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9 Common Delusions About Radhasoami Beas
By Steven Strouth
This writing contains 9 common delusions about the path of Radhasoami. Actually I have expanded it to more than 9 delusions. It is meant to be a common sense approach to a very misunderstood path. At some point this may be published in another format and this blog may be taken down at that time. For now, it is here free for everyone who is interested. These are my views and do not necessarily represent anyone else’s or any official version of the path. Because it is a tradition of a living Master, whatever Babaji says automatically is the official version of the path and is the correct understanding and if anything here is found to be in disagreement with something he has said please post a comment to help bring more clarity on the matter.
Delusion 1: The Master takes his initiates to Sach Khand at the time of death.
It’s not exactly like that. It is following the teachings that takes you to higher realms. It’s not that you know the maitre’d and that gets you a better table in heaven. People who believe this are deluded. This involves many questions such as what exactly is the Master? What can he do for you. What is Sant Mat? What is the practice? What is initiation? Many people have taken things for granted from old books that have been misinterpreted.h
What is Sant Mat? What is the path of Radhasoami?
Sant Mat is the path and teachings of the saints and is a path of the union of the soul with the divine.
It involves connecting with the eternal sound and light of God and travelling from the realms of duality and darkness to the realms of light and unity.
Unity and oneness with this divine essence involves a complete and total surrender to its nature. Our deepest nature and deepest energy is the energy of the will. The ego has co-opted this energy and is continually at odds with this cosmic energy and power. Really all spirituality that is genuine deals with this separation, this disharmony with the Universe or the Divine or whatever name one wants to use.
What is the basic practice of Radhasoami?
In the end there is only one constant practice in Sant Mat. Complete and total surrender to the Divine or the Master [two words for the same principle].
What is the Master?
The Master is the essence of Love and source of all. The all in all.
How can one man in India be the source of all?
One man in India can not be the all and all. However someone who has merged into that source is not different from that source whether it is Buddha, Krishna, Jesus or Mohammed. When we speak of the Master we are speaking of that inner essence whether you call it love, shabd or the divine.
Will the Master take his initiates to Sach Khand at the time of death?
The essence of love, the Divine will take you to the deepest highest realms of unity and love if you allow it. If you will not allow it no one can.
Doesn't initiation mean you get a free pass into the Divine realms by virtue of knowing the Creator?
Initiation is an opening and a start to awaken that energy that brings you to the Divine. It is your responsibility to awaken and surrender. If you go to a restaurant and know the owner, chances are you will get the best table in the house by virtue of your friendship with him. It does not work that way in Sant Mat. Those who refuse to surrender, fight with reality, fight with what is … find themselves in hell. It doesn't matter who you know. Hell is not so much a place as a condition of resistance. If you surrender and love … then Heaven is here. If you fight and resist... then hell is here … it doesn't matter what realm or plane you are on.
If I don't believe in the Master and don't get initiation won't Kal get me and torture me at the time of death?
In the film Jacob's Ladder there is a quote from Meister Eckhart that goes something like this:
“If you try to hold on and grasp … then death will seem like there are 'devils' tearing you away from everything you hold dear. If you let go and surrender those same 'devils' will now appear as 'angels' releasing you from the earth.”
Similarly it is our own reactions that create our heaven or hell, both now and at the time of death. Surrender is heaven. Grasping, holding on, resisting is hell. It's not something that happens to us, it is something we create. Those that totally surrender will see the divine. Those that resist will see “kal” or the negative power. It is a metaphor. It is not a matter of belief in a savior, it's a matter of belief that nothing but God is necessary. Initiation is meant as a help in connecting with the Divine. It is not a free pass to heaven. It is not a guarantee to enlightenment. It is meant as a help. If you don't use the help of what use can it be? If you don't surrender and accept the Divine Will of what value can the initiation possibly be? It is not a free ticket, it is not a guarantee... it is a help for sincere travellers.
Why can't we surrender and how can sant mat help?
Because of our past conditioning most of us cannot surrender. Radhasoami is meant to be a help to get us to the place of surrender. Perhaps it puts things in a framework that is easier to understand and practice. If you can fully and completely surrender you do not need sant mat or any other path … you are already there. If you find surrender difficult or impossible Radhasoami is meant to be a help for you.
Are those who are initiated by a perfect master special and the elite?
All beings are of the same essence and nature. To believe you are special or elite is ego, it is separation and a misconcept. The ego will always try to misappropriate everything including the teachings of sant mat. If you feel special and elite and above others by virtue of initiation in Radhasoami you have created a separation which is unhelpful to everyone.
What is ego?
Ego is identifying with form. It is separation. It is fear. It is misery. It is healed by love, openness, acceptance and insight. If you use sant mat to create more separation, to put yourself or the Master on a higher more prestigious level, you co-opted the truth of the teachings.
By having the master look at us, or touching his garments can we gain spiritual benefit?
If the master could do the spiritual journey for us he would. If touching his clothes or looking in his eyes would take us beyond the ego he would spend every minute of every day doing nothing but this. The master is not your mommy. He is not here to solve your problems, rescue you, or take you to Sach Khand. We each create our own heaven and hell by our mental conditioning and we can dismantle it. No one else can do it for us, we each must do it for ourselves. If you love the Lord you find out what is keeping you separate and discard it. You look for every corner and cranny in which you are involved in lust, anger, greed, attachment and vanity and let these things go.
Can someone else surrender for you? Can someone else force you to surrender and live happily with what the Lord has provided for you? No and again no!
Is there anything more to do than the four vows?
Sant Mat is not a part time hobby you do for a couple of hours a day and nothing else in your life changes. Sant Mat is about having a connection with the lord every moment of every day and surrending to its will unconditionally.
If one reaches Sach Khand in this life will they automatically go there at death? Are they liberated by this experience?
Having a particular experience, even of sach khand is not liberation. Someone may have awakened the sound and light and freely come and go to the highest cosmic realms. Yet if they are attached to someone or something here, back they come. We go where our attachments are.
The sound and light are meant as a help to release us from our attachments. The inner shabd with it's bliss and ecstasy make the petty joys and pleasures of this world seem worthless and easy to discard. Some people can discard the attachments of this world with no inner sound and light, others require it. The surrender and non-attachment is the prize though and not temporary experiences of higher realms.
What about the masters subtle radiant form? Is it a mental projection of one's own mind?
Everything in this world is nothing but a projection of ones own mind. Without mind there is only the Divine. This understanding is not necessarily a starting point, it is more and ending point. In the beginning we see the world and everything in it as separate and distinct from us. Later we find out that all was one and the belief in separate beings was only illusion. If you believe others are separate from you, start from there. Slowly one comes to find out that the belief in separation was the problem. What is true for you is what is true for you. It doesn't work to say the master is only a mental projection if that is not your experience of everything. Nor does it work to say master is a separate and distinct being if your experience is that all is one and there is no separation anywhere. The important thing is to be truthful to where you are actually at in this moment.
How do the teachings of Sant Mat differ from some of the popular teachers of today such as Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Ramana Maharshi, Papaji or Nisargadatta?
All genuine spiritual teachers teach the same essential truth. It is not possible to keep up with every spiritual teacher active in the world today and comment on them. Surrender, giving up control, love and freedom must be at the core of genuine spirituality. Beyond that if you find something anyone says to be of value it only makes sense to make use of it. Every person place and thing coming into our lives is our spiritual teacher all asking the same question of us. “Will you love and accept and surrender no matter what?”
Why do we have to give up sex unless we are married?
Attachment to temporary experiences IS our problem. Few things provide as much addiction and attachment as sexuality. In spirituality our intention is to be less attached. Therefore anything that creates addiction and attachment can keep us on the wheel. This is true of drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling or any other addictive vice. It is not that they are evil or wrong. It's just that no real satisfaction can be found in things so temporary. In the end these things will not be found out to be ultimately satisfying. If you could find true satisfaction in these things certainly word would have gotten out by now. Letting them go in this case is just sound advice for someone wanting release from the wheel. To provide this type of sound advice is perhaps the Masters great role for those making the journey.
So are you saying bad habits keep us bound?
Let me illustrate with a story. There were several people attempting to sail the ocean from Australia to India. On the way they came under a storm which punched a hole in the hull and the boat began to list. On top of this the sails were damaged, the navigation instruments were broken and the water tank developed a crack. They worked like crazy to stop the boat from taking on water but it was all they could do to just keep her afloat. With epoxy and glues they managed to slow down the leaks. In the afternoon after all of the commotion they realised that all the water was gone. For the next three days they sent up flares and tried to fix the broken radios to no avail. On the fourth day the first mate went crazy from the thirst and despite his own common sense began to drink sea water. At first it felt satisfying.. The terrible thirst was gone anything to get rid of the thirst he thought... I couldn't live another moment with the terrible thirst. But before long the thirst was back and now it was much worse, in fact it was much worse. He stuck it out as long as he could but soon enough he was back to drinking the sea water. Again it felt satisfying,the thirst was gone...but very soon it was back and much much worse. I think everyone knows how this story ends. He died of dehydration. It is no different with heroin users, alcoholics, smokers, overeaters and a million other ways people try to fill their thirsts with temporary sensations. Usually they have difficulty even regaining the level of desperation they had before they started down that road. Addictions are like that. That movement of grasping, whether it is for sensations, belongings, beliefs or identities, keep us revolving on the wheel.
