I am Divine (Aham Brahmasmi)

You may ask: "How am I to declare, Aham Brahmasmi (I am Divine)?” Yes, you can do so. But, first understand the Aham, the ‘I’, the Divine Principle. Scriptures declare - Ekam Eva adhvitheyam Brahma - The Absolute is One without a second. Though people worship the Absolute with different names and forms, the Supreme Reality is only one. Just as the same person is called in different names by different people at different times, God has many names and forms - all these are creations of the human mind. Scriptures emphatically declare that the Lord is the nameless and attributeless Eternal Reality. Understand properly the true and Divine nature of the Aham ('I'). The ‘I’ is the master of your body, senses and the intellect, and is the power that permeates the entire cosmos.

Baba (thought for the day)

These words of our beloved Swami are about the core of his message. 

Without contemplation we cannot get detached, what Baba said yesterday, what sounds for me kind of final. If he tells it in such a manner, there is no other way but contemplation of the Lord go get detached and how do we put it in practice?

I tried during all that time with Baba in the ashram to get there, always mediating, afterwards with the mantra Soham, it is the 'I am that' and finally after coming back from the US I began with ‘not this, not that’, constantly telling every thought coming in my head that it was mind and thought only.

As we looked at in the last thoughts for the day, there are always three levels, ‘the waking stage, the dream stage and the sleep stage’, we know them from our own experience and there is a fourth stage and that is non-changing, unlimited, none conceptual, pure being or consciousness, it is Turiya, the transcendental stage of our awareness.

Swami talks about the first two stages, waking stage and dream stage have to merge to be omniscient, that is the first, second and fourth, the difference to ordinary human beings is that we have the awareness of the first, second and third, and they change constantly and alternate, only the fourth doesn’t change anymore.
It is not difficult if we think it over, but if we don’t, we think we do not understand it and it is right, we do not understand it on the mind level. And there is a reason for it, we are in the mind only on the waking stage level, he is always all three stages, we know it also as Sat-Chit-Ananda.

We try to understand everything on the waking stage level, we are used to that and now we learn with Baba to listen to our heart, to keep the mind and thoughts in silence to be able to listen to the second stage of consciousness, the dream stage level, it is indirect and hidden and we have to listen carefully to hear it and it cannot be answered by the mind, the mind is waking stage of consciousness.

You may ask: "How am I to declare, Aham Brahmasmi (I am Divine)?” Yes, you can do so.

He tells us that we can ask that and because we don’t know why he even tells us, ‘yes you can do so’.

How can anyone declare, ‘I am Divine’ (Ahama Brahmasmi)?

How do we think it over. I usually begin with one sentence first and I think the first sentence over, so I don't have the feeling that it gets later too much or I don't understand it anymore, what can happen.
So I see what is coming up with the first sentence of Swami's words in my mind and I think about it and write it down, the association in the mind is what matters, what gives me a feeling for it that is all very subtle and happens only when we do it, we have to practice. Afterwards I take the second thought and so on.

But, first understand the Aham, the ‘I’, the Divine Principle. Scriptures declare - Ekam Eva adhvitheyam Brahma - The Absolute is One without a second.

We have to understand the Aham, the ‘I’, the divine principle.
And there it stops already and obstacles in my mind come up, because for us and our normal feeling the ‘I’ is the body and body consciousness. As we know the I is in the three normal states of consciousness actually the body, we don’t find it that easy to understand that the ‘I’ is the divine principle. Yes, he is telling it and we believe it, but the question is how we get to the experience of it?

And now Baba refers to scriptures, Veda, only Veda has the wisdom of ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’, like we listened to his words not long ago, God is in every heart, but an ordinary person is like not boiled rice and heart while a spiritual aspirant is boiled and softened, so Veda is everywhere present, also in all other religions, but the wisdom and knowledge is potential present, but only in Veda it is actually practiced.

The scriptures Baba refers to is Veda and we know there is only one religion, the religion of the heart, but it is only practiced in Veda, we know that all religions are basically the same, but the practice of it and the softened rice corn, tolerance, love, mutual respect for all beings and all religions, the principle of non-violence we find in Veda and we have to use tolerance for all others and look for it where it is actually present, in Swami's words and the scriptures and that is Veda.

Though people worship the Absolute with different names and forms, the Supreme Reality is only one.

That is just it. We find different names and forms, the supreme reality is only one.

Just as the same person is called in different names by different people at different times, God has many names and forms - all these are creations of the human mind.

If all those forms and names are all creations of the human mind, how do we transcend the mind?

Scriptures emphatically declare that the Lord is the nameless and attributeless Eternal Reality.

With meditation we transcend the thought process and we go into a state of transcendental awareness that is the nameless, attributeless Eternal Reality and in that state we do not think, we have no feeling about it, we just transcend and we have no notion of time and space, it is eternal reality. We have meditation experience and therefore, we have the experience of it, someone who doesn’t meditate has not the experience of it. But we understand in Baba’s words that we have to put the ‘I’ apart.

Actually that is what he said. Do you know what Puttaparthi means? Put a part the ‘I’.

Understand properly the true and Divine nature of the Aham ('I'). The ‘I’ is the master of your body, senses and the intellect, and is the power that permeates the entire cosmos.

How do we do it? We can do it with meditation, but we will not even be aware of it, because there is no notion of time and space, anyway we have to get the experience of it to even be able to understand it.

How do we get aware that the ‘I’ is apart from the rest?

As he said not long ago, Contemplation on the Lord, unceasing constant contemplation on the divine and how do we do that, we take Swamis words.

What are Swami’s word, yes we can ask that and why? When I said not long ago Swami’s words only, I got the answer, but he talks differently in every heart and I said, but Swami’s word are Swami’s words and not my heart.

Understand properly the true and Divine nature of the Aham ('I'). The ‘I’ is the master of your body, senses and the intellect, and is the power that permeates the entire cosmos.

That are Swami’s words, not what I listen to in my heart and we can what is in our heart only transform into Swami’s word if we use Swami’s words and that is why he said in the insight, ‘use my words’.

His words and not mine. 
We give it to him means we use his words to answer it and not ours, we use his words and don’t look for the answer in our own mind. Only that is a process, because it doesn’t work         without thinking it over and that results in constant, unceasing contemplation of God.

That is what Baba meant in my first interview when he said, ‘think about God only’.  

After we went through all the up and downs in the mind with thinking over his words and we listen to it constantly we get a feeling for it and we begin to recognize actually that what we are doing is nothing else but contemplation of God, as he is God, it is all present in his words, we just have to practice.  

If we don't know about the difference between the waking stage and the dream stage and the mind and the dream stage, we also don’t see why listening to him and we go on singing only looking still for the answer in the mind.
Someone who knows the difference between mind and contemplation would never tell that Swami is talking in him, such a thing can only be said by the mind and it is level confusion, we project it on the mind level and the waking stage, when the reality of that truth belongs in the dream stage really.

If we know how to transcend the mind, there has to be a different way of doing it, we have to listen to the divine, his words and to just do it, we have to practice, that is the key and if we do it we will get the right answer, it is contemplation.
If there are too many obstacles coming up, if we are too much in the mind, we just don’t get it. We would like to do it, but we are still not able to do it.

It is growing on us and by and by we get there, we just have to always go on no matter what obstacles are there, we have to discriminate between waking stage and dream stage and we had to know that the mind cannot be the right answer, therefore, we have to listen, think it over and absorb and that is contemplation on the Lord.

We have three states of consciousness and we have concentration, contemplation and meditation.
Concentration is in the mind and therefore, waking stage, we repeat consciously the mantra in the mind and when we transcend the mind we are in meditation, that is the fourth stage of consciousness or the sleep stage and Turiya are the same, only one is permanent and the other is not permanent. 

In between on the borderline we have contemplation and that is listening to his words in thinking it over we get able to absorb the wisdom and that is what we are doing here. 

We get aware of it by doing and without practice, we cannot get aware of it.