No doubt the world will be paradise but for that we have to work hard

The topic of the present seminar is from the message of the Master “Love Him who loves all” and it reads that “No doubt the world will be paradise but for that we have to work hard.” The word “paradise” has many connotations and every religion has its own version of the paradise. I have tried to portray the nature of paradise or heaven as I could understand from my meditational experiences and the knowledge that I otherwise gathered in my book “PAM and After life.” It may be taken to mean broadly a world where our wishes and aspirations get fulfilled automatically. The word I think may be taken to mean in this context a world of peace, harmony, prosperity and happiness.

But prosperity that we understand usually is an illusion of prosperity that our debt laden society provides. It has not led us to have more leisure time, as was the forecast a generation ago, nor has it helped us live better lives, build better relationships, or build better businesses. The average top management personnel can stay safe for not more than a few years. Even those who are considered successful and prosperous suffer from the physical or emotional ravages of stress during that period of the illusory prosperity. This prosperity surely has not led us to any paradise.

After our survival needs have been met, it is now agreed by all, that success cannot be realized by the simple financial bottom line but it has to be a derivative of the aspirations, purposes, passions and potentials we express in our personal lives. It is hoped then the paradise will descend on this earth. This demands considerable effort and enormous sweat.

The fundamental basis for human success after our basic survival needs have been met is the basic human desire to validate our existence not by what we get, but rather by what we can give. Our greatest pain does not come from what we cannot have, but rather from the invalidation that we feel at not expressing our potential in our lives. Our potential can only be expressed when we go back to the simple truth that the values that are most near and dear to us are the fabric that builds satisfaction and success. Values are more important than ever in our society where stress and discontent fill our workplaces, our communities and in our lives. Spiritual Values can lead us to create a better bridge between our heads and our hearts.

Often we are too busy, too pressured or too distracted to think about the basic simple fact that the values that we hold near and dear conflict with the way we are living and working and cause us undue stress and inner conflict. The wisdom however would lie in our stretching and growing those values to help us decrease stress and increase success in our lives. This requires careful prioritisation of our activities about which I shall say more later in this paper.

It is time to begin to build lives, businesses and organizations that mirror the universal values that speak to an evolution of the inner spiritual self. How much better would we feel if we took our best self to work and to play each day by living the values that we hold near and dear? How much more efficient and effective would our organization be if we could take the Masters statements into play in real life and real time? These are questions that I would like every earnest seeker in the path of the Master to answer for himself and display such an answer in the way in which they live. It needs no emphasis that this is the way to mould our lives to arouse love and devotion amongst our brethren.

Master said that “I want capable men and women to help in the task ahead. No doubt the world will be paradise but for that we have to work very hard. What we have to do is only to have a strong grip always on Divinity. I never felt disappointed and worked single handed and the result is before us all. I have full confidence in myself with the Masters’ hand at my back; and it has always worked. The same thing I want from all of you.” It takes enormous courage for a person to look beyond the conditioning of his belief systems and admit that he knows nothing about even the most basic aspects of his life. It is not a matter of belief to say that we have two legs– we know that there are two legs even if we do not consciously see them. It is experientially clear to us. But when it comes to God, we have been told to believe: Nobody usually asks us to explore Divinity. But without an enquiring mind, we cannot know anything beyond our limited levels of existence- there will be no inner growth. This is one singular challenge that Master has provided for us and asked to know the Ultimate Reality through our imperience assuring us all the time that his support is there in this holy endeavour.

Belief cannot transform us. But if we experience the Divine, it will leave us to some extent transformed. Once we have moved in the path of Pranahuti Aided Meditation where the original Prana is infused from the beginning it will not be the same world as before even if we were to leave the path. I will not be wrong in saying that one who has tasted Pranahuti from a competent person is eternally bound to it. For, where experience is absent, whatever we believe in is of no significance. Divine emotions do spring within us when we talk about God and fear arises whenever there is a talk of devil. That is the nature of mind.

The mind is a fluid, we can make anything out of it. How it is shaped simply depends on how it is influenced. If we look deeply, what we call our mind is really something we have borrowed from thousands of people around us. We have accumulated this mind in bits and pieces. Our mind is just our background - depending on the kind of family we come from, our education and religion, the country or society we belong to and the world we are living in. Master in his message titled “Problem and its Solution” provides a lucid exposition of this concept. I request the participants in the seminar to study this article when their time permits.

