Today the thought for the day begins with Veda and
what Veda is teaching. It is about Veda, even if we have had someone in
the study circle when Veda was mentioned he answered, 'who is interested in
that'? We should better keep silent and don't answer than to say something
stupid it like that as we talk constantly about Veda, it is someone who doesn't
listen and has not relationship to the words of Swami and the wisdom in those
words.
Here Swami is telling us what the Vedas teach and
it is a beautiful picture.
The heart is the sky and in the sky of the heart we
have a mind and it is the moon, our eyes and the intelligence is the sun in the
heart.
We have our own
universe in the heart with a moon, with a sun and a sky and lots of stars and
we find the reflection of it in the dream stage and we could think that the
world of the heart reflects the language the man coming in our heart to awaken
uses in the purpose to awake us from the inside.
In that sense Swami is teaching us here the
language of the man coming in our dreams to awaken, it is not just a picture if
it is like that in the Veda.
If we watch our heart and are alert and see the
mind only as the moon in the sky of the heart, when in reality we think we are
the mind outside in our everyday life in the world, it seems to be the same in
the heart, but it is not really the same as in the world.
How do we watch the heart that close if we don't meditate,
that is kind of impossible. We need to have silence in the mind to be able to
see that sky in the heart that clear and beautiful and with love and if we
don't meditate, we don't see anything, the heart is dark and black and nothing
to see really when we are living in the mind only, mind is world.
The Vedas
teach us that our heart is like a sky and in the sky of our heart, mind is the
Moon, eyes and intelligence are like the Sun. In the sky of your heart, treat
your thoughts as passing clouds. If in the sky of our heart, there are millions
of names of the Lord shining like the stars, and your mind shining like the
moon, then you are well-positioned to achieve happiness.
The sky of
the heart is the abode of God and there are even millions of names and we treat
our thought like we do it with meditation as passing clouds. It is a very
beautiful way of looking at it.
We repeat the
mantra, the name of the Lord, every mantra is okay as he said and they are like
the stars on the sky and the mind is shining like the moon and if we have that
kind of sight we are well-positioned to achieve happiness. Life goes for
more and more and everybody looks for happiness and how do we achieve
that happiness?
Happiness is
union with God.
Swami defines happiness as oneness with God.
If happiness is union with God, we have to think
that all our happiness depends on being in union with God and what does it mean
to be in union with God? If we see union of God when all the devotees are
singing devotional songs together they merge in the heart, we are in union with
God and should be happy. If we share his thoughts in the study circle by
listening to his words there is divine energy in it and we feel like in union
with God, he is cleansing our heart, it is clarifying the 'ideal' that is
another word for God and therefore, we feel his presence, the mind of the
people settles down and at once we feel like in Prashanti Nilayam, it is like a
Darshan, it creates union with God.
But after Bhajans we have to go back to our every
day life and how do we find the union of God in there?
How do we make
sure there is union with God always in our life? If hour happiness depends on
that we should ask that question always.
And he is
giving us the good advice to train the mind and that is a meditation
instruction on the heart level. It sounds not really the same when we look
at the Patanjali sutras, it is easier to understand if we listen to Patanjali
how to cleanse the mind, but it is a beautiful pictue, the full moon cleanses
the field of the heart. He is the one who cleanses it as he is the full moon,
the symbol for the Guru is the fullmoon.
We should train the mind and we see our mantra as
the full moon, the name of God and it should cleanse our heart.
There are two
things in that. We have the information that we can train the mind. It is not
done by watching the heart only, it is not watching alone, it needs a full moon
to cleanse the heart and that we get in the above mentioned practice in the Sai
centers, by singing Bhajans and also in the study circle, listening to his
words is in a way turning our small mind and moon into the full moon and that
is how it is done, it cleanses our heart like we had experienced it during
Darshan in Prashanti Nilayam.
