Many argue about how discipline (as described in the scriptures) can result in the dawn of knowledge. Aren't these mere bodily limitations, they ask. Knowledge can arise only by the realisation of the principle that guarantees self-realisation, they argue. But this line of thought is based on a big mistake. Through these physical regulations, traits (vasanas) are destroyed and concentration is established. One-pointedness is essential to establish spiritual wisdom firmly in the heart, and this one-pointedness can easily be gained by bodily disciplines and austerities (tapas) prescribed in the Upanishads. External control helps internal control in many ways. To succeed in external controls indeed is more difficult than to achieve success in controlling the internal! In a working car, the wheels will always follow the direction of the steering. A turn of the steering wheel in one's hand in any direction makes the wheels of the car, which are not in your hand, move in the same direction of the steering wheel – isn't it?
Talking about the 'I am that' in the study circle was a great experience and an incredible sharing really and it felt totally right. It was the inner feeling of the truth we had experience in his presence and that is how we get aware of it.
If we want go get to correct understanding, we need three things and a method as he said. Blind believe is not part of the 'tat tvam asi'. Blindness has no room in that. Blindness is not an ideal, but a sickness and poor mind state.
As he spoke of the method it is important to understand the process.
He said it in three steps really, the three things we have to do and when we get aware of the three things, we also know that it is not finished with the Darshan, but it is just the beginning.
Truth is always threefold, so we have to be trained by someone who has experience in Dharma or who knows truth. That is what we met in Darshan, the sight of truth by direct perception in his presence, we have the experienced it. It is the experience of divine love and truth, the way of Dharma.
The experience of truth is seen as training and we have to discriminate and practice truth as we had that training.
What is new for us? We probably didn't see Darshan as training. After that training in direct perception of truth we have to practice truth and how we are able to practice truth, it has to do with inference, we have to discriminate to be able to know what truth is and what not, as we have practiced it.
We have the experience of truth and if we don't practice it, we have all possibilities, we can fall down or we can get to correct understanding. We have to get aware value of the scriptures; the voice of God. Veda is the voice of God, they are cognized and seen by the rishis, the big seers. They have been able in their conscious awareness to see the finest impulse in nature and they know the mind and how we reach the Atma, cognized by divine rishis and avatars.
We listen with the Veda to the divine words to be able to know clearly truth from untruth, to know the difference from the mind and the Atma. We have to practice that very truth we had experienced in his Darshan and we have to get aware of the value of the knowledge, of the wisdom, the voice of God, that is Veda, the holy scriptures. And in today's thought for the day he explains it.
Many argue about how discipline (as described in the scriptures) can result in the dawn of knowledge. Aren't these mere bodily limitations, they ask. Knowledge can arise only by the realisation of the principle that guarantees self-realisation, they argue. But this line of thought is based on a big mistake.
Who are those arguing and putting in question the discipline is the dawn of knowledge?
If we don't meditate, the mind is not clear and silent and probably therefore also not pure enough to get to the insight of the principle that guarantees self-realization and in that case we have not even a feeling for that principle, we just don't get the right insights, it is too much activity in the mind, so how can we know the principle if we don't' purify the mind first and live truth?
Regular discipline, meditation, get us beyond the mind and the vasanas, that is again a Sanskrit word, we have to look at to get the real meaning.
Vāsanā
· Past impressions, impressions formed, the present consciousness of past (life) perceptions;
· The impression of anything in the mind, the present consciousness formed from past perceptions, knowledge derived from memory, the impressions remaining in the mind;
· Thinking of, longing for, expectation, desire, inclination.
If we meditate we get rid of those impressions, the memory is mostly based on sense-knowledge and the impressions in the mind. Once I went into dynamic meditation to just do something else but silent sitting meditation and it took a while I began to notice that impression were remaining in my mind and I didn't like it very much as it had mostly to do with the HR-manager and my job.
And on the way to Prasanthi in the airplane the man coming in our dream to awake us said in the dream that I have to begin new again, but he didn't tell what I had to begin new, but it was kind of clear that after dynamic meditation I should begin with silent sitting again.
For me it had been important to interrupt the outer practice as he said it was not the right path and to start new again from the inside with the man coming in our dream to awake us, that was a different way to start new again.
It was based on the inner self and self-control and the man coming in our dream to awake us and not as it had been before on some initiation and that is also how the sutras took shape and began to feel like divine qualities and not just sutras we repeated in a program it made it just mechanical, with his divine presence everything becomes a divine taste really and that is a different way to experience the Siddhis in the divine light of Swami's presence than when we just did it mechanically as a program.
That is just what is mentioned here.
Through these physical regulations, traits (vasanas) are destroyed and concentration is established. One-pointedness is essential to establish spiritual wisdom firmly in the heart, and this one-pointedness can easily be gained by bodily disciplines and austerities (tapas) prescribed in the Upanishads.
There is another very important Sanskrit word (tapas) it is spiritual effort and described in the Upanishads, it again tells us the source of the knowledge and where we should look for it and he tells us that it is about self-control.