The mind is necessary to survive in this world, but it will not take us to the Truth. This can only be done by knowing experientially, not intellectually. Whatever we know intellectually is not knowing in the real sense and it is most of the time a distortion. The intellect is just a survival tool, a limited aspect of our life. Modern man knows that survival is not enough and also that it is not fulfilling. So if we want to go into deeper dimensions of life, first we need the necessary instruments. We experience life with our five sense organs. With this we cannot know anything beyond the physical. If we want to measure the depth of the ocean, we cannot go with a foot scale. That is what is happening with people when it comes to knowing Divinity or the Truth Eternal. People are approaching the greatest questions of life without the necessary instruments and thus jump to wrong conclusions. On examination, we find that what we call as our self, what we perceive as our personality, is nothing but a bundle of conclusions about life. A spiritual process cannot mean jumping to another set of conclusions. Only when we dare to exist here without conclusions and be just an insignificant particle of existence, then we have the possibility to know the limitlessness of our being. Verily in non-being is hidden the meaning of our being.

There is a small story which I would like to talk about in this context. Once there was a philosopher fish. As he was sitting in great misery and worry, another fish passed his way, stopped and said, "Philosopher why are you in such misery?" The philosopher fish said, "Wherever I go every body is talking about the ocean. I want to find this ocean. I went east, west, north, south, and I can not find this ocean." See, for the philosopher fish, belief in the ocean is not enough - he wants to experience it for himself. Now the problem is, he is also part of the ocean. He is unable to perceive the ocean because he has no adequate tool of perception. This is also true of us if we do not have a true and perfect path to the Divine. It is His Grace that has provided us the Path of Grace.

We had on earlier occasion talked about the Hawkins Scale of Consciousness. Dr. Kesava Reddy took trouble to explain to us during the last Basanth celebrations (2005), and explained how David Hawkins demonstrates that people of higher frequencies of consciousness support people on this planet who are below the critical 200 level. We also noted that if humanity as a whole vibrates below the 200 level on the Hawkins Scale of Consciousness, then it is doomed to extinction through a downward spiral into an eventual self-destruction. Because of the billions of inhabitants on this planet whose circumstances prohibit even a secure chance of survival, there is plenty of downward pressure within the mass mind of humanity. It is an approximation that there are 800 million people that are hungry, with many of them living near starvation. The consciousness of despair in the Hawkins scale tests at a level of just 50. Even anger and hatred rate higher in frequency than the deep depression experienced by those who live with no appearance of hope. So here we are, on Planet Earth, a collective humanity swimming hard through life to keep our selves above the 200 level, working towards the day when hunger and hopelessness will be eradicated from our world once and for all. Realisation of this basic factor I think made saints like Swami Vivekananda demand that the problem of poverty should be tackled before we can talk of any Vedanta, religion or spirituality. It is such a world that needs to be changed into a paradise.

Master in his message “Spiritual way of Life” stated that the “The world today, is in a state of unrest and disorder. Everybody seems to be crying for peace. But all efforts for bringing about peace appear to end in failure. The reason is that all efforts are merely external, touching only the outer surface. In fact the problem is far from being related to the world in general; really it is the problem of the individual first and of society afterwards. As such it needs to be tackled in that order. World peace is closely related with the peace of the individual for which one has to take into account the inner state of one’s mind. If man’s mind is brought to the state of peace and order, everything in the outside world will get into order in the same colour. But it is sad that the world has lost its real basis, and for its reestablishment, it is necessary to adopt means which may promote the feeling of peace and calmness of mind of the individual man. What we have to do for the purpose is to introduce proper adjustments in the mental tendencies of the individual, which in effect is the proper moulding and regulation of the mind. This is possible when the individual mind develops upto the state of the Universal Mind. Just imagine! There will then be no problem!” …..” The Master concludes this argument with the sentence “The only way open to mankind is to take to the spiritual way of life, which is unfortunately absent today leading to all this chaos.” It is to be noted that this message was given in 1969.

