Friday, March 17, 2017

Courage and Spiritual Practice

Many discourage you from taking up spiritual practices and say that these can be taken up at a ripe old age, as if they are the prerogatives of, or special punishments for the aged! Enjoy the world while you can and then figure out the next - that seems to be the attitude of many! The child takes its first few steps in the safety of its home; it toddles about inside, until its steps become firm, until its balance is perfected, and then as it grows up steadily, it slowly ventures into the streets and the whole wide world. So too, every being must master the inner world first and become impervious to temptations. You should learn not to fall when the senses trip your steps; you should learn the balance of mind, which will not make you lean more to one side than to the other. After mastering this discriminatory wisdom, you can confidently move out into the outer world, without fear of accidents to your personality.

We can not really tell that we find the same situation in the West, we get always again aware that there is no knowledge about spiritual practice and no feeling about it. 
And that counts as well for those who went to India. 
If we are not really focused on it, it can be that it never really get clear as our way of life is very different. 
In our society is hat never been an issue about spiritual practice, in the opposite I remember that the common believe was that those who are spiritual are not taken really serious, because science tells us something else. 
Therefore, it has never been about spiritual practice and we don't have any wisdom about yoga or meditation in our culture integrated in our society and the church has become more and more empty and not full.  
Growing up in the West it was never about spiritual practices, when I mentioned years ago as a young adult the word self-realization I was surprised to get the answer, that doesn't exists. I had mentioned it to two class mates that I wanted self-realization and I had mentioned it once at the lunch table in my parent's house and got the response of my father that I was a communist. 
It was more a question if we believed in it or not and self-realization was out of question, the answer was it belonged in the times of the old Greek culture and not in our modern society and I still went in direction of self-realization, but I stopped talking about it. 
Even if that is true for everybody what Swami mentions here, we will not find it in our Western societies and even less in the young people, the wisdom about spiritual practices is nearly completely lost. And that is probably also a reason that even after years of singing Bhajans we still have people who seem to have no wisdom about meditation and self-control. 



Even if that truth concerns everybody, it is still not something discussed in our society when we should start with spiritual practice. In our society it is more the question if God exists or not. 
We are in these words in India, Swami talks to students and kids in his school telling them that they need to start early and that it is better early than late and when we start to late, we don't have the chance anymore of integrate it in our life. 
He compares spiritual practice to the first steps of the child when it starts to walk and only when we know how walking, we are ready to go on the streets and in the whole wide world.
We don't find the same culture and situation in the West. We first go in the world and then we begin with spiritual practice when things are not as they should be usually learning from the rather bad experience. We get aware that something is missing and there is no sense if there is not a higher purpose in it. 
It should be our focus to master the inner world first, but when starting with it during old age, it is after we had been in the world and for sure not because we have mastered it. 
If we are settled in our inner ways, we are able to get out successfully in the outer world, if we know how to deal with our senses, we know how to balance the mind. 
Senses trip our steps, that is for the Westerner normal that senses trip our steps and we think we have to live with it. 
We think that's life that senses trip our steps, we don't focus on self-control in our society. We focus on other things. If our senses are under control it is by our job mostly as we have to follow strict job routines. 
We all know it would be good and desirable to have more self control, when things don't work the way we think they should, but most of the time we don't even know why it is like that. 
To have more self-control and that we can get into spiritual practice and how that spiritual practice should be, that is not on our mind, we just don't know about it. 
So we have a different experience in the West, we go tripped by the senses and when we get aware that our steps are not as we would like it to be and it doesn't work, if we are lucky we get to know a spiritual master and try to learn from him why and what it is all about and why we don't get any valid answers in our society and we don't even understand it.  
If we learn it at a young age, we will understand it better later on. I don't know how I would deal with it if there would not have been meditation since a long time and still we get aware of everything what went wrong, so we get to know who would have been the right one and we get to know in that sense that he was there, but we were not there and therefore, not able to see it. 
In that sense I began young with spiritual practice, after he was there and I didn't know and I began to wonder why I was unable to know and I wanted to know, so I was still not able to do the right thing at that age, but I started quite early. 
What is always surprising is that people who practice since years still don't absorb the wisdom, they just practice, but don't think it over. 
In our spiritual practice if we are not aware of the three levels of truth, the manifested material world, the subtle world, the mind and the transcendental reality, the soul or the Atma, what is non-manifested, we don't know really what we are doing. 

