Treasures Along the Path

In that story that I read last night

about the other wise man, what we found was that he was faced with a dilemma, whether it was a divine opportunity or whether it was a temptation for him to serve these people in need of help, rather than save his offering to take as he had planned, originally, to the Christ child, or to the Christ, the grown Christ.

And it seems to me that that symbolizes also a question that has been very real at Ananda since its inception, and that has been coming gradually more and more into focus.

I know

we can't here in America, have all the ancient ways of life, the ancient traditions, which are beautiful but simply not possible given the social, social setup that we have right now.

The obvious one which came to my mind years ago on this subject was, who can really be a wandering Sadhu?

You'd get picked up for vagrancy, you'd get run over. You'd get asphyxiated with carbon monoxide.

You'd get picked up by people, if they if you were hitchhiking, who would not be open or receptive to find the people who are really open to these teachings, you more or less have to put down roots in one place. This isn't the time to be wandering from pilgrimage place to pilgrimage place, as they do in the ancient tradition of India. It's rather the time to create those pilgrimage places, and so we've had to, in various ways, adapt these old teachings, these ancient teachings, to our culture, our time, and see how we can spiritualize this culture more, rather than bring in as a complete transplant, foreign ways of doing things that are beautiful in themselves, but aren't pertinent to more than just a handful of people born here with such strong Indian samskaras that all they really want to do is wander around with robes and burn incense and sing Indian chants, but we're trying to help to uplift a whole culture. And so it is that we're faced with the same dilemma of in a different way, but it's it's still very similar. Is it?

Is it a temptation to want to create a way of life that will become completely meaningful here, or is it an opportunity? How often I think those of us who have been here any length of time at all must have wished, as I know, I have wished, that we could make Ananda a

real Hermitage, a real ashram, a place where people only come to meditate and chant and be in seclusion and have lofty thoughts. The lofty thoughts may be there, but the other things aren't the the

way of life that we have today. Divine Mother from the very beginning, has imposed on us the very severe discipline of having to earn our own bread. We don't have a large congregation as the Catholics would have. We don't have a huge number of Hindus out there, a few of whom would surely be willing to help keep another ashram going. Most people out there couldn't care less what we're doing, and some people are impressed that we're doing it, but don't have any tradition that supports them in the thought that they are getting extremely good karma when they support a divine work. Most people don't know that, though it's true, and so they they sort of let us go along and we get a few donations, but we've really had to work hard. Divine Mother has done that for a very good and benign purpose. It's our opportunity. It's not a temptation. That we've got to bring this teaching down into the cold light of day. And if there were one way that I would describe the work that I've done, and by extension, that we're all doing in one way or another. It's to do just that, to bring these teachings down to where people can relate them meaningfully to a world that seems so totally at variance with these spiritual truths, to show how they can make our lives more pertinent, to show how we can spiritualize even the most mundane activities.

Sathya Sai Baba said something very interesting that was quoted to me in New York on my way back from Egypt,

that when you're working your japa should be your work. That may be an extreme statement, because there are lots of works where you can Bucha.

Mentally and still work. But the very interesting and deep point that he was making was that you don't become more spiritual if you withhold part of yourself and sort of try to do your spiritual your work out there as if that didn't count. That's not spiritual. I've got to do it, darn it, but and then I can still keep remembering God and do a shoddy job. But I have my perfect excuse. I'm a devotee that's not being a devotee. A devotee has to bring that reality down to wherever he is and whatever he's doing, and to spiritualize that, making it an act of worship, putting all his energy in there. That is his japa, that is his mantra at the time. That's what Sathya Sai Baba was saying. That's basically what Master was teaching us, and that is an experience that I think, as we look back over this past year, has been a large part of what people have been growing into. I'll try to make it more specific, because it's good at the end of the year to look back and think, Well, what have we learned? What have we done? Where are we going? And

I think this has been a year full of lessons,

one of the most important lessons, and the one that I've wanted to address specifically with this talk today, and the what I've said so far has been preamble, has been a tendency that I've observed among devotees, yogis, followers of spiritual teaching, and particularly that kind of teaching, which says that you must neutralize the feelings, that you must become absolutely impartial, that You must be above humanity and recognize that you are the Infinite Light, and that the deepest truth of our being is, in fact, impersonal.

And yet what happens? And I've seen this happen, not only in this country, but in India too,

that if you've got that kind of setup where you can really just be immersed in God all the time,

if you have that kind of karma, and if you had it, you'd be there,

then you don't need to think about your humanity, because It's true that if you can put enough energy into the one side, the other just vanishes. But what I've seen is that people are afraid to be themselves. They come onto the spiritual path and they think, oh, it looks as if I was angry, but really I wasn't angry. I couldn't have been because I'm a devotee.

So what do they do? They're not overcoming their anger, don't you see, there's a difference between affirmation with awareness and simple refusal to face the facts.

If you are angry, don't say I shouldn't be angry, and therefore I'm not say I have been angry. I choose not to be angry again. What do I do about it? If you affirm with a knowledge of what you are, that is an essential starting point, and what happens if you don't

you suppress it? And what happens when you suppress things, they begin to fester and they get worse. This is something that the West can give to India,

this whole idea of what happens when you suppress things instead of transmuting them, when you try to push them into your subconscious and not feel and not not smile and not weep and not get angry and not get upset and not love.

