Below are messages to download, read, and contemplate.&nbsp; About the importance of the Seer

The Seer

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Surrender

<h2>Article by Pujya Babuji Maharaj included in Complete Works of Ram Chandra Volume - 4</h2>Whatever I have is the safekeeping of my Master, which is preserved for all of you. I wish to hand it over to you during my lifetime and go back light after being relieved of the burden. Truly speaking, whatever I have at present, except the safekeeping, is neither spirituality nor Reality nor Bliss. Now, if you ask me what is my destination, my heart will reply, “Brothers! I have lost it too.” Now I cannot see anything. So what I can say?When I see how much I have to teach, I begin to lose my senses and I want to pour it down into you. But such persons will be found only in ones and twos, and this is my lot. I feel that if I impart to anybody what my Master has made me learn (and the process of learning still continues), that which I am learning now is left out. Now, what can be the method of not leaving it out? It is that people should attain a high state of merger. If they integrate themselves completely, how wonderful it would be!1 Compiled from two similar letters to abhyasis in the 1960s. One was previously printed in Constant Remembrance journal, April 1999.The way for anyone to learn what I am being taught is to compel me to merge with him. The method to do this is what the intellectual class brands as ‘sin’ – meditation on the form of the Guru. Really, I want wood, to make from it anything I like, but mostly I get furniture for the purpose.Mergence is the first problem of spirituality. Having attained this state, an abhyasi can be called a beginner. The state of merger conveys the sense of a relation with the Supreme in which self is lost. As close as the relation is made, so the higher is the state of merger. It is that time and state when, if God so wills, the Divine Light is bestowed in the same proportion. The pause that follows the permanency of the state is called the life Divine, but it does not end here. Ordinarily, the Divine life follows mergence at each stage, but here it is something else. Man must always be in quest of mergence. Divine life comes itself simultaneously. The way to the Divine life cannot be achieved without mergence. Its end is the state of the Master, and the emergence of the Divine life in this last and final state is the state of bhumaThe feeling of lightness is evidence to prove that the real state has begun to manifest itself. The feeling of love is also its proof. It is necessary to control the speech and the thought so that you may become deserving to attain higher states of mergence. Attainment of pleasure, tranquillity and peace are the sources of happiness to others, but to us dissolution and feeling the pangs of love are the way to liberation. What I want is that all of you will rise as the sun of spirituality!How is it possible? Only when you do not let the shadow of the earth eclipse the sun.And when is that possible? When you orbit in such a way that your movement is direct.How can you find this orbit? How can you move direct? By keeping the destination in full view.How can you remember the destination? By becoming one with it. When can the goal remain in sight? When you become entirely His.When can you be His? When you lose yourself completely.How can you lose yourself? When there is no thought in the heart other than that of His.How is that possible? By practice. How is practice possible? Through love and interest.How can love and interest be engendered? By remembering constantly.How can constant remembrance be cultivated? Through determination. How is determination possible? When we gird up our loins to sacrifice our pleasures and shake off idleness.Our Master should always be a living being. He is well aware of all the points and problems of spirituality, and he is the one who has travelled the path. He knows how to make the traveller go on. Besides, his bones are immersed in Ram Nam (Divine consciousness). The matter too is pure and sanctified. He has no earthly vibrations. The force that runs in him is naturally unalloyed, unmediated and original. There is no trace of unwanted things. The movement of his mind (manas) becomes light, and it begins to work as ordered by him. The mind when it becomes ‘central’ can do everything and is the real force, which, if turned towards anything, can perform all the miracles. How can this thing be born? In short, one should never lose His remembrance. Even a minute lost without His remembrance should be repented.I have explained everything in detail, yet, my brother, people think that the spiritual condition of any individual is a miracle done by me. Just imagine, had I the power to produce miracles, all the abhyasis would have attained high spiritual conditions. As a matter of fact, miracles are wrought by attachment, deep interest and love in an abhyasi.Similarly, water rains everywhere but weeds grow somewhere, somewhere flowers and somewhere mere lime and sand is found. As is the soil, so are the results.The sensitivity to feel generally does not develop in people, as they do not apply themselves to it. They are very sensitive to worldly matters and their minds are very alert in moneymaking activities. The reason is that they have a deep interest in it and, therefore, they understand it minutely. But where is their attachment to the spiritual side? They only join group meditation and then keep aloof. Neither do they care to adopt those qualities in life that may be conducive to spirituality, nor do they want to give up those that may be putting hindrances in the way.Systems like Buddhism and Jainism insist that we try to be as we should be. They stress upon principles and rules and regulations, and their observance is taken as a mark of spiritual advancement. If we look to ourselves, we will see that we do not want to give up our shortcomings. The reason is that people do not crave for the goal. Otherwise they would leave everything to pursue it. When our tendencies lean towards something, we start sensing many things about it, and concentration grows. Then our energies become balanced and a kind of equipoise is achieved. As soon as this develops, the sensitivity to feel dawns. But who is bothered with all this, my brother? Such persons are rare who are ready to do or die, and truly speaking unto them Reality reveals itself. Deep interest, craving and love take us to wonders. All the abhyasis pass through various spiritual conditions without fail, but due to lack of interest they do not feel them, and then they complain of it to me.When I ask someone to feel and observe, he replies that he tries all right, but does not feel it. I fail to understand what type of effort is that which does not lead to the desired result. When we think of our domestic problems, all aspects come to our view. What is the reason? It is because we are totally engrossed in them. So much so that we feel no rest till we arrive at a solution, because it pricks the heart. If conditions are watched, there is no reason that a seeker of normal understanding may not become aware of them. If a person is wholeheartedly attentive and follows the practice, it is sure that through observation he will feel the Real. But, my brother, all this depends upon interest, and interest itself is a clever fish.&nbsp;