In our study circle we talked about it that Swami is telling us without enthusiasm, courage, devotion, energy, readiness and sincerity, nothing can be achieved. 
We can see it also on three levels, enthusiasm and courage on the material level, devotion and energy on the subtle level and readiness and sincerity on the transcendental level. 
If we do spiritual practice with the help of spiritual wisdom we transcend the mind and the body and that is how we get able to keep the mind under control. That is how we are able to discriminate between sathva, rajas and tamas, the same natural tendencies, threefold truth, we find everywhere. 
We have always three and we don't get out of that. 
And what is most surprising is that people are in the mind and think it is the same as the divine reality. 
It is all God we hear often and then somehow thinking seems to stop and there is nothing more, that is just the beginning and not the end, we have to make the experience of it if we don't have the experience, it is just a concept and mind level. 
We even try to feel love instead of using discrimination, in our society the basics of that wisdom in unknown and we feel it all over and we can talk about it on and on it doesn't get clear, when spiritual practice isn't there. 
With the mind we cannot understand the level of the Atma, we have to listen to a self-realized authority. We have to listen to the spoken or written words of an self-realized authority, someone who has realized it and who knows. 
That is why we listen to a spiritual master. 
In listening and thinking it over, we get the feeling for it or we get the answer, he is like a mirror, he talks about something and we get the analogy to it either we had it in an insight or in a dream or somehow, he is the insight and sometimes we don't even know that it is an insight and not just a dream or a picture, we get aware that it is an insight when it turns into inner view.
He was in the dream and said, he is the insight and the following step, the insights have to turn into inner view, but he is the doer, we are unable with the mind to understand insights or getting to inner view. 
He talks about the atma, the soul and that develops into inner view. 
The inner view is the result of insights. 
He is the man coming in our dreams to awaken and it was Swami who was in the dream as two Swamis, one was the insight and the other is the following step. 

What is an insight? It is a dream or a reflection in our dream of something reflected to awaken, it is the truth in our heart, truth has to be based on the heart. 
If truth is in the heart, it is insight and the reflection of it is right action. 
That it how we get to human values. So Swami as well said that truth and right action have to be blended, when it is right action it is as well truth, we think that is understood, it isn't. 
Already three times I had the experience that it has been separated and even in our center, and even if there were good intentions, it broke in pieces means somehow right action and peace were separated, whatever the reason. It is about, ABC, always be careful, probably not careful enough. 
In the center it was because my work had been put in question, the inner mirror broke in pieces and for two days were only pieces left and he was in the dream and said, it was because of that reason he was in the wheelchair. 
The first night it broke in pieces, the second night we were standing on a heap of glass pieces it were thousand pieces and I had one of it in my hand. 
The third was ex, the credit card broke into pieces. 
He is one of those people who are in the mind and call everything God. No discrimination value and instead of sense of duty, he didn't care about his child or his family, but he went every year at the ashram and he didn't care if we were able to go and see Swami as well, nothing was of his concern, he had given it to Swami. 
That is what he said and it was really upsetting and sickening to listen to that. That he was even thinking he did the right thing, when we had at the end only a cart of crap. 