What can we do to help? As we raise our consciousness to the Universal Mind level, we contribute more and more to the spiritual quality of the global mind. Therefore, our greatest service to humanity is, surprisingly, the development of our own consciousness.

Many persons have a nagging doubt about life, one which comes and goes and sometimes troubles them deeply. They intuitively feel that they are here on Earth to help humanity, but they just can not seem to figure out what exactly they are supposed to be doing about it. The problem really comes from our current education and social training. We are taught, from a very early age, to do things and achieve outward results, to build monuments of our outward 'doingness' (if I may call it so) for all to see.

The answer to the dilemma lies in understanding that there is a difference between doing and being, and that our state of being does make a difference. It actually affects the mass consciousness of the world. The research behind the Hawkins Scale of Consciousness reveals the enormous power of just being, especially when we raise our consciousness in order to be the best we can be. We can support literally millions of people on planet Earth just by virtue of being what we are, by being a person moving in the realms of Cosmic and Universal Consciousness or even at the Centre of all Consciousness. I may say that’ to be’ is’ to do’ in Brahmand mandal.

We may recall reaching 500 on the Hawkins Scale of Consciousness requires a person to be spiritually conscious. At this level, unconditional love and unconditional forgiveness is the living and abiding reality. Here, one person counterbalances 750,000 people who are below the 200 level. When a person has practiced meditation long and diligently enough to attain bliss consciousness at the 600 level, he at that moment is counterbalancing 10 million people below the 200 level. And that is our contribution to the peace of this world as well as its transformation. It needs no stress that we are obliged to live in that plane and all the more so because of the help that we get from our beloved Master Rev. Babuji Maharaj. This surely is a hard work and if we have love for Master and his message to the world we will not feel the strain and in fact will work in absolute peace and happiness.

Our system which is a complex of knots and points of spiritual life receive energy from the cosmos and from the local environment. Our thoughts and feelings condition life energy as it passes through us, out into the mental environment, or the atmosphere of the global mind. When we are operating from the frequencies of our upper knots beyond the Pind desh we are operating in spiritual service to the world. Through consciously participating in the Divine Plan we are spiritually conditioning the atmosphere of the global mind and making the world a better place. Our thoughts and aspirations do get transmitted into the atmosphere of a global mind that is hungry for, more than anything else, the spiritual light.

It is in this context we may understand the type of guru-Dakshina the Master was asking from Dr. K.C.Varadachari. Continuing his reading of the last phase of spiritual condition of Dr.K.C.Varadachari in Brahma Laya, Master wrote in his letter dated 18th May 1968, “On 11th May 1968 at 1-35 P.M. I found your condition coming to normalcy. It has now mostly come to normal. But I want that this stage may be so settled that I may find it almost unreadable and it is going to be such. At this stage I deserve Dakshina that you should try to prepare at least a dozen like yourself and continue to help others spiritually.” What a noble demand? To be in such a state is necessary to bring forth the divinization of man. Master says that “All that we have now to do is, to bring them (conglomeration- kcn) back again into their original state or in other words, to restore them to a state of poise and tranquillity so as to keep up the link with Divinity.

Such persons would naturally be around 1000 level+++ counterbalancing more than 1000 million+++ ordinary persons living below the 200 level. If each such person can counterbalance 1000million or more persons and if there were to be 12 persons available in the globe it means it counterbalances 12000+++ million persons grossness. That is the individual guru Dakshina that Master wanted from Dr.K.C.Varadachari and surely we are also expected to offer such Dakshina. Then if we were to do our task diligently with love and devotion to Master the world will surely be a paradise.

We are all aware of churning of butter milk to get butter. We are familiar with the sound waves generated in a balanced, symmetrical pattern on the surface of the liquid. Then, if we churn it faster by increasing the frequency of churning we observe that the neat pattern on the surface of the butter milk becoming choppy and discordant. However, when we increase the frequency up still more, a new pattern emerges, one which is even more complex and beautiful. The chaos that was observed was only a temporary phase between one natural state of harmony and its transformation into a higher form.

