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.
As the insight had to do with truth, what I also didn't know even begin a TM-teacher, there has been no talk about 'insights' and after a while the insights began and there were no answers and I know I would not get an answer and that felt not good at all.
In the meantime listening to Baba and thinking it over we know that we have to accept truth and if we have to accept the path of truth, we also have to accept right action. It was about right action, because of the feeling of friendship and I was not very glad that it turned out all different and that I had not to worry about him, because he was no friend.
How strange it felt at that time to have the feeling of friendship and to know that something is wrong and that my feeling was not right. That I didn't like and I didn't expect it as well and it put everything in question and a time began when I had the feeling nothing made sense anymore and that was during a long time.
I actually like him because he felt like a friend and that is also why right action and I didn't care about losing him, but nevertheless I had to get answers.
And I didn't like those insights, but we have to accept truth and I was at that time also not ready to accept truth, I hoped it would change again when I went with him to India and we visited the Maharishi, but everything went wrong and he was not really the friend and finally I left and went to Baba and that is how everything went on and it was no question if I liked it or not, it had to just go on. If we accept the path of truth, we also have to accept right action and that was my problem.
I asked Baba about it because it was about right action and he said, that is very difficult to understand and I had no idea in what I went into. All that happened in 86 and now we 2015 and that is nearly 30 years ago and in those years it was not clear at all. I went on and thought in time I would not get an answer at all. I didn't know how.
When I had to take the flight back and that would have been in September 86, Baba was standing in front of me in Darshan and made a big smile and I didn't go. I changed the fight for later and stayed in the ashram. From that moment on it was always the question to understand and knowing at the same time that it was not possible to understand.
That ended the relationship with that so called 'friend' of mine and as I didn't come back, when he expected it, he was looking very fast for another girlfriend and first I got postcards and a witch was flying on a broom and finally he announced that he would get engaged on his birthday in December, only a few months after I didn't come back. I tried to not be touched by it and first it worked, but it was still bothersome, because I didn't understand it.
He was for sure not the friend I had thought he was and it didn't feel good to see in him someone he was not it was not very good for our self-confidence.
I had no idea how to get answers and that is really what I wanted and I stayed in that ashram for months just hoping it would get clear.
Baba didn't tell, just listen and think it over, he said, that is very difficult to understand.
Thus in trying to understand it and it was all in vain and there was that constant frustration nagging at me that it was not possible to understand it. In a sense it was clear that I couldn't understand it and even worse, it got much worse, because I met someone and he said I was the wife Baba sent to him and I thought, maybe he will help me to get answers and that would have been possible if we both would have been listening, but it was not possible, he was not listening at all and that way it got only worse and not better.
He said to follow the inner master and it is what we did and everything what had not been clear in my life came up and I had to look at it. Finally it was clear that we didn't listen, so we had to get a divorce and that is what I did, he not, he didn't listen also that time and after seven years I had the divorce agreement with me and he singed. We had only troubles and still no understanding.
We didn't know that to absorb the wisdom or to realize what truth is all about, we have to listen, think it over and see it in our own life to be able to absorb.
It was already present during the first question in the interview room and afterwards it went on for thirty years. I actually often wished I would not have mentioned it.
And today I know that it was not possible to understand it without listening or without thinking it over to be able to absorb, but all what we did was singing and I was meditating.
All those years after I came to Baba in 86 I was waiting for the answer to be able to understand what he said in the first interview room is very difficult to understand, all those years and during that relationship with my ex, it was like hanging somewhere in the air.
He seemed to have only in mind to make it more difficult to us, also to get out of the relationship and finally I was that tired, I couldn't get up anymore, I guess that was a kind of burnout and I didn't fly to India. It was not anymore possible. Baba had said that he warns and that on this level he will not get the right answer and it was all in vain, it felt like he said nothing at all and like every possible obstacle which could come up came up. It felt like everything turned into aggravation only. It was like nothing worked out right, but nothing.
He didn't tell me just listen, think it over and absorb.
Why he didn't tell, probably it would have been wrong understood or it would not have made sense, but like that it went on and it got only worse and they were only singing and with that it would never have become clear that is sure.
