Constant Integrated Awareness

 

To experience divine love there is no need to practice any kind of meditation, worship or rituals. Selfless love (Prema) can be obtained only by complete absorption in spirituality. It was for this reason that Sri Krishna declared in the Gita: "Surrender unto Me, transcending all rules (Sarva Dharman Parityajya)". Likewise, Jesus also declared: "I am the Path." Buddha, conveying the same meaning, declared, "Surrender everything" (Sarvam Sharanam Gachchami). These statements clearly convey that the essence of all religions, the root of all scriptures, the goal of all virtues, is the experience of spiritual oneness and unity (Sarvatmika Bhavam). The Gopikas exemplified such a spirit of surrender and oneness. Gopikas symbolise thoughts. Radha symbolises the combination of all thoughts in the mind. So all our thoughts, desires and aspirations and our mind should merge in Krishna, represented by Prajna in a human being. Constant Integrated Awareness (Prajna) of the Divine is the significance of the Vedantic declaration, 'Prajnanam Brahma.' 

This thought for the day is not easy if we think it over. 

What does it mean to be absorbed in spirituality or as Swami said, just think about God. For me it meant I began to watch and by watching I was sure that God was there or the higher self and it would be there if we just watched.

And we know it goes to the far end, as it cannot go further it will turn around and he tells us as well what it means in our experience, it goes that far that we cannot take it anymore and then only it turns around, with other words, we experience our limitations and what we are able to take.

Just thinking about God meant for me that he was all what is good and of course, God is love.  

To experience divine love there is no need to practice any kind of meditation, worship or rituals. Selfless love (Prema) can be obtained only by complete absorption in spirituality. It was for this reason that Sri Krishna declared in the Gita: "Surrender unto Me, transcending all rules (Sarva Dharman Parityajya)". Likewise, Jesus also declared: "I am the Path." Buddha, conveying the same meaning, declared, "Surrender everything" (Sarvam Sharanam Gachchami).

We hear only love and it seems easy. 

Swami talks always about the same divine principle what has a reaction in our minds, it feels like the same and we hear only love. 

If we read the Gita it is not such a small book and why the message needs books full of it at all if it is all said? Why we don't just take a Bhagavad Gita read it and why we had to go to India?

What does it mean surrender to me? After I had the experience of the higher self and it was just light, love and beauty and that was already all I wanted, I had to ask myself how? At the first place how did I get there? As it seems I knew what I wanted, but did I know how I got there. The answer is as Swami said, just think about God.  

Do we know God?

Light we cannot catch, we have to find it in ourselves. It was transcendental, it was in the dream stage and the question was how getting there?

Swami talks here about the scriptures and not about our experience.

These statements clearly convey that the essence of all religions, the root of all scriptures, the goal of all virtues, is the experience of spiritual oneness and unity (Sarvatmika Bhavam). The Gopikas exemplified such a spirit of surrender and oneness. Gopikas symbolise thoughts. Radha symbolises the combination of all thoughts in the mind.

How do we know if we listen to this words that Radha is the combination of all thoughts in our mind? If we talk about the combination of our thoughts in our mind it is about experience. How do we know the combination of our thoughts in our mind? How do we experience it and how do we get aware of it?

 

So all our thoughts, desires and aspirations and our mind should merge in Krishna, represented by Prajna in a human being.

That was the light and the feeling that is all I wanted, it was a very beautiful and bright light and it was there in just thinking about God.

 

Constant Integrated Awareness (Prajna) of the Divine is the significance of the Vedantic declaration, 'Prajnanam Brahma.' 

We should be careful to get the message and not to get to a wrong conclusion. 

Swami is telling us to meditate regularly and not to not meditate. If we look at Swami's code of conduct, we find first daily meditation and prayer, once a week devotional singing, what it for me more difficult than daily meditation, participation in spiritual education with the family was only possible when my daughter was smaller, community service and participation on programs of the organization when ever it happens and attending devotional meetings of the organization is the same and regular study of the Sai literature we are doing actually in writing you as we go over every day of the thought for the day.

Use of soft, loving speech we also practice if possible with all not only with Sai devotees and we don't talk ill about others, but we have to think over what comes into our mind as he is telling just here it is Radha and it has to surrender to Krishna. 

If we see it in our own life, we have the man coming in our dreams to awaken and that is as it is, but we don't talk, we only write and think it over and that is not the same.

On the word level we don't think it over the same way and we don't express in words what we have in mind or just the conclusion of it. 

And finally we have the practice of ceiling of desires and I guess he took care of it when he said dark color or dark blue, I can also wear other colors but for now it is mostly dark blue and there is no more desire to buy something really as it looks all the same. If there is a desire probably it is about getting something new from time to time.

