Women suffering gender violence, terminal patients and its families, homeless, prison-mates, economically depressed neighborhoods, public schools, long-term unemployed, etc… are offered this service free of charge.

The Yoga taught is based in the traditional Yoga teachings and includes practices related to action, thoughts and feelings (Karma, Bhakti and Gnana) and individually designed practices of Raja Yoga. The practices and exposition is classic yet adapted in its language to modern day men and women and taking into consideration the particularities of each of the individuals that we teach to.

Through an agreement with Pou de la Figuera from the City of Barcelona, Meditacion sin Fronteras started last Tuesday 7th September a Free 9 week meditation course for neighbours of an empoverished neighbourhood from Barcelona City Center.

33 people started their meditation class and will continue throughout the next 9 weeks learning and being guided in the art of daily meditation and spiritual practices.

We hope to be able to add our bit to help alleviate the suffering that many of our brothers and sisters go through.

We thank Sivasankari for this nice initiative.

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• Assuming one’s responsibility
• Accepting the state of affairs of our life as it stands today
• this brings us to a general sense of devotion to our lives
• which in turn brings about the surrender required to experience Unity Consciousness

Acceptance is one of the key qualities that we need to implement in our lives. Understanding that our particular form of life is the result of an evolutionary process brings us into terms with life, as it is experienced by our own particular individual mind. Karma is a very much misunderstood concept.

A fictional conversation between chela and Guru by Raman Leonato based on the teachings of Gururaj Ananda Yogi

The Lover: You have said that we carry the memory of millions of years of experience in our subconscious mind and that these impressions are the basis of our karma.  From a practical point of view, how many of these experiences can we free ourselves of in one life?

The Beloved: Karma works hand in hand with Grace.  If you have millions of years worth of karma stored up within you, which are the impressions that make up your ego self, it does not mean that you have to live millions and millions of lifetimes to get rid of them all.  They can be got rid of in one lifetime.  Man has the ability in him to reach enlightenment in one lifetime. Not by getting rid of the karmas, but by shedding them.
Now, how does one shed karma?  The seeds are there, and the normal expression used by Sanskritists is this, that you burn the seeds so that they could not germinate.  Now, how does one burn the seeds?  Spiritual practices play a great part.  The proper mode of life, of living and thinking, plays a great part.  But the greater part is played by action and by non-stagnation.
I usually say that if you have killed ten people it is not necessary to be killed ten times.  You might be faced today by a fire in the school nearby, save eleven lives of the children inside, risking yours each of the times you get into the fire, and you end up with one in the credit balance. So, the impressions and the karma formed by ten killings is automatically removed because it works on the balance sheet principle, and is forever balancing itself.  How much karma you have left on the debit or the credit side is what you are today, and the circumstances you are in are those in which you resolve yourself.

The Lover: So I should then not worry at all about my past deeds, even if I have been doing bad things?

The Beloved: If you have done bad things that does not effect your spiritual self at all.
Your spiritual self cannot be touched by good nor bad. It is above it all.  The spiritual life we talk of is above good and bad.  But, if some things you have done are contrary to the laws of nature, then you have to pay for that.  That is what we call the concept of hell, where you are tortured for it and you pay for it.  Yet those very heavens and hells are here and now today and can all be rewarded, or paid for, or repented upon, here now.  So the entirety of millions of years of buildup can be done away with here in this lifetime.
According to karmic law, time is not the factor.  We measure time only in the relative expression of the here and now, but in the entire scheme of things there is no such thing as time.  In ordinary existence, on the relative or the grosser relative, a million years might have passed, but all of that can be wiped away in a few moments.  The time it takes in preparing the candle and the match is far, far longer than just striking the match and creating light, and that is illumination.  Then the darkness of all those samskaras  – disappear.  A darkness might exist in an old ancient English castle for a few hundreds of years, and yet you walk in there with a lighted lamp and the darkness of hundreds of years in this unoccupied castle vanishes immediately. It vanishes because you are there with this light.  And this light is lit by meditation and spiritual practices.

The Lover: Should I then think that my circumstances today are there for me to pay back my karmas?

The Beloved: You’ve gone through so many lifetimes and so many experiences and you are paying for it today.  It is good to think that way.  That gives you a sense of acceptance that – “I must accept my lot wherever I am placed”.  That is why Christianity says we are born in sin. There is great truth in that. We have brought with us all those samskaras which form our tendencies in life. Essentially the human being is divine; but he does come with this burden.

