Follow at least one of the nine modes of devotion (Sravanam, kirtanam, etc.). It doesn't matter how wealthy or learned you are; God is concerned only with the sincerity and purity of your mind and heart and the wholeheartedness and genuine nature of your love. Valmiki was a hunter. Nandanar was of a low caste. Kuchela was a poor man. Dhruva and Prahlada were five-year-old lads. Sabari was a tribal woman, illiterate and uncivilized. But all of them won God's Grace in abundance, because of their wholehearted devotion, love and surrender. Follow Sabari's example, who always thought of Sri Rama and His happiness, and dedicated all her thoughts, words, and deeds to Him alone, such that her every action was transformed and sublimated into the highest penance (tapas). Meditation does not mean sitting idle in a particular posture, like posing for a photograph. Like Sabari's life, your life must become a continuous meditation wherever you are, and whatever you do.
What do we get from thinking over Swami's words?
Nobody seems to do that really and why not? Probably because it is not possible, but he also tells us that contemplation is neglected. It feels somehow that far away actually and still that close.
Follow at least one of the nine modes of devotion (Sravanam, kirtanam, etc.).
He mentions nine different modes of devotion and it was also in our study circle, but as it was not really thought over and it was just not present in my mind as we didn't think it over. After we think it over we remember it and it feels like part of it, but we have to see it in our own life, afterwards it takes form and no matter the past experience, we have to see it in our own life and by that we create a relationship to the wisdom and remember it and otherwise we don't.
Kirtanam we met with the Hare Krishnas and the man coming in our dream to awake us was present not yet long ago, 'you have been with the Hare Krishnas, you served me before'. It was Kirtanam, singing the same Mahamantra on and on repeating it again and again after we did it non-stop, how could we forget it again, we cannot forget it anymore, I never know a Bhajan good enough probably just because of that reason, but I still like to remember the Kirtans. In the morning it was also in the village, people went through the streets of the village for the holy Sankirtan, but they were singing Bhajans and not Kirtans. We have lots of Bhajans, but Kirtans are always the same Mantra repeated slightly differently actually. They don't repeat Bhajans on and on the same, maybe with time, but still I always forget it on the spot, but the Kirtans I still like to remember and also I like the experience of it still after all that time.
1. Shravanam is listening. We never understood it as listening to his words, for us it was listening to Krishna stories or the Bhagavatam, the divine Lilas of Krishna or the Bhagavad Gita, the scriptures. With Swamis words we listen to him and get to a different and better experience, but it needs lots of listening to get aware that we transform theoretical knowledge into self-experience and it is an amazing gift really.
An important aspect of practice of sravanam is that although the scriptures can be read directly by the aspirant, it will be much more powerful to hear the stories as told by a saint or genuine bhakta who has had mystical experiences.
I found it in the Internet and it is the advaita-yoga-ashram and as it explains exactly why we should listen I just had to quote it. We can listen to scriptures, but it is much more powerful if we share it and listen to someone who has exerienced of it. It is a mystical experience and the aim of the study circle, we are listening to Swamis divine words and we think it over and share it. We have not yet realized why we have a study circle and what it means to listen, think it over and absorb. Reading the comments the way it is explained it totally makes sense, it is what we share to get the experience of it.
2. Kirtanam we know well. It is the singing Kirtans and Bhajans, and as it is explained the Bhajan singing is part of that.
3. Smaranam we have heard often with Baba. It is remembering the Lord constantly, it is repeating the divine name and remembering the beloved and focus on love. It is our love relationship and a good feeling membering love. When it is about universal love it is that encompassing and big that it is kind of difficult to remember it. It is a state of being and not just a person we are in love with.
4. Padasevanam is service, explained as Karma Yoga, service and duty. Also something we know well and writing is part of service, so is the study circle, whatever is done as duty is part of service.
5. Archanam, was mentioned in the puja we had to perform, it is worship and we offered flowers and rice etc. to the lotusfeet of the Lord or the master, it is way to elevate out consciousness and to be part of the tradition of master, but as I didn't use it anymore I have forgotten it. It was not a ritual, but a way to keep it pure and efficient. The Arathi was done to close the Bhajans after we finished singing, it was like a closing ritual.
6. Vadanam I remember some falling at the floor as long as they were prostrating in front of the altar of the Lord, it is nicely explained and if we see it that way it does make sense the presence of Lord, I never developed a feeling for it, but I have seen it often.
7. Dasyam is in every way practiced in Swami's Darshan when all negative feelings are part of avidya, that means illusion and if we go in direction of the divine, everything belongs to the ego and avidya.
8. Shakyam is part of our experience with Swami. It is the feeling of friendship and it is part of yoga as 'yogis are our friends'. Baba mirrors the relationship with Krishna and Arjuna and that is friendship, as they were both in the inner view before he left the body, the relationship is based on friendship with the Lord.