And what do you do then

you still have those same tendencies, if you had them in the first place, and then you get you shove them down, and they become something much bigger, and they come out in ways that you can't understand. You get ulcers or diarrhea or colds or just feel unhappy or start you find yourself saying unkind things to people, and you don't know why.

We must be honest with ourselves. We must face where we are. We must realize that that

to rise above feeling is possible only after you've coped with feeling, after you've recognized and accepted where you are, and then decided I choose to be something else.

Ramakrishna, one time, was suffering.

I forget what it was, broken bone or a cut or something. He was weeping like a child. And there was a rich devotee who donated money to the temple there, who came to visit. And the disciples were trying to tell the devotee, no, no, he's too busy. They didn't want the devotee to see their master in a light that might make the devotee disillusioned with this great master. And Ramakrishna heard that the man was there, and he considered him a friend. He said, Oh, come, bring him in. And they had to. And he.

Sweeping. He said, Look at my arm. It hurts.

And yet master said that same saint, one time was dancing in ecstasy, and he fell into a hot brazier of burning coals, and one of them got stuck in his flesh and was burning. And the disciples smelled the smoke of burning flesh, and when they saw it, they were so horrified, they were stammering, and he said, What are you looking at? Oh, take it out.

Master used to weep for his disciples. When they fell from the path, he would weep for the pains of others. Jesus could weep for

Jerusalem,

the penalty, or, I should say, the price that you pay for opening up your heart is that you feel more.

We must learn to feel we've we've tended there's been too much unreality in our life here, and this is something I've tried this year to do,

consciously and unconsciously, both

that I've tried to demonstrate to people, I've tried to bring things out to people where they could see that it's okay to be who you are and to face it, and only then can you become something more, whereas if you try to be something that you aren't, then you'll never become either. You'll just end up with a large area, whole continent, of your being just totally unrecognized and frankly, numb.

So I think this has been perhaps the greatest need that I've felt in the community as a whole. And Christmas time is perhaps the best of all times to talk about it. The need to learn to express love, the need to learn to express appreciation and kindness and loyalty and pain if you feel it, and sorrow, if you feel it. And then once you've understood that and accepted it, then comes a deeper level. And I've learned a lot this year, and I'm really grateful for it. I haven't felt so free in my whole life as I feel right now and as I felt most of this year. And I know it doesn't look it, but not for a second. If I said to God, why must this be? Or not for a second, if I complained, I have always consciously said, Thank you, God, I'm happy to have whatever you want me to have. You see, you can go to the dentist, this is what I've done, and I don't take Novocain because I don't like that numb feeling that I get in my lips. And

so naturally, when they drill, it's not, not the sort of thing that you equate with life's greatest thrills, but

I just accept it as a sensation, and if it gets worse, I accept it as pain. But I refuse to accept it as something bad.

I refuse to define it as pain, if I can, and if the sensation has to be defined as pain, I still say, Fine, that's all right. It doesn't matter. As soon as I don't define it as bad, I find I can take it very easily. I had a lovely experience that way. One of the things that I'm really I've never been good at is sailing. Anytime I get on a ship that's in dock and I start heading for the rail, and not quite literally, but I can remember all those times with the smell of the ship, all those times when it took me to the edge, literally,

in Australia.

Back a couple of years ago, I was out on green island, and it was beautiful, and I decided it was so lovely that I wanted to stay there. It's on the Great Barrier Reef, but I had to go back. The next day, I could only stay one night, and the next day, the weather was just awful. And 16 miles on a slow boat that did corkscrew motion, sort of like this.

And I looked at that and I thought, 16 miles, my God, I've got to do something. And so I said, What don't I like about it? The fact that I don't think it should

be, the fact that every time, the

fact that every time that ship is going down, I'm trying to pull it up, and every time it's going up, I'm going to push it down.

And so I say, Okay, I'm going to get rid of that simple thought. I say it should be. And every time the ship lurched and pitched and jumped and heaved and everything. I'd say great,

and I reached the end of the journey exhausted from the exertion of willpower,

but feeling great.

I don't think that we want to be like the those American Indians who made it a point of pride, not to feel anything, not to betray anything, when you when you kill yourself like that. It's like the scientists who think, well, to be objective. We don't want to feel. We just want to be rational, but your feeling is a part of the mechanism that you have to understand reality. And pain is as much a part of this world as pleasure. Darkness is as much a part of this world as light.

Think thunder and rain are as much a part of it as sunshine, and what we need to do is bring ourselves to the point where we say, wonderful.

It's okay. Pain has its beauty too,

without the sorrow, as I say in my song, were

it not for men's woes? Who would smile? It arose. And it's true. And so there are two levels there, and this is where freedom comes in, not saying, Oh, I mustn't suffer. That's not to be human. When somebody hurts you, when somebody does something wrong to himself or herself, to say, I don't care, is one of the it's a cheap way out, and it doesn't work in the long run, because all you do is deaden yourself. But to say, I care, and then grieve about it personally, and say, Oh, why did it happen? And get angry with God. This is not faith. This is not love. This is not true love. And forgive me, those of you who have felt it, I have felt it in the past. I certainly know what it's like, but I also have found, and it's been a wonderful experience for me, that there can be freedom in the midst of pain if you just accept it. There's nothing wrong with feeling pain. Why should you? You would be insensitive if you didn't as I said, it's the price that you pay for opening your heart, for loving and yet it's a noble and worthwhile price. Because when we can feel the joys and the sorrows of life and feel them deeply and not feel they should be anything but what they are. So when the joys come, all right, as long as you want, it divine mother, and when the sorrows come, as long as you want, it Divine Mother, you have something to teach me That's wonderful. It doesn't matter. I just want what you want. When we can live like that, then is when we have freedom, because there isn't the sense of the ego principle. It's sort of like that story of mine in the path where I say I'm a Greek, as opposed to I'm a Greek,

