Become Aware of the 'One'

It is an arduous process for people to become aware of the ‘One’ that is their core. The gross body is the product of the food consumed. But within, there is a subtler force, an inner vibration named vital air (prana).The mind (manas) within is subtler still, and deeper and subtler than the mind is the intellect (vijnana). Beyond the intellect, people have in them the subtlest sheath of spiritual bliss (ananda). When one delves into this region of spiritual bliss, the reality, the Brahman or the One can be experienced. That awareness is indeed the most desirable. In the Taittiriya Upanishad, while teaching his son Bhrigu the Brahman phenomenon, Varuna says, “Son! Brahman cannot be seen through the eyes. Know that Brahman is that which enables the eyes to see and the ears to hear. He can be known only through extreme yearning in a cleansed mind and concentrated thought. No other means can help.”
Baba (thought for the day)

These words of Baba can be seen as the continuation of yesterday’s thoughts and here he calls it an arduous process for people to become aware of the 'One' that is our core. 
It can be experienced and we have to get the experience of the One in our own higher self and as he is explaining us here that awareness is the most desirable. 
We can only tell it in our own light and our own experience and sometimes we have to go back to other experiences to explain it, but nevertheless, we will get to the right conclusion and the insight of I am I after all. 
I always go back into the past experiences seeing it in my own life first so that it finally does make sense, sense for me and the one who is reading it. If it doesn't make sense to me, it will not make sense to the reader and at the beginning there were a lot of insights and experiences, but they didn't make sense because I didn't know how to see it in my own life. Only after I began to see it in my own life it began to makes sense. And every thought of the day brings us in a different way of seeing it again, but we see it again and again to finally know exactly that is it and we are sure about it and it has been absorbed in our own self as part of our own self. 

If we see it as processing it is telling us that the processing will be probably more difficult than we think it is and it is what he said in my first interview, he said that ‘it is very difficult to understand, whatever that was, I asked a question about my so called boyfriend who was at that time in New Delhi and I was with him. My experiences had become that negative finally him being my boyfriend, I was that scared about it, I went to Sai Baba more or less to get help. I hoped he would help me to understand it or to get along with it or to somehow get me an idea about it and how I should go on. I felt not okay and safe anymore and because of that reason I had put the mantra OMSAIRAM in front of my own mantra I used since years already in my meditation. It was clear I couldn't change the mantra, as I used it for years already and twice a day and I liked otherwise my meditation, only I didn't like the insights, they were scary and finally after a course which lasted nine months and nothing but negative insights, I went back to the center at that time I was the leader of that center and I hoped everything would turn into normality again and that was not exactly what has happened. While I began to get back in a certain routine of center activity one night in my meditation there was a big black hole and I was that scared of that big black hole, I was afraid to lose my mind and to get sick or to die of tiredness on the body level. It was not anymore easy and light and no-problem and if it had been like that once before, that was great, but now I had to take care of it that it was no more easy and it was not light, but it was heavy and it was not no problem, but a huge problem, because I didn't know how to get answers and that was what the black hole showed me, there was nowhere to get answers, no higher self, but instead a black hole. I had made the experience of the higher self before and I knew that it was there, but not on that level and not as black hole and as I didn't understand yet the first experience of the higher self which was in my dream years ago I also didn't know how to understand the black hole. But in the mean time I know that it was a sign of lost trust and that makes it quite difficult and impossible to go on as it had been before and so all the insight became true in no time, the whole thing and my life broke in pieces, everything what I had worked and lived for was gone in no time, people turned into enemies, I was even scared of them, because of emotional reaction and I avoided them and I didn't know how to get an answer, because there was a black hole instead of a master and it was also present as puppets on a string, they went on blind, they didn't see how I felt and nobody was interested in it and as they were puppets on a string, the hand not there which should have been there holding them, there was no way it could get better. In the meditation was not the higher self, not the light, but a black hole and that hole was that big that it scared me to death. Later I heard that a black hole has to do with a replacement partner, here it was more a replacement master, what was probably the boyfriend, who was no friend and with the lost trust. But it felt awful to be in that situation with no way out as it seemed. But at the beginning when I became a TM-teacher there had been 'pure love' in the air above the head of the Maharishi who had been personally present in the Swiss mountains and once I had asked a question and he explained it on the intellectual level and I didn't understand a word and when he had fished I felt bad that I didn't get it and I noticed a feeling in the air and it was like going on and on and that is what I told him that I felt like going on and on and he nodded and in that direction I went even if things broke in pieces and it felt like think air only on the background of a beautiful sunny day and there was no answer why it broke in pieces, but definitely something was wrong and with Baba he said in a thought for the day that if we separate peace and right action only pieces will be left and that was the reflection of that experience and after he said it I understood what happened. During the teacher's training we learnt to put together right action and truth. Baba is telling us if we want to experience '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 only if those three things are there, truth, right action and peace, we can make the experience of 'pure love'.
Here we have the human values, truth, sathya, peace, shanti, right action, dharma, love, prema and resulting of it 'non-violence', ahimsa.  