In much the same manner I think the transformation of humanity will be arrived after a bit of turmoil to finally reap a better pattern and order. This is going to be tough but Master has asserted that “We are all brethren connected intellectually, morally and spiritually- the main goal of human life. This and that have gone now. There remains the purity alone in all His work and environment which weaves the spiritual destiny of the persons with the Ultimate.” This is going to be tough and the Master is calling for Lions to help him in this task of transformation of humanity. The existing patterns which are a few millennia old are already facing enormous churning and a peculiar chaos exists now. In its place we are finding a choppy pattern even as we observe in the butter milk. New Era is emerging and old order is slowly yielding to the new even as the Divine wills it. Master asserts that “every day my work is becoming easier because it is now the Divine dictate.” However the present age that we are witnessing is abound with discords at a personal and social level seeking attention and resolution. I think as the frequency rises even more, the chaotic outbreaks upon the surface of life will settle into a new pattern, one which is even more complex and beautiful, coherent, cohesive, Natural and Balanced.

Balanced living is not going to be that simple what with the challenges of the modern world and growing indiscriminate competition and unbridled aggression in all walks of life. While it is not simple to say what qualifies a lifestyle in which balance reigns, there are some basic life management skills that can help us lead to a life of balance. I have personally found these to be useful.

First and foremost we must identify not more than four priority items in our life which are critical for living in a balanced manner. It may be spirituality, career development, family harmony, health, healthy relationships with all etc., Often we have expectations of ourselves that are unreasonable given the amount of time we actually have to devote to something. If, for example, we are giving only 2 hours a day for spiritual life (I am not talking about the time spent in regular sadhana) we naturally cannot expect to achieve anything significant or great. But if kids and family are a top priority to us, giving only 2 hours a day to spirituality is probably the most we could give.

We need to write things down. The best of the brains cannot be trusted to be a good day planner. Trusting brains in this regard increases stress. It would be wise to have plans for all the priority areas and evaluate the same once in a month so that adjustments can be made according to the needs. This is what the Institute suggests by providing a sheet for planning our goals in the diary book.

From these lists we should make sure that important items in our priority categories are attended first. I have always attended to the spiritual plans before doing any thing and thus got myself tuned to the Commandments of the Master. I was known almost to be forthright or even rude because I was not afraid to use that good word "no" when ever thought it is necessary to say so. We have little time for guffaw and gossip if we seek to achieve our chosen priorities in life.

I also practiced very diligently being in the present moment only. I have had very few days when I would be thinking about my pending files in office when I was at home with the family. Fact is there is absolutely nothing that I could do at home about those things on my table in the office. Worrying about it takes precious time and attention away from our priorities and increases our feelings of dissatisfaction about life. I do not like to fool you by saying that I could do this the moment I thought about this way of doing things. It took literally ages of psychological time. It meant considerable self- control and my wife was a great asset in bringing to attention what was happening at the moment. There were many times outbursts and shouts within and without and I understood that I was being tested about my priorities. But all that brought me rewards and awards from the Master.

I had to be patient with myself putting up with my lapses. It was a different matter when my beloved father and revered Master were there to seek consultation from them in critical and sensitive matters. Because I was entrusted with the task of training others in spiritual life, I learnt first and foremost that Master has loved me by giving such permission. I realised that I had nothing else to seek for. I started to love life that was gifted to me by the Divine and in such a process started loving all. I may add that balanced living is an ongoing process and we have to face tough situations where our skills of balancing will be tested severely. The sheet anchor I had in the Master has always guided me and this is due to my priority to spiritual life. The practice of having and living with the Master has enabled me invariably to bounce back to equilibrium quicker if not easier. That is pure and simple happiness.

My studies about philosophies and psychologies of various varieties and my meditations lead me to propose that there is really a super rational way of knowing which can be developed consciously. Though this appears to be a tall claim my experience makes me state that as we travel and unravel the mysteries of the various knots in the Path of Grace shown to us by our great Master, a trans rational and Noetic direct awareness and knowledge of things seem to dawn. There appears to be a new way of thinking that allows the volitional and direct access of the infinite resources of Universal Mind or Brahmanda Consciousness. Although this transrational thinking is highly personal I do hope a method for developing transrational thinking will emerge soon and lift human thinking from war and strife to peace and concord. Such Brahmanda Consciousness will not be any more the realm of mystics alone but it will soon be the consciousness of ordinary human beings of the coming days. Such transrational thinking will consciously and intentionally tap the infinite resources and knowledge of the Universal Mind. Such a Mind will understand that

I. There is a basic unitary reality underlying all existing phenomena or entities and this reality is pure potentiality (it can be what it is conceived to be).