the one is tuning into the subject of Greek and mastering it. The other is saying, I and putting yourself in the way of learning because you've created a

barrier to the natural flow of creation, of absorption, of understanding. So you can say, I feel pain, not I feel pain. You see, it doesn't have to be you. It's something that exists. The world is full of it. The world's a mess, but it's also got its beauties, and it's not a mess, if we can see that all of it is just the play of light and shadow like that, that through many lives,

I've drunk the cup of pleasure and I've drunk the cup of sorrow, and there isn't anything it can ever add up to, as I've said many times, but zero,

because the pluses and the minuses have to cancel each other out before we can be free. So we shouldn't expect anything in this world. We shouldn't expect anything from this world. We should not expect fulfillment from this world, except in ourselves, because what we're trying to do is somehow learn to cope with a philosophy that is foreign to our culture and upbringing. And in many ways, we don't know how to bring the two together. And so we think that the stoic, hard hearted, unfeeling thing may be the answer and the way out. And I have seen even people who have practiced yoga and even Swamis and people who have been on the path for many years in India, not knowing enough about this aspect of human nature can be absolutely incredibly naive about their own motivations, because they've never thought that it was necessary to look at themselves. There's something that the West has learned that could bring the two together in a wholesome way. When Carl Jung talked about facing the darkness is within you, I don't like the way it's been applied because I visited the the community in Rutte in Bavaria, Germany, where the people are practicing these principles. And I never saw a more lugubrious bunch of people. They've had trouble with suicides. They sort of try to hush up these things, but they don't know how to be joyful, because they're so busy facing the darknesses. That's what Master was talking about when he said, You shouldn't beat at the darkness in a room with a stick. You can't get rid of it that way, turn the light on. But on the other hand, supposing you can't reach the light.

That's where people are when they're still in their humanity. They've got to handle these things, and how are you going to do it? Well, I think by not defining them as darkness, perhaps by simply saying, Okay, it's there. Don't, don't feel that, that once you've faced something, that you've got to deal with it right away. You can put some things on a shelf. Fight the battles you have a chance of winning. And there are a lot of battles inside each one of us.

That we aren't ready to fight yet because we aren't ready to win, they could overwhelm us.

So put it on a shelf and fight the ones that you can win, and you'll get stronger, and later on, maybe you'll be able to tackle this one and tackle it easily, as if with one hand tied behind your back.

The great tests of childhood are not the tests of an adult.

So as you grow, you'll find that you can handle these things. Don't waste your time being honest. You can do that too. I don't mean that being honest is a waste, but you can overdo it. If you're so busy trying to look at who you are and what you are on a human level, you'll never rise to the divine. But there are certainly things that are preventing you from being able to go into deeper states of consciousness, and these are things that are locked up in your subconscious, things that need to be brought into that positive flow in the spine that we try to sort of nudge along with kriya yoga.

And if

we will at least accept, first of all, for an obvious starter, that we're human.

In my crossword puzzles that I've done, I find that one of the definitions they ask they give you to find a word for is to be human,

and the word is to ER.

It's so commonly understood that to be human is to err, that this is the way they give you the clue.

The second thing is

that, as Sri Krishna said, in an age more or less comparable to our own, that out of 1000 only one seeks me.

And here you are seeking God. Remember what Master said to Norman, that it takes very, very, very, very good karma even to want to know God. And the fact that you are seeking God should mean that you have to accept that you're well along the road already. And so why should you get upset with yourself if you find something that oughtn't to be there?

I'll give you a very wholesome suggestion. When you see a fault in yourself, congratulate yourself on finding it.

It's been there all the time. Anyway, I

I

say, Thank God now I can see it. Maybe I can do something about it.

So don't feel badly when you suddenly find that, Oh, my God, I was unkind to that person. I have a cruel streak in me. What's the matter with me? Don't worry about kicking yourself down into the sand or the mud, use that energy of self reproach to affirm all the more strongly I will change. But how can you change if you don't see anything to be changed?

It's sort of like what I've often said about a general invading a foreign country with 10 soldiers, hoping that there's no enemy to combat

any sensible general is going to have some idea of the enemy's strengths and where he's deployed his forces, and then what he can do about it. And so to be there's a difference between positive thinking and negative thinking. We need to know what we're up against so that we can generate enough energy to be able to overcome it. Otherwise, people come flitting onto the path and make a few, as honnell used to put it about the garden crew, graceful gestures, and think that next month, they'll certainly be in samanthi. Well, it ain't that easy

air, it.

It's hard, hard work, and it may take this whole lifetime, and it could take more, but it's likely to take less if you know what you're up against, and then put out the energy not to brood on what you've got, but to say, Okay, then I'll love God all the more. I really need this effort where other people I know, Norman used to say about gene helped, because gene meditated a lot, and Norman would meditate 15 minutes a day. And Norman would say, well, he's old, he doesn't have much time.

