Illusion or Reality ... Which is it?

The same person is king to his subjects, son to his parents, enemy to his enemies, husband to his wife, and father to his son. He plays many roles. Yet, if you ask him who he is, he would be wrong if he gave any of these relationships as his distinctive mark, for these marks pertain to physical relationship or activities. They denote physical kinships or professional relationships; they are names attached to temporary statuses. Nor can he reply that he is the head, the feet, the hands, etc., for they are but the limbs of the physical form. He is more real than all the limbs, and is infact beyond all names and forms which are falsities that hide the basic Brahman; he is known as 'I'. Reflect over that entity well and discover who that 'I' really is. When it is so hard to analyze and understand your own entity, how can you pronounce judgment on other entities with any definiteness?

How is that constant reflection possible?

We have to go to the basic, it cannot be transcended, the non-conceptual. How do we get there? It is reflected as ‘not that’, everything is not that, everything is conceptual, why is the ‘I’ different? It cannot be transcended anymore, it is basic, universal. Everything in nature had an ‘I’ in different shapes and different bodies.

Constant reflection on the glory of God helps you to transmute the body, mind and spirit. – Baba

If someone asks, who we are, we answer with our name and it is related to our body. If we want to be more basic and universal, we have to go beyond the name and the form.

Everything Baba mentions here is ‘not that’ until we get to ‘that’ and what is ‘that’, it cannot be transcended anymore, it is basic, it is universal, it is ‘I’. It is easy for us, we know how to transcend until there is nothing left but ‘pure being’ in a state of mediation. But here it is about contemplation, not meditation. 

What is contemplation? We get aware in using our intelligence of all what is ‘not that’, all what is conceptual, we have to do it to be able to understand it, we feel it, be it, we have to see it in our own life, it has to become experience, not that, it needs discrimination and we let go of everything conceptual constantly and automatically we are focused on what is basic, we cannot think it away and that is the ‘I’. 

What we reach with meditation by using the mantra is a state of pure being, what we reach by contemplation and 'not that is the I. It is also pure being, but it is contemplation and not meditation and there is a leftover of thought and if we do it consciously we are actually not gone and without thoughts, we are in contemplation of the basic reality.

They denote physical kinships or professional relationships; they are names attached to temporary statuses. Nor can he reply that he is the head, the feet, the hands, etc., for they are but the limbs of the physical form. He is more real than all the limbs, and is infact beyond all names and forms which are falsities that hide the basic Brahman; he is known as 'I'.

Therefore, what matter to us is that job, the professional relationships, they are a temporary status and in the mind. We have to be more specific and basic; we have to go beyond it to find what is real and what transcends everything and cannot be transcended anymore. 

Everything what we live on the mind level, our name, our form, our status, our job, our family, no matter what, it is not basic enough to be on the level of the basic Brahman and for us it means we have to get to Brahman consciousness, that is why we went to see Sai Baba. 

We have to be more basic, there is no other way to transcend the mind. We have to get to ‘that’ which is universal, true for all. If we call it technique, it has to be a universal technique, no difference for anybody, all the same, because it is basic.

Reflect over that entity well and discover who that 'I' really is. When it is so hard to analyze and understand your own entity, how can you pronounce judgment on other entities with any definiteness?

We read together the study help for selfless service and some think, we have to do something, we have to do this and that and Swami said in that text that it is the gross relative level, selfless service, is really being who we really are, close to the divine and live in our consciousness the unity of all, we are one and the same, divine consciousness, all one in that level of consciousness, that is selfless service, not only on the outer relative level, it is being near him. 

If we don’t feel good about it and if we are not aware in doing it, it doesn't serve. We have to be in that basic oneness of all, we stay close to God, we are the divine consciousness.

Whatever we are not, we take it away, we think it away, we analyze it away, we meditate it away and we get aware that only one thing is left and that is the ‘I and that we cannot take away; no matter how often we try.

The exercise is to find that which cannot be transcended anymore, that is the right answer, that gets us to Brahman, it is basic, it cannot be more basic, there is no way we can go beyond the I. 

It is contemplation, constant reflection on the divine and that basic state is an universal principle, that state is divine, we have to get aware of it. 

First we get the insight, second we have to find the right knowledge and third we have to get it confirmed.

If we have the man who comes in our dream to awake us, it is an insight and we have to find the right knowledge and he will lead us to it and when we find the right knowledge it has to be confirmed. The contemplation is the last part, it doesn’t get confirmed without self-reflection, without contemplation on the highest truth in his divine words that makes us aware that he is present and that it is him only and not the body and not the mind. It needs to be confirmed to become part of our own self.

Truth is always on those three levels. What I did in my book was actually searching for the right knowledge and there are always some open issues, but there is only one right answer and it was still open and I put a Baba quote and answered it like that, without answering it really and only gets confirmed by contemplation and thinking it over and in experiencing the divine reality of his omnipresence. 

It is also what should be done in a study circle and as much as I know it has not been done, they just shared some Baba text and some thoughts about it, but the real purpose of the study circle is also to find that right answer and that is I guess why we got the study help to find the joy of contemplation. 

We seem to be not really aware of contemplation, it is still neglected.

Going into depth of the truth in the divine words together in a circle we find that joy and that feels like a Darshan, he is the living truth, if we get the truth in his words alive together, we are in Darshan.

And that is the joy of it. We have to make the experience of it. If we stay away and think others can do it and we don't participate, we don't get it. 

It is a Baba gift, a precious gift, but we don’t recognize it, some even see it as a bother, because it was not done in the right manner.

When it is so hard to analyze and understand your own entity, how can you pronounce judgment on other entities with any definiteness?

We have to find the basic being level, we have to transcend the conceptual in our thoughts, and we use our intelligence to get aware of Brahman.

First we have to analyze our own entity; we get aware when it is not done. Someone began to argue before the singing, on the energy level it felt like a slap in the face so bad it was and negative, a shock on the level of energy and bad taste. Nobody said something to not make it worse, but the other defended herself, but it didn't feel much better. 

If we are busy analyzing ourselves, we are not in judgment, but we get aware of all others who are not busy watching and finding that basic truth about Brahman. 

Probably that lady had the feeling she did more than others and she was that upset all had to notice it as she thinks it is the others mistake and not hers and it is all mind only and because they think it is about serving others, instead of getting aware that selfless service means to be close to the divine. He is the doer we have to get aware of the oneness of all, getting aware of unity consciousness. 

Divinity is always present, but if we don’t live it, we are not in the right type of consciousness, there is no oneness, but only differences and there is not the divine and not Swami, but something else.

Truth is on three level, first we get the insight in the dream stage and we have to find the right knowledge to the insight and we find it only when it is confirmed. 

If we are on the worldly level it gets confirmed by worldly facts, if we are on a contemplation level, it gets confirmed by the reflection of truth in his divine words.