The Lover: So I accept that. My circumstances today are those in which the karma, the burden I carry is resolved. How do I resolve it?

The Beloved: With this acceptance you must perform action, for acceptance alone will not help you, and it cannot be cowardly acceptance – because you are a coward and you are not prepared to fight; you just accept.
If a person is stronger than you, a big bully and you don’t fight him and you say, “Oh, well, I am a stronger man because I’m not going to be violent.”  Sounds beautiful from the outside, but really speaking, you are afraid.  You are accepting defeat there now, not because you are stronger but because you are weak.  Because you fear.  The proper kind of acceptance would mean that you are accepting the challenge by action.

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There is nothing that is really apart from another thing. That is the greatest delusion man suffers, finding separation in this world.  You have never been apart from Divinity, never ever.  You are eternal,  immortal, as Divinity is, and you have never been separate from that.

This is something we can easily understand intelectually, as we can see that the physical reality in which takes place our cognition of our own existence is just a vacuum in which different particles interact with each other in miraculous ways, and that It which brings together this manifestation is the Real Self we speak about. Because the manifestor and the manifestation cannot happen separately, if there is a manifestor, there is a manifestation, like with fire and heat. One does not happen without the other, and they are not separate.

Now realising this in daily living is a complete different ball game. Most of us are householders in the sense that we are not sadhus, or renunciates that are fed by the charity of others and that dedicate themselves to mull over The Divine or Self. We are householders and require of the actions of the so called ego in a way a sadhu will probably never understand.

Our  little ego self has assumed a separation, although the ego self exists only on borrowed light of the real Self within.  The ego self assumes that it is the thing that does everything.   You  would say even now, “I will get up from this chair and walk to that door.”  What “I” are you talking about?  Who is doing the walking? You mean I, John or James or Jack or Jean or Jane, is getting up from the chair and walking through the door.

But for such to happen everything else happens now.

Has it ever occurred to you that I am not the doer; it is not I that am walking to the door from this chair?  There is an infinite power that permeates this little small I of mine that makes me walk to the door.

At every moment of our waking state or sleeping state, we are adding  importance to the little ego self, which is  manufactured by the various thoughts in our minds. What is thought?  Just a combination of various factors surrounding you or within you that have formed themselves into a certain pattern.When we were born, to that particular family, a mother  took us between her arms and smiled at us with such love. Thus, imprints started to be created in a machinery (mind) we have no control whatsoever. That bag of imprints create patterns. And we believe to be the patterns, while what is being while we walk, is something else, yet not separate.

We have a family to look after, children, husband and others things and we have to dedicate most of the day to actions in which the ego gets so involved, yet our life happens in one day, just that one day. The life of this day is were I am cognizing the existence of my particular energy pattern and this manifestation in which it takes place.

And this very energy, thinking itself to be the real self, finds itself separate from that which is divine. Even the ego self is divine, for illusion would not be there if there was not the factor of non- illusion.  Illusions are superimposed upon reality, actuality.  Everything is real to you because your senses can perceive them.  Your eyes see, your hands feel, your tongue tastes, your ears hear, your nose smells.  So many things around us seem totally real, but if you go down to the essence of them, are they really real?  Is it not like a mirage in the desert that a thirsty man sees, and the more he chases after the mirage, the water, the more tired and weary he becomes until he collapses?  That is exactly what man is doing in this desert of life.  He is chasing mirages.  And by chasing mirages, he distorts his thinking abilities and creates greater and greater confusion in his mind.

Like lifetime after lifetime, one day after another have created the memories, impressions or samskaras with which you cognize your existence this very moment. Which is were existence, the manifestor within its manifestation, eternally abides.

In this day we live in, we meditate and lead ourselves towards the universality, and then we start acting, which is our main part of the day, then as the day starts coming to an end, we meditate again, and perhaps dedicate some time to words of wisdom reading the scriptures or good books, or listening to a recorded satsang. Then we have dinner and as in a lifetime, we retire, we dedicate some time to our little ego before he is just about to dissappear in the deep sleep of the death of that day, to be born again the following day.

The history of a life happens in the life of one day

Action and meditation are not different, because meditation will bring the purity in action that will make action into a meditation (i.e. non-action in action).