How long do you think you're going to be around? You don't know.

So we've got to be we've

got to be real. And I'm saying that to a community of people who are perhaps the most real bunch of people I've ever met in my life.

So I'm not saying that this is a great fault, but I'm saying it's something that we need to work on, and we've got the knowledge and the understanding to work on it. That

doesn't mean you've got to go out and fulfill every desire and live out every fantasy, but understand where you're going and why. And these are the battles I should fight now. That's the one I should put on the back burner. This one I can just forget about by now. It's hopeless

and.

Don't get all uptight about it.

I mean, so you're human, big deal,

but you're also trying, and that's also a big deal.

So let's not be afraid to be what we are. That's the thing I've been trying to get across to people this year. Go with your experience. Don't say I shouldn't be this way, and therefore I'm not say, well, maybe I shouldn't, but this is what I am. What do I do about it? If you have that attitude, then you'll be able to get out of it, because what you see happens is that once you accept it, then you're able to relax about it. Once you're able to relax about it, you're not hanging on to it like this, and you can get rid of that ego identification with it that is your real cause of bondage to feel pleasure and pain is a part of living in this world. As I said earlier, even masters feel pain, but they don't feel I am feeling pain. Pain is going on. This is a painful thing that's happening. It's sad to see people hurt themselves that kind of thinking. But you don't say, Oh, why is this happening to me? You don't get angry with God because he lets these things happen to you. Don't be angry with God for anything.

Even the greatest pain can be your greatest salvation. As I look back over my life at the times when I've suffered deeply, I can say that every time it's been a great, great blessing and a greater blessing, the faster I learned to accept it as such, the longer it took me, the more diluted that power became by the time I finally got around to accepting it, and so the blessing was less.

Just step back and say, Whatever comes it's God's grace. It doesn't matter

whatever he wishes in your life. Just be grateful, because you will find have at least enough experimental faith to say, well, Swami says it, the Scriptures say it. Maybe there's some truth in it. Let me try it.

And then just say, I won't judge God. I won't get angry with him. I won't get upset for myself. I'll just say, let's wait. Let's see what he has in mind.

And you'll see

every grief, every wrong, has its ending in song. And

if you turn that song inward, and if you feel take that joy inward, you'll find the two are the same. There's no difference. You can feel this grief, then you can put your mind at the point between the eyebrows. It doesn't exist. You feel joy. You see that the two are really just opposite sides of the same coin, and you accept both with equal mind. This is freedom, and this only is freedom. So again,

what do I feel? What do I feel that we need as a group now, more than anything else, we need to

not be afraid, to be ourselves. I don't mean to be it boastingly, vauntingly, oppressingly, like so many people who have come through psychoanalysis and become classic bores, all they can talk about is themselves and the way their mother treated them when they were three.

Be yourself and forget it and realize it's not that important to be to accept yourself is to reach the point where you can forget yourself and start thinking about things that really matter, like God and service and truth.

But the more we live in that consciousness, the happier we'll

be. Be true to yourself, be honest with yourself, face yourself without fear, say whatever I am. I want to know about it. I want to know who I am. I want to know what I can do about it to grow.

I'll accept whatever I am, because I know that these are the only tools I've got to work with.

And I know that if I work with them sincerely, sometime in this life, in the next life, sometime, I'll get there.

You've all heard the word Pratyahara. What does pratyahara mean? Interiorization of the mind.

I was in San Francisco

area the other day, and I was in somebody's home, and he turned on the TV, and I saw epitomized before me, the exact opposite of Pratyahara,

where in the practice of yoga, we try to draw the mind inward. There they were all just really relating to the audience and to one another, with the thrill of this new kind of soap and the excitement of that quiz program, and the delight of having won and answered a question right and won some kind of prize and so on. It's a very good lesson sometimes to see.

See

those people who manifest just the opposite of what it is that we're trying to develop. Because what we are is somewhere within that scale, between two poles. If we were completely, I'm using a simile, you could always there's no simile. It's perfect, because, of course, when we're really talking about spiritual development, we're canceling out the poles, aren't we, but I'm talking of two opposite lines of development here.

And when you when you know that this is where you're supposed to be, and see very clearly this is where you're not supposed to be, then you may know that somewhere along the line you're probably

you'll probably find yourself in the middle. And the question is, Which direction are you moving in? If you move in the wrong direction, it will be more and more toward what the world tells you is right and proper for all

in the path. I've mentioned that the irreconcilable difference between the worldly person and the devotee is that the worldly person lives for himself and what he can get out of everything he everything he does, he thinks in terms of what's in it for me and the devotee thinks always first what's what does God want? What will please God. But there are many ways of expressing this same teaching, and this is another one that the worldly person, everything that he does is designed to take him outside himself and interest him in that which is not himself and the devotee, everything that he does is a reminder. Everything that he sees is a reminder of what he has and what He is inside. This kind of consciousness is a very worthwhile thing for devotees to develop, because, you see, we are we're trained in another way, aren't we? We've been brought up in a world that tells us that everything that you want must be based on desire. Everything that you want to develop must be a reaching out for something that you don't have right now. And so just as that song that we sang at the beginning door of my heart in the original Bengali The

there is one stanza that master didn't translate. And that stanza

somewhere within it, one couplet, I guess it was.

