Many do not invest time to understand the sacredness and value of their culture. 'Culture' means that which sanctifies the world, which enhances the greatness and glory of a country, and which helps to raise the individual and society to a higher level of existence. The observance of morality in daily life, divinisation of all actions and thoughts related to life, and adherence to ideals - all these together constitute culture. Culture contributes to the refinement of life. The process of refinement or transformation is essential for improving the utility of any object. For instance, paddy has to be milled and the husk has to be removed before the rice is fit for cooking. This is the process known as Samskriti or transformation. This means getting rid of the unwanted elements and securing the desirable elements. With regards to people, Samskriti (culture) means getting rid of bad qualities and cultivating virtues. A cultured person is one who has good thoughts and good conduct.
There are three aspects of God; Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva.
We have to see the threefold truth in everything or we don't get to correct understanding. If we don't see the reality of truth as threefold, we are not able to get the correct understanding also not about oneness and if we are not able to understand the Atmic principle, we project divinity at the outside.
Many do not invest time to understand the sacredness and value of their culture.
If we read that we get to the wrong conclusion that it is about our culture and at the beginning Swami talks also just about the expression culture and we all have a feeling developed for it, we think we know exaclty what is meant with culture.
'Culture' means that which sanctifies the world, which enhances the greatness and glory of a country, and which helps to raise the individual and society to a higher level of existence.
The word culture has to do with refinement no matter where we are and if we cultivate the heart and learn to have good manners, better behavior and to know about right actions, it is all about becoming a cultivated being.
The observance of morality in daily life, divinisation of all actions and thoughts related to life, and adherence to ideals - all these together constitute culture. Culture contributes to the refinement of life. The process of refinement or transformation is essential for improving the utility of any object. For instance, paddy has to be milled and the husk has to be removed before the rice is fit for cooking.
He talks only about cultural understanding, morality and he calls it even divinisation and our mind thinks, great and yes, let's go for it and our life will be better and that is a great ideal and all that together constitute culture. In our Western minds we get to the conclusions that we know that expression culture, we have a certain feeling for that world colored by our Western minds and we are that used to it, we don't even get aware of it. We listen to the feeling and think we understand the word culture.
It is the same as with the word 'engaged' there are so many ways we can understand that one word and we somehow have to get to the right answer, we have to find what makes sense.
This is the process known as Samskriti or transformation.
And now we know why he uses Sanskrit expressions. If we think it over and get aware that it is no more what we just felt like familiar and alright, now we should get aware that he talks about a strange word and we don't know it. Until now it was only about refinement and that is for all the same, but not anymore, he about the process of it and that is not all over the same.
We don't develop our cultural ways in the same process which is known as Samskriti or transformation. For us culture means good and refined manners, we don't know the process we know from Samskriti or transformation. First he talks about a word and what is true for all listeners all over the world and we all can feel it and think yes, that makes sense, we refine our culture and the heart, but now we come to the next sentence, we are just not anymore part of it – a Sanskrit word.
That is not part of our culture and we blackout, he has no more our attention, we are confused and convince ourselves that we understand it anyhow. In reality we know that this word is not part of our cultural background and we should actually get awake and think, yes right, what has that to do with it, how can we understand it right?
This means getting rid of the unwanted elements and securing the desirable elements. With regards to people, Samskriti (culture) means getting rid of bad qualities and cultivating virtues. A cultured person is one who has good thoughts and good conduct.
To make sure it is right understood he mentions it even twice. Again we think it is the same when it is about unwanted elements and securing stable elements, we hope it is the same as it was just a moment ago yet thinking about our own culture, what we understand by it, what we know, but we are not anymore so certain about it.
In fact is it no more the same, we are no more in our culture, we are not anymore who we just have been in our memory and as he said in my dream as the man coming in our dreams to awake us, 'go for it, you are American, you can do it' and it was not true, I was not American and it was definitely not in Sanskrit.