It is an arduous process for people to become aware of the ‘One’ that is their core.

The body is the sheath of flesh, bones and blood and as he is explaining the body is the result of the food we eat and following the direction of ahimsa, non-violence, we didn't eat meat, but after coming back here that changed. My daughter grew up in that society and she had to be in child care and they ate meat and there is nothing we can do about it and we had to live here and I didn't want to be constantly in discussions about it.
So one night I had a dream with the Maharishi and we were sitting in a restaurant in nature and we both ate tuna and he said, 'funny that we eat meat to not be different from the others', but that was the whole principle of TM, it was adapted to the Western mind and the West and to not be different from the others, but it is only Baba who explained in his words in the reflection of his words after listening to it for a long time regularly, he explains what happened and why it was like that. With the mind we had no means to understand it, to get the feeling for the insights we had to not only listen to his words, we had to think it over to be able to absorb the meaning and we had to see it in our own life to be able to understand it. 

He goes on talking about the five sheaths, the five Koshas. 
After the body and matter level we have ‘energy’ and that is the breath, Prana and it is related to fire, heat and therefore, the direction of it is upwards. Afterwards we have the mind sheath, still subtler but it is related to the moon and that is cold and the movement is downwards, the mind goes into the senses and sense-gratification and even subtler we find the intellect that is also related to fire and heat and the movement is upwards.

So that natural tendency of the mind is downwards into the senses and the body and by that it follows the nature of water, the path of least effort, but it leads directly into the body. If we want to realize divinity we have to use the nature of fire, heat and direct the mind and the energy upwards so our only focus should be the divine. It is a level of heaven on earth and that is above the human mind and the Maharishi explained that the movement downwards into the body and mind and animal level is hell. 
With the breath, meditation and Sadhana - and the help of the intellect, knowing what we are doing, we direct the natural tendency of the mind upwards towards divinity.  

It was said that man is in the mind and what is going beyond human mind direction upwards and divinity is experienced as heaven on earth and when it is downwards into the animal level and body it is hell. 
From the mind which is in the middle we have the direction upwards into the heart and the core or our being or downwards in the body. 

The path of least effort of the mind leads into the world and the senses and therefore the mind has to be directed upwards with the help of one side Pana, the breath and the other side the intellect, if we are in the mind  we thinks that the world is real and if we go beyond the mind we know that it is an illusion and the reality is in the heart. Self realization knows that it is an illusion and directs the mind upwards, but we cannot do both ways, either it is upwards or downwards.

The gross body is the product of the food consumed. But within, there is a subtler force, an inner vibration named vital air (prana).The mind (manas) within is subtler still, and deeper and subtler than the mind is the intellect (vijnana). Beyond the intellect, people have in them the subtlest sheath of spiritual bliss (ananda). 

With meditation we transcend the body and with the breath and the intellect knowing actually what we are doing we direct the mind with its own tendency of the path of least effort inside and upwards towards God and not into the senses and the body. 
That happens only if we practice mediation; it is not possible if we just think about it. If we tell we do it, but we don’t do it, that are bad thoughts as Baba called it and deceiving others. We think they go in direction of the divine, but in reality we follow falsehood and go in direction of the devil, what is the result of bad or evil thoughts.    