It uses the expression somewhere within it. I don't know the words well of the whole line, because Master didn't use it, and therefore I didn't bother to learn it. But it says, ami bikiri, I am a beggar. And Master wouldn't translate that, because he would never accept that we should, we should approach God in the consciousness of begging for anything. He said in a talk of his that you may have all heard, that you should not say. He doesn't like to hear people say, When will I have God? Even that you should not be reaching out for God in the sense of thinking that you don't have him. Say, I have him right now. We must have that consciousness that we are complete, even while we have much yet to develop. Because all that we really have to develop is what we are when you sit in meditation. So often, the tendency is to think in terms of what's wrong with your life, how far you are from God, what you haven't developed. Why doesn't God come to you? It would be far better, really, to be able to sit in yourself and say, I Am that I Am, simply to feel as if this sense of ego had been canceled out simply to feel that you are already perfect in him.

This is not a

thought that will diminish your devotion. In fact, it's strange, but your feeling of love grows the more you can cancel out that thought of separateness. Again. How do you develop that kind of consciousness? Well, just as you can see the opposite examples and learn from them, so look for those people in this world who have more of that kind of dispassion that you want. One of the temptations on the path of Raja Yoga is the temptation to

become too involved in the self and not therefore compassionate enough to other people. But it should be an inwardness that feeds the fires of compassion. You know the difference between sympathy and compassion? Sympathy is something you might feel for somebody in a movie, but compassion is when you can get out there and do something for that person. You can't do that for anybody in a movie or

through a window or something. It's somebody that you can you can reach out and actually help. Compassion is practical sympathy, and when you feel that kind of you.

Of inwardness that is in touch with the fires of love, in touch with that, that flow of real compassion, then automatically is reaching out. So just as it's good sometimes to see examples of those states of consciousness that you want to avoid, so also, it's not only good, but very necessary to mix with people who have that inwardness, but with compassion, not that kind of cold aloofness that comes. Sometimes it's sort of one of the side traps on the spiritual journey. Don't allow yourself to get trapped in that coldness, but rather always let it in that sense of canceling yourself out, as I'm putting it now, in that sense of being complete within yourself. Realize that a part of that completement, Completion, completeness, are all your brothers and sisters in the world. But for example, and you don't have to be with a person in order to get the full benefit of satsang. Meditate on the on the eyes of master, for example, and see in those eyes, on the one hand, that very withdrawn look that was never touched by anything. On the other hand, that very deep love that came from being so much at the core of love that it was already one with anything. You see, the difference again, between worldly love and Divine Love Is that a worldly love is reaching out, but divine love is there already. Divine Love doesn't have to reach out and reassure itself. It already is one with everyone. It has that love, whether it expresses itself outwardly or not. It has that love no matter how people treat it. It's strange, but when you the more you develop of divine love, the more usually it happens that you attract also those the enmity of those who aren't ready for that kind of love. They crucify themselves on that because what happens is that they they strike out in anger against this, which is a reminder of what they should be and they don't intend to be they won't be then because they've been in that anger, they feel hurt, and they associate that hurt with the person that they're angry with. They get more angry and more angry, and finally they try to kill him, or crucify him, or whatever. This happens in the lives of saints, and

it's just a part of the divine play. And yet what they are doing is crucifying themselves because they're building in themselves more and more of that hatred, more and more of that anger. And finally they just wither up and die it. It is, however, one of the things that happen when when that energy is strong, and on the other hand, those who are in tune with that kind of flow, they get more and more that you are like a sort of divine gardener watering the plants of thirsty souls, and without even trying, it happens. How to do that by being more with those who have that state of consciousness. You can't really imagine yourself into it. I've seen many people try to get get into it, and because they haven't understood it from within, they get into what I was talking about, for instance, that tendency to be cold or withdrawn in a neutral or negative way, rather than withdrawn into this fountain house a fountain head of energy, so that they can pour that energy out again to all

everything that you do, let it remind you of what you are, who you are inside, you are a child of the infinite. Never sell yourself short. Never allow yourself to think that you are a limited human being with faults. Yes, you've got faults to work with.

Those are just weeds in your garden. They aren't you.

Yes, you don't have Samadhi and you want it, but that's just a little veil of your mind. You haven't yet seen who you really are. You are a child of God, and that isn't that, is that you aren't anything else. That's all that you are. Everything else is a dream.

This world seems so real. I think I told you recently about the time that I was dreaming, and I I dreamed that I was flying in the air, and I thought, oh, people don't do this. What's the matter? What's happened? I must I thought maybe I'm dreaming. This thought came somewhat down the line. First, I was just trying to analyze how it was that I should be flying, and then I realized that it must be because I was dreaming. So I tried to analyze it very logically, to decide where.

I was dreaming, or whether I was awake. And finally I came to the thoroughly logical conclusion that I was awake. I was just doing something unusual.

And a moment later I woke up, and I was so surprised.

So it is that this world seems so real, but it's not

you know that beautiful story of nada, when he was

meditating, and he finally had the darshan of God in the form of Vishnu.

And Vishnu said that he would grant any boon that Narada asked. And Narada having achieved Self Realization, you see, when you when you get into that state, the Saints all say it seems so simple. That's the problem, really, that it is simple, and everything else we're used to making things complex. That's why we take such a long time.

And so in his sort of bemusement, he said, Lord, I'd like to understand how it is. Maybe he didn't realize that he was asking this boon, but he said, How is it that people can go such a long time in delusion?