But that was not the real issue, the issue was TM and that he said he did TM and I thought I would get answers and he pretended to be a meditator and he was not, he just said it to make himself interesting or look good taking advantage of it that his boss had been with TM as well and as man and women are seperated in that ashram, there was no way getting aware of it until it was too late and already done.
That is not anymore about Western culture, but it is Samskriti and that is Vedic culture and the Vedic way of Guru Schools and those schools are not like our Western schools.
He is not going into explaining it as it would make a difference in culture and it would get into arguments.
He is not even mentioning the difference, but he made clear that it is about Samskriti culture and not what we think it is. If we don't understand it, we have to look at the Sanskrit word and we will get the right answer.
That tell us why he uses Sanskrit words, it is all the same, but the Sanskrit words clears the doubt if there is a spiritual debate, if we don't know anymore how to understand it right, we look at the Sanskrit word and we find the correct understanding.
If he would talk about Guru schools as different from other schools, it would create difference in the mind and when he is telling us, all school are my schools …, even if they are all different, they are his schools, it means God is everywhere, but that can again mislead to the conclusion that it is all as it should be, when in reality we live in illusion and that is not a refinement of culture after all.
In his schools they practice human values in our schools for sure not.
There is actually a big difference between our schools and SSE, Sathya Sai education in human values.
My daughter went to school here and it was not about human values really. We had a Montessori training, I thought it was good.
But he had other things in mind as he just took advantage of it and we would do the work and he would take advantage of it that is how the man coming in our dream to awake us said, he took only advantage of it.
Like that Atmic principle is the one thing we get from all sides to the same answer, it is with him, no matter what it is always the same state of mind, he wants to take advantage of it.
But that way nothing worked out and it never really made sense, the way he looked at it, and that it was not as we thought it should be.
I would have liked her to go to Swami's school but that was just not possible. He didn't think about the daughter, but only himself.
The man coming in our dream to awake us came with vampire teeth and a very long nose like misleading people and one day he also told me that I had a nervous breakdown.
The health state couldn't take it anymore, there was ruin in the dream and the worst we can imagine really and getting aware of it was not funny after all.
As long as we were still building up we could live in the illusion it would work out, but somehow we had reached the top and it went down very fast. It was that alarming, I had to get out of it.
I had forgotten the plans we had on the educational level, after coming back whatever had been the best before, we could only do what was possible and after she left gymnasium, it was more or less done.
During that time with Montessori and Swami we still build on our life as it seemed we tried to make something out of it, until we realize he was not standing behind it and we were not in an environment where we could go into SSE Sathya Sai education in human values, it was mostly about existence and we had to do work that paid the bills and SSE was no option.
After we came back here, we had to forgot all of it as we got the answer that he takes the path of least effort, it was done.
There was no way that it could work out and I had to get aware of it why we were in such a situation and now the time started when I began to wish I would never have gone for that spiritual background really, because there was also no way out of it but looking at the situation as it was now and it was no more possible to change it and it got into the worst situation really.
He took only advantage of it, he was also not intelligent enough that he could get aware of it and change his mind, it felt like a shit hole or a mud hole really.
After we had been in Swami's presence it was clear, we wouldn't go back and as he had told us that he would go the path of least effort, the divorce took as much time as he could so he didn't have to pay any alimony for the child.
Not one thing he was thinking was for the family, it was all only about himself and his sick state of mind.
The daughter seems often to get mad, because we didn't go back, even if I had no choice and she had a Baba dream with the man coming in our dream to awake us when he said that her father is stupid and destroying himself and if she is going back to him, he will destroy her as well.
Actually, it seems that is why she had that dream. So nothing what happened seems okay as it is and her boyfriend is not in that culture, no way that is the same culture and that school and upbringing leads to the same result, that is a joke to think like that, it is the pure opposite.
She has forgotten the good experiences we had in that time, too long time ago and what we had lived in the ashram in Prasanthi.