Now, what do we do to integrate self and Self in actuality?

What we do is renounce.  Renunciation does not mean renouncing the actions and responsibilities of life, like looking after one’s children or one’s husband.  But the selfishness attached to the actions is to be renounced.  Then meditation goes deep, where everything, all action and all thought, is nothing else but meditation.

There is a misconception that you sit down for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening, and you say that you are a meditator.   That is just to charge up your batteries.  But that must last through the 23 hours of the day during your sleep and during your waking hours filled with activity.    Therein you will find the secret of inactivity in activity, as the Gita  says, and activity in inactivity.  The selfishness attached to the actions is to be renounced.  Then meditation goes deep, where everything, all action and all thought, is nothing else but meditation.

You want to meditate so as to find that oneness within yourself where the mind, body and spirit can become integrated.  That is good, that must be done; but it must also find its expression in your daily action.  What is the use of a seed of a beautiful flower if it is not planted and is rotting away?   Just as within the ground the seed explodes, within you the very explosion or renunciation of selfishness makes the tree grow.  That seed has to be exploded. It means you are getting rid of that little ego self, attaching no importance to it whatsoever, and then you experience the now of life. You experience what is.

We live life in the seemingly real, but not in the actual.  In daily life one has to go through so many activities.  But if it could just be remembered at the back of the mind, and with practice it comes, that “I am not the doer.”   The little ego self is not the doer: the doer is He.  When you have that idea, you become non- attached to your actions, and therefore any action you perform will not add any more samskaras to your mind.  You gradually become samskara-free, free of impressions which imprison you.

Your actions and your thoughts become non-binding, and then you enter the realm of freedom. That is the meaning of liberation, self-realization–or, in other terms, unity consciousness, where the act, actor, and the action become one.

Even washing dishes, or sitting behind a desk with a pen, is a form of meditation.  Thought forces are working away, and yet inside you are still.  You feel that unity expressing itself in whatever work you are doing, and that work becomes effortless, restful.    You do not develop stress.  You do not develop tension.  You are relaxed, and that is how we can go on and on and on.  Even all kinds of sicknesses or diseases or incapacities of the body do not bother us.

It is a new world to be awakened to, and that new world is the nowness of life. Have you ever watched yourself performing any action?  Have you watched yourself from the higher level of your mind?  Then you will find that the action just goes on automatically.  You are the observer.  And even as you sit here now, look at the amount of activity that is going on within you without your being aware of it.  You are breathing and you are not aware of it; your heart is beating, and you are not aware of it.  Your motor nerves are functioning, and you are not aware of it.  The various cellular systems in your body, the glandular systems, all the systems, are functioning, and you are not aware of it.  Do you see?  Why can this not be extended to the awareness of the grosser actions we perform in life?  If this awareness is developed, then you will know the meaning of peace.  And peace can only come with ease.

The body might be wracked with pain. The body will feel it; but if you become the observer, the pain is so so much lessened.  For the real self within you is without pain or suffering.  It is only the ego self, which is nothing but a patterning of thought forms, that knows of pain and suffering.  So what is here in the mind?  Nothing but confusion.    I have to pick up this glass.  Now I have to think, “Shall I pick up this glass or not?” Why must I think that? Pick it up.  Do you see?  Most of the energy we expend in life is by thinking useless thoughts.

So we trouble ourselves, and nothing else in the world can ever trouble us.  Nothing.  If you can find that freedom by non-attachment, then let the problems come and go.  Why must I let the boat of this life be tossed around on those waves?  I’m going to sit on the seashore and watch those waves.  And what will I find?  I will find beauty in that movement of the waves, and I will hear the sound of those waves which will have a great calming effect upon me, so harmonious. If you want the waves, you make waves.  If you want calm, you find calm.   Act! And if the action is unselfish it will not produce a reaction.

This is a revolutionary, philosophical truth. You won’t find it in any of the Vedas or Upanishads, because they maintain that for every action there is a reaction.  Whatever you sow you reap.

If the action is unselfish there will be no reaction, because the unselfish action will not cause an impression in the mind to  erupt again as an effect upon you. That is the secret of existence.