And Vishnu said, All right, Narada, come with me.

And so they went for a walk, and they came to a desert, and they were walking across this desert. They were getting very hot and very thirsty, and finally, off in the distance, they saw the smoke from a house. And there were a few houses there. It seemed like there was a little village.

And Vishnu said, Narada, I'm very thirsty. Would you go to that village and get me a glass of water? And Narada said, Yes, Lord, of course. So he went, and he knocked on the door of the first house he came to and was entered by a beautiful, young girl. And as soon as they met one another, it felt as if they had known each other always. And he was accepted into the family. Forgot poor Vishnu standing out there in the desert,

and he married the girl and settled down and got a job,

opened up a shop,

had three children over a period of 12 years, and finally, at the end of those 12 years,

there was a great flood,

and the flood was just in a few moments, washed away his business, his home, everything that he spent 12 years working to develop,

and as he was trying to escape with his all that was left to him, which was no possessions, nothing, just his family, his wife, was walking by his side through swirling waters, he held one of each of his children in each hand, and the little infant whom he couldn't hold also, he had perched on his shoulder, and they walked some distance, struggling to try to reach high ground, when he tripped a little bit over a pebble or a little boulder, and at that moment, his little infant slipped into the stream, and as it was swept away, he tried to grab it, and in letting go of his other two children, to grab the infant, they too were swept away. And as he looked despairingly at his wife, he found that she too was lost her footing, and she was swept away. And he lost all heart, and he just let the current take him. Everything, everything was gone, and he lost consciousness. And after what seemed like a long time, he came back to consciousness, and he discovered that he hadn't drowned. It seemed as if he'd been washed up onto some sort of a dry mound or something, because as he looked in all directions, he saw nothing but a vast expanse of muddy water, and he heard this voice saying, nada that.

And he looked up and he saw that it wasn't muddy water, it was just the brown sand of the desert. And he looked up further, and he saw it was Vishnu. And he suddenly remembered, and Vishnu looked down and said, again, nada that.

What happened half an hour ago, I sent you for a glass of water, and I find you sleeping in the sand.

This is how this world is. It seems so real because we're so close to it. I remember sitting in a bus in San Francisco once, and my my my eyes were looking ahead, but I could see something from the corner of my eye. It looked like a huge thing walking very quickly across the wall of a house. And I was so surprised. And I turned around, I saw it was a little fly on the window, but because it was so close, it seemed to be very big and moving very fast. Similarly, those things that are close to us seem big and seem to have lots of movement and seem very important, they command a lot of attention, and it's only because they're close to us. It's only because we allow them to be close to us through attachment, through personal identification, through the thought of I and mine,

what we need.

To do is develop Pratyahara. What we need to do in everything is withdraw a little bit into our mind and into our self. This is something we practice all the time. Should practice all the time as devotees, everything that you do always let it remind you of what you are inside. Always let it remind you of the bliss in your own spine. The Catholics have the word recollectedness. It's a very good word always to remember. In fact, it's a yogic word,

as Patanjali gave his definition of enlightenment was Smriti memory, to remember what you are. This is what you've probably all experienced in one way or another, on the path that you've you've Well, I remember, in my experience,

I was very intellectual when I came to master, and I worked hard because I didn't like this intellectualism. I I remembered the sweetness of that I'd felt as a child. I wanted to recapture that, so I worked very hard to develop devotion and openness on a heart level and so on. And when I remember when I first experienced that, that

ray of divine love, my first thought was but of course, you know, when you learn something in the world, you take out a notebook and you say, I got to write this down. I don't want it for want to forget any of it. You don't feel that way when you experience something that your own self do. You haven't? You all had that experience in one way or another, that you've touched something of the soul within yourself. And your first thought was, but of course, this is what I am. I don't have to try to remember what it's like, because that's what I am. This is, this is the natural state for the soul. It's your nature to be in Samadhi. It's your nature to be in divine bliss. It's your nature to be absolutely flowing all the time in love and joy. And sometimes that joy gets so much you feel you can hardly stand it, and yet, if you just relax, it just keeps growing and growing.

Think of Sister gyanamatas words as she died, too much joy, too much joy. Her body couldn't take it, but she just gave up her body, and then she became it.

This is what you are, and

if you can live in that thought, you know, the thing is that it takes courage. That's the reason people run away from it takes courage to hang on to. It takes courage to leave all those things that keep you from it. It takes courage to change those directions, because there is always this pull to be outward and to become like those TV personalities, just, oh boy, the world again and so on. But it should really be a deeply inward thing. And even when you when you go outward, I don't mean to go around like a zombie, even when you do enjoy the world, enjoy it with the joy of God. I remember Brother B malananda In SRF. We were out in the desert in retreat one time, and I remember him doing his energization exercises, and he was doing the double breathing and saying, pump it in, Divine Mother, pump it in. And

when you when you live in this consciousness, there's joy. It isn't as if you didn't enjoy things, but you'd enjoy it in a very different way. I would look at master when he enjoyed he could laugh till the tears were streamed on his cheeks. And yet it was always an inward thing. It was always there. Was always something that fed these fires of delight inwardly. And when you do that, they never run dry. But when you don't, they run dry all the time. By nightfall, you're exhausted with the world. And

I remember reading years ago The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Have you read that book?