9. Atmanivedanam is surrender to the self and the last mode of devotion. It is total surrender and the highest aspect of bhakti and heard it from the beginning on it was always about the Atmic principle and that is Baba's message. Everything is offered to the Lord and only atman remains and non duality is experienced.
The teaching of the Atma and the essence of it. He talked of nothing else but the highest wisdom and highest aim, the Atmic principle, total surrender of the self, the highest aspect of Bhakti.
Baba tells us to at least practice one of all the modes of devotion, but we know them really all after the time with him in the ashram, it is just a matter of realization, but if we don't think it over, we don't get close to it, only if we are thinking it over and seeing it in our own life we get aware of it that it was always part of our experience with him. We should not expect other devotees to know it if he tells us to only know at least one aspect of it.
It doesn't matter how wealthy or learned you are; God is concerned only with the sincerity and purity of your mind and heart and the wholeheartedness and genuine nature of your love.
The love part is very essential as well, that is the third mode of devotion. We get aware of it in thinking it over and it helps to remember the nine modes of devotion.
Valmiki was a hunter. Nandanar was of a low caste. Kuchela was a poor man. Dhruva and Prahlada were five-year-old lads. Sabari was a tribal woman, illiterate and uncivilized. But all of them won God's Grace in abundance, because of their wholehearted devotion, love and surrender. Follow Sabari's example, who always thought of Sri Rama and His happiness, and dedicated all her thoughts, words, and deeds to Him alone, such that her every action was transformed and sublimated into the highest penance (tapas). Meditation does not mean sitting idle in a particular posture, like posing for a photograph. Like Sabari's life, your life must become a continuous meditation wherever you are, and whatever you do.
We don't know the holy saints in our tradition, we are not part of the land of Veda, we listen and we remember that he said it, but it helps to get deeper into the different ways of devotion.
And what he tells about mediation, to not pose like for a photograph and it should become a continuous practice, it is what we feel in listening to him. Contemplation is about continuous practice. The nine modes of devotion make us aware that there is not only one way, but one Atma. There are different ways, but one Atma.
We go for contemplation and constant thinking over his words, seeing it in our own experience, our own life and it is not about a person meditating and like posing for a photograph, but it feels very much the same with his words. The thought for the day is rather put in a frame on the altar than to think it over. We talked about it last time when we met and someone said it was too complicated, it is mostly because of the Sanskrit words and when we get aware of it that it is special for that reason, because we have to think it over, we find that after all it is not that difficult, it has to be done all over in the same manner, we listen and think it over and that is how it grows. We don't frame it and put it like a picture somewhere thinking how beautiful. It feels the same, only not about mediation, but it is about his words and that is based on contemplation. Who is listening, who is thinking it over, nobody is making a continuous experience of contemplation as he said, it is neglected.
It is the same he used as example here for meditation, it has to be a continuum, it has to go on and on and that is what happens if we constantly think it over and the study circle is part of it. That is how we get aware of the nine modes of devotion and that we know it already because we have the experience of it. We never listened until now or we didn't see a reason to think it over or we also felt it was too complicated.
Only when we see it in our own life we are able to establish a relationship to the wisdom and afterwards we remember it.
The Atma is the ninth mode of devotion, the Atmic principle Swami is talking about all the time, it is the experience of it. We have not realized it and that is what this is all about, self-realization, isn't it?
We start with the first, it is just listening and that is what we do and we end with the ninth, the wisdom about Atma, the highest knowledge.
Swami is divinity itself, he covers all modes of devotion and it makes sense, doesn't it? When we understand it, when we recognize our own role and our own experience, we get a feeling for it. That feeling is what makes out of theoretical knowledge an experience and wisdom and afterwards we don't forget it anymore. And next time talking about the nine modes of devotion, we will know it better and just repeat it again and that is how it grows. It will also be part of the study circle and when it is our turn to talk, as we have the experience of it, we have to realize it. Some seem yet far away from understanding the basic principle and that we have nine modes of devotion … it helps to get the oneness in it. If someone sees Swami only as form and at the outside level, there is no understanding of the oneness in all of us. If we have no feeling for the oneness and we see it as a different person and that there are two and not only one we see it also like that in the others and that is why he said that it is interpretation of Swami, because he sees two and not only one. For him Swami is different and not one and in the mind he talks with Swami and it is on the outer level of action and for him a question of organization and not of oneness. It is not about the realization of Dharma and duty, but it is about organization and right action. If someone asks something which is in conflict with Dharma but okay with the social consciousness, they would go for the good in social consciousness, what people think and in reality Dharma means right action if social consciousness is too superficial and crucifying the Christ, we don't go with it and scream with the crowed crucify him … We know in our heart that it is not right action, otherwise, if we don't have that discrimination value, we are like the crowed or what was called sheeple, what the others think and there is no discrimination. We think we would not crucify the Christ today? But it was Osho who said that crucifixion is going on today as people just follow the dictation of social consciousness and nobody is interested in people who free themselves and think at their own and not dictated by society, the people follow and it is controlled and so is our center leader hoping to unify people by dictating them the code of conduct, but that is all mind and we don't find it in the nine modes of devotion, but what we find is crucifixion.
