Intimate Friendship

God is omnipresent and is within you. The primary requisite to find Him within you is having pure and selfless love. Chant His Name with love. All living beings are bound by karma in this world. God loves the human form. Hence Avatars come in human form. You can experience His vision by following your duties (Karma marga), as declared in Bhagavad Gita. The Divine is being worshipped as a decorated idol or image, with an artificial form. You should experience the Lord in His natural form, in a natural manner. All the ornamentation a devotee resorts to does not please God. It may please the heart of other devotees, but God's heart is not moved thereby. Only through love can God's heart be moved and softened. Every devotee has that power. Instead of resorting to extravagant adulation of God or seeking petty favors from God, yearn for God alone and you will get everything. Endeavour to make God your intimate friend. 

Baba (thought for the day)

  

Baba said, first discrimination, second seeing it in our own life and third we have to go on no matter what obstacles are there.

How do we do that? This morning during meditation was a cross in the insight on a light blue background, it didn't feel okay, it was rather scary and it has to do with everything what is not permanent, just passing by and it was like the light blue background was what is permanent and non-changing. Years ago Baba had said in my insight that I could go on when it was light blue, it was the only indication I had and everything what happened before somehow seemed to not work out.

Not long ago there was also Baba and two devotees I know quite well and it turned into a catastrophe that was even less great to get aware of it. And I remembered that I had that catastrophe seen above the head of my father. Now what it turns out looking back in my life as he said we should and by doing that I get aware that it was not possible to talk to him.

So he had done something wrong in his life and it was due to that we were harassed by a neighbor and I tried to tell it or to communicate it and because it put him in question, as it had been actually his problem and his doing, he got in a rage and threw me out of the house. It was like impossible to get aware what it was, whenever I tried to tell that it had to do with the neighborhood, my mother, who was at his side said, 'what do you have, there is nothing'. And that is how they went on closing the eyes in front of everything and in no time it felt like I could do whatever I wanted it was wrong. That means my parent's house was gone and Baba said it in the insight that I had been let down by the family. But when Baba said it before he left the body, it didn't make sense really.

Listening to Baba's words and getting aware of it, seeing it in our own life, all that came up bit by bit over time and with the time it began to make sense. In fact the presence of Baba in the 'catastrophe' makes me aware of the catastrophe in my parent's house and how I had been let down. It was too painful and therefore, I tried to adjust or to understand it and with time it was that far away I didn't remember the reason anymore and when it began, it is actually about such a long time, it has been my whole life like that.

I always tried to get away from the parent's house and to never turn back, but that was somehow not possible and it always felt disturbed and not right.

After a while I noticed that something was wrong and I began to go my own path and I decided to watch and to let life go on and to just watch with the purpose to find truth. But what is truth? It was clear it had to do with the higher self and I decided to not change anything in my life anymore if it didn't come from inside, but in that what happened to do the best I could.

After waiting and watching on night was the higher self in my dream as white light and it was that beautiful and only love, I knew from that moment on that life was just about that and that it was all what I wanted, but I had no words to explain it. It was kind of difficult to get aware of it and at the same time to get aware that it was not known and that I never heard about it before. I followed the insights and before Baba left the body he said that he is the insights and the following step. At work I met the Hare Krishnas selling books and before they came to our bank, I worked at a bank at that time, there was actually an insight but in plain daylight on the way to my job. It was the 'light of the higher self' and it was between two people and I was amazed and alert and afraid I would miss it and that day I looked at everything what passed my way and that were the Hare Krishnas. I got the Bhagavad Gita and some of the Shrimad Bhagavatam and began to read it and noticed I had even more questions and that is how I went for a visit and it was not the atmosphere, but in doing that I realized, if I wanted answers I had to go for the experience, it was not possible to get it on the level of just understanding it. So I went for a vacation and decided to try the experience of the Hare Krishnas and that means round the clock service to Krishna and japa in the morning and evening etc. It was a strict routine and after a while I didn't think I would get the right answer in that routine, but I had met someone and we lived together and it was kind of an easy life and in the midst of it was Krishna and to get closer to the higher self I began with meditation. That was really a good experience. As soon as I went more in direction of insights, it was present as the 'echo coming back from the mountains', we lived in the meantime in Paris. So I knew that mediation would bring me back to my country and I hoped that everything would be better afterwards.