Everything is true–all opposites are true–but you got to go to the full cycle to understand that. Where there is the manifestor there must be a manifestation.  But what to do with the manifestation is entirely left to us.  Everything is joyful and beautiful if only we can cognize it, not with the mind but with the heart.  With the core of one’s personality which is the heart.

Once you touch the live wires of the heart, you are touching the unmanifest.  You cannot reach the core of your personality by touching the senses that compose you–all the indriyas (hearing, tasting, smelling, and all the organs) and the subtler ones which in Sanskrit are called jnanindriyas.  Therefore meditation is important to dive deeper within ourselves and to touch the core of the personality, the core of yourself.  Then you will find that life and Divinity are not separate because in the first place there has never been any separation.

And the recognition of that eternity comes through what? Through the ego self. The ego is not even to be thrown away, but to be used for the purposes of cognition.

And why is this stupid little ego of mine playing the fool with me now like the thirsty man in the desert? You could never eradicate the little ego self, the individuality, while you are still in the body. That will remain. Do you think a drop of water dropped into an ocean loses its individuality? No.  It does not.  It merges away, but that drop is still there in that ocean, so here individuality merges with universality. One can live as an individual and simultaneously as the universal force, that which is real.  And  then you accept all the fun that life gives.  For all is fun and nothing else but fun; all is joy and nothing else.

Why do we find a situation painful?  Because we dive into the mind and go through the cubbyholes in the subconscious and find another experience that in turn triggers some other experience, and another experience, and those all combine there.  And then the subconscious mind translates itself into the conscious mind and says, “This is pain,” or “This is ugly.”  So where does the ugliness come from?  Not from the object.  The ugliness comes from the impressions or samskaras that are already there in the subconscious mind.  And the only way to get rid of this is through meditation, where we burn the seeds of karma so they don’t grow.  We use that universal force that gets rid of all the karma.   This is the message for this century and the next six centuries to come: Do not feel guilty of the things that you have done, or the things that you have caused to have been done, for you can go beyond it all.  It can all be discarded like a dirty garment.  It can all be washed away under the shower of that light that is deep down within us.  We must never say, “Oh, my baby is crying so I cannot sit down to meditate.”  True, you must look after the baby.  But let the baby’s cry become a meditation to you instead of disturbing you. And you comfort the child with love, and is meditation not something that generates that love?

You have been given an opportunity there to generate love. Vivekananda tells a nice story.  He says you sit down to meditate and the door bell rings.  You get up from your meditation, you answer the door and do whatever is required, come back and sit down again to meditate.  But remember one thing:  regard yourself getting up and answering the door and coming back to be also a part of your meditation.

The separation we find between life and God is just a creation of our own minds, like a projection on a cinema screen.  Here on the screen you will have thousands of people killed in a war or whatever.    Many times people go to a cinema and they see a sad scene and they start crying. Handkerchiefs come out and yet they know that it is not real; it is just a picture being projected. But you get yourself involved in it.  It affects your emotions, triggers off something in your mind, below the conscious level, and then tears come rolling down.  But what would happen if you never had such an impression in the mind? Then you will not cry, for you are still aware that this is just a picture there.

So what do we have to do to rub away these impressions is to draw out that powerful light, that beam that will banish the darkness.  The little flame which is the ego self has no force or power next to the bright sun.  And if the action you do is performed unselfishly, then you are a karma yogi.  And when you perform this action unselfishly, naturally there will be devotion to those actions and you will automatically become a bhakti yogi. Now when you combine bhakti and karma, naturally some understanding dawns within you, and you are jnana yogi.  Thus, all these different yogas combine.  They interpenetrate within each other and that leads you on and spurs you on to do spiritual practices, which are raja yoga.

We suffer with life’s challenges, yet we will not overcome the hurdles without going through them. The pot can only be cleaned up by a thorough scraping with steel wool so that the next meal that I cook in this same pot will not have the smell or the taste of the previous meal.  So, so simple.

The purpose of existence is to exist.  That’s the purpose.  The purpose of existence is not to find God; He is already there.  He has always been there in your life.  And when you find the purpose of existence is to exist and know the meaning of existence, you know God, because God is existence. Let the mind just be centered in the heart, in meditation and spiritual practices.  We say spiritual practices because they are practices to be made practical in daily living.  Then spiritual practices really and truly and very quickly find their fruition.

I teach meditation in Barcelona and Asturias (Spain), if anyone is interested is very welcome. Every Wednesday at 19.30 hours. Free entrance.

