifice. Sacrifice is the jewel for the hands. Truth is the necklace one should wear. You must develop the habit of adorning these jewels. Develop divine love and foster peace in the country. Pray with a broad feeling: Loka samastha sukhino bhavantu (May the whole world be happy)! Start every day with this prayer. Then, you will lead a blissful and peaceful life which is full of enthusiasm. Love God and make friendship with Him, and you are bound to be successful in all your endeavors.

Baba

God is not found separately in a temple or in an ashram.

The first sentence in that thought for the day I didn't mention really. If we don't find it in a temple or in an ashram, were do we find him? In our own heart, it is the temple of God. 

And what he is telling us if we worship God and believe in him wherever we are, he will be then and there. That was for me the higher self in the dream. It had the nature of God and it felt also like that. The nature of God is as Baba said not long ago, existence, luminescence, attractiveness (asthi, bhathi, priyam).

Expansion of the Heart

God is not found separately in a temple or in an ashram. Truth is God. Love is God. Dharma is God. When you worship God by following these principles, He will manifest Himself then and there. Do not doubt this. Love God wholeheartedly. Pray to God and make friends with Him. You can achieve anything if you have God as your friend. Learn today to fill your heart with love and adorn your hand with the ornament of sacrifice. Sacrifice is the jewel for the hands. Truth is the necklace one should wear. You must develop the habit of adorning these jewels. Develop divine love and foster peace in the country. Pray with a broad feeling: Loka samastha sukhino bhavantu (May the whole world be happy)! Start every day with this prayer. Then, you will lead a blissful and peaceful life which is full of enthusiasm. Love God and make friendship with Him, and you are bound to be successful in all your endeavors.

Reading Baba's words I feel like in Prasanthi, there is the mandir and we sit in Darshan or sitting in a big crowd listening to him perfectly happy to just sit and listen and looking at him who is telling us,

'God is not found separately in a temple or in an ashram. Truth is God. Love is God. Dharma is God.

Put it into Practice

The scriptures are as affectionate to us as a mother. They teach lessons as a mother to her children, in conformity with the level of intelligence and according to the needs of time and circumstance. A mother of two children gives the healthy one every item of food for which it clamours, but she takes great care not to overfeed the sick child and gives it only items that can restore it soon to good health. Can we accuse her of being partial to one and prejudiced against the other in conferring love? The scriptures also draw the attention of those who know the secret of work (karma) to its innate value. Karma can improve life and set its ideals aright. Everyone must be instructed on how to transform work into beneficial activity. Yet, work is not all.

Baba (thought for the day)

Can we tell that knowledge is practiced if people do not listen to Baba? The knowledge is there, but if we do not think it over, we do not practice and as Baba is telling us here, it is like food that is not digested.

We might do some devotional songs, what feels good on the heart level, but if there is no knowledge and we don't listen to Baba, we do not understand what we are signing, we just sing, everybody can just sing.

The Nature of God

When the moon is just a little arc in the sky and one desires to see it, a person indicates it by pointing a finger towards it. Or, when one desires to look at a particular star, a person says, "There, just above that branch of this tree." The moon is far away, and the star is much farther. At the moment it could be seen just above the branch, but that is only a temporary location. Soon, the location changes. The finger can no longer be correct, for the star or moon moves across the sky. But the genuine characteristic never undergoes change. The form may suffer change; the name may change; times may change; and the space it occupies may change. But the core of Truth will not change. That core is denoted as existence, luminescence, and attractiveness (asthi, bhathi, priyam) in Vedantic texts. The above three together are the nature of God. On these as the basis, forms are constructed by the mind, and names for the forms follow.

Baba

What a beautiful picture in that thought for the day and the problems we have in the center we can explain just like that. The finger is pointing at the moon and it is above the branch of this tree, it is a temporary location and so it is with agreement we had once ten or even twenty years ago in the center and the finger is still pointing at that place, but the moon has moved away long time ago, only the finger not it is still pointing at the same place.

The study circle is very important, because it has the aim to listen to Baba’s words and to think it over and it seems there is someone, she is a passionate violin player and she makes always music, but that is not the same as thinking over Baba’s words and listening to him.

I guess it feels like she did the study circle in the same way practicing only during the circle telling her thoughts not in listening to Baba’s words really and sharing it with others, but in responding to the circle. So when we were sharing insights, she said she could not tell anything anymore and she felt that negative, but she was that used to her way of doing it that she thought she was right and we had to be wrong, what put everything upside down.

It is like a feeling that we don’t understand the world anymore, she didn’t enjoy to listen to Baba’s words, she was on an all different place like not part of the circle, but somewhere else and that was again the case in the last circle.