The Way Up

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Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Well-being

<h1 style="margin-left:0px;">Here and Now</h1>Lalaji Maharaj's Birthday Celebrations, 2 February 2014, Chennai, India&nbsp;Dear brothers and sisters here in Manapakkam and all of you in Tiruppur, On this auspicious day of our Grand-Master's birth anniversary, we have just heard the message received from Babuji Maharaj, reemphasising the need to celebrate the birth anniversaries of our Masters, in homage, with love, and in remembrance. These are the three components that are always to be carried in our hearts as instruments of spirituality for our ascent up to the goal, should we be so blessed, remembering that the efforts of the abhyasis count, not a little.We have been listening to these messages, we have been having these bhandaras over so many years, but do abhyasis really take to their hearts the messages that we receive on these sacred and holy occasions? I hope so, because everything depends on how we hear these messages, how we understand them, and how we act on them.It is not enough to make resolutions, resolutions must be carried out. Is the spirit of brotherhood growing amongst us? Is there love between all of us? Have we been able to cast away all prejudice and judgemental attitudes, at least between the brotherhood? These are important questions to be asked, and for each one of you to ask of yourself, because I find there are still unfortunately instances of hatred, mudslinging. So much effort has been done to speak to abhyasis personally, individually. Are they responding? If they are not responding, it only means that they are not acting on the principles of Sahaj Marg. Perhaps they are not even doing their cleaning daily, properly. Maybe they are not even meditating properly.Such abhyasis should examine their hearts and see whether they are true to themselves. Remember the old saying: ‘This above all to thine own self be true.' You can deceive your prefects, you can deceive your Master. I mean you can deceive anybody you want, but if you deceive yourself, that is the greatest and most tragic deception that exists in your life.Self-deception is the greatest deception. To live one way and to think that you are living in another way, honourable way, good way, Sahaj Marg way, is the greatest deception, and if you deceive yourself, I am afraid it will be difficult to help such abhyasis. It will be truly difficult. Therefore we find abhyasis who take sittings after sittings, individual, group, and while they think they are progressing, we see that they are where they were or perhaps even a little lower, which is very tragic.Babuji Maharaj has been emphasising repeatedly in his Whispers messages that human life is short; even if you live two hundred years it is still short. When are we going to realise that life will not go along as we expect it to do? Every day we hear of loved ones departing – even at birth and from then on at any age that you want to specify for yourself: six years, twelve years, fourteen years, eighteen years, twenty-five years, thirty years, forty years, people suddenly coming to an end, and people suffering for months or years and then passing away.There is no point in the last part of your life when you have nothing, you have no teeth, you have no eyes, as Shakespeare says, and you try to mumble some prayer, unable to understand its meaning and try to meditate without much success.Don't put off till tomorrow what must be done today. Now! ‘Here and now' must be your slogan for yourself. Nobody can predict when anybody's end will come. We must always be prepared to meet that – a definite possibility in every individual's life. Everybody born has to die. We can know perhaps when the child is going to be born – within a few hours or days – but nobody can know when somebody is going to die.I am not trying to be morbid. I am not trying to put the fear of God into you or anything like that. I am only telling you the reality of human life, what it holds for us in terms of longevity, and what we have to do within the time available to us in this life. This is a very serious matter.Life can be enjoyed without hurting our spirituality and that enjoyment is permitted, but it must not interfere with our spiritual life. We have a duty to our families – Sahaj Marg insists on that; therefore we have to go around, do our jobs, earn money to satisfy the needs of our families. But not give more time, become addicted to our work and, with the modern computer age, go on browsing all night pretending you have all the time in the world, spending twelve hours, fourteen hours, eighteen hours on your computers but not one hour on your meditation.In a sense those who live like that are digging their own spiritual graves. I am sorry to use such language but just in case you don't read Whispers – I am sure many of you are there who are very casual about it. "While it is there on the computer I can read it day after tomorrow, on Friday, Saturday, the weekend." Just in case you don't read Whispers, I am trying to condense for you the contents of several volumes of Whispers which just says these things, where Babuji Maharaj keeps on reiterating these truths, these essential values of life.To be a human is an enormous gift of Nature which perhaps we have earned through the merits of past existences. To have come to the feet of a guru in that life is an even greater gift of our past and of our destiny, and now to waste both these great