We went to Swami years ago, he had a dream and in his dream Swami had told him that I had to come to him to make peace with him. And it was not such a nice thing actually. For me it was a Baba call and great, it felt like celebrating to have been called by Swami, but it was not possible to share it with him, because he began to harass and blame me who had to be that stupid to have to go and make peace with Swami. 
It was a kind of shock getting aware of his mind state in such a way. That was kind of ridiculous or even worse, a sacrilege, it felt totally wrong that he could understand his own dream in such a way. 
It made me wide awake and careful, because we cannot trust such a state of mind. 
He doesn't know what he is doing, he doesn't know what he is telling and every word felt like crap only. 
Instead of seeing the beauty in it, he was able to find fault with it. 
He told me that I was stupid that I had to go an made peace with Swami and every word he said showed that he was stupid to see in such a way and I was unable to answer, it was a kind of a shock and that Swami dream was opening my eyes, a shock getting aware of his way of thinking and blaming me of course. 
I don't know when that started, but it went on and on he was able to blame when he had a meeting and he blue it and he came back and told me, 'what I had done', what said with other words that I had to take care of it when he got in troubles because he was unable to do it himself, so he gave the blame to me that I would take care of it. 
And I didn't tell him that it didn't sound right, I was too scared that of it that he would change his mind, I had to let it be a Swami Lila and I didn't tell him that it didn't feel right and it was not right what he said and it was not possible to celebrate that we were called to Swami and see the joy in it, but her was finding faults with it and that was sick. 
And I didn't wanted to mix in Swami's Lila, if he would have noticed the he was wrong, he was never wrong, he was always right, he could have changed his mind and not let us go. When I got more attention than him he felt envious and he had to harass and do something about it until the energy was destroyed, that was the narcissist and the emotional vampire. Therefore, Swami called me in his dream, so he got the attention and not I did get his attention, he told him, in his mind the lovely husband, to take care of it and not me. If he would have given me that attention we would have only problems. 
That is how I got aware of in what situation I got in with Swami actually what was everything else but great really, the question was why and as it seems it had to do with my father.  
He was constantly fining faults, arguing and harassing to make himself feel better. As I was regularly meditating I was saying nothing anymore, I just said, as it happened in Swami's presence at the ashram that he would find a way. 
At the beginning I still had the hope it would get better, but it didn't get better, it got worse as time went by. 
He made a mind game out of it, he blamed me for being stupid that I had to go and make peace with Swami, I was the stupid the way he understood his dream as it was his own dream and it was not my dream, it was a spiritual purpose and not a mind game. 
The spiritual purpose in making peace is blending right action and truth as Swami is telling us, if we blend those two we have peace. 
The question is what was right action. 
Therefore, we went to Swami but we knew it would be about right action and truth to get peace and not what he thought, nobody is in a fight with Swami and has to make peace in that sense as the mind interprets is with a spiritual master. 
We didn't have an argument and therefore I had to go and make peace with Swami and to see it in such a way and blaming me for having to go and making peace with Swami felt in that sense ridiculous. 
But I was very glad that we were called in such a way to Swami and the advantage of it that he looked at it as my fault and therefore, he was able of letting me go. He blamed me for it, a habit as it seems, I didn't know that it was that bad as I used most of my energy with meditation to make myself feel okay again. But it felt like we lived in different worlds and that was the reality of it. 
I wouldn't miss him that was sure, I was glad to get a break and not to have to listen to it anymore, and the experience with Swami would be be much better and less disturbed without him. 
It didn't came to his mind that he could understand it wrong, that he should be careful, whatever we had learnt with Swami, nothing of it was present. There was no spiritual background, he didn't put in practice anything of it.  
It was a Baba call and there was no doubt about it that we had to go and we had four months with Swami ahead of us. 
On the way we went to Spain to my parents as we hadn't see them since years as well. It was also good to know by someone else that we had to go Swami to make peace with him, what means blend right action and truth to have peace of mind. 
My mother when she noticed that I was thinking of not going back, didn't see the purpose of going to India to Sai Baba and there was the next challenge we had to overcome and it had to be right action and it was not what she had in mind. 
Talking it over with my father he understood that I had to go back to the place we had met years ago to know for sure and if he would not have been on our side, we would have had only troubles.  
If we blend truth and right action, there will be peace, if we separate truth and right action, there will be nothing left but pieces. 
So we didn't go back, we had to blend right action and truth and it was in the air in Swami's presence, it was perverted, we had to get a divorce. That is how I got aware of how bad it really was. 
In a spiritual sense, sathva is the path, rajas, passion we have to transform, tamas, inertia, ignorance, perversion needs to be given up. That means it was Tamas and he could as well have said it is Tamas and it needs to be given up, but I probably would not have understood it. 
When right action and truth are separated only pieces are left (Baba).
I knew it didn't feel good, but how where right action and peace separated, that was only present last year when I went to see him after twenty years. We had met by hazard, I went with a Sai sister and he happened to be there at the ashram and he seemed charming and nice as I knew him when we had met. At least I got the idea again that I was able to even get in that relationship with him as it seemed that different during the time at the ashram. 
If only pieces are left in the insight there has to be something that right action and peace had been separated. 
After we didn't go back, there was an insight, he was standing in a ruin and dressed up in a red woman skirt and a black fur jacket and he said that is all he could get in garage sales. 
In the house of self-realization the floor is self-confidence, the floor were holes only, impossible to walk, the walls are self-satisfaction, the walls were crumbled and a ruin, no self-satisfaction and the roof was not there at all, the self-sacrifice was totally missing and now we got a feeling for it, he never cared about us or his daughter, he never asked if we needed something, but he went every year to the ashram to feel good, so the love of Swami made him go on so he didn't have to worry about his family.  
That is what we got aware of after we had left only. It reflects his attitude of mind and no spiritual life. 
No self-sacrifice, no intention to care about his child or family, it was only him and we should take care of him, no man, but a man in women cloths, wearing women stuff and it means no self-sacrifice. 
That is how we get a feeling for self-sacrifice what is usually happening with a family, it was only about himself and not about the family. 
In the house of self-realization the floor is self-confidence, the walls are self-contentment and the roof is self-sacrifice and when we  live in the house it is self-realization.
The ruin of it is the reflection of the mind only, only thinking about himself unable to take responsibility for anyone and it seems narcissistic, it is described as the emotional vampire, all the attention had to be with him only, if he didn't get that attention, he had to destroy the good energy and it felt like he was envious, the result was constant harassment and finding faults to make himself feel greater and better. 
It was like he never stopped to harass and to blame and I didn't speak with him anymore, just what I had to as there was anyhow only crap what he said. 
The insight of Swami with vampire teeth was not good and a warning. If he is like that in our dreams he reflects the heart and he was a vampire and there is no doubt that it is true, the question is just what to do if we have to face such a truth. 
And he said that he took only advantage of it. 
That was the shocking result of a relationship and that we had met with Swami at the ashram and what was left of the charming person he seemed to be in Swami's presence. 
It felt like a punishment first when I realized we had to get a divorce and I knew we would only have troubles with that guy and it would not be easy and we had been together seven years and now I tried for seven more years to get a response to motivate him into Swami Lila and he had to sign the divorce agreement, what he waited as long as possible probably so he didn't have to take care as father of the child and pay alimonies. 
After seven years he finally signed it at the ashram in Swami's presence. 
What Swami mentioned about the bullocks, the mind and the intellect tied to the cart of the inner self, going along the way of the world and bringing disaster to themselves, the cart and the people in the cart, it is falsehood and injustice and that was all about falsehood and injustice. 