Baba tells us, ‘without enthusiasm, courage, devotion, energy, readiness and sincerity nothing can be achieved’.

He Who Realizes the Divine becomes Divine

The Divine is the base, and also the superstructure. The beads are many, but the interconnecting, integrating string of the rosary is one. So also for the entire world of living beings; God, the permanent, omnipresent Parabrahman, is the base. The scriptures proclaim, "He who realises Divine verily becomes Divine (Brahmavid Brahmaiva Bhavathi)". The bubble born of water floats in it and bursts to become one with it. All the visible objective worlds are like bubbles emanating from the vast ocean of Divinity, Brahman. They are on the water and are sustained by water. How else can they arise and exist? Finally, they merge and disappear in water itself. For their origination, subsistence, and mergence, they depend only on water. Water is the basis; bubbles are delusive forms of the same imposed on it.

The Divine is the base, and also the superstructure.

What does Baba mean with the base and superstructure?  If we read the first sentence, we get the idea of it, but we are not really able to answer, probably we know he talks about Atman as it is always about Atman, but do we know Atman enough to be able to tell what it is? If we feel that we are not sure, we are able to not even go on reading it, because we cannot answer it.

But there is a way to answer it. We take the second sentence.

The beads are many, but the interconnecting, integrating string of the rosary is one.

 He compares it with the beads and the string is only one. We can look for other examples like God is one, people are many. Gold is one, golden jewelry or coins are many. Heart is one, lovers are many or love is one, lovers are many etc.

So also for the entire world of living beings; God, the permanent, omnipresent Parabrahman, is the base.

You and I become We - Cultivation of Feelings

When you perform an activity (kriya) as an offering to the Lord, your own good, what is good for others, and the highest good (swartha, parartha, and paramaartha) all merge! First, you and I become we. Next we and He becomes One. The individual soul, the ‘I’ (jiva) should accomplish identity first with the creation (prakriti) and then with the Supreme Divine (Paramatma). This indeed is the significance of the mantra Om Tat Sat (which connects the identity of the individual with the Universal Brahman). ‘He’ and ‘I’ are always there; the spiritual practice (sadhana) is always there too. Just as the sun is inseparable and is never apart from its rays, under no circumstances should any aspirant part with one’s sadhana. It is only then they can be said to be one with Om. (Prema Vahini)

  

 Baba is telling us here that we merge; all merge when it is good for all.

First, you and I become we. Next we and He becomes One.

There is no He if there is no We. And if there is only ‘I’ as he said no more husband nothing left but an empty Western shoe, there has to be someone and he took care of it that there is someone else.

We don’t exactly know why just an empty shoe, but he is one, no doubt about that or two shoes in the insight, old, brown and worn out, used old Western shoes.

He makes you and I become ‘we’. What is ‘we’? A relationship or just a ‘we’?

If we take it just as a ‘we’, we get to the conclusion that only if there is a ‘we’, there will be ‘he’. To make we and He one, we have to go on to be ‘we’.

‘You and I’ are We and we is He. That is what he said and it was an insight after he left the body. In the insight, (dream) there was a deep dip and we went down that dip and there was only little water left and it went up again and on the way up he dropped the body and it fell into  dust and it went further up and on top was Krishna and his brother. There was not only Krishna after he dropped the body, but ‘we’ it was Krishna with his brother or brother in law, Arjuna.

Not only one, not only Krishna, not only Baba, but ‘we’ to be ‘he’, two people actually, that is why I repeated it again and again, it was kind of triggering me as well, I mean, I only got aware of the importance of that ‘we’ after he left the body.

If we come with the Avatar it is just because of that reason, he doesn’t come alone, he is incarnating with some souls near and dear to him. To be able to get the message that God and devotee are One, there are not two only one, but there are two first to become one. It is not possible to become one if there are not two first.

The individual soul, the ‘I’ (jiva) should accomplish identity first with the creation (prakriti) and then with the Supreme Divine (Paramatma). This indeed is the significance of the mantra Om Tat Sat (which connects the identity of the individual with the Universal Brahman).

The Devil in the Mirror

Desire and bondage to the objects desired and the plans to secure them are attributes of the individualized selves, not of the Self or Atma resident in the body. The sense of me and mine and the emotions of lust and anger originate in the body-mind complex. Only when this complex is conquered and outgrown can true virtue emanate and manifest. The sense of ‘doer’ and ‘enjoyer’, of ‘agentship’, might appear to affect the Atma, but they are not part of the genuine nature of the Atma. Things get mirrored and produce images, but the mirror is not tarnished or even affected thereby. It remains as clear as it was. So too, a virtuous person might be subjected to some contaminating activities due to a backlog of acts in previous lives, but they cannot obstruct the person’s present nature or activities. The virtuous person has these genuine, basic attributes: purity, serenity, joy and is ever cheerful.