That was the most positive time in my family, my sister began with meditation and my father and the younger brother, but there were again insights and not that positive and it was still the same, we cannot understand it on the mind level. I got a book from Baba and there was some vibuthi and in taking that vibuthi during meditation it was a great insight. Already during the meditation courses once there was a beautiful melody which came out of the heart of all hearts and I followed the insights, but in the insight it broke all into pieces and the hand was not there which should have been there holding the puppets on a string and that told me that they were puppets and didn't know really what they were doing and the master was not there, I was kind of guessing it, but to be sure it had to be confirmed by a spiritual master that I know today, but at that time I didn't know.

With the vibuthi something amazing happened, it was on the tongue and I got aware of a flow and it was love and that was flowing in the heart and there was a small dark blue form of divinity in the heart, in indweller in the heart.

After that meditation I knew I had to meet the master who was behind that vibuthi and when I went with my boyfriend to New Delhi we sat in the midst of a Baba group and that said that I went actually to Baba. It was an amazing experience and that is when I went the first time on that journey for two weeks to Baba, it was in the beginning of 1986 and I went again for Guru Purnima and I stayed for a longer time. I didn't want to leave him at all, but I had to go back and as soon as I was back, it was like all was gone, whatever I had done before in my life was gone and the parents had moved to Spain.

I went often to see them, still wondering what really had happened and with time I got used to it and I didn't look for an answer anymore and that is when it began to come up in my dreams. Baba said that he is the man in our dream who is there to awake us.

And also one night he said, that it is okay if it is light blue and that is all what remind to go into the right direction. He said if it was light blue it was okay to go on and I had to try everything and see if it was light blue more or less and if it was not light blue, there was no way to go on.

Instead of resorting to extravagant adulation of God or seeking petty favors from God, yearn for God alone and you will get everything. Endeavour to make God your intimate friend. 

That is how I got aware or better he said in the insight that I had been let down by the family and in thinking it over we get aware of it and why he said it and he also said in the insight that it was not possible to talk with my parents.

I was that used to it, I was not aware of it and it is still like that, if something is coming up and we try to address it, we only get troubles with that family. They are not used to talk and if I tell them, I get only problems. They constantly think that they are working at it, but they keep the silence in a hidden power game they were used from the father and in the end the mother as well. So things were avoided and not looked at and it turned into a catastrophe.

With Baba we have to write the story new, the way it really was and not the way they wanted us to see it. It was incredible what awful problems and emotional stuff awaited for us coming back here, because they cannot handle emotions.

I was always happy to find a normal family relationship, because I couldn't find it in my own family. I always wondered why it was not possible to put anything in question. If we tried to ask a question, we got into troubles. Mother was not at all addressable anymore and saw in everything accusations and she ignored it, it was not possible to talk to her at all anymore and him it never had been. We were afraid of him and tried to avoid every confrontation with him so in the end it was a stiff silence and we talked only about their hobby the garden and it was like nothing more to tell otherwise.

Once I felt very bad at a family meeting and the man in the dream showed that it was mobbing and I was still that wrong in my attitude, I felt sorry with the mother and thought she was the one, when in reality we were it. Little by little I got aware of the abuse in the background of my family. So that is what we had to face here after she came back from Spain and was no joy and not what we had in mind listening to Baba who said that parents are God. It was impossible to get along with that attitude of those two people who were only working and not available for whatever came from the side of the children, only thinking about their work. Because I couldn't live like that and I didn't get any answer, I changed into the opposite and made out of the parents God. I just looked at the good side of it and went on, ignoring whatever came from there side, but it was not possible, not with writing, not with Baba and not with meditation to change something. But when I had the feeling I couldn't take it anymore, I usually wrote Baba to stay calm and to not lose my temper. So I was nice and I kept quiet and I watched only trying to do my best and the man in the dream who is there to awake us makes me aware of it and how it really was.

But it was as much her as it was him, the man in the dream said, that 'he should have had another wife' or it was in fact more her than him. He listened to her and he had not a good way of communication, he got easily angry and she made it worse and not better.