Last year when we met, there was in the insight at night in the dream a cart full of crap. The crap is the result if we listen to the mind and the intellect and call it God even and go on without any discrimination with falsehood, injustice, worry and hatred. 
He said if we allow the bullocks to go along the road of the world, they are a disaster to themselves, to the cart and the people in the cart, it completes the inner view. 
That is how we get aware when he said it is all God or it is all divine will, that it was nothing else but the mind and the intellect only and the master is not the higher self, but even if he goes every year to the ashram, he has no wisdom, he allowed the mind and the intellect to go on the way of the world and not one thing he said was honest or true and there was injustice in every way possible and Swami before he left the body said in the even getting to the ashram as it is a place of pilgrimage is based on falsehood as he said last year, he goes there only for a cheap vacation, that is what Swami said in the dream, he took only advantage of it. 
We get aware it is the mind and the intellect and it had never been the ideal of Swami, but he projected Swami in the mind and the intellect in telling us, everything is God, but in reality it is just mind and intellect and he had no idea what he is doing and no discrimination and no wisdom. He goes the way of falsehood listening to the mind and calls that giving it to Swami so he should take care of it, also that is a crooked way of taking advantage of it. 
We had been for a visit last year and what we found at his place was in the insight the cart of crap. 
The crap in the cart is the result of letting the bullock mind and intellect walk on the worldly path of falsehood and injustice. 
Instead of taking care of a family he got things from garage sales, he showed us his place filled with garage sale stuff, that is what he had said in the dream and the insight, that is all I could get in garage sale while standing in a ruin.
I was aware that he always wanted to go to garage sales, but I was unaware that he had made and addiction out of it. We went out of it and had never since been in a garage sale again, while it seems he felt ever since his cupboards with it as there is no room left by now, it seems he stopped going for garage sales after all by now. 

