One cannot Escape from Disquiet as Long as the Fundamental Ignorance Persists

One cannot escape from disquiet as long as the fundamental ignorance persists; mere change of occupation, prompted by the desire for more comfort or the need for satisfying some passing likes will not give lasting satisfaction. It is like hoping to improve matters in a dark room by a mere readjustment of furniture. Instead if a lamp is lit, passage across the room is rendered easier even without readjusting furniture. There is no need to interfere with the furniture at all. So too, in this world, it is difficult to move about truthfully, correctly, and peacefully without knocking against some obstacle or other. How then are you to succeed? Light the lamp of spiritual wisdom (jnana)! Let it reveal the reality! That will solve all the difficulties. You may claim that you live according to dharma, but have you evaluated if your acts are done in a spirit of dedication to the Divine? If so, they will authentically be stamped as 'dharmic'.

We cannot just relax if the fundamental ignorance exists, it is not the silence and inner peace we felt during our group meditations, knowing that all problems would be solved just sitting down mediating and with lots of others together in big courses, it was a different experience of quiet and peace and we don't find it without the right wisdom, it is nevertheless the same, we just have to do the job and realize it. 

One cannot escape from disquiet as long as the fundamental ignorance persists; mere change of occupation, prompted by the desire for more comfort or the need for satisfying some passing likes will not give lasting satisfaction.

We don't want that if we had the other experience of it. I didn't know if I should say something or what to do about it and he said, 'it is passion, stay alone'.

We can stay alone in the midst of people as we did in the ashram. It was a good training, because we were practically never alone.

How do we get rid of the fundamental ignorance? With our meditation sessions we said, just sit down and meditate, we didn't argue, we didn't put it in question, we didn't have to think it over, it was all clear.

If we meditate we do our best also for the society to get rid of ignorance on the consciousness level, that was a great message of peace. If we meditated with others in big groups we had more influence together and we were stronger and we meditated longer.   

As long as there are no insights. If the man comes in our dream to awake us, we don't even notice it if we get used to a Routine, like just going back to the mantra, it established a routine and in that routine we thought it was all done and right and we never questioned it. It creates a habit and in that habit we are not used to think, we stop thinking if we use the mantra and even if there is Darshan the habit was that established, I didn't reflect on it and I didn't think it was Darshan, sight of truth, I went on with meditation and that is routine and not self-enquiry and routine is mind only.

The desire for more comfort or the need for satisfying passing likes doesn't give lasting satisfaction. There is that difference between lasting and always and temporary and passing by. But what do we do to make it lasting?

If there is arguing going on before devotional singing, that is certainly not the way to find divinity in it.  

It is like hoping to improve matters in a dark room by a mere readjustment of furniture. Instead if a lamp is lit, passage across the room is rendered easier even without readjusting furniture. There is no need to interfere with the furniture at all. So too, in this world, it is difficult to move about truthfully, correctly, and peacefully without knocking against some obstacle or other. How then are you to succeed?

With other words, we try about everything, we remove the furniture to make it better and it doesn't help. The question is, how the light goes on?

Spiritual wisdom, Jnana has to reveal itself to us, we have to wait for it, as the man who comes in our dream said, 'the self is waiting'.

The insights has to reveal itself to us. If we see it in the right light, it does make sense, there is only one right answer and it has to be from all sides the same right answer, it is always true.

Knowing that doesn't help us to make the light go on, doesn't it?

What do we know by now is that there is no light and we don't know how to put it on.

We are like in a dark room and we have to find the switch that the light goes on.  

But he tells us that it will solve the difficulty only nobody listens to it or hears it or thinks about it. If we let the reality reveal itself to us, we have a certain attitude.

As he is telling us here, we may claim that we live according to dharma or duty as we understand it, but have we evaluated if our acts are done in spirit of dedication to the divine or if it is just some kind of duty?

What is dedication to the divine, it is the same 'I am that', we are all the same, that is the right spirit.

If we think family, Sai family, as Baba said, that are temporary devotees and they have become accustomed to tell in the movement that we meet in Sai family and we actually should tell, we meet in Sai family, but it is not only Sai family, it has to be the whole humanity to be one, to be the divine principle or the Atmic principle.

We should never forget what is basic, the principle, if we do that, Swami is present, because he talked always about that basic principle the three levels we cannot transcend, the Atmic principle, the 'I am that'.

That is the spirit of the divine and we feel it as his presence, it is there during such a meeting when people get silent and you can feel his presence, it is like it was when we were waiting for Bhajans. But if we have someone who doesn't do that, we don't feel it. if we talk about Sai family without mentioning the Atmic basic and fundamental principle of oneness, we will be in the mind and we don't feel Swami's presence. It depends who has the word, who is standing there and talking and how people listen to it.

If we have the wrong people talking, we have troubles and if we see that people argue before beginning of the singing, it is really not a good sign and it shows no peace, something seems wrong.

And they didn't even get the meaning of those study helps and why we did it twice a month, they didn't get it, they sleep. If we would see the meeting around a big table, most of them would be sitting there asleep snoring in their soup, but some will listen and if we talk about the Atmic principle we know what we talk about, they will get all silent inside and just sit there and we have that precious silence in the air we know from Swami, it is not the absence of words, it is the right wisdom, it is the revelation of Jnana. The 'I am that' can only be experienced, it is not otherwise possible to get the meaning of it, it is spiritual practice. If we mention the Atmic principle we have the basic truth and there is nothing more to tell, let's begin with practice to get there.  

That Jnana, wisdom can be revealed, but we have to listen, think it over and absorb and we have to do it together.

That is how we get that satisfaction which is not temporary and just passing by, but it is lasting, because it is based on the Atmic principle and truth and nothing can disturb that truth if we have realized it, it will always be true and that is basic and the satisfaction will become true and will not be changing and every breath we take will become real and as he calls it here, authentic and 'dharmic', it is right action.

Conclusion, we have to be in group, we have to be at least two and we talk not only about family, but we talk about the Atmic principle that transcends the family … it is the 'I am that'.

We talk not about being family and if we do, not only being family, but our duty is the Atmic principle, the highest truth, the commitment to oneness and divinity, that is why we are together and not to be a family and only if we are able to make that difference, we will feel the precious and beautiful and divine presence of divinity and his omnipresent in the midst of us as never changing, always true, divine reality, the basis to Sat-Chit-Ananda, what has to be realized by everybody individually.  

 Light the lamp of spiritual wisdom (jnana)! Let it reveal the reality! That will solve all the difficulties. You may claim that you live according to dharma, but have you evaluated if your acts are done in a spirit of dedication to the Divine? If so, they will authentically be stamped as 'dharmic'.