II. All the mental and physical individual forms of our world are manifestations or actualizations of that reality.

III. Through our Individual Mind we can access any information actually existing in our world or potentially residing anywhere in Reality.

If there is one thing that is important for us to know, it is that every thought, even the most insignificant, is a living reality. Thoughts can even be seen even as Master stated: they are seen as vapours and clouds of varying colours and shades. The discerning persons will now understand why the words vapour and smoke were used in the purification process by the Master. Of course on the physical plane, a thought is invisible and intangible, but none the less it is real in its own region and with its own subtle matter, it is living and active. It is clear that the paradise we are talking about is in the mental plane only. Happiness and Joy are states of mind and not physical realities. What is it that we can do to have such a mind?

Obviously as was stated earlier we require living in the Universal Mind where the individual petty self would be nominal in the sense of retaining its individuality and where our nominal identities fuse with the Universal. Selfishness gone there are no grounds for comparison or conflict and everything is seen as Unity. The imperience of the aspirants will enlighten them in this regard in more detail and the nature of Brahmanda mandal and Parabrahmanda mandal may be gleaned by going through the book Path of Grace. Thought is the main energy form which operates in this realm.

Thought forms can be described as energetic patterns that exist within our aura, and they are created by our own thoughts. (Thought I clarify is straight and simple while thought form is a complex of similar and coherent thoughts fused together. Ex: Name of a person is thought while the person himself is a thought form. Nama is thought, Roopa is form. Namaroopa is thought form. All Sankalpa are Namaroopa) So if we have the thought, "I have all the energy I need” with the special will developed, we will create a thought form which makes this so, and this newly created thought form will then live happily as part of our inner aura. Repeating this suggestion usually makes the will less powerful. It is this thought form that is used in our meditation method. Such a thought form helps draw towards us all the circumstances we need to make our will come true. If initially our thought form is stable it leads to regularity in meditation and such regularity in meditation in turn strengthens our will to be in a higher plane.

The Universal Mind has a different type of prayer and it aims always at happiness for all. Viewed from this angle the prayer given by the Master where we seek that human fraternity is moving towards the Divine not only enables us to stabilise our position in the Universal Consciousness but also does enormous good to humanity in general. Such well developed thought forms will continue to help us clear all obstacles between us and the optimum energy levels that we want to create for the good of the world. This could take weeks, months, or could be a life time work! But the progress we make in this regard will be before us to see and that motivates us further to improve our efforts. We will then naturally work hard.

In the lower order mind of petty self centred Ego we have thought forms of depression and gloominess. They always respond to certain triggers with hopelessness and despair. Similar are the thought forms of gluttony and rage. Such thought forms know only how to exist as they are and so they will always attempt to deal with life in the same way. Did you ever imagine that Rage and Gluttony and many such negative behaviour can be rituals and routines? This may be considered as the basis of repetitive compulsion in our behaviour. It is absolutely essential that healthy and universal thought forms like love, kindness, sympathy, non-jealousy, friendliness, fraternity are developed by us assiduously. Eliminating the negative qualities like hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, possessiveness would automatically follow by the positive thought forms which we create and cultivate. We should never attempt to eliminate these negative thought forms by working on them directly. In such an event they grow stronger and more recalcitrant. The path of the Master shown in the Ten Commandments of our system is of great assistance to us.

Thought forms as we have observed on earlier occasions have great power, when used together with intent, and this is how the power of affirmations, speaking them, writing them, thinking them, effectively and over time will bring about positive change. So for example, affirming "I love and approve the world” will help heal a negative thought form that is creating, "This is a useless world.” Affirmations are often not enough in themselves, but work well when combined with faith in the Master and his method.