gifts – to be born as a human being and to have been able to contact a guru and to follow the practice prescribed by him – and not follow it precisely as prescribed, with integrity, with devotion and love in your heart and with the conviction that this practice of meditating on the heart, doing our cleaning, doing our prayer is a sure way of spiritual evolution to the goal, if possible in this life, if not at least taking several jumps into the future…As Babuji Maharaj says, "Everything is possible." In this life we must achieve that goal of at least liberation which frees us from any future mortal existence, all the pains of physical existence. Forget the pleasures; even animals have them. This is the pain of physical existence that you will feel, everyone of you will feel, at some time or other. Rest assured it is not only for the sick, it is not only for the old; it seems to affect even the newborn babies today. Sickness begins at birth.There is a great truth we don't understand that while sickness may begin at birth, it is death that begins at birth. When we are born we begin to die; tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, we are going towards death. Every second that passes is ticking off a second in our lives.So, remember, the clock is not ticking off for holidays or for pleasurable events or for wasting time saying, "I have enough time." It is foolish to imagine, for anyone to imagine, that he or she has enough time. How do you know how much time you have? If you hear the clock ticking, you must say, "For heaven's sake, one more second gone, two more seconds gone. Let me be about my spiritual work." That must be the attitude of a true aspirant who expects to reach the final goal in this life itself.Babuji Maharaj has said that such a chance may not occur again. Who knows if we are unfortunately condemned to be reborn, whether we will find our guru; even if we are born as human beings whether we will find a guru. It is in that sense that he says that we may not find a guru, we may not find such a guru for a thousand years.So don't take Babuji's writings lightly. They are very simple to read. The language is very simple. Today, human beings are wanting to read complicated stuff, convoluted stuff, difficult to understand because they like to tease their brains. But Babuji's literature, Sahaj Marg literature, is all very simple and because of their simplicity they are deceptive.Babuji Maharaj said, "My simplicity deceives." His literature is deceptive. Too simple. You are inclined to think, "What is there in Reality at Dawn? What is there in the Ten Maxims? Arise at dawn – wonderful! What great truth has he revealed?" Isn't it? I am sure many of you have felt like that. Don't make that mistake. Read again, and again, and again, because every time you read, you find a new meaning in them. What you find in them reflects your growth.As you grow, you find the beauty, the splendour and the truths that are revealed in these writings. It is like somebody walking through a garden and saying, "Ah, roses! Ah, jasmine!" things like that. But a lover of the garden knows and stops at every flower, savours their perfume, looks at their beauty. It is like that. You must be a lover to understand what you are looking at, what you are feeling, and both of these things enter into our literature.We are looking at and reading; we are feeling with our hearts the great truths that are revealed to us which most of us cannot understand at the first reading. Repeat again and again. Don't waste your time on japa malas [prayer beads] which have no meaning. Many have been doing them through I don't know how many lives, how many years; thinking of something and just rotating the beads in the hand.So what more should I tell you all? I don't know. I often think what are our abhyasis doing because, as you know nowadays, I don't see much of you. Only on auspicious occasions I try to be with you all, and it is by Master's grace that he permits me to be here with you all today to give you a sitting and to address you.So remember, time is short, the way is long – towards infinity. That is where; that is the length of the voyage we have to undertake; and the time given to us varies according to each one's lifetime, of which we know nothing, of which we can never know anything.So when I once asked Babuji Maharaj what is wisdom, he said, "Live as if you are going to die the next moment." Not tomorrow or the day after – the next moment. Then will we be doing foolish things, useless things? Then we'd be meditating.I can only hope and pray that all those who are listening to this message will listen to it again with their hearts because, I repeat, there are still too many abhyasis who still carry hatred in their hearts, who still (I don't know how to put it) meet each other with hatred, suspicion, and they still claim to be brothers; they still want attention as abhyasis. It is like transmitting to stone when they come. And I am saying these words particularly to such abhyasis. As Babuji said, "To those who know, we don't need to say much. To those who know and who will not listen and act upon them, you have to say a lot. And to those who know but deliberately ignore what they hear, they are only to be pitied."I hope their numbers will get fewer every day and a day will come when every abhyasi present before us will be of the first category. He who knows, and knows what he has to do, and does what he has to do will be the wisest. I pray for you all on this auspicious occasion.Thank you.