When right action and truth are separated, only pieces are left. 
We went for dinner he paid for it with the credit card. There were two insights about it later in the dream, one was about, you're mistake as well, what didn't tell me anything. And the next day the credit card was in pieces, that means only pieces left, right action and truth have been separated, no peace. 

The message of Swami is no more there. 
If we want to experience pure love, we need three things, right action, peace and truth and that means we first have to blend right action and truth and the truth has to be in the heart. 
If that was not there anymore, the basis to Swami's message is gone. 
We cannot make the experience of pure love or even divine love, if there is not right action and truth, that are the basic human values and if that is not there, we can forget it and that means if the credit card was in pieces it is the level where right action and truth have been separated and no matter what he tried to blame me for it again, but it is for sure not true. 
He doesn't take care of the family and endangered the child by canceling the credit card? He had disturbed that peace we had to make with Swami already before we left the ashram, we didn't get the flight back as we thought we would get it cheaper in India what had been true years ago, today probably not anymore. 
The child had a high fever and we had to get our flight to Bombay and there were flights directly from Puttaparti to Bombay, but we could only get them with cash. 
We had no cash, we had the credit card and by trying to get cash we got aware that our credit card had been canceled by him.
We had both insights about not going back, my daughter as well and he had canceled the credit card, so that was a sign of how much he was into self-sacrifice and blaming me for it, that was probably the perversion and the vampire?
It was not about blaming someone, it was about taking care, about caring, about self-sacrifice and living Swami's message or just a normal life in caring about the family and nothing of it was there. 
That is how we got aware of it and therefore, after the four months when we left there was no doubt about it that it was right action to not go back.
If we blend right action and truth, we have peace. 
That is how we went to Swami to make peace with him, we had to blend right action and truth and then we have peace. 
And in the credit card in pieces we can see that he didn't blend right action and truth, but he separated them and therefore, we had to go in his own dream to Swami to make peace with him as the peace is based on not right action not possible. 

If we want pure love what is the message of Swami, we need three things, right action, peace and truth and only when we have those three things, we can experience pure love, therefore, we have to accept truth, it is in the heart and the reflection is right action, therefore, we have to accept right action and if we blend those two we have to understand peace and when we have those three only, we can make the experience of pure love. 
That are the human values, sathya, truth, dharma, right action, shanti, peace, prema, love and ahimsa, non-violence. 

If right action and peace are separated, the basis is not there, it cannot get okay anymore as it broke into pieces. 
When truth and right action are separated, only pieces are left. 

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