Light is a Lamp at Dusk

From this day onwards, you must win over everyone through love and compassion. Nara (man) falls into Naraka (hell), through over-indulgence. Senses generally run wild and like raging floods, spell destruction. The festival of Deepavali is to express gratitude at the defeat of the demonic (Naraka) tendencies in humans, which drag them down from Divinity. Naraka is the name for hell, and the demon whose death at the hands of Krishna is celebrated today is called Narakasura, the personification of all the traits of character that obstruct the upward impulses of every person. The home (griha) where the Name of the Lord is not heard is a cave (guha), and nothing more. As you enter it or leave it, and while you are in it, perfume it, illumine it, and purify it with the Lord's name. Light it as a lamp at dusk and welcome it at dawn as you welcome the Sun. That is the genuine Deepavali, the Festival of Lights. 

In my morning Sadhana I went into the sutras as we did years ago, but in the light of how Swami said yesterday seeing it as an inside journey and putting on the light, we just repeated it, but we began with an inside journey. That was the reason why we went for meditation. We did those sutras regularly twice a day for years and in the end I was just a good feeling, but we didn’t get aware that it is ‘He the knower’, we thought we did it and that was not right and if we know it is He anyhow, we can relax and just watch and that feels like home.

When I asked Swami about it and he said years ago in an interview that this is very difficult to understand, that means I didn’t know what it was, but something was wrong. That means the doubt that had been created before was expanding to everything I did before. And in doubt we cannot relax and  if I would have liked to do it so it was not just like that possible and if I felt home with it before, I couldn’t find that home anymore. Even if I tried, I remembered the sutras, but it was not clear and therefore, I couldn’t do it.

The human being is a composite of man, beast and God, and in the inevitable struggle among the three for ascendency, you must ensure that God wins, suppressing the merely human and the lowly beast. Man must know the Universe as basically Brahman or Divine. You and the Universe are one; all are subsumed in the same unique entity. The cosmic vision can be acquired either by watching the Universe or one's own inner Cosmos. One has only to discover oneself. In the citadel of the body, there is the lotus temple of the heart, with subtle akasha (space) within. In it are contained heaven and earth, fire and air, sun and moon, stars and planets - all that is in the visible world and all that sustains it, and all into which it submerges. Instead of rotating round the earth in the higher realms of space and planning to land on the moon or Mars, if only one plans and prepares to travel into one’s own inner realm, what sublime joy and peace can be attained!

In those words he didn’t only give the insight and how we should see it, but also the right knowledge and the confirmation of it. It is about the inside journey and I began with mediation to go into that inside journey, but as it was only seen as program and not as journey, I went still in direction of the higher self and that is a journey and it felt that silent and good in that place inside and that is what Swami called here the inner cosmos and the akasha, the subtle space within.

It was all present in the sutras, heaven on earth and light and air, the sun and the moon, the polestar, the planets and thinking that we just put on the light inside so that we could see and we found the universe and we felt home in it, because it is the real of the self and in the heart there is no change when it is about the divine level, therefore, it felt natural and good and simple and we felt home and only when it was actually disturbed we got aware that home was gone.

As long as it felt okay, we felt home and everything was fine, like mother at home, that means our world is okay, but when she is not anymore at home, nothing is okay anymore and the question was what was the disturbance and I asked Swami about it and he said, ‘very difficult to understand, just think about God’.

The home (griha) where the Name of the Lord is not heard is a cave (guha), and nothing more. As you enter it or leave it, and while you are in it, perfume it, illumine it, and purify it with the Lord's name. Light it as a lamp at dusk and welcome it at dawn as you welcome the Sun. That is the genuine Deepavali, the Festival of Lights. 

That is a good way to see it if we get aware of the sutras as we had used it years ago, like we go in that cave and it is dark, we cannot see at the insight and therefore, we put on the light, the inner light, we put all the sutras the good qualities like friendship, compassion and bliss and we know that are divine qualities, with the Lord’s name or the divine qualities we illumine that cave, it is like a lamp we put on and we welcomed the sun in the heart actually and the moon and all the lights, the cosmos and we go for the inward journey.

I always went on with the mantra, but we had also a whole set of sutras we called program and in that program was that inner silence and it felt not only good, it felt like home. Swami always said we should never change a Sadhana, but it was that long and it was not clear what was wrong, it was just not possible or I thought it was too long, we did a program and that was one and a half hours in the morning and the same at night. If we see the sutras and the divine qualities in the sutras, we get aware that it is He, there is that eternal value, it is beyond the mind and the body, a cosmic light in that cave he mentioned today, we put on that light with the sutras and in the Darshan with Baba he is in every sutra and it was a kind of amazing experience I get only afterwards in reflecting on it aware of, he was in the strength of an elephant, what is also a sutra and he said, ‘I wanted to fly’, but it makes us aware that the flying sutra was not about the body flying, but it is right only when it is He and I guess with the flying on the body level it was projected in the I and the body consciousness. Whatever, He wanted to fly it means it is an eternal level. It is his doing, he is the doer and he is the knower.