So finally when he left the body he said 'engaged' and that is how I began to write and think it over and we had now to listen and see it in our own life and by that it began slowly to make sense. It was at the same time about the 'I am that' and about being able to accept truth.
The insights had to do with truth and to be able to absorb that truth, I had to listen to Baba and think it over in my own life and then we begin to understand it and it begins to make sense. And as it had to do with truth and insights and we had to accept it, we also had to accept right action and if it was not right, we had to change it.
By the time Baba left the body I was tired of it beyond measures and thought I would never get an answer anymore and I felt exhausted and I wrote in my book about the insights, but I left it open or I put a Baba quote and he answered it indirectly probably asking a new question.
I had to accept it as truth and also the impossibility to understand it – on the mind level. The problem is we are always in the mind only and in listening only to Baba I got on that Atma level and by seeing it in our own life, it began to make sense only, but it is incredible how I felt tired, frustrated and exhausted in the end. I had never heard before that in listening to the words of a wise man or divinity and in thinking it over we are able to absorb the wisdom in our own self. So I went on and as I had been waiting for so long and no answer, I had no choice but going on. In the beginning it made little sense and in time it got better and in the meantime it is clear. It is no question anymore and that is how the excitement and the inner search for answers stopped.
So many years waiting, waiting, waiting and waiting. He once said in the interview room, 'wait, wait, wait, wait', not three times like he said to others, but four times and I noticed that my tears began to flow and it was too much to take and the others were all silent in the interview room and afterwards he came back and made a big smile and he took my hand I went with him holding hands out of the room in the next room.
After some years it didn't make sense anymore, I thought I could forget it, but I knew for sure there was no way I could know. That waiting turned into always more time and it seemed to go further and further and no answers and no way I could see an answer and then I met my ex, and he said he knew and I hoped that it would be true. It was like holding on to a straw and the thing was I had no idea how to get it. I just hoped someone had to know.
In the mean time I know as we have to listen and think it over to be able to absorb, there was nobody else and no one. Darshan is also called the sight of truth and the following step is 'right action'.
Baba said in the dream that he is the insight and he is the following step, but first I had to get a feeling for insights, it looked to me more like just pictures out of nowhere without reason even, just being there, but there had to be a reason for it.
Baba was present in the insight as 'vampire, he had two faces, the other face had a very long nose and it felt like that far away from all ,I had like no feeling for it and why he looked like that, but the relationship with my ex was not okay. But it scared me enough to be careful, out of my own experience I knew that something had to be wrong and that it was about right action and that relationship was not okay, he took only advantage of it, so when I told him I don't know and there is no way I can know what felt to me like a virtue, he took advantage of it and he said, he knew and everything else he invented to get us into it. In reality he didn't know and he didn't even meditate and he said when he was initiated into TM he knew he would do it his whole life. It felt like the worst all happened what was possible to come up and to happen.
He had a dream and in that dream Baba told him that I had to come to him and make peace with him and we went and it sounded like I had been fighting with Baba, he interpreted it on the mind level and that felt real strange.
As it was about truth and right action, there was no way back and that he didn't listen and he was not aware what he was doing, we noticed because he ignored everything what we had thought was a Baba Lila before. So it was no Baba Lila, but he took only advantage of it.
Thus at the beginning it didn't make sense and we had to listen and go on listening and thinking it over and see it in our own life and that is how it began to make sense.
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
Meditation was for me always spiritual practice, but how to contemplate we didn't know and nobody told us how and also in the beginning it didn't make sense. But singing alone was for sure of no help and didn't do it and meditation alone also not.
We didn't get the right answers and usually everybody is understanding it as singing mostly. I didn't get any answers and was constantly meditating and I began with therapy work and dynamic meditation later on hoping to get closer to it and it still didn't explain the insights, but there were more insights in the meantime.
It was not anymore light, easy and wonderful as it had been in the beginning and it was impossible and more and more difficult and not wonderful.