As I had been at that time for six months with Baba I went afterwards for a visit to the parents in Spain, but it didn't get better, but he helped me to go through it and he makes me aware of it. I didn't mind, I kept the idea that parents are God no matter what were the obstacles and their problems, but one day was the catastrophe above the head of my father and when he said he would build a house in Spain it was in the air as illusion and in thinking it over we get aware of it why catastrophe and why he said it was an illusion, the situation didn't change, it got worse.

I always tried to find the reason why it was not okay, what was it that had disturbed it and why I didn't feel home as I should in their presence anymore and it happened a long time ago, it was forgotten and not possible to address it no matter what in it turned into a catastrophe.

It was not possible to talk to them, not in writing, not in words and if there would have been a man in their dreams awakening them, they would have ignored it, only dreams.

We enjoyed the pool, the nice weather in Spain, the house, the food, but no real inner relationship, it was not possible to talk to them.

When I was with Baba it was in the ashram and like that environment and ashram life and when I went to the parents it was their environment and it was not possible to tell them about the great time we had with Baba, not how we felt and not what we did and not what we thing, nothing of it. It was kind of strange to go back to the parents knowing that it was not possible to change it as it was not possible to talk with them, they were cut off from us and we were cut off from them. That holding up silence was going into a catastrophe … It was a few days before his eightieth birthday, he called my sister and said that it would only go three days more and three days later he went in the big heat after lunch cutting the fruits from a big palm tree and he fell down, that accident caused his death. He was in the hospital, but it seems also there he asked them to let him die.  

And he was in my dream and he was at a very dark place in the river bed, there was a bridge over the river, but he was in the river bed when the water came and it was too steep and he couldn't get out of it and the light was far away like a small star.

It was kind of hard to feel the feeling afterwards, because I felt that sorry with him until I read that the light of the future is far away like a star, in the moment of death there is only the presence and no future and if we live in the mind and for the future, that is far away like a small star, it was in fact the experience of my father and I read it in an Osho book and when I listened once to an Osho speech I felt my father in him. That is how I experienced my father from the inner view.

God is omnipresent and is within you. The primary requisite to find Him within you is having pure and selfless love.

The pure and selfless love was already in the air when I became a meditation teacher years ago. Baba is giving us an answer if we listen carefully to his words and think it over, we see the reflection in his words and it reflects what the man in our dream has said, but we have to listen and that was not that easy. In the ashram I was always listening and even translating Baba's speeches, but after all the negative experiences with my ex, even though he was a devotee, as he took only advantage of it, what means mind level, self-elevation of the mind the natural characteristic of nature of the universe, as Baba said in a thought for the day. He is thinking that Baba is giving him all that, whatever comes along and he just can take advantage of it and he doesn't even have to be grateful for it, it is also a catastrophe and when it didn't work out, the man who is in our dream present to awake us said, 'you married the father', now that was really not what I wanted to get married with, but if we don't understand it, we marry it and I didn't understand it, I actually understand it only now with the help of Baba.

Endeavour to make God your intimate friend. 

That is how I get aware that he is that intimate friend.   

Chant His Name with love. All living beings are bound by karma in this world. God loves the human form.

As we are all bound by karma, I had to work it out somehow and in listening to his thought for the day I began to get the answers and we begin to hear it between the lines more or less, we have to listen and to think it over that we are able to absorb.  

I had meditated with 'I am God' after the problems in the parent's house, making God out of them after I had read the book from Yogananda Paramahansa. It was the best what I could do and as they pretended that there was nothing, I also pretended that there was nothing and that they were God. And it went on like that waiting for the higher self to take care of it and it was as light in the dream, it was the self and it still had to be realize that the self is for all the same self and that there is no difference and that it is all present in the 'I am that' and if we are all the same, 'I am that' there is actually no difference and we are all one only.

You can experience His vision by following your duties (Karma marga), as declared in Bhagavad Gita. The Divine is being worshipped as a decorated idol or image, with an artificial form. You should experience the Lord in His natural form, in a natural manner.