A well maintained diary and assistance taken from a trainer who uses Pranahuti goes in forming such thought forms of the Universal Mind. The thought form power used by the trainer who utilises the power of word and sound at the subtle and subtler levels carries the healing energy which is channelled through the thought forms. Certain times the suggestions or thought forms used by the trainer may consist of several aspects of different knots. This infact is a way of communicating directly to our thought forms which are complex patterns. In most of us, there are a number of thought forms, all working in different directions, and through Pranahuti sessions with a trainer we can bring them under conscious control and enable them work together in harmony and for the highest good. The cleaning sessions with the trainer usually brings in many negative energy patterns and convert them into positive energy patterns. It is the very nature of Pranahuti to harmonise and bring the individual mind to the level of the Universal Mind.

The hard work behind this process of making this world a paradise will be more evident when we realise that every one of us possess two entities within and each of these entities advocates choices that ensure its survival. The question is what are these entities and what is their definition of survival? For most, the mind is the henchman of the ego, i.e. the ego calls the shots and employs the mind to do its bidding. The ego is that which gives us identity and separates us from others. The ego, when in charge, runs the mind in very much on an autopilot fashion, making unconscious decisions which ensure that the ego survives. The other entity that lives within us is the Universal-Self or God-self, that which dissolves distinction amongst us and promotes unity. The God-self however is helpless when the ego has enabled the mind to function on autopilot, which manifests itself in the stimulus-response sequence.

In order for the God-self to gain hearing rights, the autopilot must be switched off, proffering an interruption in the stimulus-response sequence by inserting observation, a brief moment to consider the validity of said response such that the sequence now reads Stimulus-Observation-Response, or S-O-R. Observation gives the God-self the opportunity to utilize the mind towards its own ends. This is another way of looking at Viveka and its role in our sadhana. It is wisdom, when the Observer finds the Stimulus overwhelming to seek an adept in the path to regulate the response.

The ends of the ego are to perpetuate the myth that we are all separate organisms with independent and uncorrelated destinies. The ends of the God-self are to dissolve this myth and assert that we are all one. The God-self anchors decisions on love, i.e. the decisions which expresses most love for all. The ego anchors decisions on fear, i.e. which decision benefits personal well-being and/or those in close personal network and allays fear that perceived enemies can do harm.

When the ego is in charge, the individual receives identity from the decision-making process, explained in the Cartesian philosophy with the famous "I think therefore I am" or "I am my past, my decisions" or "My autopilot is good." Identity of this sort yields a reactive state, where the true self or God-self is silent and the mind’s reactions to its environment becomes the reality or identity. This is like thinking that a telephone is good because we just heard good news from it. The conduit or medium for action, the mind, is not the message, it is the messenger. The question is then, if the mind is only the messenger, who sent the message and what is the identity of this entity? With no ‘O’ in the S-O-R model, the ego is the messenger. When the O (Observation) exists in the S-O-R model, the God-self is the messenger. It is easy to tell which is sending the message by

(1) the conscious realization of a pause or O or otherwise and

(2) the intent of the message to either maximize personal well- being or that of the whole planet or Universe.

If one begins to make decisions from the God-self and truly assert his/her freewill, he/she identifies not with the body, history or decisions, but with everything. Unfortunately, most of the time our consciousness or self-awareness in engaged only when our physical bodies interact with our environment. However, because a set of laws governs the interaction between bodies, does not necessitate that the bodies are entirely separate, as laws govern people with families, govern families within society, govern states within countries, countries amongst the planet, planets amongst a solar system and so forth. Each entity is a truth, but part of a more-whole superceding truth. The same laws which govern tiny spaces, we know govern those between stars. The truth is our identities, reality and purpose is one. The God-self knows this and seeks to maximize the well-being of one. He demands that we inject the O into the S-O-R model and enable oneness to become manifest. This is hard work and it is also an act of free will that has to be exercised by us.

In conclusion, I may say that if we have to work hard we need to exercise our freewill. The freedom to choose to act with the consciousness of Brahmand. Freewill is pure action, from the God-self and not from the ego. Free will exists when the God-self gains the opportunity to optimize the greater good and only when the autopilot has been disengaged such that O exists in the S-O-R model. Master is asking only to exercise our Freewill and cooperate with him and the Divine to make this world a Paradise. I know we are Lions and we shall surely make our Master hear our roaring his message through our intentions, thoughts and actions.

Pranams.