Friday, February 5, 2016

Love and our Full Potential

Develop the quality of love. Fill your entire life with love. This was the prayer which the Gopikas addressed to Krishna. A life without love is utterly barren. You are the embodiment of love. Love has to be directed towards what is true. Such love must be your life-breath. Embodiments of the Divine Atma! Esteeming love as the essence of Divinity, you must engage yourselves in loving service to society. Why is it that so many lakhs of people have gathered here today? There must be some compelling reason for it. You must be seeking something which you have not found in your native place. Here there is Divine Love. What has drawn all people here is the power of Divine Love - that is the bond uniting hearts. At the root of all this is purity. Where there is purity, there love grows. When purity and love come together, there is Ananda (bliss). Whatever work we do, whatever sacrifices we perform, they are not of much use in the absence of love.

Last night was study circle followed by Bhajans. We were eight people and one lady was the first time in the study circle. When we are more people we had to see that everybody has the opportunity to tell something. Usually we go around in the circle without interrupting and that is important that everybody get the chance to talk and it is shared by talking about it and working out that facet from which it is always the same. We don't worry about discussions, they are used to it by now and it works out and sometimes it even gets heated up and last time there was moment when some talked at the same time we had to say something and so I had to mix in as well just a bit louder that we get back on the divine words. In the meantime we got used to it and putting the attention back on the fact that truth is threefold, no use about arguing and our standpoint, it is just about truth and the text we are sharing and the principle is after all the same, it is the Atmic principle, the 'I am that'. It is the question why we were with Baba already years ago and it is all about, 'who am I', and the reason we went there is self-realization and the answer is in the 'I am that'. How do we make that experience of it? 

Two people began to talk about vegetarian issue and we had to think about the difference between sathva, rajas and tamas to get to the right conclusion and so it went on always directed by the people in the circle the attention went on always going back to the text we had in front of us. 
With all those people in the circle it went on by itself, it takes care of itself really and we had one person she was the first time present and it felt like scary really for her and there were so many words on that paper and I even wondered where the feeling of being scared came from. 
At once it seemed to me also like that just lots of words on that sheet of paper we had in front of us in that text and it was kind of scary and I remembered I felt also like that sometimes before. 
We did it in two parts, after the first part the second part felt like the completion of it as we went again around and the time passed so fast, we had to stop because it was already time.
One person mentioned that we had to also go beyond the sathva state and she mentioned it already before and it felt like a place where everything dissolves again and we had to get aware of it that in singing together we go beyond everything individual as we do it all together and it is beyond the personal state of sathva. 
It is in the tat tvam asi, the meaning of 'I am that' and 'though art that' and it expands in the hearts where the melting actually happens as divine love and we get aware that  'all are that'. 
That is the reason why Swami said, we have to first use discrimination and second see it in our own life and when we see it in the singing that is part of our own life and we have to go on no matter what obstacles are there. 
It is also like that in a circle, we have to use discrimination in thinking it over and going into depths and it is never about a personal debates and when we see it in our our own life to be able to understand it. 
In singing we also develop love, the main focus and we transcend the personal state of sathva, all one in singing and melting in that rewarding experience in the heart.
If we focus on the purpose of the 'I am that', we keep the focus and someone mentioned it is the 'tat tvam asi and so it went on, the attention on the direct experience we get in sharing and getting aware of it. It felt like a Darshan and it was clear that it purified the ideal. It was such a good feeling, it was like the water flowing from the not unknown source anymore getting aware of the flow towards the eternal ocean. 
The Bhajans afterwards were beautiful, talking about highest knowledge made us aware that it is love and only 'that' and nothing else, it was a great energy. 
At once it felt like everything clear and a good feeling to have Swami present. It is an amazing awakening when we feel it, we close the eyes we see him walking around during Bhajans and we get still an amanzing and beautiful feeling, getting closer to him feeling that eternal state of unchanging divine love. 
In my thoughts I was with the issue that was present during the study circle, the 'I am that' it was still in my mind and I tried to get aware of it during singing and that focus on it keept my mind under control. 