When one delves into this region of spiritual bliss, the reality, the Brahman or the One can be experienced.

That realm of bliss can only be experienced if we direct the energy of the mind upwards in direction of divinity or the higher self and in the center of it the core our heart. Baba said once in an interview, where bliss is there is God.

And bliss is never on the body level, but it belongs to the indweller of the heart, there is the sheath of ananda, bliss.

That awareness is indeed the most desirable. In the Taittiriya Upanishad, while teaching his son Bhrigu the Brahman phenomenon, Varuna says, “Son! Brahman cannot be seen through the eyes. Know that Brahman is that which enables the eyes to see and the ears to hear. He can be known only through extreme yearning in a cleansed mind and concentrated thought. No other means can help.”

We cannot see it with our eyes.  Eyes are part of the senses and therefore mind, we have to develop inner view as he always said, inner view and not interview …

We develop it with regular meditation we develop the inner being, it is known as ‘sat’ – the non-changing mirror of Atma and in that mirror the reality of the created objects reflects as images and those images are also the inner view and the master uses it or with Baba’s words, the man in our dreams who is there to awake us. 
We see it through the mind, but it is not the mind, because it is a reflection in the mind. We look in the clear water of a lake and see the reflection of the environment and our own, nature reflects in the mirror of Atma in the heart.

If we don’t understand what is happening in the mind and the heart we might think it is only a dream and ignore insights, what is possible if we don’t know Baba’s heart. 
Instead of following Baba’s words and the path of spiritual exercise and Sadhana and meditation we follow the mind and develop the imaginative faculty of the mind that we ‘are special and blessed by the avatar’, that is all mind only, but I have met enough of those people and I was in a relationship with one and it was of no use talking to him he didn't get it. 
Baba said, first step – ‘you and I are we’, that is the first insight and that we was created by him when he said ‘engaged’ it made out of you and I - the ‘we’.
He said in the dream that he is the insight and he is as well the following step and we have to get it together. So the following step is also he and that was present in the insight as ‘we and He is I’. It was the result of the insight and ‘engaged’. 
Thus he is the insight and the following step, both is he only, but still we have to understand it right and what is He actually? 
That was the following step, it is ‘we and He is I’, it means we and the same ‘I am that’ the Atmic principle is One, it was in the air as the same 'I am that' and that was actually the following step of the insight ..., but only in listening to his words and he is Veda, we get the meaning of the insights right and when we have the reflection of our own insight in his words reflected as 'that', we only understand it. The realm of Atma and 'insights' is a Divine realm and the mind has no access to it and with the mind it cannot be understood, therefore, it has to be reflected as truth in the insight and in his words and that process is indeed arduous. We can listen and listen and go on listening and think it over and it can take a long time until it begins to get clear at the insight and it begins to make sense from the insight, the inner view and not from the mind side and it is only then when we get aware of the inner view and the inner core and insights and inner light and intelligence as different from the outer perception and the mind in what we are used to trust, but it is all wrong and deceiving.  

He can be known only through extreme yearning in a cleansed mind and concentrated thought. No other means can help.”

Here Baba is telling us that without extreme yearning what means not giving up at all and going on and on no matter what obstacles are there and by cleaning the mind constantly and never losing the concentrated thought on 'that' only, we will actually not get there. As he is telling us here, no other means can help. 
Without cleaning the mind what happens during meditation or singing is also a way of cleaning the mind or whatever Sadhana we do, but it has to be understood as cleaning of the mind and not something else, it is impossible and without concentration on the highest and the divine the upward direction will not be there. With TM it was always the highest first and that is how we kept the direction of the mind upwards and if we don't do that, the mind goes its natural course downwards again into the senses and sense-perception and in the body.