Here and Now

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Be Joyful

<h2 style="margin-left:28pt;">“To serve entails that one’s life is no longer one’s own and that, in a way, one makes oneself available to deal with it. In this field, more than elsewhere, one should make choices that meet one’s profound aspiration to devote oneself to service without any materialistic motive.”</h2>—Babuji Maharaj,<h2 style="margin-left:27.95pt;">Wednesday, October 26, 2005 – 10:00 a.m.</h2>In&nbsp;Whispers from The Brighter World, the divine messages transmitted from Babuji Maharaj to his scribe, Madame Hélène Peyret, Babuji often praises the scribe’s availability and commitment to service. She had no priorities apart from her beloved Babuji. Due to her absolute availability, she evolved to the highest levels of spiritual repose—even amidst great personal difficulties and health setbacks.Availability suggests an openness to serve the Master and to be worked upon by him. The paramount example of availability is Babuji Maharaj himself. Never a moment passed when his attention was diverted from his Master, Lalaji. Had such a moment ever occurred, he would have considered it a cause for great repentance. Lalaji was not merely the focal point of Babuji’s awareness; rather, Babuji’s awareness was merged in that of Lalaji to such an extent that their unified consciousness exemplified the very principle of spiritual osmosis. Any thought-impulse arisingin Lalaji’s consciousness would pulse instantaneously into Babuji’s awareness, and it was this that was the basis for the great service to humanity it was Babuji’s destiny to perform. Those who sat at Babuji’s feet in his courtyard in Shahjahanpur as his hookah bubbled away beside him were privileged to witness his unique availability to his work, by virtue of his availability to Lalaji himself. Babuji’s body sat idle, curled up in his chair, but his attention soared wherever needed. Lalaji defined the very sum and substance of Babuji’s existence.In psychology, there is a concept known as “availability bias.” Availability bias is a cognitive bias. We tend to favor information that is recent, easily accessible, or that is otherwise “top of mind.” Our tendency is to keep our full availability in reserve and instead lend our availability to those things that are nearest to us. Ephemeral phenomena become our priorities—palpable objects of thought and senses that are most vivid to our daily experience—capturing our attention and motivating our actions. For example, suppose you have recently seen many news reports about robberies in your neighborhood. In that case, you may overestimate the likelihood of being robbed yourself. Your mind gives excessive importance to these news reports, because they are recent and because there are many of them, leading to misunderstanding.The cognitions that contribute to availability bias constitute not only our recent memories but our entire individual creation—our samskaric impulses, our wishes and aversions, our network of thoughts, emotions, and tendencies, and, of course, our sensory inputs. All these seem near and urgent and become distortions in our awareness, resulting in contradictory priorities and confusion of purpose.Suppose you hear twelve different songs played simultaneously by twelve different musicians, each in a different key and with a different rhythm. How will it sound? However beautiful each song is individually, however masterful the musicians, it will only create noise. Likewise, our mind takes an interest in multiple things and becomes a center of chaos. There is nothing wrong with the mind; it likes to think, think, think! But it tends to remain absorbed in its own creation and becomes complex.&nbsp;We must train the mind. Our intentions must be focused. We must learn to play one song at a time, one musical instrument at a time, one thought at a time. Otherwise, there is no beauty but only dissonance. Our availability of energy should be to just one practice.Practicing any method demands some level of trust and confidence in that method. Practicing multiple methods creates multiple channels in the mind. It only means you are not happy with the method you arepracticing. It is like saying, “I am married to my wife but available to all.” You are not fully available to anyone. Availability to many is availability to none.&nbsp;Saranagati&nbsp;and devotion mean giving yourself entirely. If you give yourself to many, are you giving yourself entirely to anyone? You are always holding some part of yourself in reserve: “This is mine! I will not share it!” You are not really giving yourself to anything.I will repeat an ancient story Swami Vivekananda shared in Chicago at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893 (In Sanskrit, the story is called&nbsp;kupamanduka). Once, there was a frog that lived in a little well. It was born there, and never left that well in its whole life. The frog never imagined that there could be a world beyond the boundaries of his little well. That is, until another frog hopped in. This new frog was from the ocean, and she told the well-frog about the ocean’s waves, currents, depths, and vastness. But the well-frog could not believe any of this, for no ocean could be as vast as the well where he lived. So, he laughed at the ocean-frog and gave her a kick.Vivekananda told this story to explain the differences between religions, meaning that some people are stuck in their Hindu wells, others are imprisoned in their Christian wells, and so forth. The analogy goes further: We are all well-frogs imprisoned in the wells of our own individual and collective creations. We lend great importance to the contents of our personal well but even more importance to its resident, the very self. Rarely do we consider looking beyond this shadowy lair of self. The well symbolizes the proximity of information that triggers our availability bias toward ephemeral objects, inhibiting our bond with the eternal.Sahaj Marg is a way of transcendence. It provides the means to shatter the individual network, to become a frog of the ocean, so to speak. With cleaning, we remove the emotional memory—the samskaras that distort our understanding and misdirect our intentions—so we are left only with the cognitive memories of events. Without cognitive memory, we could not learn from the past. Such cognitive memory becomes our accumulated wisdom. Still, we remain within the bounds of that well of wisdom, for it is a wisdom derived from the past.Meditation bestows upon us the possibility of receiving superconscious inspiration, a futuristic vision not based on anything that has come before. It is a product of neither the past nor the present. So, with cleaning and meditation, there is the