The question is how do we train the mind to be like
a full moon and as it is not really possible to just be it without that we have
him in the midst of it, we have to do something about it, either we sing, we
think over his words and we do a study circle, a workshop with his words and
teaching, in the end we get to the conclusion in that picture that he is
cleansing the heart, he is the full moon, by listening to his words our mind
turns into a full moon as well and everything is fine, no problem, we have
surrendered at least for that moment and it will last some time if we are lucky
to the next day in union with God and we feel happy.
That is a different information, the full moon is
cleansing to the heart.
We have to know
how to get the full moon in our mind? How do we make sure that our mind is not
a half moon, but a full moon and we have to understand why the half moon is not
cleansing our heart. If we understand it, we also know why we go for a study
circle and why we think it over with others and why they should all be happy if
we are doing that, but as the job of the study circle is not really understood
and people are just sharing their thoughts and experiences without seeing the
need that we have to think over Swami's thoughts, like it was with Susanna
three weeks ago when she did the study circle.
The response of one of the participants was that
she couldn't sleep anymore after such a study circle in the past when she was
thinking of everything she should do and she didn't know how.
She had a text not from Swami and just describing
the fruits of mediation and she said she tried in her meditation
imagining to have all this described in those words in her meditation and it
felt kind of good.
And to make the other feel better I said, it would
never come into my mind to imagine to feel that, it is just a motivation to go
for mediation, but no meditation instruction.
In our meditation we just use the mantra and water
the root of the seedling with regular practice to make sure there will be a big
tree one day and the fruits will be there when they are there and we don't try
to practice the fruits without haveing a tree yet.
That does make sense, doesn't it and it took the
pressure away from the other one who said she couldn't sleep anymore because of
such reasons in the past. That is telling us that the study circle is not done
properly, they sit together and share, they don't study Swami's words.
Train your
minds to be like the full moon and cleanse your hearts. Lord Krishna desires
that you keep your mind pure and accept truth and honesty as your foundational
life principles.
And Swami
remembers for us the Gita and Lord Krishna and he reminds us what Lord Krishna
tells about that matter to cleanse the heart with the power of the full moon
mind. It seems the full moon mind is in the heart when we keep it pure and
accept truth and honesty as foundational life principle.
What is the
truth, how do we purify the heart?
As he mentioned once if we want 'pure love', not
just love, but pure love, we need three things, first we have to understand
peace, second we have to accept right action and if we accept the path of right
action, it is not just something we accept, it is a path, we also have to
accept truth and also that is not just truth, but a path of truth and if we
have those three things, peace, truth and right action we will be able to
experience pure love. In his sentence is not only one information in
understanding peace, each thing is also a path and it means we can look for
truth and get there or we can go for right action and we also get there, but at
the end we need three things to get to pure love and all three have to be there
to make us able to experience 'pure love'.
Our own
conduct is responsible for the decay or the ageing of our body. Our desires
drive our behavior. Do not live in the world to merely fulfill your desires.
Pain and pleasure are like passing clouds which move about in our heart. So treat them as such and nothing more.
What do we have to do? Swami mentions our
conduct, that means right action and it is responsible for the decay and ageing
of our body. That information is telling us that we keep young inside if we
live a proper life, but nevertheless, time will also take care of it that the
body will get old even if we live a blameless and spotless life.
From here Swami goes to desire and he is telling us
that desires are driving our behavior.
If we know how
to take care of our desires and not just fulfilling them, but take care of the
ceiling of desires, we will be more in touch with our inner happiness and the
unity with the divine.
From the desire he goes to pleasure and pain, they
are behind the desires. If there is pain we desire to get out of it, but it is
better to see it as passing clouds in the heart and if there are too much
desires as clouds they are able to overshadow the sun in the heart.
If we focus on the heart and see the sky full of
stars and think of the millions of names of God on the firmament of the sky we
should be that enchanted by that view really that we forget all desires and we
are just constantly repeating the name of God to never forget that there is a
full moon needed to train the mind to cleanse the heart.
Fill your hearts with the light of love (Prema) so that the evil
qualities of hate,
greed and conceit find no place therein. - Baba
greed and conceit find no place therein. - Baba
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