Contemplation of the Divine

Those who yearn to establish themselves in contemplation of Divinity must seek solitude, practice meditation and repeat Lord's name at specified times, and acquire one-pointedness through spiritual exercises. They must always be anxious to do deeds that will bring about the welfare of all beings. They must always be engaged in performing work without any concern for the fruit thereof. Sacrifice your selfish needs. Your desire should be to establish the welfare of the world. Let there be constant effort to do good to others. With all these feelings filling the heart, meditate on the Lord. This is the right path. If everyone is thus engaged in the service of humanity and in promoting the welfare of the world, the thieves of passion, hatred, pride, envy, jealousy, and conceit won't invade people's minds and divine possessions, like dharma, mercy, truth, love, knowledge, and wisdom, will be safe from harm. 

Baba (thought for the day)

That sounds kind of difficult and certainly not something that we plan to do it seems more like just happening. Meditation is certainly part of it. Meditation is for the purification of the mind and that is the repetition of the Lord's name if we meditate. Baba said once to us in the interview room that 'all mantras are okay', the one-pointedness was the result of constant focus on 'not this and not that'. Everything we see is based on sense-perception; we just have to go on until we understand it.

After Swami was holding every day speeches at a certain point I realized that he talked always about the 'I am that' and it was like I heard it for the first time and it was that precious, I began to constantly remember that I am not that to not forget it again.

I had the 'I am that' above Baba in the Darshan in Ooty and I was in meditation and forgot time and space as it seems and when I opened an eye to my surprise Baba had come out for the Darshan again and he was standing in front of a group of school boys and in the air was the, 'I am that'.

When Swami gave lectures and that was years later and I had been in the US in the meantime and I had a daughter, we were sitting outside of it and were just listening over the loudspeakers to Swami's precious voice and that is when I noticed that he talked always about the 'I am that' and from that moment on I went back and I was constantly thinking, 'not this and not that' to keep my focus on what we really are and not what we think we are, but on the direct experience of it.

And after a while he was in the dream and he began to come more often in my dreams and once he said, use my words. That is how the contemplation began on his words, it became the contemplation of his words and that is the thought for the day.

It just happened, it is not something we did really, and it is he behind who did it. He is the doer. Everything around us what we experiences with the senses is sense-perception and it is all about 'not that' and only if we go on doing it for I don't know how long time it went on like that, but what is left is the experience and what I often noticed is that there was love, just because the focus was on truth, that was kind of amazing and how we got closer to it.

What is left if we constantly are focused on 'not that' is just the experience of it, pure being and in the moment we are in our thoughts again, we are again in the concept and that is 'not that'.

Those who yearn to establish themselves in contemplation of Divinity must seek solitude, practice meditation and repeat Lord's name at specified times, and acquire one-pointedness through spiritual exercises.

In that constant focus on 'not that' we automatically are in solitude, because everything around us is not that, that results in one-pointed focus after a while I even began to wonder how I would be able to stop it again, he had to do it from the inside.

I did the inner child work and got in troubles because I was also focused on not that during that inner child work. It was both, it was very interesting and great and it was in the end confusing and I didn't know what to do with the insights.

There were pictures reflected with people and situations and that was not answered with 'not that', it had to be understood and in using his and thinking over his words, it began to look differently, he gave the answer and he was there and made it clear what had been for years and years a problem. It was about inner seeing and reflection.

Atman reacts, reflects and resounds.

There have been images and Baba said that the relative objective world is present as images in the mirror of the Atma. Those images were not answered and didn't make sense if we thought just 'not that', it is about sense-perception, but not about the images reflected in the mirror of Atman and by thinking over his thought for the day he talked just about those images and it was the same reflection in his words as it had been in the inner view and that is how the understanding grows, but it is him giving the answer, he is the knower, as we are in the mind we cannot know, the images are on the Atman level and only he is the knower and therefore, we get the reflection of it when it is answered by him.