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by Ramon Leonato

If the mind is empowered by what we are calling the right hemisphere, the intuitional level which has its roots in the core’s of one personality, which we also call the heart, then “me” and “mine” disappears and it is “thee” and “thine.” For the core of the human personality, though outwardly seeming individualized, also exists in its universalized form. So what happens to a person is this: He can exist as an individual and yet at the same time be universal, for he has now realized, through his spiritual sadhana , how vast he is. When this happens, a person, being divine, recognizes and experiences this Divinity.

If anybody tells you this comes overnight, forget it. It takes time.

You’ve got this big load you are carrying, this load of samskaras- all the experiences that you have been gathering up, gathering up, and gathering up in this journey. This bag of imprints through which you cognize existence form the bundle that you are carrying.

That is why Christianity says we are born in sin. There is great truth in that. We have brought with us all those samskaras which form our tendencies in life. Essentially the human being is divine; but he does come with this burden.

By doing meditation and spiritual practices, properly assigned by a spiritual teacher you draw upon the superconscious energies, the subtlest energies within the relative sphere of life, which flood the dirt away in the subconscious.

Modern psychology tries to probe and find causes for things, and they have their interpretations. Why analyze causes? There is a way whereby those subtle energies can be brought forth to clear away the dirt and muck. In this room, if there is a lot of dirt lying around, are you going to analyze the dirt? Or are you going to bring the broom? Which is better? What is the sense of saying this is sawdust, and this is what the wind blew in, and the baby made a wee there!

Bring the broom and sweep it out! That is why we say. Take the direct line. And a human being has this ability.

God becomes a Living Reality

That is the journey of which we speak. Man is eternally immortal. He is eternal, and only mind comes in between. Yet the mind can be so beautified that everything in life can be enjoyed.

Mira a great poetess of India, wrote a beautiful poem. In it she says: “Oh Lord, I do not want salvation. I do not want to merge away in Thee. But let me be born again and again, and enjoy the joy of worshipping at Thy feet.” How beautiful! The process of life will eventually lead a person to this oneness, this unity consciousness. Brahman consciousness. It is inevitable. Everyone has to reach there. Every atom that has been propelled through so-called space, since the time of the “big bang” will have to dissipate its energy, and this very dissipation is the returning back to Silence.

Yet, even in duality, there is so  much fun. Life is so filled with joy all the time, and what greater joy can there be than the experience of love? To love and be loved: That is the activation of what we call God. Here God does not remain an abstract quality, but becomes a living reality. That is what we want. The lover must truly love the beloved, and not have an assumed love created by dependence.

The Bhagavad Gita says to be so established in yourself that no insult can deflate you and no praise can inflate you. You need not go on living at the ends of the polarities of the mind but be centered in the center. Then nothing can affect you; then you experience the joy. Now that is the journey.

In this whole flux of life, this contraction-expansion, the element of joy is always there. It is this very element of the Manifestor contained within all manifestation which is bliss and joy.

This flower that gives fragrance is giving off particles of itself. When you inhale the fragrance of the flower, you are actually taking within yourself particles of this flower. And like this the Manifestor exists in all its manifestation, for, to use theological terms, the Creator and the creation are but one. One cannot exist without the other. Illusion starts when we put emphasis on the wrong thing- when we do not put emphasis on reality, which is the Manifestor, but we put it on the manifestation.

That is the illusion. When people say, “Oh, everything is just a dream,” know that the dream, too, is real, while you are dreaming. Why call it unreal?

As you are dreaming you are activating subtler energies. A dream is totally real. So many factors, through various experiences in this life or in other lifetimes, come together to create a story in the mind, and that is real. Every thought you think, every word you say, is real. What we need to be concerned about is, how is it going to rebound on us? That should be our concern. In simple words, you will reap what you sow. Do you see the deeper meaning behind these simple sayings?

If you throw a ball against an electronic wall, it will bounce back so hard that you won’t have a chance to shift away. It will knock you out. But throw a ball against a cardboard wall and it will bounce back slowly. Like that, may we direct all our actions and all our thoughts, so that they do not bounce back upon us negatively, but positively.