It was a beautiful experience last year in Prashanti listening to lectures after the Bhajans and thinking it over, it created a lot of good feelings.

He is not telling us to not practice meditation, worship or rituals. 

In Prashanti Nilayam we have every day Bhajans and Veda singing and during Shivaratri the groups of devotees coming from the South of India had a Baba statue and they did abisheka to that statue. That are rituals and worship, but it is a means to realize it. 

Swami talks about the essence of it. 

What is complete absorption in spirituality, it contains meditation, worship and rituals. The Hare Krishna offered food the whole day long to Krishna and the man coming in our dreams to awaken said, 'you have been with the Hare Krishnas, so you have served me before'. Before what, before I went to TM. We can sing and if our heart is pure we can even see that all devotees merge in that divine love.

The question is, what is complete absorption in spirituality?

And Swami talks about the Gita and what Krishna tells, 'surrender unto Me, transcending all rules'. We have to be very careful as always to get to a right and not a wrong conclusion. 

He doesn't tell us to not meditate and that is what most devotees will understand when reading that. Swami talks about the unity of all religions.

What does it mean surrender to me transcending all rules? 

Rules are made by the mind and a code of conduct is also rules, so why do we have a code of conduct if we would get to the conclusion that there should be no rules? 

That is not correct understanding, he is telling us to surrender unto Me by transcending all rules, we know how we transcend with meditation, with the repetition of the name of the Lord, we transcend the rules of the mind, we have to transcend the mind.

How do we transcend all rules, transcending means going beyond the relative field into an absolute field, a transcendental reality, non-changing, always the same, perfect orderliness and Swami also said that if we call for God with his name constantly he responds as the name- and formless divine, what is the transcendental reality.

Only it is spoken in pictures and we need to listen to his words and think it over to be able to get the message that the nameless god is just pure awarness and therefore the same as an unmanifested state of consciousness.   

We cannot transcend if we are in the rules and how do we transcend thoughts, they are also still relative and what does he tell us, Radha symbolizes all thoughts in the mind and she is in love with Krishna, all her thoughts are only turning around him constantly. 

It is the same as the higher self, it is the same as the Hare Krishnas cooking food and offering it non-stop to Krishna, it is all our thoughts are focused on 'that' only, as Swami also called it, one pointed concentration. 

We should be careful to not get to a wrong conclusion and as the reflection coming back in the study circle shows us, people tend to get to fast and superficial conclusion and they think, great so I don't need to bother about meditation.  

What is the difference between meditation and transcending all rules?

And he talks about the path of Jesus and what do we know about it and what has it to do with transcending all rules as Krishna tells us in the Gita. We don't know much about it usually, don't we and we don't find anything about transcending all rules in the Bible and do we understand the surrender everything of Buddha? How do we know it is the same meaning as it is Buddha? We have to listen to him.

 

There is a challenge in the words of Swami and we don't know, he knows. 

We listen to him and think we know, but do we really know? He knows and we listen to him and we surrender to him, because he knows, but we need to listen carefully to not get to wrong conclusions. It is about surrendering and not comparing religions and also not meditation, even if he mentions both in his words. 

He talks about highest wisdom and the holy scriptures and divine love and complete absorption in spirituality.

If we get the message of that thought for the day, we go on with mediation to surrender to Krishna by transcending all rules, we have to go beyond what we think is good and bad, we have to transcend and what is the difference between mediation?

To experience divine love there is no need to practice any kind of meditation, worship or rituals. Selfless love (Prema) can be obtained only by complete absorption in spirituality. It was for this reason that Sri Krishna declared in the Gita: "Surrender unto Me, transcending all rules (Sarva Dharman Parityajya)". Likewise, Jesus also declared: "I am the Path." Buddha, conveying the same meaning, declared, "Surrender everything" (Sarvam Sharanam Gachchami).

 

We can see in the study circle that some devotees don't meditate and when they hear those words, they think it makes it easy for them and they don't need to meditate. 

They understand it as easy as he is telling us, no need for mediation. We just surrender and transcend the rules, what does that mean?

We don't make that difference between mediation and transcendence, we know it is not really possible to transcend the thoughts and the mind without meditation. Mediation is beyond the mind and the body, contemplation is between and Swami talks about contemplation when he is telling us just think about God. 

God is love, the finest relative we are able to experience in the heart, it is an eternal realm. If we meditate we go into silence, that is beyond the finest relative realm. Love is what we can still experience together and where everybody merges in divine love if we are singing and practicing together, we are in the same divine love. And when we sit down for mediation we all merge in the same silence and pure consciousness, we can get aware of it, but we don't need to get aware of it that we all merge in the divine, we feel it just as silence and good energy and uplifting.