possibility of escaping the well of the here and now and stepping into the daylight of the eternal present.I heard a beautiful analogy once: Imagine that you are standing on a bustling city street with a towering skyscraper overhead. Your view is limited, extending only a short distance in each direction before the street disappears from your view. Down the street, a red car is approaching, but it has yet to enter your field of vision.High above, on the skyscraper’s 20th floor, someone gazes out of a window. That person’s elevated position gives them a broader view, perhaps spanning a mile in each direction. They can spot the red car in the distance long before it becomes visible to you. To you, the car remains in the future, yet for the person in the skyscraper, it’s already part of the present. And when the car eventually exits your sight, it becomes your past, while it continues to exist in the present for the person on the 20th floor.An evolved personality is like the person on the skyscraper’s 20th floor. From this elevated perspective, such a personality can observe what is the past and future for the rest of us, with the same clarity as we perceive the present moment.There was an instance during the Mahabharata war when Bhishma lay gravely wounded upon a bed of arrows. Lord Krishna approached him, and Bhishma asked the Lord, “What has led me to this fate? I’ve contemplated a hundred past lives, finding no justification for this destiny.”Krishna said, “Look beyond it.”Bhishma replied, “I cannot see beyond it.”In response, Krishna granted Bhishma the gift of glimpsing his deeper past. Now, Bhishma’s awareness could travel beyond its previous time- bound limitations, and he witnessed a previous life in which he held the status of a prince. During a fateful hunting expedition, he encountered a snake, grasped it by the tail, spun it around, and cast it onto a thorny bush, where it died. It was the repercussions of this action that Bhishma now confronted, explaining why those arrows had become his final resting place.<h2 style="margin-left:28pt;">“Surrender entails complete availability and acceptance; it is the price it takes for everything to take on its full meaning and to become constructive.”</h2>—Babuji Maharaj,<h2 style="margin-left:28pt;">Saturday, August 13, 2005 – 10:00 a.m.</h2>Being rigid, insistent, and demanding is antithetical to availability. Real availability is unconditional. To be available is to make oneself into an offering without any concern for reciprocity. To have a wish is normal, but to demand its fulfillment is to attach conditions to that offering of self. Availability that is conditional is not true availability. Unfulfilled wishes, both conscious and unconscious, keep us fixated and trapped in various emotional patterns and create a&nbsp;tamasic&nbsp;consciousness. Momentary disappointment is understandable, but a&nbsp;sattvic consciousness is resilient and quickly bounces back.&nbsp;For awareness to blossom into refined sensitivity, a high degree of acceptance must be established. It is easy to accept things that are desirable, but true acceptance requires acceptance of that which is painful as well. A sensitive person remains vulnerable to everything. Susceptibility to pain increases. If pain crosses the limits of one’s tolerance, Nature responds by kindly removing one’s sensitivity. Being deprived of one’s sensitivity, however, is tragic and bestows its own unique pain. &nbsp;<h2 style="margin-left:28pt;">“What are the aspirations of your heart? It is its availability, the fervor of its call which draws our attention and which makes us focus on it particularly.”</h2>—Babuji Maharaj,<h2 style="margin-left:27.95pt;">Thursday, April 8, 1999 – 8:00 a.m.</h2>The Sufi word for transmission is&nbsp;tavajjoh, which translates to “attention,” given by the Master to the disciple. People have misunderstood Babuji’s statement in&nbsp;Reality at Dawn: “We love him with faith and reverence trying by all means to attract his attention and favor.” It can be readily comprehended if one substitutes the word “transmission” for “attention” and “grace” for “favor”: We love him with faith and reverence trying by all means to attract his&nbsp;transmission&nbsp;and&nbsp;grace.Some individuals work for his attention and favor. Some shout and wave from a distance. Such attention is of no value, and if one labors for it, its fruit will be bitter. The true pursuit lies in drawing the Master’s transmission and grace, which embodies the essence of attention. The deeper one’s interiorization—pratyahara—the more this phenomenon unfolds. Pratyahara entails assigning due attention to the outer while devoting one’s primary focus to the inner dimensions. Worldly activities—work, conversation, reading, eating, and so on—necessitate a certain degree of attention, but not exceeding, let us say, five percent.Pratyahara’s essence lies in enhancing inner awareness and dedicating full attention to the inner world, for that is where one meets the Master. Availability to this inner presence is possible only when one remains in a state of pratyahara.You can be physically present with the Master but mentally absent. You can be mindfully present but heartfully absent. To be heartfully present is all that matters. During mealtime, family members gather, but in certain households, each person remains absorbed in their smartphones, immersed in their virtual worlds. The family may be together physically, yet in that moment there is no togetherness. Similarly, Babuji said that it is better for a disciple to remain at home while remembering the Master than to be in the physical company of the Master but remember their home. Being in the physical presence of the Master is a type of&nbsp;salokyata—being in his realm. However, it is on the spiritual level that one’s heart must be available and aligned with his. This is the state of&nbsp;sayujyata, osmosis with the Beloved.My prayer is for all to embody the beggar’s spirit portrayed in the story “A Fakir’s Wealth,” one who stands before the Master but has forgotten the bowl in his hands and the very purpose for which he has come. Whether it is to give or receive service, he does not remember. Still, he stands before the Master in profound openness and unwavering availability.<h2 style="margin-left:28pt;text-align:justify;">“Serving with all one’s soul is to have one’s heart wide open to the Divine and completely available, without wondering about the how and the why of what must be accomplished.”</h2>—The Venerable,<h2 style="margin-left:28pt;text-align:justify;">Tuesday, April 11, 2000 – 8:30 a.m.</h2>On the occasion of the 68th birthday of<h1 style="margin-left:37.4pt;text-align:center;">Daaji</h1>September 28, 2023, Kanha Shanti Vanam