If God loves us and can take us back in a second then why doesn't he?
God will not take you anywhere against your will. If you prefer to play amongst the pleasures of this realm, he will not try to hold you back. If you begin to find it unsatisfying then you become the chosen one to go back to the father.
So those in Sant Mat are the chosen ones?
It is not that anyone in sant mat is special or has an elevated status with God. When we decide to find the truth... the truth then decides to find us. Its another way of saying the same thing.
I'm not making any progress in meditation though I have been at it 30 years.
Your spiritual journey is the one you have taken. There is no one else responsible for it. The Master gives tips and suggestions regarding things that may help, things that may have helped him but ultimately you are responsible for your unfoldment.
The victim concept is so prevalent now days it's no wonder it appears in modern spirituality. Victimhood means that the power to undo our negative tendencies comes from outside of ourselves, from a source of power external to us. If we deny our own power and believe our saving comes from something or someone out there we are left to grovel and plead with others to make us whole, a situation so disempowering and unhealthy that one could only regard it as co-dependent.
But don't we depend on the master?
An unhealthy dependence on the master as if he is going to do everything for you is not at all what sant mat is about. If you come with that attitude you will not be turned away. Yet you will be encouraged to stand on your own two feet and realize you have the power to see through the illusions you may have grown up with.
Does the Master take his initiates to Sach Khand?
Some may think it is sort of like knowing the maitre'd at a fine restaurant. Even though the place may be crowded and you are not properly dressed, still because of your connection you are given a privileged table, served the finest food at no charge and are treated with honor. It's not like that.
It's more like, surrender IS heaven. You create your own heaven through letting go control and accepting whatever happens as what you wanted to happen.
But if we surrender won't that master power help us?
Surrender itself is its own help. When we say surrender we do not mean you are free to indulge in fearful imaginings, negative beliefs about yourself and others, angry attempts to control yourself and others and somehow some outside power is going to whisk you into heaven because you know the maitre'd. That's not how it works. And yet it does work. How? Well if you have full surrender, how can you have fearful imaginings. If you totally trust the inner master or the divine from where can fear possibly arise. Similarly with total surrender where can anger come from. If everything is a gift from the master what is there to be angry about. If you surrender, where is the need to control someone?
But I can't do that!
Very true. It is not within our power to surrender. If it was that would be more ego control. Surrender only happens when you totally give up. Give up in every possible way. Even give up trying to give up. Give up all trying, all hope, all belief that you can do it. A total and complete breakdown. A breakdown so complete that nothing is left. You no longer project into the future with imagination. You no longer know how things should be. A complete unknowing. No plans, no resistances. Just this now moment and nothing more. And you can still use your brain.
But we reach Sach Khand through meditation don't we?
No. First of all Sach Khand is not a place, it's a condition of truth. Secondly, it is reached only by absolute surrender. You cannot surrender until you give up the idea that you can accomplish anything. Thus meditation is part of the process of waking you up to the fact that you cannot do it.
What is the role of belief? Won't our belief in the Master save us?
There is a big difference between believing boats are good and actually driving one. That is similar to the idea of believing in the Master as opposed to making use of Him and surrending to him. If you don't surrender, the master has been of little value to you. We find this same idea in all of the religions too. Many people continue to live angry, unhappy, desperate lives and somehow think that they will go to heaven just by virtue of their belief in Jesus, or Krishna or Mohammed. This is delusional. If you have a scissors in your pocket you can use it to cut paper. Merely believing in your scissors will be of no value to you.
But doesn't knowing the master, having a relationship with the master guarantee our acceptance in heaven?
How can you be friends with the Lord of heaven and not accrue some benefit at the time of your death. Certainly you will be welcomed into heaven... the master will recognize you as one of his own and take you to the most beautific of places.
That may be how it works on earth in some things. For example if you know the boss at a company, maybe he is a friend of the family or a relative, you will get hired because of that. It doesn't really work like that with God. You create your own heaven or hell by your beliefs. If you believe there is something wrong with yourself, if you believe things are not the way they should be … you will suffer. It is never a suffering put on you by an outside agency. It is a suffering you create within your own mind. How can an outside person end the suffering you create for yourself? Even if he could give you the most wonderful heavenly conditions … you would still manage to be miserable there. Perhaps you would give the angel Gabriel the silent treatment for showing favoritism to someone you know. Perhaps you would find out the bliss another soul is experiencing is more radiant than what you have. If you haven't gotten free of egotism... if you haven't surrendered … no one can create a heaven for you. You will find a way to be miserable.
But the bible says he who believeth in him shall have eternal life.
You can take such sayings on a superficial level or you can take them on a deep level. First of all that quote is a translation of a translation so who knows what was originally said. Perhaps it meant that if you follow the instructions of the master you will have eternal life. What are those instructions? Surrender everything into his will. If you give up all your cares and worries and surrender them to the master will you be in heaven? Of course. Doesn't that make much more sense than the idea that by carrying around a conceptual belief you will somehow be transported into heaven by virtue of it?
If simple belief is an immature way of relating to the master, then how do we grow up?
If a 5 year old child asks you how to grow up, what do you tell him? You love him and simply know everything happens in its own time. The best anyone can do is just be sincere. Be willing to put everything and anything on the table. Nothing is too sacred to question. Nothing is to large or small to take an honest look at. When we are mature we are willing to find the truth, to go for the truth, no matter the discomfort that may mean.
There must be something practical I can do to mature spiritually.
Perhaps you could start by questioning things and observing things in your life.
Watch things you are doing that do not benefit you.
Vernon Howard tells a wonderful story about a traveler who is carrying a backpack weighted down with 50 pounds of rocks, he's got weights strapped onto his legs and he is carrying a pumpkin on his head. He passes through a village and in the heat of the day walks into a shop for some water. A fellow customer in the shop greets him. Our traveler says, I've been traveling many days and it has been a slow and difficult journey. Thge villager nods empathetically but then says, my friend, perhaps your journey would be easier if you were not carrying all of those weights strapped to your legs. The traveler looks down at his legs and is somewhat surprised. “I didn't realize I still had those on. I used them for armor at one point in my life but now they do nothing but weigh me down.” With that he unstrapped the weights and went along his trip feeling much lighter.
A few days later he came to another village and again struck up a conversation with on of the locals. Again he mentioned how difficult and tiring his trip was. This new villager said, My friend, wouldn't your journey be easier and lighter if you were not carrying a pumpkin on your head.?
With that our traveller felt the top of his head. My god, I'm still carrying around that pumpkin... i've been carrying it around so long I forgot it was still there. With that he tossed the pumpkin and went on his way.
In the next village he came to again he commented on the slowness and difficulty of his journey. This next man said … oh by the way, what is in that back pack you carry everywhere. Oh just some 50 pounds of rocks. Why are you carrying rocks? I don't know... I never thought to question it. With that he dumped his rocks and went along his way much lighter, easier and happier. The point is we have torturous negative beliefs that we never both to look at or question. Once we simply observe what we are doing our lives become easier and happier. That is the maturing process.
Some people carry around the heavy belief that there is something intrinsically wrong with them and are tortured wherever they go. Others believe they are in poverty, that no one could like them, that they don't have enough, are worthless, need to control their children … there may be 100 pounds of rocks in our mental backpack that is causing our journey to be exhausting and until we look at them and discard them no simple belief in a master or savior will make it easier.
So sant mat is about finding heaven here now in the present moment rather than reaching sach khand in 4 lifetimes …. is that what you are saying?
Yes. The ego can find a home in sant mat just as it can in any religion or spiritual path. What does the ego want? It wants security, control and approval. It does not live in the present moment. It imagines a future and wants security out there in that imagined future. It has no concern with the present moment. It wants to be safe and secure and supported. This is a difficult conundrum since death can happen at any moment. But the ego has no problem with even that. It wants a way to be safe in secure even during and after death. This is where the master belief comes in. It imagines a master that will save it even after death.
But the truth can never be in imagination. The truth is what is here now. If it's not here now it is not the truth.
Will the belief in the master do no good at all?
The way of the path is to surrender to the inner master, not belief in being saved by a master. True surrender is heaven here and now. No cares, no worries, nothing but love and peace and comfort in the knowing that everything is happening exactly as it should.
This is not to say that belief will be of no benefit to you. In buddhism they have what has been called “the pure land school”. The idea goes like this. In these times when people work so many hours and spend the rest of their time struggling with their family when do they really have time to examine all of their beliefs and mistaken notions as is required by normal buddhism? So a concession is granted in the pure land school in which none of those things are necessary. All that is necessary is a firm belief in the savior and you will be reborn in the pure land where conditions are much easier and more conducive to self-realization. The pure land schools have been around for many thousands of years and in the end most religions and paths if they are to continue become some form of pure land salvation mostly because that is about as much truth as the masses can handle with their busy lives. But for those who want the deepest truth here and now they must go deeper and find that truth and not be satisfied with superfical beliefs. What is surrender? No matter what words I may give you it can never approximate anything close to what surrender is truly about. Byron Katie summed it up nicely, as loving what is. Adyashanti calls it simply non-resistance and describes the closest description of enlightenment he's heard as coming from Anthony de Mello who described it as simply “the absolute cooperation with the inevitable.”