It is all gone by now, what the father didn't accomplish with his attitude, the society did and school and family.
She always said she believes still in God. Whatever, it is wrong anyhow.
She hates me for it that she was born in India as there is no more value but only problems with the Sai Baba background and ashram life, she would like to be in the USA, so she hates me for not going back and coming here. She hates me for having been with Sai Baba and whatever doesn't work in her life, it is now my mistake.
That is the result of it and that is not exactly what we expect from the same culture. If it would have been the same culture there wouldn't be any problems.
When she is mad she is mad at it that she is not in the USA and that I came back and nothing is good here.
We came back, we went to meet the parent's in Spain in summer when she was small and we had a good time, but it is of no value to her now and that is probably also why it was in the air as 'illusion' and it didn't give her the feeling of family.
When my mother came back she lived in the whereabouts of my sister and a family who was intact and not an alone educating daughter, but in a sense I was glad as her attitude was that difficult to take, we would only have problems with her the way she looked at it and so it was better that she stayed away. It means we only had problem and that is not the sign of the same culture, isn't it?
The man coming in our dream to awake us when he left the body there was a mud hole and when the rain came, the mud came in very fast and she was playing as small child at the wall and when the mud came in it was that fast, I told her let's get out of here, but it was already too late, she was already covered with mud and only a small hand was reaching out to me. And in the dream I had to get out or I would be lost in the mud as well and behind was Swami's voice of the man coming in our dreams to awake us and he said, 'and what now?'
We can turn it around and around it never works out and it is never as it should be and if there is for a change the feeling of love, it is for sure again destroyed by the bad situation we got into with that guy and in no time the mud hole is back.
What he did before he left the body a month before, March 23, that was my mother's birthday, he said as the man coming in our dreams to awake us, 'be ready on March 25th, 3 PM'.
It is not that easy to be able to get the message actually. Would you have been able to listen to the man coming in our dreams to hear that he tells, be ready on 25th of March, at 3 PM and would you have known what to do really?
At March 25th, 2011 at 3 PM I was ready in meditation just sitting silently listening inside and what did he tell, only one word, 'engaged'. Have you ever asked yourself what it means to be ready?
As Swami said, if there is no enthusiasm, courage, devotion, energy, readiness and sincerity, nothing can be achieved.
What about that 'engaged'? It was present on March 27th not in meditation, but in the dream as he same 'I am that'.
I knew I saw that 'I am that' during meditation in the Darshan in Ooty when Swami was in Drashan. I knew it had to do with the highest truth, but the rest of it I didn't understand really and it got clear now by insights, dreams and writing.
But there is no response, not on the Sai movement level, not on any other level, it is just going on and getting clearer really.
During the time in the ashram in his presence the focus was only inside, he said always inner view, not interview and if there is inner view there is no response.
He told us to be inward directed to get insights on and on and when we get insights, there is no response, nobody there really. Nobody is able to see it.
It is also devaluing everything, the ideal, the purpose of his being here, every word he said, because he always said inner view and not interview, but that inner view has the result that I write and think over his words, the contemplation we went into, but we still don't know on the outer level is nobody. I still don't know what to do to do the best with my daughter, there is no help from nowhere, nobody in that whole movement, I still don't know what is right and what is not right.
For sure we will meet that guy in a month in Prasanthi and talk about it and that she still would like to go back to the USA and see if it is even possible to talk about it, maybe it is not I will now when I am there actually.
The purpose of living in his ashram after retirement never came to my mind, not after all what we went through and if my daughter gets married we would not like to live as recluse and there would be enough work in the West, but nobody sees it, they all think it is already done.
She has a boyfriend and if she gets married, she has kids, maybe it will change, but maybe it changes for the worst and not for the better, it is also likely that I am the disturbed mother with the spiritual background and as Amma said some time ago already as the woman coming in my dream to awake us that I will lose her. That is the same culture and the same cultural values, that is a joke!