The truth is not heard and not seen and there is no contemplation, neither listening, nor meditating is practiced in a continuous way. The thought for the day is framed and put on the altar, same as the example of meditation he used here just posed for a photograph, but meditation is cleansing the mind, even if it is done in a routine, but the thought for the day is not even read really and no Tapas effort is made to listen, to think it over and to absorb. They make a photograph of it and adore it like a picture and idealized it we may not think it over because it is seen as interpretation, that feels stupid and it is, but it is seen like that.
The study circle is sharing and without getting deep into it to get the experience, we don't realize what it is all about. Self-experience can only be experience, it is never on the level of the mind. The intellect has to realize the difference, what he said in the thought for the day today.
A bird needs two wings to fly and a cart needs to wheels to be pulled along. A bird cannot fly with only one wing and when he said in the dream as the man coming in our dreams to awake us, 'I wanted to fly', it is about those two wings, we need two wings to fly.
One wing is faith and right knowledge, the other wing is penance or Tapas, spiritual focus. If we focus on the watcher, it is Tapas, we cannot stop our focus on the watcher, because he is the watcher and he is the path and he is the end. If we don't find the right answer it can go on for a long time until we get to the end of the experience to be able to understand it. The ninth mode of devotion is the Atma vidya, knowing that Atmic principle. God is the core in everyone.
Spiritual learning is what we do in thinking it over and penance Tapas is what we do in constantly going on and seeing it as our own duty.
First is listening, second is remembering, third is singing, forth is service, duty to his lotus feed, Padasevanam. These are the practices we know best. The fifth is worship, puja and sixth is prostration in front of the Lord and the seventh is discrimination and that is how we get more and more in the realization of it, the eighth is friendship, what we know our practice and the reflection in the dream of the relationship between Krishna and Arjuna and the ninth we know from Swami, he talked non-stop about it, the Atmic principle. The first four we know close and practiced it and the others are more at the outside and in the relationship actually and we are less familiar with it and we have to realize it to get a feeling for it.
What does it mean when you say God descends as an Avatar? God out of His love, affection and compassion, comes down to the level of a human being and arouses the Divine Consciousness in humankind. When God finds that many people are desperately searching outside of themselves for God, He makes you aware of God within yourself. God is in fact the core in everyone. This chance, to realize God within, has been granted to you as a reward for merit acquired by you in many previous lives, so as to reach the highest goal of merging with the absolute. Every bird needs two wings to fly; a cart needs two wheels to be pulled along. To journey towards the highest goal, you need both faith and steadfastness - spiritual learning (vidya) and penance (tapas). Bhagavad Gita states, Knowledge of the Self (Atma Vidya) is the holiest. Knowledge(Vidya) shows the way, and the penance (tapas) makes you reach the goal. Both are necessary to attain the Ultimate.
Seven million he said in the dream stage and they had a old fashioned dress code and all the same and that is how we know it is the mind, the dictation of the others and it is not truth, not the Atma, but they look that old fashioned, all the same dress code.
It is about the Atmic principle and if there is no self-enquiry because it seems too difficult and they accept it on the family level that is what everybody can understand, they know the family structure and how we sacrifice life for a family and that seems to make sense, only if we know truth, there is the Atmic principle and it is about truth and the transcendent awareness and the two wings to attain the ultimate absolute uniting all in the same self. We are the same self, to know it is true we have to make the experience of it.
As there was an experience of pieces again, trust was gone and that is the same as faith and it feels like a wing was cut, the question was why. It felt even dangerous to relax as there was no reason for it. There is no reason for relaxation if trust is gone no matter what the reason. As he is the man coming in our dream to awake us he said that the service has been put in question, for that person it is all on the outer mind level really.
We talk about the avatar, but we have practically no knowledge about the nine modes of devotion, how can we know the avatar, if we don't know the modes of devotion?
If we don't sing, but we write, it is not the second mode of devotion, but it is the first one, Shravana, listening to his words and to listen to the divine words is much better than just listening to the scriptures ..., contemplation had been neglected already before and they still didn't find the joy in contemplation really, but at least it is present in being together and in eating and singing together.
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