· Tapas implies meditation and reasoned moral self-discipline,[2] considered to be a means to realize ātman (self) in ancient texts of India.[9] The Chāndogya Upaniṣad suggests that those who engage in ritualistic offerings to gods and priests will fail in their spiritual practice while those who engage in tapas and self-examination will succeed.[9] TheŚvetāśvatara Upaniṣad states that realization of self requires a search for truth and tapas, meditation.[9][10]
· By Truth can this Self be grasped,
by Tapas, by Right Knowledge,
and by a perpetually chaste life.
by Tapas, by Right Knowledge,
and by a perpetually chaste life.
· — Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad
We used the word Tapas a lot before and it was always about regular practice and in that sense discipline, but it was a program and that is Tapas, we did it regularly ever day morning and evening and we sat for one and a half hour and on courses we did it for hours.
That is all part of Tapas, but the real thing it is when it gets divinized and we feel the divine presence in the sutras and the beneficial influence on the chakra level and we get aware it that they have a harmonizing effect on the mind and therefore, lead to direct self-control, when we get aware of that divine influence and power in the sutras, we begin to understand why a Siddha is called a perfect being and what the aim of the Siddhis really is and not all that what we imagined in our mind.
We also understood whatever we were able to understand and took what served us best to live whatever we think our life is or the tendency of the mind is. If we use the siddhis, the sutras have a calming and balancing effect on the nature of the mind and if we rediscover it with Swami and get aware of the depth in it the meaning gets divinized, every step we make becomes divine really and beautiful.
External control helps internal control in many ways. To succeed in external controls indeed is more difficult than to achieve success in controlling the internal! In a working car, the wheels will always follow the direction of the steering. A turn of the steering wheel in one's hand in any direction makes the wheels of the car, which are not in your hand, move in the same direction of the steering wheel – isn't it?
That is the internal control we got with the Siddhis program and if we understand it right and feel behind because of Swami's divine presence that Patanjali is equally divine, we get a feeling for it and we get out of that program thing and into the divine love and presence and that is total different state of awareness.
The program is just program, mechanical and we just did it, we also felt the divine background, but when we get aware of it with the man coming in our dream to awake us, the siddhis become what they really are, divine power and wonderful wisdom, it is that great we can just admire it and wonder about the divine intelligence of a Patanjali who has been able to cognize those sutras and to create such an amazing system or approach to self-realization.
It is purely divine and beautiful and marvelous and miraculous and that is what we were looking for in the sutras, only they didn't have the power in a program to unfold as they do when we feel them divinized with Swami who is the master of the vibuthi pada, the third Patanjali chapter, the siddhis, the miracles and we have been in the presence of a master who was able to get out of an empty pot a shower of vibuthi and he was the master of miracles.
It is also a miracle for us that he comes in the dream stage to awake us. He was once in my head and said, 'I am hungry and you' and I was there and thought, you are talking to me here and you are here, it was maybe during mediation, I don't remember, I just remember what an awaking effect it had on me, like someone would have been at the door and rang the bell, I was wide awake and amazed, it was some time before he left the body and it was an amazing time.
And int he insight was a woman, it was in the ocean and she said, 'I am hungry' and it was the same of course, but we are still working at it to get the right answer and only when sharing with others or in the circle we get aware of the right answer, because it is not only for us, but for all humanity. There was in the dream a man on the ocean ground and he said, 'help us'.
In the Patanjali sutras the ocean ground is explained as the Atmic principle and that the right answer, it is not anymore infinity, but it is divinity and the divine is infinity, it is not just cosmic consciousness without any limitations and a wrong understood state of all possibilities, it the divine and all possibilities because it can always go up or down, depending what we do with the wisdom. It is not a state of realization as we think it is. We experience the divine presence of Swami together with the other devotees only, not alone, if we go into being a recluse or we go only our own path and don't care about divine love and the divine message in the 'tat tvam asi', I am that, there is also the possibility that we go back to a life in the mind only. That is the meaning of all possibility, nothing is done yet before it is realized. It was a training in Dharma, in truth, the direct perception of it, the sight of truth, afterward we have to live that truth, that is the method and to be able to live that truth and to know truth from untruth, we have to get aware of the value of the scriptures.
The divine presence is the finest level of the relative and when we cognize 'that', it is love, all devotees melt in that love for the divine. We know that divine relative also from our programs and it is in the sutras 'Atman finest hearing, Atman finest seeing' etc.
What we have to do is listen to Swami and he is the man coming in our dream to awake us and with his divine influence the sutras get divinized and become alive and the anxiety and fear goes away and life is not only outer comfort, but also inner comfort and inner silence and nothing is a valuable and great as the feeling of that inner divine love and presence of the divine as we know it from being in his presence. We get there together and if we are able to get to the correct understanding.
The state of all possibilities was understood on the mind level, it means we have the possibility to do it right, to live truth and to get to the right experience and the divine presence or we can go down and fall down in the mind state again, that is all possibilities and not what we had projected in it, thinking we could do no matter what and everything was possible.
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