Whenever I pass a park and have some time, I stop, sit down, and watch the children play. It is so beautiful. There is even beauty in the child’s crying as well as in the laughter. All is beauty. For without the child experiencing the pain of falling down and bruising its knee, how is it ever going to experience the value of that which is opposite?

So here we are enmeshed in all these opposites, and again that is the journey. When the realization dawns that I have come from nowhere and I am going nowhere, now here: then we begin to live. Ah!. Not the living dead- We live!

MEDITACION BARCELONA

INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR SPIRITUAL UNFOLDMENT

GURURAJ ANANDA YOGI

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That is how it comes about that in scientific terms, one cannot prove that energy. What can be proven is only that which has motion. Yet motion is such that at the moment you view it, it changes, and you do not have a true picture of that motion at its most subtle level. That is why we know so little, from laboratory experiments, of the mind. Yet a whole vast range of the mind, over 90 percent, exists which is unexplored. As technology develops, there will be instruments or certain inventions which will probe a bit deeper into the mind. The 10 percent, explored, can become 15, 20 or 30 percent. But we want to know here and know the entirety of the mind, and the mind, being so involved in itself, cannot know itself.

When you are involved in a problem, an emotional problem, you cannot think straight because you are involved. But if you separate yourself from the machinations of the mind, you can view the mind from a different perspective altogether. That is why we have counselors, so that when you are in a  rut (someone told me the other day, a rut is nothing else but a coffin with both ends open), you can go to a counselor who can view the subject or the problem objectively, because he is not emotionally involved. Many times people involved in a business deal will say, “let me sleep on this” That means that at this moment I am so involved in this problem that I need to let my mind rest. Tomorrow I shall look at the proposition with a rested mind, more objectively. In this process what travels from point to point is nothing else but the mind.

Now, where can the mind travel to? That is the other question. We have said that the spirit within a human being, or the spirit which pervades the universe, is omnipresent. If the manifestor is omnipresent, then its manifestation must be omnipresent too. Where is there a place for the mind to go? What happens is this: There is just a shifting of energies in the mind. Because there is contraction and expansion going on all the time in the universe, polarities are created. You lift the weight from this side of the scale, and you add some weight on the other side of the scale. The pendulum is forever swinging from one end to the other, and that is happening in the universe. That is what is known as contraction and expension. So the mind goes from nowhere to nowhere, while the energies are just shifting.

Through spiritual practices, we are also working with energies. We are also activating energies, but activating grosser energies and very systematically leading those grosser energies toward the more and more subtle energies which are in the mind. The mind has the conscious level, various strata of the subconscious level, and the superconscious level. All this falls under manifestation, and all manifestation is relative. It is relative to the Absolute.

Within the confines of this whole scheme of things, relativity has its gradations: The conscious mind, which is gross; the subconscious mind, including the various subtler levels of the subconscious mind (psychiatrists and psychologists only delve 10-15 percent into the subconscious layers) and beyond that vast subconscious field, the superconscious mind. So we start with the subconscious mind and lead it gently through the layers of the subconscious to the superconscious until we experience the finest, subtlest relative. When we experience that, we can safely say that we have the universe in the palm of our hand.

So there lies the movement from grossness to its subtler levels; yet it is standing still. All the movement in the ocean you see is surface movement. Really speaking, the ocean is not moving. It is there. So, if we think of movement and that which lies between the area of Silence to Silence, nothing has moved. Silence reamains the same and the superimposition remains the same. So, traveler, where do you come from and where are you going to? Nowhere.

It is all here and now. Of course, there are the theories of reincarnation and karma and “reap what you sow.” They also are true at certain levels. But in reality, a person  moves nowhere, and the apparent movement is only the mind experiencing itself at its subtler and subtler levels. That is the greatest illusion: By thinking that I move, I sit still.

For the mind to experience the subtler states, various forms of evolution are necessary, and this evolution from very gross matter to the present stage of humanity has taken millions of years, proceeding through various forms. Yet the substance of all those forms is not different. The substance that makes up the vegetable kingdom is the same substance that makes up the animal kingdom, which is the same substance that makes up the human kingdom. In essence, the substance remains the same. What is this body? It is nothing but food.

These very same substances, assuming different shapes and forms are given names. This table and I are not at all different from each other; we are of the same substance. This table is at a grosser level, and I, having developed the power of thought, am at a more subtle level. That’s the only difference. This table cannot think, the animal cannot think, but I can think; it is just a matter of degree, not of difference in substance. The molecular and atomic structural framework of this table is the same that structures me. The great illusion is accentuated in human beings, because people have reached that certain evolutionary stage where they are thinking.