The 'I am that' is an experience of love and as we all sing and can listen to the different voices all being one, we also get aware of the second sentence he said that 'I am God' because we all sing for God and when we sang a Shiva Bhajan it really felt like in the heart and it was the third sentense when he said, 'I am Shiva' and that was going on through the whole singing and it made a difference, because the mind had not room in coming in, keeping the attention on those three different levels Swami had mentioned in the interview room years ago after a group meditation. 
He told us that all mantras are okay and then he explained the Soham, we breath in with So and we breathe out with Ham and the meaning is 'I am that' or 'I am God or 'I am Shiva' and at that time I wondered how I woulde ever be able to understand it, but now in singing we just get aware of that, we have experienced the 'I am that' as a state of love and inner identification knowing we are part of it. 
And it kept my mind occupied in the ongoing singing and this was a great and kind of undisturbed focus on the Darshan, sight of truth. 
The focus was all evening on the 'I am that' the difference of the insight if it is about 'I am God' and it is really not intellectual wisdom, but it is the level of intuition or seeing, we see all the people singing for God that it can be 'I am the one', the place where all that happens is in the heart. It kept my focus on the singing and the voices and that made it a very rewarding and undisturbed and fulfilling experience really.
So I focused on the sound and the meaning and when we think about 'I am God' automatically the divine background is present and if we know that it is all the same love the indiviual feeling of love and the universal reality of being one. 
We really get the feeling that there is only love, it makes it beautiful, and the thought of 'I am Shiva', getting aware how all people sing together and melt in the heart and there is only one, and I am that, it expands to all. That was a great focus during singing and it kept the mind under control.
It is like in meditation we focus on a mantra, while singing it is outside and our attention is on that what is going on in the heart of the devotional singing, the attention keeps going on three different levels and it was like staying in it, it was not getting out of it, like an uninterruped flow of love during that devotional singing, it was always in the heart, it was that and it was God and it was Shiva, it was still only love. 
It is all about the love we share and when we remember the energy of the divine presence waking around during Darshan, that inner awareness was just about the 'I am that' or then it was again close to  'thou art that' and all are that, melting in that inside feeling and all becoming one in the rhytm of the sound and it is such a great experience of divine love and highest wisdom. 
It became so clear and easy, if we keep the focus, we have to keep the meaning of the 'I am that'. If we just think 'I a that' we don't know really what is behind it, but when we are singing and enjoying the experience as 'love' we find such a different feeling, it can expand, it is divine love, it is all the love only, it is taking our attention away from the mantra and it melts in the heart and there is nothing left but love and ryhthm and sound and that singing going on, there is only sound left but it is the sound of all the people signing and therefore the divine sound. As it is going on at the same time in all the cities and all the centers and it is all around the world and it is also in Prasanthi Nilayam and we can imagine how purifying and great the effect it is on the world consciousness. 
It is the same when we meditate, we don't think about all possibilities, we think the mantra and repeat the mantra until we transcend, when we get back in a thought activity we are in the mind again and we know we think again and that is how we start with the mantra again to transcend the mind to go beyond the mind and we just do it for a certain time, usually it is done for twenty minutes, the focus is to transcend the mind. 
So it was during the Sai Bhajans the focus was on the 'I am that' and only love, we feel that people developing love, it is an expression of love, the heart melts in that divine love. If we realize it is the experience of 'I am that', there is as well the Soham, it is the breath and if we meditate with the breath we are also in the I am that and get from the inside the answer. 
The purpose is therefore the realization that 'I am that', it is a state of love only and when love meets that divine presence it melts, it is sweet and it is enchanted and all the heart melts in oneness,  that was in three parts, but the focus was always the same, only that, only love, but in thinking about the three different level it was self-control, the mind couldn't come in and the focus was uninterruped on I am that, I am God and I am Shiva as Swami said in our interview. 
If we don't get aware that it is love only it is because of the mind  and the disturbance is that there is too much activity in the mind and rajas, but with the singing we go beyond it and in a sathvic state of mind. 
In Prasanthi Nilayam there was it present as 'love only and universal state of love and when getting aware of the love in all the hearts we melt in the awarness of 'I am Shiva'. The memory of the divine Darshan and that it is about self-realization and the realization that our higher self is nothing but the same love. 