Why are Baba’s words that important to us and full of wisdom?

What is happening when reading his thoughts?

It was already a great insight when he was talking about the pratibimba, such a great insight that I never forgot the expression, pratibimba. It felt like those syllables pra-ti-bim-ba would contain everything what matters to be a right answer to us, to fulfill all our desires and to tell us, it is just about ‘that’ and nothing else and if you know ‘that’, you know everything and there is nothing else to know.

A magic word – pra-ti-bim-ba, but it is easier if we call it only ‘that’, but the short word ‘that’ is really reduced to one thing only, in the pra-ti-bim-ba can by anything mirrored as image, it is the image and that would just be the process of it or the essence and that is ‘pure love’. But we have three words and we have to look at each word separate to get to the ‘insight’ of ‘I am that’.

We have to analyze it. Like with that dress yesterday. It looked white and golden and it was blue and black and a million people wondered about it and why it looked that different.

‘I am that’ is telling us that we are something, but it doesn’t tell us what. It is the principle and we have to ask first the right question, ‘who am I?’ – The answer is, ‘I am that’. Or Baba said in the interview room about Soham, the mantra with the breath, so – inhale, ham – exhale, the meaning is ‘I am that’ or ‘I am God’ or ‘I am Shiva’.  If we transcend the relative objective world we get in a state of transcendental awareness or pure being. What is a Samadhi? Sama means even and buddhi is the intellect, it means an even intellect or with other words equanimity.

If we are in that state of pure being, we just are, without thoughts, without feeling for time and space and when thoughts are coming back, we are in the mind again.

Desire and bondage to the objects desired and the plans to secure them are attributes of the individualized selves, not of the Self or Atma resident in the body.

Things get Mirrored and Produce Images

Desire and bondage to the objects desired and the plans to secure them are attributes of the individualized selves, not of the Self or Atma resident in the body. The sense of me and mine and the emotions of lust and anger originate in the body-mind complex. Only when this complex is conquered and outgrown can true virtue emanate and manifest. The sense of 'doer' and 'enjoyer', of 'agentship', might appear to affect the Atma, but they are not part of the genuine nature of the Atma. Things get mirrored and produce images, but the mirror is not tarnished or even affected thereby. It remains as clear as it was. So too, a virtuous person might be subjected to some contaminating activities due to a backlog of acts in previous lives, but they cannot obstruct the person's present nature or activities. The virtuous person has these genuine, basic attributes: purity, serenity, joy and is ever cheerful.

Yesterday was an amazing Bhajan and we had some good visitor's singers and they are always. The study circle to me more like a brain storming, we all put our ideas in it and in the end we let it be like it was.  

Desire and bondage to the objects desired and the plans to secure them are attributes of the individualized selves, not of the Self or Atma resident in the body.

Constant Practice

Spiritual practices should be done consistently with an ever expanding heart full of devotion and spiritual wisdom. There is no distinction between devotion to God (bhakthi) and spiritual wisdom (jnana). Just as materialization (sa-guna) becomes formless (nir-guna), devotion becomes spiritual wisdom. I don't agree that dedicated action (karma), devotion, and spiritual wisdom are separate. Dedicated activity is devotion and devotion is spiritual wisdom. So too, the individual soul (jiva), the Atma, and the Supreme Lord (Parameswara) are not separate; they are one and the same. Therefore, every single deed of yours must be full of the spirit of selfless service (seva), divine love (prema), and spiritual wisdom (jnana). Your life's activities must be saturated with dedicated action, devotion to God (bhakthi), and spiritual wisdom. This is verily the yoga of the Supreme (Purushothama-yoga).

I like to remember the good times we had in Prasanthi with Baba and waiting for him in Darshan.

Before I went to him, I had been a TM-teacher and when I went to him, my boyfriend was also with TM and I didn't wanted to do it wrong, so I asked him about it.

I had strange dreams or insights and he felt like a friend and therefore, I asked him in my first interview about it and I said, my friend is now in New Delhi with the Maharishi and I am here and that is a problem. And he asked, 'who is your friend, is your friend the Maharishi or is your friend with the Maharishi?' and I didn't know or I had the feeling afterwards to understand nothing at all anymore. I thought the boyfriend was the friend and that I had a feeling of friendship because they yogi was behind it and yogis are our friends, that made sense, but understanding it was something else.