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.

Here Baba talks about the scriptures and we in the West we might think, but we don't know those scriptures and Veda or Vedanta and as we don't know, so what should we do?

We listen to Baba, he is embodiment of it and the living principle of the scriptures and in listening to him we also understand the meaning of the scriptures. He is the essence of the scriptures the embodiment of the divine principle, the 'I am that' and that are the scriptures, he is the scriptures.

 It is about truth and truth will always be the same, there is no change. The scriptures tell us also about truth, therefore, he is telling us that they are as affectionate as a mother.

Yesterday after thinking over the thought for the day there was that good feeling and it has just to do with his words, with nothing else, the value of the scriptures and the knowledge, when it is actually digested in thinking over Baba's thought for the day.

We can see it like teaching a lesson as a mother to her children and they have different ages and are not the same, nevertheless, they have to learn the lesson.  

If I am telling them that Baba says that without enthusiasm, courage, devotion, energy, ready ness and sincerity, nothing can be achieved, 

I am not telling that it is forgotten, but that we have to think it over, but they do not think it over. They don't know how to think it over so that we do not forget it anymore.

And what does it mean if we think it over, it means we have to care for others to keep the enthusiasm and it is not about telling someone what we think and whatever we do not like and why, that is all out of question if we worry about the enthusiasm in others and we don't just think about our own enthusiasm what would be selfish.

What is the use if Baba is telling us and we do not think it over and practice it in our own life?

As they don't listen to him there is always courage needed to tell, what is resulting are big discussion and they don't listen and don't see the importance of it. We have to find a way to discriminate right from wrong. The devotion part they all think it is understood, because they sing, but they only sing, it is not understood, because the head is somewhere else. If we sing we don't need to think, we just sing, but it is also in the mind and we can hear it that the head is not in it and if we do just work it is not all, we have to know what we are doing.

Listening to him is totally different, but as nobody seems to care about it and nobody was thinking it over and we have again the same problems we had years ago, it is kind of frustrating to face that reality that they just don't know how to listen, so every problem coming up I tell them to listen and to learn how to listen and that needs also courage to always face the same reality that they don't know how and they don't know what it is.

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?

If a child for whatever reason turns into a troublemaker, we have to be different with that child and take care that not all will turn into the same, but there are too many troublemakers.

So how do we restore them to good health, in feeding the food and medicine it needs?

We always get that answer, it is all Baba, of course, and we have to learn from it. So I have to tell what we have to learn from it if it is all Baba.  

We sit down and take a mantra and we repeat it and we transcend the mind, we know that and when thoughts are present, we are back in the mind.

And if we have meditation experience we can try to see it the same way.

We don't know it when we are in the transcendental state, there is no time and not space feeling. It means, the mind is aware of time and space and if the mind is not there, time and space and thoughts are gone and not there. In the moment thoughts are back, is also the feeling of time and space and the mind back.

Now if it is about 'I am that' – it is cognition, instead of taking a mantra, we take 'neti, neti', 'not that' and 'not this', it is the same process like in meditation in thoughts only, but with open eyes and in our everyday life, we take the 'neti, neti' like a mantra and in thinking the mantra we go beyond the thoughts, we stay aware in our thoughts 'not that, not this', that means we are like in a mantra getting aware that all what is conceptual being is 'not that' and what is left, we cannot think, because it is just 'that' pure being.

It is the same process we know from the repetition of the mantra, only it is done with our intellect and what is left is the heart. The aim is not the intellect, but the intellect is an instrument, the aim is to find what is left when everything is gone what can be transcended and pure love cannot be transcended and therefore, what is left in the end is 'pure love'.

As we do have meditation experience, therefore, it is easy if we look at it as a method going beyond the mind. Whatever is conceptual is 'not that', what is left and non-conceptual is 'that'.

But it is not a matter of knowing and forgetting it, to make the experience we have to think now and go on thinking it, 'not that' to go beyond the mind to make the experience of 'that'. It is what is left after everything what is 'not that' is gone and it gets us inside into the essence of our own self.

We have to do it in constant practice and it is contemplation, everything we see around us is not that and it will go on for a while until we find 'that' and that is the Sadhana and we should never stop it to get to the awareness of 'pure being'.  

It is not something we think, like meditation, we cannot get there if we just think we will do it, we actually have to practice and do it to purify the mind, the same thing we have to do if we want to make the experience of 'I am that', it is the identification of the 'I' not with the body, but with 'that'.

It is all about discrimination, every breath of Baba is about discrimination. That love is only possible if there is discrimination, we will never experience 'pure love' if we are not accepting truth and if we accept truth, we accept right action and we have to understand peace and if the three things are there, truth, right action and peace, we can make the experience of 'pure love'.

It is in that sense not difficult, but we have to practice, we have to do it.