We do it regularly to keep it in our daily life, to be able to keep the level of conscious awareness in our everyday life that is how we develop love. 
I came back with the feeling that it was very joyful  and we had such a great time and all the good memories of the time with Swami in the ashram are present again. 
We have to find that level of just 'love' and just 'that', we merge and all are one, it is that sweet, our hearts cannot resist, it has to melt. 
That is what we know from the time and Darshans with Swami, we cannot resist that beautiful experience when our heart is fulfilled, there is that precious Darshan of  the Lord and that love and it is somehow much more intensive and clear if we have a study circle ahead in which we clear the ideal and when we sing the divine is present. It is that beautiful to feel that divine presence.

I read a nice story. After the Second World War a biplane was forgotten near a forest and the people in that village had never seen an airplane before, so they began to guess what it could be and one got to the conclusion that it has wheels therefore, it could be used as bullock cart. So they used it as bullock cart and until one man who was used to drive a tractor noticed that it could be started and that there was a motor in the cart and he said to the others, that is not a bullock cart, it can drive by itself and now they used it as a tractor until a war veteran passed by and he felt shocked when he noticed how they used the double Decker and he told the people that it was an airplane and they didn't believe him, so he was flying with it in the air and landed it again and so the villagers came to know that it was an airplane.
If we compare that with our body, the instinct level of the senses is like the bullock cart and our real destination of the body is to fly and when we use it only with the senses and get to conclusions on the sense level, it is nothing but sense-knowledge and that is just the first part, we have two more we have to get aware of, we have inference and that is on the level of the intellect and the heart, it is where the artists are and science and the decisions, it is also the level of the intellect, it is the motor and that is in that story the the tractor and there is another level still and that is intuition and the solution is present inside or seen and that is also the spiritual level and it is that level which is confirmed by the words of the self-realized authorities. 
It is like an airplane, the human body is able to fly, but we use it only in an instinct way and never use our full potential and when we are an artist or a scientist we get already on a higher level, but it is still a level that is not really enthusiastic and full of joy, it is just balanced and then we have the intuition level, that is the spiritual level, the insights and it is confirmed by the holy scriptures the words of the self-realized authorities and on that level the full potential is reached and the body is able to fly.
As the man coming in our dream to awake us said that 'I wanted to fly', that is the real meaning of it we see it also on those three levels, 'I am that' is the first level of our truth and 'He is that' is the second sentence and 'we are that', we both wanted to fly.
As Swami said, 'You and I are We' and 'We and He is I', we all together are in the body and part of the same We and we and He, the divine principle is 'I', that is the divine level. it is the level of the 'I am I' or 'I am that'. It is on the experience level, we cannot understand it, we have to make the experience of it. We will get the insights and he is the man coming in our dream to awake us and in the insights and by intuition it will get clear. 
We find on the intuition level the sutras, there is a secret in every sutra. It is the intuition we know from the Patanjali Sutras, the secret that we don't know in every sutra and the inner seeing is all about love.
There is another story of a boy who went to a great master and he didn't got into the meditation really and he didn't understand it as well, but he fell in love with the master and after a while it began to show, because he knew that master's teaching from the inside, he could feel and see it, it became clear in the heart.
It is powerful getting aware of the divine presence in such a way, we sing, we merge, we are only love we feel that envitonment saturated with love. We can a Sai center get to that divine experience with only love in the singing, it is the aim of those centers developing love and we get aware of in the 'I am that', it is also present as the 'tat tvam asi', the highest wisdom of Veda. 
That is the aim of the Sai centers and nothing else and not arguing and not critics and accepting everybody who would like to be part of that experience. We don't need to be leaders and we don't need to even sing, but if we want to meet him and merge, we find it in him in the midst of his devotees. We have to conquer our mind and nothing else. We really feel his divine presence and that is the reality we meet if we realize there is nothing but love and we are part of that love, he is a divine incarnation and there is nothing but love and we have to experience that love, it goes beyond the body and the mind and it is unlimited and it eternal and omnipresent and our own experience. It is never changing and it is not born and it never dies, we experience that divine presence in him. 