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Availability

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Gratitude

<h2 style="text-align:center;">BECOMING YOUR</h2><h4 style="text-align:center;">AUTHENTIC</h4><h2 style="text-align:center;">SELF</h2>Dear friends,The spiritual goal we aim to achieve through Heartfulness practice, as defined by Pujya Babuji, is “complete oneness with God.” The reality of the goal transcends even that description, which represents the limit of our ability to conceive of it. The goal, oneness with God, implies a merger between God and self. For union to occur, there must be a level of identicality between two entities: Only like can merge with like. Therefore, the individual must attain a state of qualitative identicality with God. That is why the spiritual path requires that we focus on personal transformation, i.e., becoming progressively subtler finally to match God’s ultimate subtlety. The merger is possible only to the extent of our subtlety, the shedding of our personalities’ gross or lower aspects. The great masters, therefore, counsel us to improve our moral character. We frame evolution as a progression from animal consciousness to human consciousness and, ultimately, to divine consciousness. To attain higher levels of consciousness, our lower tendencies, emotions, and desires—which are present to some degree in all people due to our shared evolutionary past—must be dropped.The understanding of the need to transcend lower qualities is not exclusive to spirituality; the entirety of human culture seems to recognize this as a necessity. Human society, under the influence of animal tendencies, becomes violent and tempestuous. Religion has functioned as a regulating force with its twin instruments of fear and temptation, scaring us with threats of hell and tempting us with promises of paradise. Secular society uses the same two instruments of fear and temptation, rewarding selfless virtue with honor andTo attain higher levels of consciousness, ourlower tendencies, emotions, and desires—which are present to some degree in allpeople due to our shared evolutionary past—must be dropped.<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_07_AM_b9e7738d49.webp" alt="Screenshot 2024-06-24 at 11.52.07 AM.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_07_AM_b9e7738d49.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_07_AM_b9e7738d49.webp 566w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_07_AM_b9e7738d49.webp 566w," sizes="100vw"></figure>punishing vice and selfishness with social humiliation. In one way or another, the same message reaches us from all sides: Overcome your base tendencies. Whether our motivation is social or spiritual, we remain under enormous pressure to rise above our lower aspects and express only our virtues. A great burden, then, is placed on the individual who does not know how to overcome the tendencies from which they seek to be free. We come to fear the lowest aspects of ourselves to such an extent that we tend to repress them. The ego rejects these fearsome qualities and segregates them from the outward personality, instead relegating them to the subconscious mind. Yet, these qualities remain within us.The ego constructs our personality, which defines our conscious identity or persona. Ego is a term used to refer to the knowledge of one’s individual existence or identity. In the Yoga Sūtras, this concept is known as asmitā, which means “I-am-ness.” In the Bhagavad Gītā, which focuses on action, ego is called ahaṅkāra, a term referring to the sense of personal “doership,” a faculty sustained by the knowledge of identity. Both words—asmitā and ahaṅkāra—are different names for the ego. It is vital to note that the ego, which provides us with the knowledge of self-identity, is not the real identity itself. The real identity is the soul—the purusa or ātman. However, this authentic identity is hidden behind a veil of a false identity—a persona woven by the ego. Persona is a term which, in its older Latin formation, meant “mask.” A mask displays a false identity overtly while hiding the actual but covert face beneath it. The persona, therefore, can be understood as an impersonation of the real Person—the soul. To mistake the persona for the authentic Person is, according to Yoga, the basic avidyā [ignorance] to be overcome. Therefore, Yoga is a process of moving from the persona to the Person. The yogic idea is that the ego creates the overt personality through a process of confounding, or identifying, itself with attributes, objects, and actions—the elements of the persona or false self. For example, when we notice the presenceThe authentic identity is hiddenbehind a veil of a false identity—a&nbsp;persona woven by the ego.<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_27_AM_6c69b5b8db.webp" alt="Screenshot 2024-06-24 at 11.52.27 AM.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_27_AM_6c69b5b8db.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_27_AM_6c69b5b8db.webp 656w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_27_AM_6c69b5b8db.webp 656w," sizes="100vw"></figure>of generosity in our hearts, the ego identifies with that noble quality and proclaims, “I am generous.” Generosity is thereby assumed into the persona, and we feel that we are generous. The belief that we are generous now twists our natural generosity into a false display of generosity.The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung devoted much thought to the nature of the individual persona fabricated by the ego. His understanding 8 of 16 of the persona was that it includes both the way we see ourselves and the way we display ourselves to others, like a character assumed by an actor, identifiable by its mask. We are actors who have gotten lost in their roles and forgotten their real identities.The ego maintains the barrier between the conscious and subconscious aspects of our personality. One of Jung’s significant contributions was his insight that the ego is highly selective regarding what it chooses to identify with and what it rejects for inclusion in the persona. What happens when we notice an