It has always been an issue to me ever since as she is my only daughter and masters usually are right.
Could also be that one day she is in the US and we are not there and she is gone. All that worrying is coming in my head, nothing what has happened turned out into a good way really and is just because it is not the same culture really.
And all that talk about inner view is here in the West rather like a curse and not a gift, it is something that makes us different from the others and who wants that?
As nobody listens to his words, the same it is now, they don't listen, they also don't see it. I am the one who has to go for it no matter what, living between two cultures really and there is no way it is the same, there would be no problems if it would be the same.
All that talk about inner view really and when the inner view is there, we are alone, no response from nowhere, not the ashram, not the Sai devotees, they don't understand it and not from the person who mirrored the same 'I am that', it is all gone in the mind, nobody is able to get aware of it.
It is really something of that useless to go for that inner view and we sacrifice all our life for it and we get nothing, not even a response and that is the same cultural value, right?
But it is always like that not only with the word 'culture' we have to understand it right. He tells us in words and not in dreams and people don't listen and don't hear that he changes the place of the culture when he talks about Sanskrit and that makes the difference really.
If we have scientific investigation and we don't know the truth, we look at the definition of the Sanskrit word and we get back to truth, that is the meaning and why he mentions with some words the Sanskrit expressions.
With other words if there is doubt that takes care of it and clears the doubt.
We don't have Sanskrit expressions in the Bible, we don't have Sanskrit expressions in our cultures in the West, we find it only in Veda and that means we have to look for it at the right place.
With regards to people, Samskriti (culture) means getting rid of bad qualities and cultivating virtues. A cultured person is one who has good thoughts and good conduct.
Samskriti we don't find in our Western cultures, but we find it in the Vedas.
Even if our culture also cultivates virtues and we develop good thought and good conduct, if we don't know the meaning of Samskriti, we just don't know for sure.
We have to listen to the words spoken or written of a self-realized authority.
We don't know what is the same, what is different, we have to listen.
We have to know first what is really meant by Samskriti, that is the authority and only after we know, we can for sure tell that our culture is practically the same, but probably we will get aware that lots of things are different and above all we will not find the words of a self-realized authority what is the basis in a Guru school, the old traditions of the Guru schools.
That is why he uses the Sanskrit words, where there is doubt about the meaning we have to look at the place where we have it in Sanskrit and that is only Veda or better in the words of a self-realized authority.
We have to know how to listen to Swami and as it is about truth we have to listen with discrimination, we have to know that truth is threefold and if we don't forget it and use it like a key; we are able to listen to his words and get to the correct understanding.
To go through all those cultural differences and problems just because it is not the same and to listen to that talk that it feels like the same, is actually kind of upsetting, because I have experienced it.
We went there, we have nothing else but constantly suffered from the cultural differences since we actually went to that ashram and came back and felt like, 'what am I doing here', it was never integrated and it felt not home anymore and we went back to the ashram as soon as possible.
He had the answer for it, he said as the man coming in my dream to awake us that I had been let down by the family. As he is mother and father he made me probably aware of it that the family was actually not there, if it would have been there it would have made the experience more profound probably.
If there would have been a family it I suppose it would have been easier to integrate and that is also the reason why I went for it when the other took advantage of it, because I hoped to feel home somewhere again, so after all it is my mistake and my family, isn't it?
It means I felt home in the ashram and as soon as I left I felt not home anywhere anymore really. It is always easy if we blame the others for it and in that sense I can blame myself.
If there would be no cultural differences, we would not have had a culture shock, it was not in going there, but in coming back really.
Every word my daughter tells is about that difference and not being able to live it here the same way and that is not finished, that is ongoing.
Nothing is integrated and just they way life is here. How can anybody get to the idea that he talks about our cultural values ...? Where are those values, but in the mind of all those people who understand it in a wrong way, what makes only their life easier?
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