We don't want to only wait for Prema Sai to be born to get exactly to the same experience we had already with Sathya Sai and to listen to the same message and to realize it is about the same principle and we have to start all over again. 
We want to do it now, he is omnipresent and he is part of or life now. He will always be there in the future, but the divine is omnipresent and that means past, present and future in the now.   
And we remembered the 'I am that', the love we shared and the main thing is that we share it, it is present during Bhajans as it was when we were in Prasanthi Nilayam and if we are awake enough of we can feel it and be part of it, we merge with it if we know the heart and we follow his words and we all become one and the aim is to live that state of love constantly and as he is telling us to fill our life with it, we have to conquer the mind, we should meditate to be able to keep that state of love.
Develop the quality of love. Fill your entire life with love.
Yesterday evening it was not only the singing it was also the study circle that developed that quality of love and if we have to keep in touch to fill our entire life with love.
This was the prayer which the Gopikas addressed to Krishna. A life without love is utterly barren.
That is how we realize the ideal of the Gopikas. If the mind is heavy and troubled and restless and we cannot focus, it is difficult and we cannot get out of the mind and it is overshadowed by worries and sorrows. 
If we have a study circle and we listen to Swami's divine words, the minds gets already purified and there is a good feeling, because we feel that truth in it, we remember the good times and that precious love and we share it with others and it clarifies the ideal. After that meeting with the others we feel Sai Baba's presence very strongly and the divine is like satuarting our life again from the inside and where we are, no matter in what city and what part of the world really. We share differently and we are on a different level, because we know it is about 'that', it is about love. We develop the quality of love by all activities in such Sai center but I mostly get aware by singing and that is how we can fill our life with love, when getting aware of it we feel how precious it is.
You are the embodiment of love. Love has to be directed towards what is true.
He talks about a direction in love. If we feel love and that love is directed towards another person for example, we lose the touch with divine love, first we maybe don't notice, but later for sure, it is in our own higher self and we just share it with others and that is where we have to find it in our own self.
Such love must be your life-breath. Embodiments of the Divine Atma! 
Baba's words are always full of beauty and meaning and he calls us here embodiments of the divine Atma. If we have such a clear view and we realize the purpose of it in the center activities, it is a diamond we find and being just that, embodiments of the divine Atma.
Esteeming love as the essence of Divinity, you must engage yourselves in loving service to society.
If we are together in the center and we share his thoughts, it is a lovely way to engage in loving service and a joy to talk about his words, when we feel the principle and become one with it.
 Why is it that so many lakhs of people have gathered here today? There must be some compelling reason for it. You must be seeking something which you have not found in your native place. Here there is Divine Love.
We went to him as it was such a deep mystical presence and love, that divinity sharing and we knew we had to go to him and he was there, it was possible to get the experience and we find it again when we listen to his words, we realize the divine principles in the now and we sit down and sing to make the experience of that divine love, it is not the intellectual level, but nevertheless we have to get aware of it. We cannot develop love alone, we have do it with others together. 
What has drawn all people here is the power of Divine Love - that is the bond uniting hearts. At the root of all this is purity. Where there is purity, there love grows. When purity and love come together, there is Ananda (bliss).
It was also present in our circle yesterday, the main thing is purity, purity is sathva, we have to purify the mind and we can develop the power of divine love. Divine love it is the bound uniting hearts and that bond is there in him, we just have to make the experience of it. But we find it in the Sai centers, in sharing together divine Love, it gets very clear, there is the purpose why we went to Swami, if we realize that, we also know how to develop love.
Whatever work we do, whatever sacrifices we perform, they are not of much use in the absence of love.
Life has a different value when there is purity of love and we can share it with others.
As meditators we learnt that with meditation we can use more of the mental potential. 
As truth is threefold; we have three levels of knowledge, sense-knowledge, inference and the words of the self-realized authorities. On the level of sense knowledge we just live in our instincts and on the level of inference we use the intellect and get to a more fulfilling conclusion, but on the level of the self-realized authorities it is about intuition. 
Our body is like that airplane, it has the possibility to fly, but we used it only as chart on the level of the instinct and the senses and we use it as tractor on the level of the intellect and only if we use the intuition we can develop its full potential.

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