It is always about the welfare of all beings, it was also part of it during our meditation teacher time. Also that people began to meditate was for the welfare of all beings.

It was also in the meditation group about the welfare of the world and world peace. If we meditate in groups together the aim was that the mind gets purified and by that not only our mind, but consciousness got purified.

But as Baba said, if there is theft, what is that precious gets cheaper than rotten food. And he was on that level of theft and was a thief, years later I was told that he tried to get money from the pension funds and that is theft.

As I tried to keep the good experience of it and I knew I had to follow the insights and the heart and it went in direction of Swami, I went first only for fourteen days and I went back to the ashram we had visited and before we left, the Maharishi said that I could remain a meditation teacher, I had already years worked for them and it was always without thinking about a result and he said I should not mix it and that I thought was good, because we can only not mix it if we understand the difference and he said I should keep it for myself, but that was also depending to him because if he didn't keep it for himself, I also couldn't keep it for myself. In the following months it got worse and I felt more controlled by him than before and when he made fun of it that I was not able to go with him to Noida again, I knew that was the opportunity to get away and I packed and I went also, but I send him a postcard from the ashram that I was also in India and what had been in the air like a loom began to become like threats. The day I should have taken the flight in the morning Darshan Baba was standing in front of me and made a big smile and I didn't go, I cancelled the flight and changed it for later.

What happened afterwards was somehow very fast, my sister wrote me that he called her always and I told her to be careful that we couldn't trust him and that way she was warned, he would have loved to get her into it, that was clear and I noticed before that he had her in mind and that she was not safe as well. We couldn't trust him at all, he was actually no friend, but it seemed he had turned into the worst enemy.

After I got a postcard with a witch flying on a broom, I don't remember what it said, but the next was that he announced his 'engagement' just a few weeks later.

Probably he said to the others that I had left and therefore, he wanted to be sure and got engaged to make himself more sure, so he pretended that I had left and the real reason why I left was unseen and most of all he destroyed the safety which should have been there because of the reason that he said that I should keep it for myself,  it was not only not possible, he used the loudspeaker in telling everybody that I had left. The result was not very pleasant, when coming back my life had evaporated in thin air and it was like nothing made sense anymore and he was the criminal I had seen in the air above the head of the master.

The worst was that it didn't make sense and that went now on for years like that and behind was that thief and it turned into the experience as Baba said, if there is theft, the precious life turns something cheaper than rotten food.

It was like all work done lost its value, it was no more precious, it was cheaper than rotten food. It had been the highest and only pieces left and we cannot build on pieces only. In the insight was that they were puppets on a string and the hand which should have been there holding the strings was not there and all turned into enemies. That was the result of something that feels cheaper than rotten food and because he was the enemy now all seemed to be enemies.

Those were scary insights. There was a big black hole in meditation and no answers, no insights, no contemplation, only meditation technique.

It was overwhelming and extremely exhausting and there were two types of fears, one to lose the mind and one to die of that fatigue. Afterwards I got a book and in that book was some vibuthi and as I didn't feel well in my meditation, I went on meditating, but I put some vibuthi on my tongue and there was a very fine feeling and it was flowing downwards in the heart and there was a tiny little dark blue form and that was God.

Afterwards I didn't mind all that negativity and I was glad that a new door had opened up.

I knew I would have to meet the master who was behind that vibuthi, Sathya Sai Baba.

But I couldn't just walk away and he was very controlling and he called every night and I just couldn't go away. I had the visa and everything already organized and it was again not possible to go, when he said that he would fly to India in January and I seized the opportunity and went with him. That is how I came the first time to India and I left and went to Baba.