abhorrent quality in ourselves—cruelty, for example? For a spiritually aspiring individual, their “spiritual” ego will not wish to identify itself with this negative quality. Consequently, this negative quality will not be allowed a place within the conscious persona. What happens instead? The negative quality, cruelty, will be denied and repressed. It will be consigned to the dark recesses of the subconscious, where it will incubate and strengthen. Eventually, it will burst out, perhaps to the great shock of the concerned individual. That which is rejected from inclusion in the persona finds its way inevitably into the subconscious, whether it is a baser animal quality, an unacceptable desire, a taboo action, or doubt in the Master, the system, or God. Jung termed this collection of rejected and repressed feelings the “shadow-self” and stressed theThe lesson is that we can onlyovercome our inner darkness by facingit, shining the light of awareness intothe darkness of the subconscious.necessity of acknowledging its presence, thus integrating it with the conscious persona.There is a scene from one of Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back, in which Luke Skywalker is instructed by his master, Yoda, to venture into a gloomy jungle to face his deepest fear. Once inside the dark forest, Luke encounters an enemy who is soon revealed to be his own dark side—his shadow self—whom he defeats in battle. The lesson is that we can only overcome our inner darkness by facing it, shining the light of awareness into the darkness of the subconscious.<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_50_AM_b140027238.webp" alt="Screenshot 2024-06-24 at 11.52.50 AM.webp" srcset="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/thumbnail_Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_50_AM_b140027238.webp 145w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/large_Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_50_AM_b140027238.webp 726w,https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Screenshot_2024_06_24_at_11_52_50_AM_b140027238.webp 726w," sizes="100vw"></figure>This idea gives a new depth to Swami Vivekananda’s description of spirituality as expanding our thin layer of conscious awareness through the vast oceans of sub and superconsciousness. Expanding our conscious awareness through the subconscious means becoming aware of its contents. We must not allow ourselves to repress our negative qualities but face them instead, truly accepting their presence; we must not be afraid of identifying ourselves with them. Of course, there is no need to advertise your shadows. Instead, privately acknowledge their presence within you as the first step in transcending the parts of yourself that scare or overwhelm you. The need to confront the shadow-self is not frequently addressed in yogic discourse. For example, one of the reasons that Osho remains controversial today is his insistence on recognizing and respecting the presence of the baser tendencies of the human being and the means he employed to address them. However, we can acknowledge and overcome the shadowself within us without resorting to morally problematic methods or reinforcing those qualities through their expression.In his commentary on the tenth maxim, Babuji suggests that we take a few moments at bedtime and, with tearful eyes, sincerely lay our imperfections at the feet of the great Master, imploring for help and forgiveness. Consider what is happening in this scenario: It is nothing but a deep identification with our faults, to such an extent that tears form in our eyes. This single act achieves Jung’s ideal of integrating the shadow-self into the persona. With the feeling, “Beloved Master, this is what I am,” we consign the current persona to his care for dissolutionWith the feeling, “Beloved Master, this is what&nbsp;I am,” we consign the current persona to hiscare for dissolution in the divine currents.This is the real meaning of the yogic conceptof non-identification.in the divine currents. This is the real meaning of the yogic concept of non-identification.People often misunderstand Yoga’s suggestion that we cease identification with anything apart from the authentic Self. As a result, they repress what they consider to be unvirtuous or unspiritual. Non-identification means that, whatever we are, we always identify it in relation to the great Master—a relationship of dependence. In all situations and moods, we keep alive the remembrance of our dependence on the Divine. With frankness, internally offer yourself to Him: “This is what I am. Please help me to transform myself.” Babuji called this repentance. Repentance extends beyond facing our faults and inwardly submitting them to the Master. True repentance is equally an offering of our virtues and noble attributes, for if we are to enter the realm of ultimate purity, we cannot carry anything with us, neither the bad nor the good. Babuji urges us to achieve a state of poverty by transferring our entire burden to him, whether that burden consists of spiritual wealth or deficit. As Babuji wrote, when travelingTrue repentance is equally an offeringof our virtues and noble attributes, forif we are to enter the realm of ultimatepurity, we cannot carry anything withus, neither the bad nor the good.by rail, you hand over your heavy luggage to the train guard for ease and convenience; similarly, on the spiritual journey, we must hand over the heavy baggage of the conscious and subconscious self—the persona and shadow—to the Master.Meditation expands our awareness, allowing us to become conscious of the shadow-self within the darkness of the subconscious. However, it requires courage to confront the shadows within us and acknowledge that they are as much a part of us as the sattvic qualities we also possess. Remember that you have the power of the great Master at your back. When you constantly orient yourself toward him and submit both faults and strengths to his care, both the shadow-self and persona will wither away, allowing the authentic Self to merge with its Source and at last attain its original home.&nbsp;With love and respect,&nbsp;Kamlesh