How is that different from surrender to the master?
That's the point... there is no difference. The master is our way of saying the divine. The divine is all-powerful. Nothing happens without its consent. What the divine wants is the inevitable. What the divine wants is what will happen. No questions, no doubts about it. To cooperate with the inevitable is another way of saying surrender to the master. They are no different.
So you are saying the teachings of radhasoami are no different than those of byron katie, adyashanti and eckhart tolle?
All masters who teach the truth teach the exact same thing. Not just the ones you have listed but all of them down through history.
But what about the energy, the current of sound and light?
The will is the deepest and most cosmic energy. If you follow any of these energies back to their source you will arrive at the energy of the will. That is the deepest. In sant mat many start with the energy of sound and light at the third eye. In the end this energy will lead to the source which is the energy of the will. That's why surrender to the inner master has always been presented as the highest deepest teaching in sant mat.
What about David Lane's contention that the master really knows nothing about the happenings of his followers and that the inner master is just a projection of one's own mind?
Such questions are not avoided in Sant mat. First of all we have to understand what the master is. If he was a specific individual person living in india perhaps his help would be limited. But that is not what the master is. The master is the divine. Someone who has merged with the divine is not different from the divine. You can think of the divine through krishna, jesus or any saint. However you are devoted to the divine that is how it will generally appear. But there is more to it than even this. That is the mysterious way of the universe. Just as a piece of granite has a different vibration than a crystal gemstone so is there a different vibration of the master presence. Nevertheless any devotee that turns to god with a sincere heart will be welcomed by the lord based on their sincerity.
So you are saying that the path of sant mat is no better than the path of christianity or islam or any other religion?
All religions teach the same truth. It is not one teaching that is better than another, it is how deep you go into that teaching. There is a story about a child who went to his first day of school. That day the teacher taught the number zero and the number one. All other numbers come from one and zero they were told. The child was fascinated. A week later and this child had not returned to class. The teacher sent inquiries and the lad was found to be contemplating what he had learned about zero and one. “but the class has gone on to 2,3,4,5, and 6,” he was told. But I want to penetrate the mystery of one and zero he said. His parents insisted he go back to school but he could not until he solved the mystery of one and zero. He ran away and day and night only contemplated one and zero. Finally after some years he came back to the school and to his teacher. I think I have finally understood the power of one and zero, he said. The teacher dismissed him, saying my friend you are a bit slow. All of my other students have gone on to addition, subtraction, algebra, and even calculus and here you are still fascinated with the number one. Oh but if one understands one they have understood everything he said. And with that he wrote the number one on the blackboard and the blackboard split in two and fell to the ground. Do you see the power of the number one? he said. It can be used to split a blackboard if we feel its power deeply enough.
So it is with the truth. It is not varied and complicated. It is often the first thing we learn. But have we gone deeply with it?
Why has sant mat changed. It used to be all about sound and light and meditating to reach the higher realms. Now we are told we can't do anything and meditation is just to wear us out so that we give up.
The teachings have never changed. Yet each master gives out the teachings according to the times he lives in. in the past people were fascinated with experiences and having experiences with higher energies. The master spoke with authority on these energies because he is proficient in them. But every master insisted that the highest teaching was surrender. Now days more and more people are waking up to deeper and deeper levels so it is more important to emphasize the deeper teaching. It was always there usually front and center in the teachings of the masters of the radhasoami lineage for those listening.
Are you saying that there is some mystical help in belonging to a lineage of masters?
Yes. A lineage of masters can assist in a mystical way that cannot be articulated except in words that have currently lost all meaning such as the word grace. Yet in the end it will have been found that the entire spiritual journey depended only upon grace and nothing else. Yet what can the logical analytical mind do with such a concept?
What are the instructions for surrendering?
There can be no instructions for letting go or surrender because it is not a process you can do by the numbers. In his book “Letting Go” guy finley told a story about learning to water ski, falling, and hanging on to the tow rope for dear life as he was dragged through the water. His family was yelling from the boat and the shore, “LET GO!” Eventually he did let go but only when he felt there was no other option. He suggested later that the reason we don’t let go is because we don’t even see what’s going on. We don’t realize how simple the solution is. The hardest ones to let go are the ones we don't see.
Sometimes letting go is easy but we are so preoccupied with our appearance, what others might think, what could happen and what it might mean that we don't even see the obvious solution … to just let go of the tow rope. If I have a ball in my hand and ask you how to let go of it what could you tell me. Relax your hand. How? Ungrip your fingers. How? Every instruction only leads to another how question.
All people are gripped with selfishness. It seems natural. How does one get rid of this self-concern?
It is a taught behavior. It's a constant self-reflective way in which one grasps an identity and constantly guards what is owned as “mine.” These habits of mind become second nature and unquestioned. We have to begin to question everything and certainly everything that we notice is not making us flow. There is a story of a wealthy lawyer one afternoon riding in his limousine when he saw two men, on all fours alongside the road, eating grass.
Disturbed at the site,
the lawyer ordered his driver to stop and the lawyer got out to investigate.
The lawyer asked the first man "Sir, why are you eating the grass." The man
responded: "We don't have enough money for food." "Well, then," the lawyer
said, "you can come with me to my house."
"But, sir, I have a wife and two
children with me." "Bring them along," the lawyer replied. The lawyer turned
to the other man and declared, "You can come with us also." The second man,
pitifully, said "But, sir, I also have a wife and six children with me."
"Bring them along, too," said the Lawyer.
They all piled into the limousine,
which quickly became cramped, despite the roominess of the limousine. As
they were proceeding to the lawyer`s house, one of the poor fellows turned
to the lawyer and said "Sir, you are too kind for taking us all to your
home."
The lawyer replied "I'm glad to do it... you'll love my place, the
grass is almost a foot high."
Such is the plight of the ego, unconscious of its callousness, thinking it is helping when in reality it is incapable of serving anything beyond its own welfare.
But I thought the master was going to protect us and take us to sach khand. Is this a lie?
It's not a lie and yet there is a deeper aspect to it. It's based on a wrong assumption. You already are in heaven or sach khand. Sach khand is not somewhere else, sach khand means the place of truth. You are in the truth looking for the truth. As long as you believe you are in a dangerous place and in need of saving, the master is there to save you. When that belief that you are separate from the truth, from heaven, when that belief drops so does the need for saving drop.
Sadhu Om illustrated this with a wonderful story from his book “The Path of Sri Rama – Part One.
One evening a young boy went for a stroll with his
father. When dusk had almost set in, he beheld a tree-trunk
from which the branches and leaves had been cut off. He
was terrified and screamed, “Oh Father! There, see, a ghost!”
Though his father knew the truth that it was just the stem
of a tree, he assured the boy,” Oh, that ghost! It cannot do
you any harm. I am here and will see to it, Come on”; so
saying, he led the boy away. On hearing the encouraging
words of his father, the boy took them to mean, ‘My father
is stronger than the ghost and that is why he says that it can
do me no harm’. This conclusion of the boy is similar to the
understanding of the protection of a perfect master.
Next evening, while going, for a stroll with his teacher
along the same path, the boy exclaimed, “Sir, look ! There’s
the ghost; we saw it yesterday also ,” The teacher pitied him
for his ignorance and said, “That is not a ghost”, But the boy
persisted, “No sir, my father also saw it yesterday; he even
assured me that he would see to it that it could do me no
harm; but sir, you say it is not a ghost at all.”
Would the
teacher yield so easily? He said, “Go near it and see for
yourself; I will shine the flashlight on it. If it turns out to
be a ghost, I too will see to it!”
The father also knew well that it was not a ghost.
Similarly, the great Sages also knew
that heaven is here now and that nothing
such as the ego, body, or world has ever come into existence
at all. The father, knowing that his son was quite unfit to
make a closer examination on account of his much
frightened state at that time, talked to him as if he were also
accepting the existence of the false ghost imagined by his
son. Even while talking like that, he was not telling a lie.
To allay quickly the fear of his son, he said, ‘The ghost
cannot do you any harm: That was indeed the truth!
However, what the teacher told him the next day was also the truth.
Although the, teacher’s
statement that it was not a ghost seems to contradict the
father’s statement, does it not in fact lend more support to
the objective of the father’s statement that the ghost could
do the boy no harm, by making him see for himself that it
was after all only the stem of a tree? By thus fulfilling the
father’s objective does not the statement of the teacher
breathe new life into that of the father”?
Instead of
understanding thus, if the boy were to conclude,’ Either my
teacher has condemned my father, or my father has told me
an outright lie’, it would be utterly wrong on his part. Only the confused (those who are in a similar state of delusion as the boy in
our story) who, not being able to grasp that there is no actual separation (only imagined separation), need protection and salvation from a master. Once the illusion disappears the need for the master disappears with it as there is no separation at this point and all is one.
The boy's father knew that for one imagining separation a simple effective cure in that moment was to imagine salvation. It would be of no help to such a person to tell them in their frightened condition that the ghost is not really there. THEY CAN SEE THE GHOST. To say it is not really there would only cause them to go and find someone that could help them fight the ghost. But someone who can see that there is no ghost may just say, “I will see that no harm comes to you from the ghost.” Thus the boy gets an opportunity to relax and from that relaxed position question how real the ghost may actually be.
Ramana says: “If a man has three wives and dies, all
the three wives will be widowed; none of them will be
missed out.” Similarly, when our illusion of separation dies all our needs for protection from imagined harm dies also. Kal dies, karma dies, rebirth dies, and all duality dies. None of them will survive the death of the illusion of separation.
This is not a contradiction in the teachings but all of the teachings have deeper levels which we can appreciate as we unfold.
What about the concept that upon following the path there will only be four lifetimes or less to go?
This is another example of how the ego (always looking for safety and guarantees) takes some comment of a master and makes it into a law. Anyone sincerely looking into the nature of truth and practicing surrender will likely end the cycles of rebirth in this very lifetime. Only the phonies don't make it and perhaps a master at some point observed that no matter how messed up and phony someone is they will drop the ego illusion within four lifetimes. Of course the ego will use this as a platform just like it uses everything it hears for self-agrandizement.
What is the point of doing meditation if it just to wear us out? I feel pretty worn out already.
As long as there is the illusion that you need something, have to do something, then meditation is needed. Nothing can be by-passed. Spiritual by-passing has become a way of life for many aspirants and only delays the journey. Commonly people intellectually understand that seeking, desiring, wanting more, is the only cause of separation. Therefore they discontinue their spiritual seeking and spiritual efforts …. yet continue their seeking and desiring in other aspects of life. They want opposite sex partners, they want cars, they want success for their children, they want ten million things. This wanting and grasping needs to get worn out in every single area of your life, not just giving up efforts in meditation.
Why does the master have money. Shouldn't he be above it?
You'd be surpised at how ordinary it is to live in the truth. It is the ego that lives in greatness and heroic mastery or martyrdom.
With true realization usually comes simple ordinariness and balance. All things come into a natural balance. The master doesn't use his position for financial gain yet must use money just as the rest of us. All things come into harmony. If you go to a teacher and he has made his teaching into a business it doesn't mean he has nothing to offer anyone but don't discard your intuition and common sense about it either.
When the days work is over you put your tools away and go home. So it is with realization. It's usually not that we take out the trumpets and proclaim our messianic mission. Rather we just put our tools away and go home without fanfare.
How much of realization is about identity and how much is about energy?
It is all about identity. The energy is to help you get to that place of seeing through the false identities you have created.
We have adopted an identity as our own when in fact our true nature is already free and always has been. That is one of those statements that is true and untrue at the same time. In reality you are not the person you believe yourself to be, but until you experience it down to your marrow you cannot say it is true for you … even though on a certain level you are already free. Let me give you an example.
The cuckoo bird lays its eggs in the nest of another bird. It hides and waits for until a nesting mother bird such as a reed warbler flies off from her nest, then quickly lays eggs in that nest and flies off. When the unsuspecting warbler comes back to its nest it may be confused about an extra egg but not being particularly good at math most birds will simply carry on with their motherly hatching duties. The cuckoo bird egg, with a shorter gestation period will generally hatch first and instinctively push the other eggs out of the nest. Now his adopted parents will spend all of their time and energy feeding the cuckoo and take responsibility for him even though he is actually foreign and does not belong to them.
Similarly the ego is a sort of parasite that we come to believe is our own. We spend all of our time and energy trying to fix and make well this false intruder. This ego/cuckoo bird wants constant help and reassurance. It wants safety, security, approval. It wants to look good, it wants to feel wanted, it wants to feel important. If we spend all of our time looking after this cuckoo bird it is our own true nature that gets ejected from the nest.
Like the nesting warbler with the cuckoo we too have been tricked into believing our true nature is a constantly hungry self that can never be satisfied no matter what experience we bring to it. It always has its mouth open for more. Even if we give it the direct experience of God, that is not enough for it, it wants the same again the next day. If we give it money it wants more of it. It wants sex, sensations, approval, fame, a bigger house, a nicer view, a better school for its children. We are constantly driven to satisfy the needs of the cuckoo bird baby in our nest. But no matter how much care and attention we give to the cuckoo bird baby, it will never be satisfied nor will it stay and support us. It will fly off at the first opportunity and go play the same trick somewhere else.
If you tell the mother warbler to discard the cuckoo bird you would be telling it to do something that goes against the grain of every instinct a mother has, because it appears to her that that is her own child which she is to mind. So what do you tell it? You tell it it is all right. You tell it to relax. You tell it the constant drive, the constant call of the cuckoo bird baby can never be satisfied. Now, in a relaxed state the mother bird begins to notice something very strange about what she thought was her baby. Now in this quiet relaxed state the emergency of feeding the cuckoo seems less important. The mother begins to notice foreign markings on what she thought was her child. Following clues from the master she gradually realizes she need no longer feed the cuckoo and it doesn't make her a bad mother. Even when every other bird in the neighborhood tells her how wrong it is not to take care of her child, she sees it as a cuckoo and eventually abandons it and when that happens a new possibility arises. That of supporting her own kind. Once again taking up with her own loving family rather than the harried life of supporting the cuckoo.
What about discipline?
Suffering now so that your future will be better makes about as much sense as throwing yourself overboard so that later you can have the enjoyment of being rescued. It is not about forcing yourself to do some practice for future reward. Sant mat is the path of love. Love in the beginning, love in the middle and love in the end. Torturing yourself, forcing yourself to do something you don't like, that is not love, that is the opposite of love.
Are we to just give up meditation then?
Meditation is love and love is meditation. When you sit still and rest in the masters will that is simply a more concentrated approach in which we let the distractions of the cuckoo bird drop away for a few minutes. You can turn even meditation into a cuckoo bird activity but then it is not love and not what we are talking about. If your meditation is not about love what is it about? How much discipline is required for love?
So it seems we come in the front door of sant mat thinking it is one thing and leave the back door finding out is was something else entirely.
Isn't that the case with everything? You enter kindergarten thinking school is about one thing and leave college many years later realizing that it was about something entirely different. Yet in the end, the first lesson turns out to be the last lesson. Everyone was told that it was a path of surrender from the very beginning. What that may mean many years later may not be what you originally thought, but some much deeper and more profound than you ever even imagined.
But how do I find the right path to arrive at Sach Khand?
In the film Mr. Nobody, at the end the interviewer asks Mr. Nobody which choices he made were the right ones. Mr. Nobody says, every choice is the right one. Every choice anyone makes is the right one and has just as much meaning as any other choice. In other words your freedom is not in where you go, your freedom is in your joy with wherever you are. One of the astral hells can be heaven as much as a higher realm if you relax in acceptance and surrender.
But what about simran. Aren't we to do simran constantly in order to make progress?
What is progress? Progress is love. If you are spending all of your time feeding the cuckoo bird, there may be a better way. The masters teach us to channelize the mind, narrow it down to one thing so it doesn't branch off into a million chaotic channels in which you lose yourself. When you do narrow it down it is also possible to connect to the primal life current.
Why connect to the primal life current?
The audible life current is the primal energy of the universe. It's deepest expression turns out to be in the will. It will lead you to the will and its ultimate expression which is complete and total surrender in every moment, in every condition. It is not something just for experiencing in meditation, its something much deeper than that.
How then do I achieve peace and wholeness?
If you want to measure the level of an individuals stress, measure his insistence that life does as he wants.
Someone pinned up a cartoon on the Dera bulletin board that sums up the essence of the path and the spiritual process. It said:
U alwys do wht u want
bt wht hpns is wht I want.
y don't u want what I want
then what happens will be what you want
luv rulz
yr BFF
I don't know what conditions God will present for you in the next years. I suspect they will have a lot to do with your beliefs about life. Whatever they are you can flow with them or resist them. One will be suffering, the other will be peace, freedom and joy.
The only thing you will lose by learning to want what the divine wants is your fear of not being in control.
Is the Universe friendly?
Yes, this is the question Albert Einstein regarded as the most important. If it is benign and friendly you have nothing to worry about and no saving is needed. If it is not we are all in deep trouble.
In reality there is no objective reality out there. Reality is a subjective experience determined by our beliefs and attachments. If you believe it is friendly then it is friendly. If you believe the news stories constantly blaring from every tv set then it is dangerous and unfriendly.
It is you creating your experience in the world. There is nothing to fear other than your own mind. Fear is an illusion created by the ego mind. You have the power to release yourself from the bonds of fear in live in the heart, love, freedom and intuition.
You create every moment of your existence. There are no victims in the universe. There are only volunteers and creators. Are you going to lose things. Face up... you're going to lose everything. Is that a bad thing? You have the power to decide. Nothing is good or bad except your mind makes it so. One person loses their car and is untroubled by it. Another is crippled with emotional pain. They chose their experience and they alone are responmsbile for it.. not kal, not the astrological tides, their own mind did that. What is kal but your own mind. Kal is not something out there somewhere.
Embrace your creative power... you have the power to make this life whatever you want it to be.
Does complete surrender mean you allow people to walk over you? Isn't that dangerous?
Surrender does not mean you say yes to everyone regardless of their request. Surrender means you always say yes to the intuition of love and truth in your heart. That may mean saying no to someone else if that is what is true for you. If someone comes over to my house with a truck load of rusted junk and says he is going to dump it on my front lawn, I would most likely say “yes” to that voice of truth in myself and tell this person that would not be acceptable behavior. I would not resist him, or get angry with him. I would seek to work with him to find a solution that would work for both of us, but I would not passively roll over and allow him to walk all over my property.
Is that what is meant by non-violent communication?
Yes. Marshall Rosenberg has done amazing work in this area. His great discovery is that if you say what you want and I say what I want … the two parties can always find a mutually agreeable solution. On the surface you might think that is impossible. “You don't know my neighbor joe or my wife and brother-in-law.” But Mr. Rosenberg has found after some 40 years as a mediator with the most intransigent former enemies … that if everyone is allowed to voice their needs … he has never had one case in all of those years where a solution acceptable to all parties has not been found..
Is there really life after death?
How do I know that it doesn't just end in non-existence? Going by our own experience we cannot say what is beyond death as none of us has died. In Christianity Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixation and talked to various people. Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism all teach awareness goes on after the body dies. Until we die we cannot know these things for certain first hand. We do know however if we are suffering in this life here and now and we can find out what we are doing that creates suffering. Trying to control things beyond our control is one such sure fire recipe for suffering and frustration..
Don't we read in the books that it is the Master who takes the disciple to higher regions? Why are you now saying we have to do it ourselves?
If the master could take you to the divine why would he not already have done so? We have already discussed that you are creating your own reality. How can he interfere with your reality and make it something incongruent with your beliefs? The master doesn't take his followers anywhere. He is a finger pointing to the moon. In other words he tells you what worked for him, provides you with guidance and support for creating your own heaven but he can't give it to you, and if he can give it to you he would not disempower you in that way. ?
What is the connection between surrender and self-enquiry?
You could almost say they are two names for the same thing, or perhaps two approaches to the same thing anyway.
We have many false selves with a variety of needs and wants. We feel desperate and unhappy when these false egoic selves do not get what they want. Therefore we ask the master to fulfill our desires. He tells us to surrender our desires into his hands and we will be taken care of as He knows best. In reality everything we surrender to the master is nothing but these false unnecessary desires. We are not giving him anything of value. We are only giving him all of our trash.
In contrast, with the self-enquiry approach we question these false selves. The false self with its myriad desires and needs never brought us any happiness anyway. By deeply scrutinizing our efforts and activities while experiencing the different joys and trial of life we find that at no time did any of these myriad desires bring us deep or lasting satisfaction. The self of a mother may deeply want her children to be happy and successful. Yet with exploration it may be found that this mother-self is intrinscially dissatisfied since the children all have ups and downs. By realizing this mother-self is not really who I am and giving up its needs and desires such a one can rest in the joy of their true nature which needs nor wants anything other than what is now happening. By questioning thus, a person comes to realize the bondage of the masquerading roles or selves and the freedom of the true self.
Does my true nature need wealth, approval, security, happy children?
No! Our true self is like a mirror. As pure awareness it simply reflects whatever appears. Does a mirror care if a fat person appears in it? Does a mirror care if gold appears or disappears? No, the mirror does not say to some people, you are not good enough to be in front of this mirror. It accepts everyone and everything that appears.
That's what you do when you inquire and connect with your true nature … you naturally accept whatever comes and goes equally. How is this different than surrender to the master in which you accept whatever comes and goes as His will? There is no difference! So whether you enquire and reject the false roles and endless desires they create, or you just hand all of the results (desires) over to the master, they turn out to be the same thing. Does it matter if you get into a boat from the left side or from the right side? In the end both people are sitting contentedly in the boat. The people sitting in the boat will never have an argument over which side of the boat is a better entrance. It is only the people outside of the boat who will say one way is better than the other, not realizing they are talking about two ways for the same thing. So which way is better? Only the one that works for you, the one that makes sense for you … that is always the best approach and they both can be used to supplement each other.
How do you get rid of the ego?
You don't get rid of the ego. It is almost like a natural capacity of humans. It is a certain use of the imagination and you don't get rid of the imagination. When you take a role and identify with it that is your ego identity. Maybe you believe you are a mother or a student or a biker. You may still want to go to school but you don't have to believe you are a student. It is like putting on a halloween costume, you may still choose to wear it but at the end of the day you take it off and never mistake your true nature for the role you played during halloween. Similarly, all of the ego selfs that appear in the imagination can never be who or what you really are. You still may choose to play the role but in yourself you never actually believe that you need all of the things your character thinks it needs. The great director will provide the proper things for all of his characters you need never worry. If the right props and the right lines don't seem to be there it just means you are confused about the role you are supposed to be playing in this particular act. In this particular act you play this particular role. Strangely though, if you are bemoaning the idea that your character doesn't have the needed props … that just happens to be your role in this particular act so you can rest assured you actually are playing the correct role. It can be a tragedy or a comedy... it's up to you. You are somewhat limited in your range of roles based on your appearance and social status … and yet isn't it amazing at the wide range of roles you can still do? Look at Joan of Arc. Who would have guessed a 14 year old girl would play the role of the leader of the french army? Amazing the roles that are possible for you and yet you are never limited to the role. So go have fun with your halloween constumes, just never think you are limited to that in any way or that you are one of the characters you happen to play.
Coming home from a shopping trip a forty three year old housewife was greeted by her husband at the door ready to help take in the grocery shopping from the car. She handed him two bags and then when he turned to bring them into the house she secretly hid another one of the bags behind the car seat to bring in later. After the other shopping was put away and Steven was engrossed in his computer work she quietly went out to the car and brought the bag in. It so happened when she came back in the house her husband was up from his chair and noticed the bag being brought in.”What's in the bag?” “Oh I want to show you my new dress.” she was lying. She did not want to show it. She held it up. “Oh yes,” he said. “Do you like it?” “Well it looks alright, do you like it?” “Yes I love it.” “Where would you wear a dress like that?” “Anywhere.”
For the rest of the evening and into the next morning she couldn't shake an uneasy feeling. She had bags and bags of dresses in the walk-in closet many never even worn and this would be another to go in with them. In her day to day life she wore confortable t-shirts and cutoffs or t-shirts and leggings and would unlikely wear the dress for months even years if at all. In the shop she had imagined going to an evening out, a wedding, a fine dinner out, or even a baptism wearing the dress. Those were imaginary selves that needed the dress. She even imagined a blessing of the graves outing in which she felt her outfit just wasn't good enough and imagined this current dress would make better that person in the past. We don't live in reality we live in our imagination. All of our ego selves live in the imagination. Imagination is our only problem and usually our greatest delight. Mark Twain said, I've had many problems in my life, most of which never actually happened.
What was that uneasy feeling she had when she wanted to hide the dress? And more importantly, how do you get rid of these negative feelings? After all spirituality is all about love and light. We need to banish these angry upset disconnected feelings and laugh and love and be joyful. That is being spiritual isn't it?
Actually no, that is not being spiritual... that is being angry and resentful and upset and trying to mask it, trying to pretend to be happy. Most of us are so good at pretending that we just bring the pretending practice into our spirituality thinking we are doing it right. Pretending is not doing it right. A hippo cannot put on a tutu and become a ballerina no matter how much he pretends. Similarly we can pretend to be spiritual, we can look the part and play the part but the only one we end up deceiving is ourselves and somewhere inside of us we know we are phoney. It is much more spiritual to be angry and annoyed and upset if that is what is true for you, than to put on an act. At least then you are being honest. An honest person has a chance. A phoney basically has no chance. An honest person will eventually find the truth, and with the truth comes clarity and with clarity comes freedom and happiness.
What is waking up?
Waking up means waking up from the trance of wanting more.
But I thought it was a matter of riding the sound current into the highest realms and being free from duality.
No, that is not waking up, that is having experiences. Naturally those experiences are beneficial in freeing us from the many wants of this world … yet even someone who is able to use the energy to go into the highest realms whenever desired … such a person has not necessarily woken up from the trance of wanting more and may be lacking clarity.
So the sound current energy is a means of freeing us from the many worldly wants.
Exactly.
But isn't it better to just realize the futility of wanting?
If you can do that, that is the deepest, fastest means to freedom. It's called surrender.
Buddha tried to make this clear in his teaching. He too was familiar with the yogic energies but he never preached it was all about manipulating the yogic energies and reaching other realms. Rather he said we can be free of suffering and all suffering is caused by craving, or desire, or whatever word you want to use.
How do you wake up from the trance of wanting?
You need clarity. It's like saying how do I stop hitting my thumb with a hammer. There is no method. If you get clear about the costs and benefits of hitting your thumb in that way you will stop automatically. As long as you truly believe there is some benefit to hitting yourself with the hammer you will continue.
But many times I have wanted things gotten them and become happier for them?
If that has worked for you then you are fine. Many people have found that there is no end to the strife and struggle of trying to satisfy the desires humans can come up with. If you have found that you have been able to get complete satisfaction in this world by satisfying all of your desires count your blessings and enjoy them.
At breakfast a middle aged man notice his wife distracted from eating or talking … trying to put an article by Arjuna Ardagh onto her kindle. He said I will do it for you after breakfast. She continue with her frustration in trying to get it put on now. He said do you want me to do it for you now before my breakfast? Ok. So even though a part of him would have preferred finishing breakfast .. he took the kindle and walked over to th main computer and put the article on it. Later when she was putting the breakfast stuff away he said could you leave it out a little longer. I didn't have time to eat my full breakfast because you made me interrupt it and put that article on your kindle.
A part of him totally believed that she made him do it as if he had no choice in the matter and was just a victim of the circumstance. But did she really make him do anything? Of course not. By believing we are victims of circumstances we dodge responsibility for our actions and maintain our trance of upset lost in our resistance to reality … as if someone else was forcing us to do it.
Doesn't the ego have a natural inclination to merge with something greater than itself?
Yes those are the two forces at play with the ego, the inclination to merge and the one to separate and be self-willed. The ego is a process of wanting your own good first and the price is often a disconnection with others.
A woman accompanied her husband to the doctor's office.
After his check-up, the doctor called the wife into his office alone. He said, "Your husband is suffering from a very severe stress disorder. If you don't follow my instructions carefully, your husband will surely die.
"Each morning, fix him a healthy breakfast. Be pleasant at all times. For lunch make him a nutritious meal. For dinner prepare an especially nice meal for him.
"Don't burden him with chores. Don't discuss your problems with him; it will only make his stress worse. Do not nag him. Most importantly, make love to him regularly.
"If you can do this for the next 10 months to a year, I think your husband will regain his health completely."
On the way home, the husband asked his wife, "What did the doctor say?"
"He said you're going to die," she replied.. ..
If I lose my identity is there just no one left? Would there be no one there to experience it?
If you lost all identity tomorrow, of course you would still be there to experience it. You just would not be able to put together another story about who you are. You ;would be just identityless being. Pure nowness in action. You could probably remember the story of the character you used to think you were but you would not believe you were in any way limited to that past. The character you so believed in … mother, student, policeman, waiter, lawyer, wife … you could still play those roles but on a deeper level you would get that you are ideintiyless awareness. We spend our whole lives creating identities and believing them.
What is the dark night of the soul?
That term may actually cover a lot of things we go through on the spiritual journey. When we start seeing our self ways we may feel uncomfortable at how callous we have been toward other beings. In the end we will discard everything we have. That can seem painful. When your husband dies you lose the role of wife and feel alone and separate again. When you lose your job you lose your identity as breadwinner, taxi driver whatever. When you lose everything including ALL identities that can seem a bit uncomfortable until you really connect with the freedom that is. What is that Janis Joplin song line, “freedom is another name for nothing less to lose.” At first that may seem sad or unpleasant. As you adjust it's found that nothing is also everything and in that there is joy.
What proof do we have the master is who we think he is and can help us after death?
This is where of science diverges from spirituality especially in western societies. Do you have proof of jesus? Do you have proof of atheism. Do you have proof of love? If you demand proof in spirituality then you are better left with your law books and dogmatism and stay behind and read about people who have actually made this journey of love... but never think that the intellect is what will get you in the door...
Isn't that what people say in spirituality in order to trick the gullible and take their money?
Yes that happens too. But if you don't want to be tricked it will not be your iintellect that will protect you. It will only be your intuition. You've got nothing else in this. Luckily it won't let you down if you give it a chance.
What is the green hair story?
If someone says to me, you look ridiculous because your hair is green … it doesn't bother me one bit. Why? Because I know my hair is not green and I wouldn't take such a person seriously. If that same person came to me and said you are rude and inconsiderate I may take offense. Why? Because I believe I am rude and inconsiderate and don't like it and want it hidden. He would have no power to hurt me with his words unless there is something in me that believes what he is saying in some manner or another and resists it. So if you are hurt by something someone says to you, that hurt is within yourself, something you were already carrying around.
How important are having goals?
Goals are the very problem. If you have a goal it means the now moment is useless, its a means to an end. The end goal is where you want to be. You can't enjoy what is here now, you are living for that future moment. In religions and spirituality it is a big trap to be so caught up in living for some future heaven that you can't realize the heaven that is here now, if you would but give up your orientation of living for the future you would be in heaven. Goals are one of the prime obstacles to enlightenment or peace here and now. Goals are another name for dissatisfaction really. It is a way of proclaiming “now is not good enough but it will be later.” but if you live in the state of mind of goals when that later comes you will just create a new goal. And when all goals are accomplished your life will seem empty and without meaning.
And yet we still need direction and goals in some sense. Would we all just drift through life with no sense of purpose and meaning? Accomplishing nothing? So in a sense we do have a goal but not in a psychological sense just more a practical sense. In other words you do have a direction but it is held loosely, lightly. You remain open to other opportunities.
There is a story of mark cuban who had a job running a software store in texas. He used to help some of the customers with the software and one day someone with one of the bigger accounts asked him to come with him and help him set up the software. Mark had to make a decision. Open the store as was his job, or go with this client and help him out. He put a sign on the shop will be back in an hour. The next day he was fired. No surprise. He opened up a software consulting firm and went on to become a billionaire. As a store manager his goal and duty was to run the shop … yet he held it lightly. When the opportunity of a lifetime turned up he wasn't so narrowed down on a tiny goal that he couldn't let it go for a bigger vision.
What about discipline? Are we not told to discipline ourselves to do our meditation?
Discipline is when one part of our mind tries to force another part into a certain behavior. Let's take smoking as an example. On the one hand you have a health conscious good self who wants to be free of the habit and you have another self that wants to relieve stress and feel good. These two selves then try to battle and for awhile one wins and then the other one wins. If the health conscious self is winning, the feel-good self is going to be all the more stressed out and eventually need even more cigarettes so fighting is never the answer. It just creates more stress. This is the same with any habit or addiction. Maybe you have a fitness self in you arguing with a “feel good through overeating” self. The more the “fitness” self seems to win, the more stressed the “overeating” self becomes and therefore needs to eat more. This fighting cannot create a workable solution.
Then what is the workable solution?
Clarity and observation and acceptance. Acceptance is the first and most basic rule life. If you accept and love all of your selves the overeating self, the smoking self then you reduce the stress that energizes the behavior you find unhealthy.
Healthy and balanced is the natural way and as soon as you stop fighting with yourself and stressing yourself out the sooner your body and habits will return to a natural healthy balance by themselves. Alan Carr has done some amazing work with his books and clinics in helping people give up addictive behaviors through nothing more than regaining clarity. No discipline, no hard work, schedules or struggles. When you have clarity it just happens in a natural organic way.
Is there some action I can take to move toward enlightenment?
Any action you take to move toward enlightenment is an action away from enlightenment. Why? Because you are already there somehow believing you need something else. Remember we said the trance state (unenlightenment) is caused by “wanting more.” If you feel you have to do something to get enlightenment … really what you are saying is “I want more.” I want to have something, an experience, an understanding, an acknowledgement from God … I need something more. And what is wanting something more? The trance state! The mechanism of the ego. As soon as you want more you are back in the ego.
But you can't pretend not to want more when you do want all of those things. (experience of god, perfect understanding, acknowledgement from god. That's the catch 22. That wanting is true for you unless you lie, and that very wanting is what keeps you from having what you want. Isn't that a tragedy? What you want you can't have because you want it! Not even so much because you want it … but because you want period. Wanting is the problem! The ego self only comes into being as a function of wanting. I'm not making this up for the first time. What did Buddha say? All suffering comes from craving (wanting).
All of these false selves, doers, are imagined. And they are only imagined in response to desire. No desire, no imagined self. But then that is no help because all action is only the result of desire. So it is not action or desire that is the problem. It is the creation of the doer. The imagined person with a past and future. Without thought or memory is there any past or future? No? Then past and future are not real things, just something the thought does. A dog only lives in the present moment because he cannot think up a past and future.
That is of no help. It leaves me with nothing to do, totally stuck.
That is actually a great place to be. That is the truth you have been running from you whole life. You don't have because you want and you want because you don't have. And you can't pretend otherwise even though you know this. What would you do if you knew this was going to be your situation for the next 10,000 years lifetime after lifetime?
I guess I would just give up and let it be.
Give up and let it be, where have you heard those words before?
Other than the beatles song it seems like let it be is something all masters have been trying to say in some way. Stop fighting and let it be, or accept, or surrender to what is, or surrender the the master's will, or love what is, or peace, or love... all words for the same thing.
If I can't surrender to the master and I can't get there by meditation, what other way is there?
Be real. Be truthful. Question everything.
Such as?
One question you could ask is, what do you really own. Most people are so stuck in the ownership principle. In fact they think that is what life is about. Creating the ownership principle around more and more objects and properties. They have even applied the ownership principle in such a way that they think they own awareness. Do you own awareness? Could awareness leave and you as the owner stay? What do you own?
What do you cling to? What do you think you need? Does not the master or the universe provide everything that is needed?
Have you ever thought the version of enlightenment you are talking about here is false? Some kind of lesser understanding? Certainly this little trick of seeing through the illusion of a separate identity can in no way be compared to the marvels that Swamiji Maharaj experienced. It takes a great master to take us to the ultimate high realms of Sach Khand.
Has not every teacher said the highest path is surrender? To believe the idea that the truth is difficult, hard to find, far away, requires hours and years of meditation, those things keep it very far away. The truth is always here now and your true nature. If it's already here what do you have to do to get it?
Bottom line what are the instructions we are to follow to correctly follow the path of Radha Soami?
You can follow instructions to listen to do simran and bhajan but those things are just to get started.
What do you mean get started?
Yes, that is only the beginning and if you don't do particularly well at that it is of no worry.
Why?
Because you need to give up on all of that in order to prepare for the main course anyway. If you are quite successful at listening to the sound and traveling into higher realms it may not help you get to the place of total and absolute surrender which is the final stage.
Thus if someone is completely unsuccessful at meditation. Never has any experiences of higher realms, this may in fact be to their advantage because such a person has no where else to go but utter, total, abject surrender to the Master's grace. And that is the path. Let me repeat it. Utter, total, abject surrender to the grace of the master. Not your own efforts. Not your ability to achieve higher realms …. all of that is beginners stuff. The final stage is to give up all that, give up experiences, give up all that you own, all that you have, all that you wish for, everything for surrender. That is the pearl of great price.
What do you mean pearl of great price?
There is a story about a man who finds a large and perfect pearl. He brings it to the corner market and asks the man there how much he would buy it for. The man examines it carefully and offer $5. Next he brings it into the town and finds a man operating a jewelry story who actually knows something about precious gems. That man examines the pearl and offers $500. Next he goes to an expert in pearls, who specializes only in pearls of rare value. This man examines the pearl carefully and offers $5 million. All of the men making offers for the pearl were sincere and honest in their dealings, yet only the expert was willing to pay such a high price.
Similarly anyone can surrender at anytime, yet generally only those that have tried every other method and strategy are truly able to appreciate the value of surrender. Others may think it is only worth $5 or $500 but the man who has done everything, tried every method, worked every angle, every strategy to get to God. Such a man then comes to realize the value of surrender, the very thing he was told about his very first day on the path.
We walk around the world and in the end come back and find everything we were looking for was in our own home. So yes, work as hard as you like, trying to awaken the third eye, trying to reach up into the higher realms of love and light … but be aware all of the love and light and peace and perfection may have already been there all along. You may have had it all along and only the belief you had to go somewhere to get it, do something to get it, that may have been the only thing in the way. But you have to do it until you don't.
You can't just say to the man in our story who first was offered the pearl … you should have appreciated it. No. After he studies pearls for 50 years then he will appreciate it. After he walks around the world and examines every type of pearl, he may come to know its value. Similarly, after we have walked around the spiritual world, tried every type of practice and method to reach god, only when we totally give up, truly and totally, only then do we start to realize the value of surrender. You would think we could have done it from the very beginning, just as the first man theoretically could have offered his entire shop for the pearl. But he wasn't ready to understand its value, similarly we do not understand the value of surrender at first. Maybe after we have had every experience of the highest realms at that point we may start to understand the true nature of the Master and surrender. Or maybe because we have tried so many years and nothing has worked we then understand the value of surrender.
Or maybe when the first moment that we hear about it, the very first time we are told that it is all about surrender of your will into god's will or the masters' will … maybe some can hear it from the very first day. It is often the very first thing we are told in spirituality, in Radhasoami.
Maybe some can hear it the first day. Such people are rare but that could be you. My friend, do not think you have to travel around the world to understand this simple “understanding” of the value of surrender. And yet if it is your path to try everything, do everything, make every attempt at control, struggle and effort … if that is your path let it be as fun as you can make it. It will fail of course, but at least fail with some enthusiasm and flair and courage. In the end you will find you could do nothing yourself and it was only the divine that did everything. But in the meantime at least have fun.
If there are no instructions for us to follow to come to this surrender, then how are we to proceed?
Perhaps the best one can do is begin to ask questions. Nothing should be above or beyond questioning.
Such as?
I don't know that it works to have someone else think up the questions for you? Would you not prefer to discover everything for yourself? What is this path but one of self-discovery. Nevertheless I will try to suggest some questions that may be of value in coming to that place of clarity and peace and surrender. One question I have spend a lot of time with is,
“What do you own?”
The ego thinks it owns this and owns that, but what do you really own? Don't suddenly get all spiritual now when you ask this question because the mind somehow intellectually understands that the Divine owns everything. The thinking mind will try to corrupt every legitimate question we bring up. What is your real day to day experience of owning? This is not the time to speak from your intellectual understanding of what you have just read. Don't say the master owns everything if that is not your actual day to day experience. Do you get upset if your car gets damaged? If you lose money? If yes, then you have not truly given it over to the master.
What do you want?
This is one of the greatest questions for pinpointing areas in your life which are not surrendered. Again when asking this now is not the time to get all spiritual and answer from the mind. If I gave you three wishes right now what would you want? Anything at all you want. Now look at those areas where you have just stated a lack and ask if the master is capable of handling all of them. And when I say the master I mean the divine, the supreme, the all in all.
What is the method for realization?
There are many ways to approach it. One way is a two step approach. Right now most people are living in a virtual reality. A world of characters and stories they have created in the minds. The actual world is of lesser consequence to them and used as a way to enhance the virtual story world. One possible approach is to bring the virtual (mental story) world into a happy condition and then the next step is to actually live in the real world with no stories. I say this is one approach because with some people the virtual mental story world becomes so unpleasant that they can no longer maintain it and just drop it completely. Eckhart Tolle may be one example of someone who could no longer stand the suffering of the virtual world and dropped it completely. However, for most people it is easier to drop the suffering of the virtual world and that way get the breathing space in which to begin to see the actual world. In the next chapter we are going to look at some ways in which to make the story world a better place, all the while realizing that eventually we will want to completely drop even that.
How to Improve the virtual mental story world.
One first step may be to observe the trap of victimhood.
The poor me story. The whoa is me story. How does this story go? It goes like this. You have certain mental programs [usually instilled by your parents] on how things should go in your life. Successful career, happy marriage, lucky children, wealth, and joy. Parents are very good at instilling these expectations yet giving very few tools to make them happen. So with these expectations naturally if we say lose our money. Rather than saying, oh that's interesting I wonder what that means is the next step for my life … we say poor me, I am a victim, I have been treated badly by other selfish mean people. One of the things that is often not recognized in the victim trap is that we create our own meanings out of what happened. For example let's say one's husband is caught cheating in marriage with another woman. We say it automatically means that he's bad, this should not have happened and it means I have been abused. We do not realize we made it mean that. In actuality it may mean, I never established harmonious communication with my husband. It may mean I was a controlling nag to my husband, it may mean I never listened to my husband. But in victimhood we can never look at things as just being what happened. We have to make them mean something in which ends in “poor mistreated me.” “I never did anything wrong and everyone mistreats me.”
Just be aware that nothing that happens is good or bad. We give it a meaning. We can give it a meaning that makes us miserable or we can give it a meaning that makes us happy. The choice is ours and always was. That is what the victimhood trap is about. Joe said I'm stupid and he may me feel bad. This is giving over responsibility for your feelings to someone else. No one made you feel anything except yourself. You empower yourself when you take responsibility for your own feelings and own life. He made me feel bad. He made me feel....They said this [xyz] and made me feel...
Let's get this clear once and for all. No one makes us feel anything. No one else has the power to make us feel anything. We make ourselves feel whatever we feel. It something we do. And because the power is in our hands we now have the power to change it.
Step two... ask four questions.
Byron Katie has done amazing work with the simple model of asking four questions and turning it around. Questions are great because they are not instructions … they are just a way of looking. 1) is it true? 2) do I know 100% for sure it's true. 3) what do I get for holding the belief this is true? 4) What would I be like without the belief?
Let's give an example. Let's say I miss my turn on the highway and now have to go 20 miles out of my way and feel angry. I feel this should not have happened and that it is terrible that i'm going to be late.
1) is it true it should not have happened? Is it true it's a bad thing? Is it true it's bad i'm going to be late? Is it true that it's a bad thing to be angry?
Do I know 100% for sure these things are true? This is where the doubt can really be examined. Are there other possibilities? Is it possible that this event may actually be helpful to me?
What do I get for holding the belief that it's bad to be late, that I shouldn't have missed my turn, that it shouldn't have happened?
What would my life be like without this belief? Maybe I would be just flowing along listening to the radio and enjoying myself.
These four questions are very powerful for undoing the crazy stories we live in based on our beliefs.
Step three... Let go of emotions.
Ewhat you resist persists. If a child was hurt and upset would you try to get rid of him? So why do we do it with our emotions? If you saw a hurt child would you ask yourself, could I let go of this hurt child? Or would you go over and give him a hug. Similarly we can accept and love our emotions.
Emotional feelings come and go in our space all day long. Some we lock onto and hold onto for dear life without realizing that we can let them go as easily as we grasped them. It's all a matter of seeing what we are doing. Let's say you are feeling upset over wrecking the car. Feel the feeling. Then ask, could I let go of this feeling. Answer honestly. Maybe the answer is no, I can't let it go and have to hang on to it. As long as you are doing it consciously it's ok. Later without an agenda to get rid of the feeling, just look again. Would it even be possible for a person like me to let go of this feeling. Maybe you can see it would be possible to do, but just can't do it now. That is valid. Maybe you will see that it is possible to go through the rest of your day in an upbeat mood …. maybe you can't do it now but just to see that the possibility exists is a crack in the door. Despite what has happened would it be possible for you to actually enjoy the rest of your day here? We have so little time here on earth. Do you really want to spend it upset over this? Maybe the answer is yes, that's ok. Just be honest and allow things to be as they truly are. Just be open to the possibilities.
Step four... understand the power of beliefs.
Let's say someone insults you by saying you have green hair. You feel hurt and annoyed. You go look in the mirror and examine your hair closely. You ask your other friends if they can see a green tinge to your hair. You get mad at them for saying something that is so untrue. But what is really going on here? If you had no belief that there is something wrong with you you would be completely untouched by their comment. You would laugh and say my friend, you may want to have your eyes checked …. my hair is not green in any way. Because you didn't believe it it would not bother you. On the other hand if you held the belief there is something wrong with you or your hair you may feel quite bad about this comment. But it wasn't anything that happened out there that caused your pain. It was your own belief in your own inadequasy that they showed to you that caused the pain. If it wasn't them it would have been someone else as long as you carried the belief. You were a walking pain machine as long as you held that belief and it was just a matter of time before someone came and triggered youStep five …. understand the “there's something wrong with me” belief. Almost no one gets into adulthood without buying into this belief in some manner. Usually it's because we have been told this a million times before we are three years old.
How do we live without fear?
Like almost everything else, this drops only when you see it clearly for what it is, not when you try to get rid of it. This is as true of fear as it is with smoking, drugs, alcohol, gambling or sex addiction. Clear seeing of how unworkable something is puts an end to it.
I have an interesting story about my neighbors cat who was fearless and it was always an inspiration to me. They had two dogs and a cat. The cat was not big, just medium size, but it would not allow the two dogs to fight ever. If they ever tried to fight each other the cat would get in between them and put manners in them in a very fierce no-nonsense type of way. At that time in our neighborhood there were seven or eight cats that had been killed by some animal and so my neighbor Scott decided to tie up the cat to the dog house in the back yard until it could be found out what had killed the neighborhood cats. A few days later he was looking out his window and saw a huge Rottweiler dog come charging at the tied up cat. But the interesting thing was this cat dug in, got it claws ready and prepared for a fight. It was not going to go down without a battle. The dog charged at the cat but the cat never flinched but was fully determined to do battle with everything it had. The amazing thing was, when the dog got to about six feet from the cat and saw it didn't try to run but was prepared for a nasty fight … it just stopped and then turned around and went off in the direction he came from. As big as he was chances are that Rottweiler could have killed that cat but I would say he definitely would have known he was in a battle. And so it is with fear. If we cower and run and are afraid we cannot do our best. If we are willing to stand in their with our very best and everything we have that is our way to go.
What is the point of imagining the Master when we meditate?
The ego is imaginary. It is an imaginary concept that we create when we imagine other people and we are constantly imagining other people. Let's say I imagine someone at work. In relation to that person at work I imagine myself and create the imaginary structure of Steven at work. The person who does certain things, says certain things. In reality there is no such person. It is just something I create in my mind based on all my memories and actions at work. But when I imagine my co-worker this person, this ego pops up and connects with them. When I stop imagining others, I also tend to stop imagining this ego self in relation to others. That's why it is a wonderful practice to just spend a few hours or a day or longer just not imagining other people. Not imagining what you are going to say to other people. Not imagining what they may say to you. Not imagine what they may say or look like or do. If you stop imagining them, the imaginary ego you create to connect with them also does not pop up and you live in the reality of this present full here and now moment.
Unfortunately chances are you cannot stop imagining others and can't stop creating an imaginary ego that connects with them. Ok, you cannot do that … so what can you do? We always have to just work with what we have. What can you do? One thing you can do since you are stuck in imagination is imagine being with the Master. The ego self that is created in this way is what might be termed a purified ego. It is the ego that connects with the spirit of truth and love and light. It is not the addicted ego. It is not the selfish ego. It is not the victim ego. It is the ego that wants truth.
Later as more clarity comes … this whole imagination project that you are involved in may become useless to you. In the meantime Sant Mat has provided a gradual practical way to connect more and more to the truth. It is meant to be a help to you. And to many confused people this help has been an amazing lifeline to reality. If you are still in the stage of constant imagining of an ego person with a past and future and are confused about which way to go … imagining being with a Master can be a tremendous help. Later you may read Advaita teachings and think … oh there was no ego and no need for a Master. This is like an older child saying “I was tricked with the whole santa claus thing. Santa claus is not real.”
Santa was simply an appropriate stage of childhood. To later go back among those children and denigrate santa may be to try and take away something magical and valuable to that particular stage of development. Simply put, if the imaginary ego arises, the purpose of the master is to help undo it.
If there is a fire in your dreams you need dream water to put it out. The danger comes when you understand this intellectually and therefore think you are beyond the need. That is akin to the person who believes himself on fire in a dream yet refuses to make use of the dream water because he thinks it is not real. If you are at a stage where you believe the dream fire is real for God's sake make use of the dream water! Do not go around on fire and angry because the dream water is fraudulent.
Why purify the ego?
This game is all about clarity. When you are in a swamp fighting alligators constantly it is hard to gain clarity about even why you are there. As you gain clarity it may become clear to you that you don't have to stand there and fight alligators.. there is no purpose in it. Similarly as you give up addictions, selfishness, delusionary imaginings, and live more and more in the truth, a gradual and greater clarity emerges. That clarity is your lifeline to truth peace and joy.
When you look at your hand … whose hand is it? In reality it is simply the universes hand. When you are so caught up in who said what … you can never see this simple thing. Maharaji said onetime that something like, our biggest problem is we can not see a simple thing in a simple way. To do that we need clarity and our master is such a step in that direction.
What would you be without imagination?
What control do you have?The guru is a pointer to point us in the right direction. But because we come from an ego place we simply use him to play our ego games... trying to say things to him to get approval... trying to get noticed... suck up to him. These type of games only dramatize our ego place and does not impress him or our own true nature and somewhere we feel it.
In Sant Mat we have a the chance to end millions of years of reincarnating. Certainly this is a very serious endeavor. Why aren't you more serious about the rules of Sant Mat?
The rules, the four vows are meant as a help in clarity and yet we must understand that love itself is always something light and fun and easy. In fact the less ego, the more fun. If you want to know how caught up in ego you are take a look at how much fun you are. Fun is the very definition of living in the now moment.
All of the things we do for fun are designed to put us exactly into the now moment in a pure way. Rock climbing, skiing, parachuting, films, video games, almost anything you can name have this factor in common. Life itself, without the drudgery of the imagination, the future and the past is nothing but pure fun. But now days we are programmed to be so controlled by advertisers and companies that it almost seems like only they are the ones who dole out fun in rigid controlled ways. Roller coasters, films, this peak experience or that peak experience, all expensive ways to have fun that we have to pay money for. We are told prescription drugs are fun, new cars are fun, smoking is fun, eating certain foods is fun. Have you ever noticed on tv that the people on the shows are almost always engaged in some form of extreme conflict often to the point of murder and the only ones that really seem to be having fun are the people in the advertisements who are having fun because they possess some product? People having fun with new runners, new phones, new televisions and tooth paste. All ways for you to gain approval and have fun. And yet how successful have any of these methods ever turned out? The new music only consists of someone lamenting the loss of a girlfriend. The new tv shows only disply people engaged in murder, robbery and other mayhem. The only happiness in any them is in the further advertisements which offer hope of another way to attain happiness through some product. The corporations have people believing that only they control how much happiness is doled out and it all comes from them. A do-ityourself happiness movement has yet to arrive in our culture and if those in power have anything to say about it, it will never arrive. There are no pre-conditions for happiness. It is an attitude, not something you acquire. Every and any experience can be happy or miserable only according to your attitude and your perception of it. Just as you enjoy a film that makes you weep as much as a film that makes you laugh... so to, every and any event can be fun and enjoyable in its own way. This is how people take back their power from authority figures who attempt to rule through faulty mind programming. Humans are built for fun, all of our senses are alive with fun. Our natural state is fun and everything we do is fun when we live in the now moment and get our of our imaginations of the past and the future. In Radhasoami the wrong practice is to live in the future of our arrival to Sach Khand. The right practice is to accept and enjoy and love in this now moment. A child can have fun just as it is with whatever it is doing. There are no necessary preconditions. It doesn't need to go to an amusement park. Totally in the now moment just putting on your shirt can be amazingly fun and washing dishes too. People who know fun have more fun washing dishes, than those disconnected from it can ever have on the ski slopes of Aspen or dining at posh hotels. Having fun in any circumstance is our natural birthright … it is not something that is to be apportioned to us by corporations that we have to pay money to. If you let people tell you you need a lover, a product or place to attain fun you have denied your true nature and your true power.
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