Do you remember how the people, after all their outward stimulation of bull fights and parties and all the things they did and they'd go back to their room at night, and how alone and almost desperately

depressing it was to suddenly face

a reality with no stimulation. They don't know how to handle it. The World dries up for them and they've got nothing to replace it with. You don't get any joy from the world. It's only a joy that you give to the world. And people because they don't have joy. Therefore they sort of try to get excited, and they think that in that excitement they are fulfilling something. There's no excitement. There's no joy. And excitement, as it says in Bhagavad Gita, for the peaceless person, how is happiness possible?

We were visiting Marcel Vogel the other day, SEVA and Jyotish and Devi and I and his mother asked us, after being with us for a few minutes, are you all members of the same family?

Yeah. And Devi said, No, in a way, we are but not blood family. And she said, Well, you all seem so much alike. You have so much joy. And this is something that is true for all people who live in that inner consciousness, that they have joy, and our way is to try to express that joy to one another and express that joy in the world, but it must always proceed from this internalization, interiorization of the mind first. So everything that you do, even when you enjoy, let it remind you of that inner joy, and let that outer Joy not only remind you, but feed those fires of joy. Be with those who have that consciousness. Don't be with people who take your mind outward. Those who inspire you truly are those, I mean, in a divine way, are those who bring you more toward an impersonal consciousness, who bring you more toward this inwardness There is a

saying a teaching of Dale Carnegie's that people should learn to speak less and listen more. And my dad, who is always rather, always seeing the ironic side of things, said, Well, what do two Dale Carnegie students do when they're together.

You know, the wonderful thing is that two devotees, when they are together and have this consciousness, they can be flowing in bliss and never say a word, isn't it? So Haven't you ever experienced that with people, that when you are with devotees, when you're I've seen master just walking hand in hand with rajashi on the grounds at Mount Washington, not saying a word, but just both of them flowing with bliss, when you can have that bliss inside, when you can draw that kind of bliss from one another, when in the company of others who are dear to you, you feel that flow of bliss in your communions on that level, and everything else, said and seen outwardly and shared in an outward way is really only just sort of an echo of what you feel inside. What a blissful relationship that is, it's the most precious thing that can possibly happen between people. That kind of soul contact is something that doesn't take your mind outward. It's not based on attachment. It's something that feeds you in this very consciousness of pratyahara that we're speaking about, it reminds me of one time when we were visiting anandamoyee Ma, and Daya Ma was given quite a few private talks with anandamoyee Ma, and she said to her, one time, I feel selfish taking up so much of your time when there are so many others who want to See you too. And Ananda mohimah s answer was really marvelous. She said that that cannot be selfishness which takes you out of the self,

speaking of ego, in other words, isn't that a wonderful answer? There's a lot of depth there. It isn't selfishness to want those things which take you out of ego.

Because that's the whole thing about selfishness, is that it takes you into ego and separates you from others. But in the inspiration that you feel in the company of a saint, in the inspiration that you feel in those who feed this joy within there is no attachment. It isn't attachment to want those things that give you your own self. It is an attachment to want to be around those people who give you this divine joy and this divine love, be with those people. It becomes attachment if you think that it's, it's something outside yourself, but it's not attachment if it's something inside. In other words, it's, it's, it's not attachment. For example, it wasn't attachment to want to be with Master unless one's reason for being with Master was purely that he would smile at you and pat you on the head and say you did a good job or anything like that. That's ego. That's attachment. But if it's something inward, and if what you get from being with him is this inner joy, then that's freedom. That's something that leads to freedom, and it's right. In other words, look for that kind of association which can remind you of your inner self, everything that you do always in the back of your mind. Practice japa. Always say just om guru or OM Kali, om Divine Mother om Christ, always think in yourself

I Am that I Am.

Always feel as Master said, always remain in the self, come down a little bit every now and then to eat or talk a little bit as necessary. Then withdraw into yourself.

Again, seek seclusion. Seek those times as the most precious of all times when you can be alone. The worldly person doesn't ever want to be alone. The devotee knows that this is when he's least alone. I remember that period of time in the

Himalayas when I was in seclusion, and it was really one of the most blissful times in my life. I didn't see anybody, I didn't speak to anybody. I meditated long hours, and then in the afternoon, I would take long walks with Master and Babaji and divine mother. And I was, after a very short time, so full of bliss that I felt that I didn't ever want to leave, that I had to leave it because I had duties in my work and I was supposed to go out and lecture. But the pain of having to leave that state of seclusion, I knew that I could remain like this for the rest of my life and be very, very blissful.

Our greatest bliss comes when we can be alone.

You know that bliss lasted quite a long time, but you know what took it took me down from it

very interesting. I think I should share it with you so that you can understand something that may be useful to you.

I became introduced to that phenomenon of the brighu Sangeeta, and

it was so fascinating that I wanted to understand it more.

And in the process of trying to understand it more, I found that somehow my mind was being taken outside myself.

You know the brighu story, don't you? It's the

old document that I discovered that had the lives of people who were to live for 1000s of years. And I found my name there and my own life described. And I wasn't so much fascinated just by what it said about me, although that was interesting enough in itself, but more just the fact that such a thing could exist, and what it could mean for expressing the teachings to people to convince them of the greatness of this culture in ancient times, it could produce something like this. My interest was on many levels that way, but it was an outward interest, wasn't it had to be, because that's what happened to my mind. I found my mind starting to get outside that constant flow of bliss. And I say that because periodically here at Ananda, we find a fascination growing with some kind of phenomenon, magic, psychic phenomena, powers this thing and that thing, all of them are okay. They're not bad in themselves. You've got to do something with your life. I suppose.