Becoming Your Authentic Self

To achieve the correction of gross tendencies, Point A of the Heart Region is used for meditation and Point B is used for cleaning. It is highly effective in correcting self-indulging tendencies.&nbsp;<h2>Locating Points A and B</h2>Points A and B can be located by actual measurement. The heart lies in the left part of the body, near the lower part of the left lung. If we measure two fingers width straight to the right of the left nipple, and then proceed straight down, up to three fingers width, this is the position of Point A. Now proceed two fingers width straight down from Point A to find Point B – the measurement to be taken with your own fingers.<figure class="image"><img src="https://cdn-prod-static.heartfulness.org/Finger_3564363631.webp"></figure><h2>Meditation on Point A</h2>To achieve the correction of gross tendencies, Point A of the Heart Region is used for meditation. It is highly effective for correcting self-indulging tendencies as well as promoting a feeling of universal brotherhood and, in turn, creating unity amongst all. Fix your attention on Point A, with the thought that all the women and men of the world are your sisters and brothers. Hold your thought on this while you meditate on Point A, believing this to be the reality. This is a really short but extremely effective practice. If practised wholeheartedly you can see its effect immediately, and this effect will be permanent. This meditation is to be done before going to bed for not more than ten minutes.Sisters are advised to follow the process with a slight modification. Instead, think that all divine gifts are available to you, and that all men and women of the world think they are brothers and sisters and your thought is one with theirs.<h2>Cleaning on Point B</h2>Fix your attention on Point B and imagine that all impurities and grossness are going out from Point B from the front of the body. Imagine that as this process is going on, the glow of the atman, the soul, begins to appear from behind. This process is to be done before beginning your morning meditation, but never for more than ten minutes.<blockquote>BibliographyEfficacy of Raja Yoga in the Light of Sahaj Marg Complete Works of Ram Chandra, Volume IV A Preceptor’s Guide, Volume II</blockquote>&nbsp;<h2 style="text-align:center;">CHARACTER FORMATION SOME JEWELS FROM REVERED MASTER’S TALKS</h2>Spiritual practice must lead to character building and development but, as my Master has emphasised again and again, while he gives spiritual wealth to us, we have to use our willpower and our intelligence to mould our character to conform to our spiritual level. The conscience is only like a thermometer to judge how good or how bad one is. In spirituality we do not think of good and bad but of samskaras, and they are to be avoided. Sahaj Marg will surely work for social transformation too, but the effects will not be visible so soon.If people are coming to the spiritual life only to change the world (please listen to this carefully) – if people come to the spiritual life only to change the world, they will not achieve anything. I assure you. If you come to change yourself, there is a guarantee of success provided you apply yourself to changing yourself.…Therefore, brothers and sisters, here in this Mission, in our practice of spiritual life, the total responsibility for your welfare, for your happiness, for your growth is, bluntly, entirely on you – on nothing else, nobody else. It is not with the Mission, it is not with the prefects, it is not with what we teach – it is with each one of you, for yourself. You live by yourself; you work on yourself; you grow. You are the experiment; you are the object of the experiment; you are the experimenter. And when this combination is successful, you will be the result of that experiment.Meditation is the only way of building your character, which is only trying to make goodness in yourself, restore human values of friendship, brotherhood, companionship, love, compassion, forgivingness. And the first need is to forget everything that can make you different from others. Everything that points to you as something different in society must be dropped.But I tell you one of the most important things which Babuji Maharaj used to emphasise: the most important point of character is not to hurt anybody else’s feelings, and the most important is, never to hurt your mother’s feelings.The problem with human development is always the gap between aspirations and character building of the person concerned. Application of one’s will to character building is all that is necessary, remembering that the Master’s help is always present. I am happy to see your progress and pray for faster progress with time.Personal discipline goes a long way in spiritual progress. Personal discipline shows an inner discipline – that you are balanced, that you don’t put your needs before that of others. It shows itself in courtesy – you give way to others, let them sit first. You will let others eat first, don’t rush. If there is no sitting space, you allow older people to sit and you go and sit outside. All these must come from inside you. We cannot say, ‘Place reserved for old men’, ‘Place reserved for handicapped people’, and things like that. Inner discipline must show first of all: concern for others, willingness to help others before you help yourself and, in general, courtesy prevailing under all circumstances.

Messages

GIVEN BY DAAJI ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS