Remember the Highest Goal

When you do not discriminate the process and purpose of every act, and go ahead doing them with no understanding, you reduce them to a funny fossilized routine. Once even Prahlada observed, "Since it is difficult to destroy egotism, people take the easier option to offer dumb animals at the altar. Animal sacrifice is the manifestation of the quality of inertia (tamo guna); it is the path of bondage. Sacrifice of the animal of egotism is the purest sacrifice (satwic yajna) on the Godward path of liberation." Thus the highest goal (paramaartha) of the past is turned into the fool's goal (paaramaartha) of these days! Similarly every one of the ancient practices, which were once full of meaning has grown wild beyond recognition. It is now impossible to pluck the tree by the roots and plant a new one. So the existing tree must be trimmed and trained to grow straight. Always remember the highest goal and never dilute it into the lowest.

If we read the words only, what happens in our mind? We think we witness, witnessing means getting aware of what happens in our mind.
He explains here what happens if we do not discriminate. What happens if we do not discriminate, we are not aware of the process and purpose of every act.
The process and purpose of every act … Do we understand the process and purpose of every act? Do we know someone who does understand the process and purpose of every act?
If we don't understand it, we go ahead not understanding it and we reduce them to a funny fossilized routine.  

When you do not discriminate the process and purpose of every act, and go ahead doing them with no understanding, you reduce them to a funny fossilized routine.

We reduce it to a funny fossilized routine. There was that funny fossilized air around the statue of liberty, what can it mean differently than fossilized routine.

He is the man who is coming in our dreams to awake us, the dream image was the funny fossilized air around the state of liberty.

What happens when reading His words first, when we just read it? We think we get it. We think we got the idea of it, but did we really get it?

What does he tell us, that every one of the ancient practices which were once full of meaning has grown wild by recognition. And he tells us it is impossible to pluck the tree by the roots and plant a new one, we must trim and train the existing tree. 

And how is that done, we have to remember the highest goal and never dilute it into the lowest. What is the highest, what is the lowest, do you think people now. We maybe think they know, but our experience shows the opposite, they do not know and why, we cannot know as long as there is no listening to his words.  

Once even Prahlada observed, "Since it is difficult to destroy egotism, people take the easier option to offer dumb animals at the altar. Animal sacrifice is the manifestation of the quality of inertia (tamo guna); it is the path of bondage. Sacrifice of the animal of egotism is the purest sacrifice (satwic yajna)on the Godward path of liberation." Thus the highest goal(paramaartha) of the past is turned into the fool's goal(paaramaartha) of these days! Similarly every one of the ancient practices, which were once full of meaning has grown wild beyond recognition. It is now impossible to pluck the tree by the roots and plant a new one. So the existing tree must be trimmed and trained to grow straight. Always remember the highest goal and never dilute it into the lowest.

What happened when we read those words first.

We think we got the meaning and we forget about it. But did we really get it? If we look at the witness and think we get the meaning, who is that? That is the mind and the waking stage that is on the level of the intellect, we read and think it is done. What do we know, there have to be three levels. He explained when waking and dreaming merged, we have Turiay, what he explained as omniscience. 

He told us he is God and we are also God, we have to realized it, the difference is he knows and we don't know. What is the difference on the level of consciousness, we are in waking, dream and sleep stage and they are relative and changing, and he not, with him they have merged and the third is not anymore sleep stage, but Turiya, unlimited, transcendental awareness and unchanging or also called Samadhi.

We are looking at his words and reading it with our state of mind and that is therefore not a merged one, but only the waking stage, getting to the 'wrong' conclusions that it is understood on the mind level. When His is telling us, listen, think it over and absorb, we have three levels.

Listening is in the normal and familiar waking stage, but thinking it over is on the level of reflection and inner seeing, we begin to remember the dreams, they are there in the purpose to awake us, as he said us. So we actually know what we are doing, if we reflect on it. We think it over because it has the purpose to awake us and we think it over to get more insights. 

His said also in the dream that he is the insight and he is the following step, when we think it over we see the insights and in the light of his words they make sense and thinking it over is therefore the following step. Our own inner self absorbs the meaning. We don't just read His words, we have to listen, think it over and absorb.

And that is not done, who has understood that principle of listening? There are difficulties and quarreling going on as if we don't listen. 

In the inner view someone was stranded on the ocean ground, what does it mean to be on the floor of the ocean ground, it is no more unlimited ocean awareness, but we have reached the ground. The highest wisdom is projected outwards into our tradition and gets lost on the mind level, outer tradition is mind, the fool's goal and it is on the level of routine and it gets funnily fossilized. 

We have to go inside and how is that done, in reflecting on his words. The reflection part is the dream stage and the absorbing part is the sleep stage and when it gets absorbed we begin to develop the Turiya stage, because we understand that there is no difference.  It is of importance to listen to His words on three levels to be able to absorb and to get aware from the outward believe in tradition. Tradition makes only sense in the light of these words here.  

When you do not discriminate the process and purpose of every act, and go ahead doing them with no understanding, you reduce them to a funny fossilized routine.

If we want to hold on to our traditions whatever that is, we have to think it over and we will get aware of the traditional values. Since it is still difficult to destroy egotism, people offer an animal at the altar, that was Pralada's time. We don't do that, but what do we offer at the altar? We should sacrifice the animal of egotism it is satwic. 

The highest goal of the past has turned into the fool's goal of these days!

Therefore, our sacrifice if we don't use discrimination, it is the highest or it is the fool's goal? For sure it is not the highest, we are even cleverer, we see him as God and instead of offering the ego on our part on the altar, we think that God should fulfill all our desires and that makes only the ego stronger and he is just there for that reason as it seems.

Swami talks about traditions and the ancient practices, that is Veda and they have grown wild beyond recognition.

Years ago when coming back here at the beginning I went with my daughter to the Sai center, she was in the children’s program and we went on weekends with other mothers and they also had kids and they are all grown up now.

We went once a year to a parents meeting in the mountains and once Sunday morning we went singing in a chapel.

It felt that strange to me, I practically never could that divine experience in it and I went usually home frustrated and upset or with a headache.

They practice religion and just replace it, but I couldn't feel that divinity we had experienced in it.

He is not a replacement for something we don't find in the church.

I went to those meetings because of my daughter, but it ended with her thinking that it feels more like a sect.

The divine experience was not really felt in it, it was poor and the real spirit was missing and they went on with the believe of traditions and it got only worse and the last time I went there were stupid traditional songs and some slow traditional circle dancing, I had to leave, I couldn't take it, I got that upset, I just left.

The instruments for Bhajans were not there and we have usually some good angels doing Seva and the Indians on those gatherings take care of the food, they clapped in the morning Bhajans with their hands.

I didn't find that divine experience in any of those gatherings, I didn't find him in the redaction team I had been and also not when we went cleaning the creek or once I went singing with them in an old people home and I also felt not okay, it had nothing of the lightness of Prasanthi and every song instead of going into the dynamic of singing where we find him actually was explained by the leader of the singers to the old people and it sounded constantly like an excuse of what we were doing or that it were not the songs they knew.

I went to it to get the experience of it and once it was Bhajan learning, instead of singing, they were practicing and again I had no feeling of his presence in it. I went home and I said, 'never again'.
Years ahead I stopped singing and I tried something else to find a way to go beyond the mind and I wrote Swami and I said, I must have missed something, somewhere on the way, but that is not it.

We know that religion has been misunderstood and misinterpreted and now they took all that misinterpretation as traditional values and put him in it.  Instead of taking Veda, the real wisdom and the place where religion is still alive and not misunderstood and get those values enlivened.

It is the opposite way around, they take the misinterpretation of the Western culture and put him in those traditional values, instead of listening to him. 

The message gets lost in that way. There is no way we can revive what is already lost and gone in our Western culture. He tells us how it is right action and if we don't follow that, there will not be any right action. How do we follow?

The wisdom is in his words, we have to learn to listen to his words. People mostly like singing and seem not at all aware of how important it is to listen to his words regularly over and over again.

Once even Prahlada observed, "Since it is difficult to destroy egotism, people take the easier option to offer dumb animals at the altar. Animal sacrifice is the manifestation of the quality of inertia (tamo guna); it is the path of bondage. Sacrifice of the animal of egotism is the purest sacrifice (satwic yajna)on the Godward path of liberation." Thus the highest goal(paramaartha) of the past is turned into the fool's goal(paaramaartha) of these days!

There is no way with just singing Bhajans that we can change the past and the fact that it has turned into a fool's goal of these days!

Whatever we think and see as duty and dharma, if it is not inspired by the divine words and understood, it is just that old fool's goal and we try to arrange ourselves and make it more pleasant living with the old fool's goal.

Similarly every one of the ancient practices, which were once full of meaning has grown wild beyond recognition. It is now impossible to pluck the tree by the roots and plant a new one. So the existing tree must be trimmed and trained to grow straight. Always remember the highest goal and never dilute it into the lowest.

He tells us even why it is a fool’s goal. The ancient practices, that are the tradition, but it is the Vedic tradition, it is the Vedic culture, based on Sat-Chit-Ananda.

Those ancient practices had grown wild and are beyond recognition and that is why we cannot find the divine experience in it. So how do we trim and train the existing tree that it grows straight?

It is generalized when he tells us that we always should remember the highest goal when people still look for happiness in their senses and have no idea what the highest goal actually is. It is the highest that gets diluted into the lowest.

Instead of sacrificing the ego, we adore him and use him to even build up an ego and take only advantage of it.

He is God, he can take care of it and we are not, it arranges some people to make him God and we are not.

That is not his teaching. If we listen to his words and thinking it over, there are insights, he said seven million of people and all look old-fashioned holding on to a fool’s goal as he calls it here.

The man grounded on the ocean floor said, 'help us' and the woman said, 'I am hungry'.

For what can we be hungry, I guess it must be the experience of the divine presence and that pure love we had experienced with him.

If we want to make that experience, we have to listen to his words.

We have to get aware that the first stage is only listening and it is not done by that, if we want to get close to his divine nature and feels Swami's presence in it, we have to think it over.

If there are seven million people projecting it in a fools goal and try to adapt to outer cultural values and nobody is thinking it over, the wisdom gets lost. That is not where we can find it.

If there is that man on the ocean ground telling us, 'help us', it means he doesn't know how to go on, he is grounded in the ocean.

If there is that woman telling, 'I am hungry' it means the divine experience is missing.

Only if we listen to his words, we can bring unity in diversity, not with our stupid old-fashioned cultural values which have long ago lost their meaning and now we try to live with it again in putting more value in it, but that is not how it gets transformed.

We have to think it over, we look at the His dreams and we think it over and begin to reflect on our own experiences and by that we actually also listen to the man who comes in our dreams to awake us and we think it over and by that we absorb the wisdom and we get the message and the message is that it is not in our cultural values.

If we don't listen we don't hear it and that is what he said not long ago, we have to listen over and over again, then it will be prodded into action and if we don’t listen, we don’t see the need for action.

We are his instruments, if we don't do it, nothing will be done and if we don't listen, we listen to our mind actually, either we listen to him or we listen to the mind.

The mind can hide behind silence, we don’t have to face the truth, how comfortable, he is just silence, so why there should be anything to do?

It feels like a good looking, but empty suit, nothing in, the value of silence has replaced the divinity. It is empty and deprived of all divine value.

Only words without any meaning and all his, but no practice.

If we would listen over and over again it would be prodded into action.

It gets lost, we got some study help for the study circles, people don't even know the purpose of the study circle and instead of studying His words, they make a circle sharing out of it. The only important thing is that we talk in the circle and share our experience and don’t talk in between and not the studying of his words. It is also a fool’s goal.

The understanding of it is a very poor level, it is all translated into a fool’s goal. If it is all his, also his is the duty and not a fool’s goal.

With that attitude of mind nothing can be done, it is very practical to keep silence and it arranges some of us as it seems, so we don’t have to listen.

It makes him to a cripple and not divine.

What did he do, keep silence and nothing, so why we didn't go to him in the Himalayas somewhere as recluse and we just meditated all day, what for all those devotees coming to him from all the countries.

It has to be done on three levels, listen, think it over and absorb (His), the message is lost in the West, it will just stay lost.

If we do that in a circle and we share the wisdom with others in a circle and we think it over, we feel his presence is in the air. He is alive in his words, he is the living principle of 'I am that'.

It cannot be understood only with the intellect, it is waking stage only, it has to be listened to and that is the dream stage, and it is thought over again and again, it is more an intuition level and it has to be reflected upon and that is how the dream stage gets enlivened and when the two merge, waking and dream stage, we can absorb it in our own self and that is the oneness awakening in our own self.

If we don't do that, it is not the divine message, he never said that there are two and we talk about divinity in heaven and man on earth separated by height, it is not his teaching, we have to listen to him to find the oneness, that is his teaching, we are one and there is only one and no second.

In the tradition of our churches we have two and there we don't find oneness, we it in his words and by that we can experience the truth and stop to adapt to a fool’s goal.