If we want to analyze it, if we take the second step – and think ‘I and He’ it develops only the imaginative faculty of the mind and ego in fact probably feeling that I am special because of the  presence or the avatar and it creates a big spiritual ego and we know already it is the worst of all egos. 
If we take the ‘you and he’ it is what others think and mind and it develops also the imaginative faculty of the mind that ‘you are great because of ‘him’ – nothing else but self-elevation of ego and developing the imaginative faculty of the mind that we get this and that to be some and such to the only conclusion that we are special, it is nothing else but a huge ego.

We don’t go to Baba to feel special, we go to Baba to realize the unity of all religion, the presence of divinity in the heart and oneness of humanity and that is only possible if we realize it through meditation in inner view, it means the insight reflected as I am the One. 
That is why he is telling us, ‘you and I are we’ first step and ‘we and He is I’that is the following step. 
If the inner view is present as we and we are the same ‘I am that’, the divine principle, the Atmic principle, makes us aware that we are all the same ‘I am that’, in the inner view it expands from we and to all. 
The relationship to the divine is not direct and between ‘I and He’ that develops only the imaginative faculty of the mind, it is also not direct between ‘you and he’, but it has to be ‘we and He’, with other words, 'we and the principle of 'I am that', it is not Baba in the body, it is just the principle and by that we get aware that we are all the same higher self and that there is only one and that is the insight of ‘I am the One’, there is only one 'I' and no difference and there is only one in us telling us 'I am I' and there is no second one.

It is an arduous process for people to become aware of the ‘One’ that is their core.

It needs constant focus as he is telling us in that thought for the day, we have to keep that upwards direction in an effort of concentration, we cannot go into the senses and think we will realize it later, the focus has to go beyond the body and the mind.

He can be known only through extreme yearning in a cleansed mind and concentrated thought. No other means can help.”

That concentrated thought doesn’t allow us to go into the mind and to change direction, we have to go upwards and if we are in a relationship with someone who is that stupid to go the path of least effort into the mind developing the ‘imaginative faculty of the mind’ thinking  it is all Baba and thinking that God gives and gives, it is ego and developing the imaginative faculty of the mind, we have the worst enemy on the spiritual path.

We cannot go in direction of the divine and follow the path of least effort what leads downwards into the senses and the world and that is natural law, we have to keep with concentrated focus on the higher self.

We cannot be in the mind thinking it is Baba, delusion only, it is developing only the imaginative faculty of the mind, what makes life evil and bad as it is the level of demons and not heaven on earth, but the opposite.

We don’t go to Baba to be special, we go to him to realize the oneness of humanity and that we are God as well.

In the insight was a ‘soul-mates’ I had that experience with the soulmate twice during the TM time and he said, ‘we are in a relationship’. 
If there would not be a relationship, no ‘soulmate’, but meditation as technique no master made the ‘relationship level’ disappear if we looked at it later there was actually no one, but mechanical repetition of the mantra, thus the relationship-level got lost.

But the insight was not like that. 
If Baba tells, ‘no more husband, nothing left but an empty Western shoe’, what he did the moment he left the body, it was the wrong level and there is no reflection on the higher self level nothing left but emptiness. It feels like calling out on the mountains, but the echo is not coming back, there is nothing left only an empty shoe and who is present in an empty Western shoe, nobody - nothing.

Divinity is not present if we think only about gifts and developing the imaginative faculty of the mind, when in reality it is about oneness and getting aware that we are all the same one and that there is only one ‘I’ and that is the divine universal ‘I’ only.

We have to get to the insight 'I am I'.
That insight leads to the realization of bliss and the mirror in the heart and his presence in the heart and what else is there than mind and imagination, there is no reality in it – it is a dream only and not real.

With the insight of that ‘we are in a relationship’ is actually also the reality of no reflection and therefore, no relationship’ – but there was the feeling of ‘marriage’ what is based on a ‘husband-relationship’, only the husband was not there and that is how the source got lost. It could not be related to the soulmate, it was marriage and soulmate is just the same path. 
After getting aware of it and in questioning it Baba said in the insight and we were in court and it was about divorce, ‘with all of them it is the same, we have no case’.