It felt good to look at the sutras in the heart in the space of akasha and to just know it is He and not I, there is nothing to worry about, there is nothing lost if it is him and in that we had felt home, it was for me a new home I had build up with mediation and we did it over a long time regularly just with meditation and I noticed only that it was gone, when it was not there anymore. How can we travel at that inside journey and in that inner environment in constantly focusing at the inside and not the outside? After years and the past experiences was gone, if we don’t listen to his words, we are not ready and we can miss it. We have to be ready because he is omniscient and omnipresent, he can be there anytime, as soon as possible can be now in two or in ten years. When he told us ‘akasha’ is in the heart, it is right knowledge and corresponding to the sutra and as well the sun, the moon, the light and the planets, the cosmos inside, he is friendship, he is compassion, he is bliss, all the good qualities he talks about it are there at the inside if we put on the light, it was not only the light of the name of the divine or the mantra, it was the light of the sutras and we created a divine environment  and it is the light for that inside journey and if we look at it that way, we just can close the eyes and know that he is. We repeated the sutras and thought that we will be it, but we had to find the right answer and that means ‘he is that’ and in him it is always right and unchangeable and invincible.  

As it happens so often we didn’t get aware that we at home, we got aware of it only when it was disturbed and therefore, not anymore possible. As long as it felt okay we didn’t have to think about it and was just good, but when it broke in pieces it changed and it didn’t feel anymore good, it was gone. We get aware of it again as He is the knower, if we think we are it, the I is identified with the body and we have to know that difference between He is the knower, He is the doer and I am not the body. In that knowledge as it is part of him is the comfort, is the sweetness, because it doesn’t change.

  

From this day onwards, you must win over everyone through love and compassion. Nara (man) falls into Naraka (hell), through over-indulgence.

Over-indulgence is synonymous to excess, greed, intemperance and he tells us that the senses can run wild and bring damage and destruction.

Senses generally run wild and like raging floods, spell destruction.

We had an interview at a Deepavali day and it is a beautiful festival, we put on the lights for all and it destroys those tendencies that drag us down from divinity. What Swami said when he spoke about akasha in the heart and the inner journey and that we find the cosmos inside, the sun, the moon, the sky the planets, he made it all come up and there is nothing wrong about it, it is part of his reality and we know that is right knowledge and that is also how it gets confirmed. If we don’t listen to him, we are not ready and we will miss it. We had done that program for I don’t know how long and it is part of our own self, we felt home and good in it and we liked it and it was a habit, but it was also a divine environment and that is how we got inside in touch with Swami and that level telling us, He is the doer, he is the knower and not I. That we didn’t know, but we knew it was right and we went to him and since we try to understand it, but as he said, it is difficult to understand. When the insight is there and the right knowledge and it is confirmed, it seems easy and we wonder, why we didn’t know it before, but it took us many years to get there. If he confirmed it the truth is like in the open and the insight confirmed and it does make sense, but if we are not ready and we do not listen to his words, it can go on for always in that state when we don’t get the right answer.

We practiced, we did it, we thought it was safe, we thought we could feel home in it and feel good it is a non-changing level and in that silence we can feel home and it was our program. We didn’t know anything about Patanjali and we thought it will come in future, we didn’t know it consciously, it was learnt by heart, we knew that we don’t know and he knows, because it was learnt by heart, but we didn’t realize it and it was not confirmed. Truth is threefold, insight, right knowledge and confirmation.

We didn’t know anything about mantras and nothing about sutras, we just did it and it seemed to be easy until nothing made sense anymore. I thought I would get insights, but there was nobody who talked about insights. The master was not there to confirm it and to awake us; it was only science and programs, adapted to the West. We had answers on a scientific level and the master was not at his place, we didn’t know why friends, yogis are our friends. It is kind of amazing, when he doubt is gone, we can feel again the intimacy which had been present in that inner silence and the joy of just going in direction of the higher self or the divine. And to this day it was not possible to recall all those experiences, because it had to be confirmed first.

Swami is really serving his devotees, he takes our problems and he takes care of them, but it is not a matter of time, we have to be ready and if we are not, we will miss it and I was waiting for that insights since I went to him and if we would not listen and if we would not think it over, we would now just have missed that precious wisdom of akasha in the heart, it explains what we did with our programs and why we repeated mechanically every day twice for years and in turn experienced that silence and then when it turned into the opposite and it was not anymore okay, there was nobody who could answer it and nobody helped to get out of the dilemma and the jungle opening up, but Swami he was there and he took care of it. 

But first we had to get aware of it that it was much worse than we acutally thought it was, because we didn't know what we were doing, we just repeated mechanically a program and thought that modern science was really the answer to it and it looked that easy and that simple until it turned out being the opposite of light and easy. As long as we thought it was heaven on earth it was light and great and as soon as it turned into hell it was heavy and not so great. 

We had no notion of the difference between the doer and the I identified with the body and going beyond the body and the mind.

In that cave of the heart we find the light, it is in his name, but also in his divine qualities, as Swami said once in an interview, where bliss is there is God. That is just what we did, we put the light on and we still find it there, we just have to look at the right place. 

That silence in the inside of our own self and in the heart cannot be compared with any silence on the outside level.

Instead of rotating round the earth in the higher realms of space and planning to land on the moon or Mars, if only one plans and prepares to travel into one’s own inner realm, what sublime joy and peace can be attained!

It is the silent joy in that sublime inner peace we had experienced we cannot find anymore on any outer level as we are not anymore on the journey to the inner realm and we have to find it again to be able to get there and we find that the light is still on, but he had to open the door that we could enter it.