If we are singing together devotional songs, we have to get aware of it that we are all merging in the same divine love.

 

Radha symbolises the combination of all thoughts in the mind. So all our thoughts, desires and aspirations and our mind should merge in Krishna, represented by Prajna in a human being. Constant Integrated Awareness (Prajna) of the Divine is the significance of the Vedantic declaration, 'Prajnanam Brahma.' 

 

In Swami's words he is not telling us that we don't need to do it.

He talks about Constant Integrated Awareness of the Divine and the Vedantic declaration, 'Prajanam Brahma'. And with that he mentions the 'I am that', tat twam asi, it is part of the four Mahavakias, the big truth or sentences.

1.  prajñānam brahma - "Prajñāna is Brahman" or "Brahman is Prajñāna" (Aitareya Upanishad 3.3 of the Rig Veda)

2. ayam ātmā brahma - "This Self (Atman) is Brahman" (Mandukya Upanishad 1.2 of the Atharva Veda)

3. tat tvam asi - "Thou art That" (Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7 of the Sama Veda)

4   4. aham brahmāsmi - "I am Brahman", or "I am Divine" (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10 of the Yajur Veda)

(Wiki)

 

Other Mahavakyas

 

5.  brahma satyam jagan mithyā - Brahman is real; the world is unreal - Vivekachudamani

6.  ekam evadvitiyam brahma - Brahman is one, without a second - Chāndogya Upaniṣad

7. so 'ham - He am I - Isha Upanishad

8. sarvam khalvidam brahma - All of this is brahman - Chāndogya Upaniṣad 3.14.1

We have all of it in that thought for the day. 

If Jesus tell us 'I am the path' it is not different from all of that actually, but he has only one sentence for it. It is not about into comparing it, it is about the Mahavakias and Veda, he is telling us that Jesus in the essence is the same and that we find it in Veda.

He is telling us that Buddha what is seen as different from the devotion to Krishna is the same and that are the questions of the biggest religions and people don't agree on that since ages.

 

If we follow the code of conduct and make rules out of it and get even more in details with the human values making a list of more than a hundred to encourage others to do good on and replace the bad with the good, do we transcend the rules?

Now we don't, we establish rules of good behavior, it is a misunderstanding, we don't listen to his words really or we get to wrong conclusions and we don't get aware of it.

We don't transcend the rules as Krishna tells in the Bhagavad Gita if we try to replace the bad with the good and think that is what Swami is telling us here?

How do we know the difference between good and bad, he has an answer for that, we have to listen to the self-realized authority, we have to listen to him to get the difference between good and bad. With other words he was even telling us that we are not able to know the difference between good and bad without listening to him. 

We have to listen to get to a right conclusion and to correct understanding. We cannot get the meaning of the Mahavakyas in our own mind without listening to the words of a self-realized authority.

What is Arjuna doing on the battlefield as he has Krishna as  charioteer? 

He is listening to Krishna and that is how the message of the Bhagavad Gita was told, it happened by listening.

If we transcend all the rules (in the mind) we get beyond the mind and there is the nameless divine, Swami calls it the nameless divinity will answer and as it is divine it is perfect orderliness and intelligence and pure being and when we transcend it with repetition of the name we call it usually meditation, the effect is that we get in touch with the pure divine realm of pure awareness and it purifies the mind and that is not understood if we don't listen.

We cannot get any of that if we are not listening to his words and we purify the mind and the field of the heart with Namasmarana, repetition of the  mantra, even if we don't call it meditation, without mediation we don't get to contemplation and Constant Integrated Awareness. 

It is not about meditation, it is about transcending the rules and by that surrendering to the divine.

Swami takes everything what has rules and regulations and the religions, Buddhism, Christianity and Yoga and as it is about unity it is all the same and if it is the same it means we surrender to Krishna by transcending all the rules. 

After all it is all easy, as he is Krishna what we need is to sunderder to him only.

 

Code of conduct Sathya Sai Baba

1.   Daily meditation and prayer.

2.   Devotional singing/prayer with family members once per week.

3.   Participation in Sai Spiritual Education by children of the family..

4.   Participation in community service and other programs of the Organization.

5.   Regular attendance at devotional meetings conducted by the Organization.

6.   Regular study of Sathya Sai Baba literature.

7.   Use of soft, loving speech with everyone.

8.   Avoidance of talking ill of others, especially in their absence.

9.   Practice of the principles of "ceiling on desires", consciously and continuously striving to eliminate the tendency to waste time, money, food, and energy and utilizing any savings thereby generated for the service of mankind.