Don't get too interested.

Always remember that what it's really all about is this search within you.

Don't worry about whether things are up or down. There's that lovely story that Vivekananda told of a Yogi that he met near Rishikesh. Yogi lived in a the yogi lived in an ashram out in the forest,

and one day he had gone out for a walk, and he had gone close to the village, I suppose, of Rishikesh, and he didn't wear any clothes. He was a Naga sadhu, Sky clad. And when the village boys saw him, they were

the way children can do. They just teased the life out of him and persecuted him and ran after him with stones and bricks and threw these things at him and sort of drove him away, sort of like an unnatural human being, because he was dressed differently from them. In fact, not dressed at all. And this Yogi came back to his ashram laughing happily, just like a child. He said, Oh, we had such a good time today. The children were throwing stones, and

we all we were all laughing, and he didn't even stop to think that the stones were being thrown at him.

Isn't that beautiful? Just no sense of self, no sense of ego, just it happened,

or that lovely thing that somebody told me the other day, that a man that he knows says that whenever he's trying to work on a project, either on his own or with a with a group, the first question he asks is not, what do we do? What should we do? What do we want to do? What would you like to do?

What is trying to happen here?

Isn't that nice? Think of it in that way that what is trying to happen. Think of everything that you do. Try to think of it impersonally, not with the self involvement that I'm trying to do this, what is trying to happen? What energy then can I put out that will help that to happen? You?

Be impartial. Don't have ups and downs when things are bad, that's they're not really bad. Master said that conditions are always neutral.

They seem good or bad according to the joyful or sad attitudes of the mind. And it's amazing how true that is, even for those things that seem the most difficult to take that when a person can reach that point of neutrality in himself, he can see, gee, that was pretty good. After all,

why would anybody go to see a tragedy in the movies or on the stage? Why?

Because they come out of it and they say, I feel cleansed. I learned so much. That was a wonderful movie. It made me wiser. Why can't you do that with your life? Then when things go wrong, just say, Oh, that's wonderful. I'm learning so much.

Or our Ananda expression, it's a learning experience.

Always just be impartial in yourself, and just say that whether it's good or bad is indifferent to me. It is and I am, and I would relate to it in the now, just without any judgment at all, without ups and downs, without that tendency to be drawn out of yourself and identified with anything always see, everything is just a reflection of this self within everything that you do always go back and remember the self. Don't get drawn too much. This, this, I've said it, and I say it very seriously, because I know that that is the tendency of people in general. I've seen it in myself, this tendency to think, oh, how fascinating, and get fascinated by something that is spiritual, and yet, because it takes you out of yourself, it isn't like the UFO thing. It's all very interesting, and it's very fine if these people from other planets tell us that we should love one another and so on. Good nothing

but to say, Oh, they say such deep truths. They say we should love each other. Isn't that something you know already. You don't need somebody from Mars to tell you.

Don't get too fascinated by things outside. A wonderful book to read is The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis, and he he used to when he was alive. If people would call him out, guests would come to see him. For example, he would talk to them for a while, and then he'd say, Well, excuse me, but I have a guest waiting for me in my cell. And he didn't explain that that guest was Christ,

but this was his excuse to leave them and go back to where he was, where he belonged. The statement that he made in his book, The Imitation of Christ one, was that, what will you see anywhere in the world but the same sky and the same earth? If you're going only to see things, then it's not the answer. If you're going to experience it may be all right, but don't feel that you need anything except your own self.

Go within and live within, and then you can go through the world and be completely free. Then, in fact, the traveling of a sannyasi is a good thing because it always helps to emphasize that you don't belong anywhere, that wherever you are you belong because you're carrying your temple with you. This is your Ashram, this body and wherever you are, then to learn to be at home is very good. The rule, the classic rule of sannyasis, is not to stay more than three days in a place, just so that they won't get to feeling that I belong here, because you only belong where you are. The more you can live in that state then of Pratyahara, the more you can live in that state. Just the opposite of the TV thing. Just live within and always feel that your life is in your spine. The more you can relate in that way to one another, the more you can remain happy together in silence, the more you can seek the company of those to whom you don't need to speak a great deal in order to share, because what you know is the vibrational exchange between you, the more you can develop that kind of love and that kind of friendship. And those of you who are married, if you can develop that kind of love for one another, where your communion is more of the mind, where you feel that because the vibrations are there, you're experiencing this interchange of vibration that that's quite enough. The more you have of that, the less you will have of the upsets that come so easily into human relations, and perhaps even especially into marriage,

to

make the basis of your relationship the outer first, and hope that somehow you'll stumble onto the inner is perhaps to drive the inner out of out of the picture altogether.

Yeah, it would be well to base your relationship together on self control, base it on this inward sharing and let everything outward, all outward manifestations of love and friendship and camaraderie and whatever. Let all of those be only a kind of

little reflection, a little outward affirmation, a little outward expression of something that's much more real inside.

Then you'll find that the sweetness of all things outward comes into the picture, beautiful music, beautiful friendships, beautiful times, beautiful scenery. Everything becomes beautiful when we have that inner beauty, all things become dry when we give up that consciousness and seek it outside ourselves.

Joy to you.