There is just an imaginative relationship like a black hole, nevertheless it was based on the reality of ‘yogis are our friends’, but in court we find no relationship, no master and only a black hole, a replacement master and that is how the source got lost and it was not possible to be understood. 

The conclusion in the mind is always wrong and it is never right and as we had been with both levels and we have to discriminate between what is right because it felt right due to meditation first and false, because a false feeling of safety was present, what was not there when we went to court, as it said, with all the same, we have no case. 
And he also said, if we don't know the source, we cannot understand it. 
It was all based on the past with TM and the meditation was not done even and it looked good and felt good, because of that only and nothing of it was real. 

In fact someone said that at the beginning with the Maharishi they really ate tuna and it shows the principle which is adapted to the Western minds to not be different, but when it was about insights and understanding them, there was no inner reflection and all what was present is that reality of puppets and the hand was not there and the big black hole in meditation. 
The movement seemed to be trendsetting and to be that it could not be different from the others … and if we want to be trend-setting in the West we cannot be spiritual, but we have to adapt to the trend and that is science and technique and being not different from the others and that is why they ate tuna. 
The reality of the ‘I am that’ the realization of our own self as the source of everything and the core, the center of Oneness in our heart is not present in that. We cannot find it with technique alone.

‘We and He is I’, that is the second step. ‘We (devotees) and He (not Baba in the body, but the divine principle, the ‘I am that’ only) is One. 
In the insight it was like we looked the same, only it was not the same name, but the same ‘I am that’ and that was present in Prasanthi during Bhajans there was another devotee and above her during Darshan was in the air ‘I am that’ and that awareness as it was in the insight already it expanded to all, it expanded from first one, it had been in Darshan with Baba above all and it looked like all were thinking the same thought and it was in us, we were that and now it expanded to all and there was nothing left but ‘I am that’ and that is Baba and everybody, no difference anymore all become one. 
It was present later in the insight as ‘I am the One’, what means we are all the same and there is no difference and we are also all the same I. That has to be seen in the insight, it has to be realized in the inner view, there is only one who can tell in our dream, 'I am I' and there is no other one who ever will tell that but the same One.

In Taittiriya Upanishad, Varuna directed his son Bhrigu to enter upon spiritual exercises that would ultimately reveal the Truth. Brighu, with full faith in his father’s words, immersed himself in concentrated spiritual practices. When he returned and declared what he had come to know, that food was Brahman, his father told him that his answer was not right. So Brighu continued the spiritual practices and came back with deeper answers, that Prana or vital air is Brahman, then the Mind, and later that the Intellect (Vijnana) is. But each time he was sent back by his father to search deeper. After undergoing a fifth course of spiritual practices, he became aware that spiritual bliss (ananda) was Brahman. Brighu stayed in the bliss of that awareness and never needed to consult his father again. The father then, himself sought Bhrigu, and congratulated him and said, “Son! You have merged in that vision.” Every being must march on to the goal, from food to bliss. 

It is in the last sentence, ‘son you have merged in that vision’.

The question for us is what is merging?

Merging is when we are all one, there is no difference anymore and the intellect stops to think, because there is only one, we merge, we merge in that vision and there is finally only that ‘one’ and it is not different from our higher self, there is nothing but ‘I am that’, it is the Atmic principle and the non-changing truth and that will always be like that, there is no change possible on that level and it is true for all religions and all science and all philosophies, it is always true.

That is the reason we go to Baba to get to the insight of oneness and for self-realization and not that we develop our imaginative faculty about everything he gives … and that we are special because of that reason, that actually is the opposite, instead of realizing our higher self and that there is only one, we think everybody is different and the gifts are different as well. 
Even if it seems true on the level of the world, we don’t go to him for that, he doesn’t talk about that, he talks about that vision and that every being must march to the goal from food to bliss to the realization that we are all God in the inner realization of 'I am I'.  

The father then, himself sought Bhrigu, and congratulated him and said, “Son! You have merged in that vision.” Every being must march on to the goal, from food to bliss.