What is mentioned here is the difference between work done by an ordinary person or the work done by the wise and the appearance level it may seem the same, but the result will be different.
The question is still if we know the difference?
When is it for our own benefit and when not?
If we see it as expanding consciousness even if there is no benefit it is still beneficial only in a different sense.
Actually, when we look at the type of answers and reflections coming back in a study circle, we think that people don't know that difference and have rather difficulties with that kind of discrimination.
The work with the wise man does carry the feeling that makes him identical with the divine aspect, he is doing it for God.
God is doing the work and he is the instrument.
How can we see that in our own life?
The thought for the day yesterday made us aware of it. The question was about the best among men. It was about the emperor and he couldn't get the answer. And did we get the answer? Do we understand it right?
The emperor had to first get into troubles to get the answer. I guess that is often the case, we have to get first into troubles before we can get the right answer. He as emperor was captured by a tribe, who didn't see in him the emperor, but they wanted to offer him to their goddess. He doesn't inform in details what would have happened and how much his life was in danger, but he is telling us that it was a precarious condition for an emperor.
Lucky there is an ascetic who was able to rescue him and the emperor went back to his hermitage, it is like an ashram, he and his students lovingly tended him back to health and happiness.
We should be aware of it that it was not only Baba at the ashram, but also his students that took care of us and other devotees and by that we don't talk about the confused Westerners we have met who expressed sometimes the strangest ideas and ways of seeing it, but the real devotees, those who took care of it that we were comfortable, we had enough food and shelter and that we were able to have a good Darshan.
It seems here is mentioned in purpose the ascetic and not only he took care of it, but his students as well. The same at the ashram, we were taken care off by the students around him, the question is for us maybe what is a student and what is not a student, what did we like and we felt good with and what didn't we like and we were even scared about it and we should also like the emperor get a right answer.
Lovingly they tended him back to health and happiness. It is the constant state of love and care that is present in that beautiful environment in the ashram.
Love is never alone, consciousness is a state we can experience just as silence and alone, like with meditation we transcend our thoughts and are in a state of pure consciousness. Swami talks always about the one, only love, but that is in reality three, is there any love without a lover or a beloved? Pure intelligence we were told is consciousness, it is being, awareness and intelligence, being-awareness-bliss, sat-chit-ananda.
If it is about love, we have not just pure consciousness and we can close our eyes and transcend our thoughts and that's it, there are three, love, the lover and the beloved, if it is pure love, it is directed towards God. Usually when it is between people it is passion or it can even be tamasic love.
Therefore, when we experience the love in an ashram, it is not only Swami, but also the others and the love between him and the others.
If there are things we don't like, we should look at it and see it in our own life to get to the right answer, it is the reflection in our own mind.
In that loving and serene environment we know from Prashanti Nilayam, it is that loving and serene atmosphere we are not only able to get back to health and happiness, but we are able to discover the answer to our questions.
What are our questions?
Who is the best among men? The answer is here, the one who has compassion, together with his students the ascetics tended the emperor back to health and happiness.
How does he get us back to a happy and healthy state of mind?
Swami said he is the man coming in our dreams to awaken and he has a way of doing it from the inside and then we have a picture, as it is a dream, dreams usually work by seeing and pictures and that should or has to make sense and it is growing on us in thinking it over. We are like the emperor, we have to get the answer and not only an answer, but we have to wait until we get a satisfactory answer.
As there is compassion, he is able to transform our life from the inside. We have to see a situation in a certain way to get aware of it and the man coming in our dreams to awaken can get us identified with someone in the dream stage and then when looking at it from the inside, we get a different feeling for it and in that light we get aware of the problem and we can see the situation not only from the outside, but from the inside, it is like a hologram. When we see it from the inside, we get aware in a different way then when we see it only from the outside and things fall in place.
The other question asked is what moment is the most blessed and that is the present and the now, the moment when thinking it over and the other question is, which act is the most beneficial?
The most beneficial act is the one that tends us back to health and happiness. In the loving and serene environment we discover the answers to our questions, our health and happiness depends on getting right answers.
That is how we should see it and if we go to the ashram in that loving environment it is for spiritual purposes and not for vacation, as someone said some time ago, what is crap only.
We go there to get answers and to find a satisfactory answer to our questions. So the most beneficial act is to relieve another's pain and grief. How do we remove another's pain and grief, with compassion and loving care.
That is the environment of the ashram. And we should not postpone what we can do today, now, this very moment.
If we think that we go to the ashram for a vacation only and because it is warm and not cold we don't think over Swami's words and we are not aware of the real meaning of it and the influence of someone who has compassion and the loving care of the students of the ascetic. What gets lost? The influence of the place is still there comforting and making us feel good, but if we go there only for that reason, we just take advantage of it.
Someone like that doesn't care about the spiritual background and we wonder why he goes to lectures, probably as a pastime, what gets lost is the awareness that this place is the best among men, because it tends us back to health and happiness. In the mind we live in a jungle, if there is no culture, there is no garden awareness, we have to culture the heart to be aware of the garden and to keep a garden, otherwise, the weeds take over and in no time it is no more a garden, but back to jungle mind. What the ascetics does is he saves the emperor from the jungle, therefore, he is the best among men and someone who is able to do that is very special and someone who is only taking advantage of it, is just stupid and missing the best of it. He doesn't get aware of how precious it is.
It can even feel like a sacrilege if we deprive a holy place of its real meaning and just take advantage of it, it is not right action, Dharma and we were told by Swami that to experience pure love we need three things, we have to understand peace and we need to accept truth and when we got the path of truth, we need to accept right action and only when we have those three things, truth, right action and peace, we are able to experience pure love. That are the human values, sathya, dharma, shanti, prema and ahimsa.
There was an emperor who always asked the sages who visited his palace, "Who is the best among men? Which moment of time is most blessed? Which act is most beneficial?" He could not get satisfactory answers for a long time. Eventually his realm was invaded and he had to flee into the jungle. There he was captured by a tribe who selected him as an offering to their goddess. In this precarious condition, he was rescued by an ascetic who took him to his hermitage, where he and his students lovingly tended him back to health and happiness. Amidst that loving and serene environment, the king discovered the answers to his questions. The best amongst all is the one who has compassion. The most blessed time is the 'present' and the best act is to relieve another's pain and grief. Do not postpone what you can do today, now, this very moment, to a future date!
That shows us how we live our life, how we get lost in a jungle and how we find the answer to those questions. It is for us the same, we are the emperor and we ask who is the best among men? We don't know and we don't get satisfactory answers for a long time and we wonder, what time is most blessed and what act is most beneficial. We find ourselves eventually in a jungle and we get captured by a tribe and they wanted to offer us to their goddess and in that precarious condition, the man coming in our dreams is there to our rescue.
What is for us the offering to the goddess?
What is your question and how did you get in that loving, serene environment the satisfactory answer to your question? If we think it over and see it in our own life, we get a feeling for it and it is that inside feeling that gives that makes the difference.
That is why the man with compassion is the best man and the moment, the now, the present is the best moment and what is beneficial, it is the service to the master what makes us feel the loving, serene environment in which we can get the satisfactory answer, whatever we call it, we have to somehow create or feel or find or get aware of that loving, serene environment to get the right answer.
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