How do we experience his vision? I went on watching, doing my job and by watching I got aware of the insights and we get the answers from the higher self by him only.

It should come out of the higher self and not the mind and that took time and in a way it began to get more difficult. The mirror of Atman in the heart is a reflection,

as Baba tells us, Atman reflects, resounds and reacts.

It cannot be understood by the mind only by listening to his words. If we think we understand it, we are on the wrong level. He has to give the answer as the higher self is on his level only and beyond the mind, if we listen to him, we get the reflection of what he is telling us in our own self or our inner mirror and that is the confirmation for it that it is right and not wrong. It was never about the outer form, it was about divinity in the parents and the higher self and that had always to do with the Lords natural form.

All the ornamentation a devotee resorts to does not please God. It may please the heart of other devotees, but God's heart is not moved thereby. Only through love can God's heart be moved and softened. Every devotee has that power. Instead of resorting to extravagant adulation of God or seeking petty favors from God, yearn for God alone and you will get everything. Endeavour to make God your intimate friend. 

The Hare Krishnas were selling books and I hoped to get an answer in getting the Bhagavad Gita and I went there to talk to them, it was also about getting a right answer.

They were dressing up the deities and giving them bath and putting ornaments around them and it was kind of difficult for me to understand. They lived a routine and by that our life had still much more life quality, because God was in the center of the attention. As the man in our dream said, 'you were with the Hare Krishnas, so you served me before.' That was kind of nice, but only by thinking it over it begins to make sense and before I was not sure if it was a question of not.

Every devotee has that power. Instead of resorting to extravagant adulation of God or seeking petty favors from God, yearn for God alone and you will get everything. Endeavour to make God your intimate friend. 

It was always about answers and we had to learn how listen to him and to think it over to get the reflection of his words absorbed in our own inner self. If we get the reflection in the mirror we know it is the right answer and it is not explained on the mind level, but it is seen in his words reflected what is in our own self and that is how we learn to discriminate.

It would never have come to my mind to go to God and ask for material or relative stuff on the world level. I followed the small dark blue divinity in my heart and went to Baba.

Instead of resorting to extravagant adulation of God or seeking petty favors from God, yearn for God alone and you will get everything. Endeavour to make God your intimate friend. 

I had never asked for petty favors as I tried to understand the problem with my parent's house and convinced that God would give an answer, it went in that direction, but it got that difficult that I thought it was not possible anymore in the meantime.

If the man in our dreams shows that it is a catastrophe and even he is in it, we need really discrimination and thinking it over to get the right answer …  

Four years ago Baba left the body and I will never be able to forget that time with him, it was that intensive and he was constantly present inside … it is kind of incredible remembering that time. I lived in a hotel room in front of the hall where everything took place and he was like present inside during that time and I couldn't go in the ashram and live in a dormitory because that would have been too disturbing and so I didn't get a room and it all felt also very difficult and we just went ahead as he said, going on no matter what difficulties are there and they were that big that actually it is kind of a miracle I didn't just go away somewhere because it felt much too sad. But I knew I had to stay because he was present in the form of 'energy' and if we go all our life in that direction and in the end we miss it, that would not be so intelligent after all. That is how we get aware that he is our closest friend and that he is nearer and dearer than everybody else, even though it was that sad at the outside level as we had to tell goodbye and that was today four years ago. For me it was already incredible that I happened to be there at that time when he left the body. I had not seen Baba since the beginning of the year in 2003 and afterwards the insights became were difficult and loading.

Endeavour to make God your intimate friend. 

He was the intimate friend, he couldn't be nearer, but even that we have to get aware of. It was that sad four years ago because we had to say goodbye to our intimate friend and before he left I told him in the dream and it was 'I' talking and not the man in our dream who is there to awake us, I said to him knowing that he is going to leave the body, 'what shall I do without you, Swami?'

And I am still in tears remembering that last night today, so close and near and dear he felt and afterwards the next day he was actually in the dream again and he asked me what had changed …? And really he is still there and later he said, 'use my words' and I could only use his words, if I was thinking it over and that is how I began to contemplate about the thought for the day and that is also how I got aware of the inside reflection of his words in our own heart, because it is 'his heart', there is no difference on that level.