In reading those words it feels to me like that makes it impossible to understand. Devotion doesn't become spiritual wisdom, because nobody is listening to the spiritual wisdom, they all do devotion by singing that is the heart level and we don't get the right answer, but if we have the right answer, the singing and devotion will get better, because we know what we are doing, so it is the same, but only in the result not on the path.
We got married with Baba and didn't get the right answer and we thought it was devotion and is turned out it was not. There was not enough discrimination, but only singing doesn't teach us discrimination. And also there was a difference between Karma, action, and working for right action and devotion, heart and spiritual wisdom, intellect at the beginning as long as we are on the path, but when we reach the goal it is all the same.
Here people sing mostly Bhajans and only and don't know much about Seva and if there is no difference it feels like no need to listen to his words, because he didn't tell that there is a difference in the approach, they only sing, but with singing alone I would never have gotten any answers.
We have to listen, think it over and absorb, that means it is a difference between doing that and singing what is the approach of the heart. We do not sing and think it over, we sing and feel the love and his presence, but that is only possible if we know what we are doing and for that we need to accept truth and if we accept truth, we have to accept right action and if there are those three, right action, truth and peace, we are able to make the experience of 'pure love' and get to the insight of 'I am that' and that is only possible if we understand it right.
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).
He talks about the goal and not about the path. The path there is a different matter and when he talks about how to get to pure love, he doesn't tell it is all the same, but people seem confused about it. If we have the experience it is even difficult to understand, what about if we don't have it.
We are the individual soul, jiva and we see that we are different bodies and different 'I's corresponding to our body; there is a difference, you and I we are different people. That Atma is the principle of 'I am that' and if we have no experience of it, we don't understand it and the supreme Lord (Parameshwara) is the 'I am the One', the only one, the 'I am I' and on that level is no difference.
If we just sing we do not get the insight that we are the same. We need to absorb the wisdom to understand it and only together they are all the same and together it works, but to get there we have to listen, think it over and absorb.
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).
We know that we should be always focused on him only, but we should know how.
Who is he, if we don't have the experience of divinity? He is only what he is telling us what he is, but we have to make the experience of it. In trying to feel love it doesn't work and it is not the right type of love.
He said if we want pure love, we have to accept truth (Darshan is sight of truth) and we have to accept right action and understand peace and if there are truth, right action and peace, we can have the experience of 'pure love'.
If it is only devotion or devotional singing, we don't get aware of it.
We can put our heart blood into theater and stage performance because Baba did that as well even if we lose out of sight the principle he came for, the Atmic principle, the 'I am that'.
Like that it is possible to do every single deed with full dedication and all our heart blood, but nothing is coming back and why, it is not understood.
If we do a theater about the Christ the message in it is depending on the level of consciousness of the author and it would be surprising if there would be some sat-chit-ananda in it or the message what Baba tells he came for.
If you read the introduction in the text 'love' he is telling us that he didn't come for disciples etc., not for a religion, but only for the Atmic principle and that is the 'I am that'.
That message gets lost if instead of the focus on the 'I am that' they are only singing, it is above all done by meditation, we have to get aware that there is nothing left but 'pure love' if we transcend the conceptual being and the created objective world.
Second we have to be aware that it is beyond our effort to feel, but it has to do with effort accepting truth and accepting right action and understanding peace and there will be 'pure love'.
If we have that dedication and understanding we get to the experience of 'that' as love and not just 'pure being'. And if we go on listening to his words and thinking it over and seeing it in our own life, we get able to 'absorb' the wisdom in our own self and by that we are able to experience the 'I am the One'.
It means first concentration, second we have to see it in our own life and third we have to go on no matter what obstacles are there and only if we have done all that, what he just called dedicated devotion, we are able to know the principle of Atma, that 'I am that', and it is only for that reason he came for.
It gets lost if they focus on drama and just pleasing people and singing a little bit and that's it, there is no realization in it, but just feeling good. That is why they look that old-fashioned in the inner view and the focus is on 'love' only and not on the wisdom how to get 'pure love' and on cultural values and not on the 'principle of Atma' and on theater performance and entertaining people and not on self-realization.
No comments:
Post a Comment