People crave worldly happiness; this craving itself is the disease, and sufferings are but the drugs we take. In the midst of these, one rarely entertains the desire to attain the Lord. However, it is necessary to analyse and discriminate, for the spirit of renunciation is born out of such analysis. Without enquiry, detachment cannot be obtained. Miserliness is like the behavior of a dog; it must be transformed. Anger is the first enemy of a spiritual aspirant. Untruth is even worse - it destroys all the vital powers. Theft ruins life; it makes the priceless human life cheaper than rotten food. Moderate food, moderate sleep, selfless love, and fortitude will help in the upkeep of the health of both your body and the mind. Whoever you are, in whatever condition you may be, do not give room for dispiritedness! Be fearless and remember the Lord with unshaken faith and without any ulterior motive, all suffering and sorrow will fall away.

Baba tells us, 'you and I are we', that is the first step, we have to do it together and that was the same with our meditation, it was on the level of all and being part of it and when I went to another master that was gone. Only I didn't expect that, so after coming back the first time form Baba everything didn't make sense anymore. I should be happy and enjoy I had been with him and I knew it was the right place to be, but it was not. I came back and my life had evaporated into nothingness. I have never experienced something worse. It didn't make sense, I knew something was wrong and he had deliberately found a way to not do what the master had told him to do, nothing made sense anymore.

The second step is,  'we and He is I', we get aware of his omnipresence and that he never was the body.  We get over the pain and the limitations in our mind if we go for it. We have to use discrimination, we have to go on no matter what obstacles are there and we have to see it in our own life.  

The first interview I asked Baba about it and I said to describe the situation that my friend was not in New Delhi and I was here. And he asked who is your friend is your friend with the Maharishi or is the Maharishi the friend? And I didn't know the right answer and Baba said that it was very difficult to understand. When I came out of that interview room I had the impression nothing made sense anymore. Not only was my life gone and I felt cut off and I didn't know why, but also nothing made sense anymore. There was also a kind of one-pointed focus, I had to get answers.

That it would have such an impact about that I had no idea, I had seen it break into pieces during that course, but that was the experience of it. There were only pieces left. Whatever had been precious before, it was gone and it felt worse than rotten food.

Once I was talking with one of the national office and I was running to the bathroom and I had to throw up, out of nothing, out of thin air, it tasted worse than rotten food.

Years later the Maharishi was in my dream and said that I don't belong to them and that I know it and I should not come to him again and that settled it after all for the moment but it was still not finished it went on and on.

'We and He is I' only if we live the level of we, it is beyond the you and I, it is about we and He is I, we can experience the omnipresent divine.

They must always be anxious to do deeds that will bring about the welfare of all beings. They must always be engaged in performing work without any concern for the fruit thereof. Sacrifice your selfish needs. Your desire should be to establish the welfare of the world. Let there be constant effort to do good to others.

It is always about the world as all are the same, there is only one, it is for all beings. If we get to the feeling of 'I am I' and his divine omnipresence, by getting aware of it, we know why limitations in the mind and why pain and that there is no reason for it if we go beyond the mind, but for that we have to feels his divine presence. Nothing is lost if we realize that he is present and even if we think in the mind everything is lost, when we get again in touch with him, there is everything present in him again.

With all these feelings filling the heart, meditate on the Lord. This is the right path. If everyone is thus engaged in the service of humanity and in promoting the welfare of the world, the thieves of passion, hatred, pride, envy, jealousy, and conceit won't invade people's minds and divine possessions, like dharma, mercy, truth, love, knowledge, and wisdom, will be safe from harm. 

This is the right path. If everyone is thus engaged in the service of humanity and in promoting the welfare of the world, the thieves of passion, hatred, pride, envy, jealousy, and conceit won't invade people's minds and divine possessions, like dharma, mercy, truth, love, knowledge, and wisdom, will be safe from harm. 

It is like with meditation, in making the experience we can get aware of the omnipresent reality of the divine and there is no way we can get it alone, we have to go beyond the 'you and I', that is our experience and it is the experience we had in Prasanthi Nilayam and if we don't go beyond the 'you and I' we are in the mind and on the mind level we cannot experience that.