The great illusion comes about because a person thinks that he thinks, while he is not really thinking. The less a person thinks, the more he experiences. The very process of thought, if wrongly used, can be the wall between the changing unreality and the unchanging reality. That does not mean that we need to destroy the mind – the mind is a great instrument and is to be used.

A sharp knife given to a delinquent boy can be dangerous. But the same sharp instrument in the hands of a surgeon can help perform an operation. So the mind has to be consciously directed. The power and force of the entire universe is contained in the mind, but it has to be directed.

If the mind tries to direct itself, then many things can happen, including misdirection, because the instrument is trying to work upon  itself. So we use meditation and spiritual practices to go deep to the superconscious level, which is the closest to the manifestor. We let those subtler energies remodify the thought patterns of the conscious mind, for the conscious mind is a conditioned mind, and we’ve got to use a subtler force to be able to repattern and overcome the conditionings of the conscious mind.

Most of our troubles are of the conscious level. These are in turn pushed forth from the subconscious level. The left hemisphere of the brain, which is said to control thinking, analysis, verbalizing, and symbolizing, is connected to, not apart from, the right hemisphere of the brain, the part that is said to be a link to the intutive ability and the universal mind. Through meditation and spiritual practices we enliven this connection, first in the organ of the brain, and then in its subtler layer, which we call the mind, it’s subtler self. The entirety of the mind has been grossified into the organ called the brain to give us the individuality that we have. Of this brain, three pounds in weight, containing twelve billion cells, we use only one millionth part.

So, by activating the right hemisphere, we are energizing the left hemisphere, and therefore there is greater clarity of thought, greater concentration, and greater one-pointedness: and all  these qualities  plus others make one’s life successful. Not only we are using the energies of the left hemisphere, but, as a result of spiritual practices, we are also drawing upon the intuitive level. If we combine the analytical with the intuitional, how much more forceful our actions become, how much more truthful our thinking becomes. In this way we are led to right thought and right action.

So after practice, over a period of time, the mind gradually starts functioning in a spontaneous manner, to do that which is right. Then thinking is not necessary; you just do. You would, for example, come to a fork in the road, and you would just ver spontaneously take the right road. Your analytical mind will not tell you why or how you did it.

What is working is that intuitional level, which fulfills your every need, not your every want. With “want” the left hemisphere comes into play: “I want a million pounds, I want a 50-room mansion, I want this, and I want that.” That kind of analysis leads only to ego-boosting.

Now, all this exists within the framework of the traveling from Silence to Silence. This is the motion that is created. When that which we are calling the left hemisphere dominates us, we are enmeshed in our ego-selves, which know only this: me and mine.

If the mind is empowered by what we are calling the right hemisphere, the intuitional level which has its roots in the core’s of one personality, which we also call the heart, then “me” and “mine” disappears and it is “thee” and “thine.” For the core of the human personality, though outwardly seeming individualized, also exists in its universilezed form. So what happens to a person is this: He can exist as an individual and yet at the same time be universal, for he has now realized, through his spiritual sadhana , how vast he is. When this happens, a person, being divine, recognizes and experiences this Divinity.

to be continued in Journey of the Soul – III

Soon coming.

MEDITACIÓN BARCELONA

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We “know” that the spirit of the human being, or the universal spirit, is omnipresent. It has nowhere to go and nowhere to come from. It just is. So what journeys? Is it really and experience, or is it an illusion? Even if it is an illusion, then how is illusion experienced? All illusion or delusion is just a counterpart of reality, as it’s own “non-existence” exists within that It that we call reality.

We come from nowhere and we are going nowhere, but just give a little space between the “w” and the “h”. You are now here and that is the important factor to recognize in practical life. Nevertheless, the mind has a habit of inquiring.

IFSU Flag

The  mind is conditioned through the process of evolution into going through various stages whereby it gains these experiences. Who gains the experiences? The mind gains the experiences.

A HUMAN BEING HAS THE CAPACITY TO EXPERIENCE THE ENTIRETY OF THE UNIVERSE; THE SPIRIT CANNOT

So, the experiences having been gained by the mind, of the mind, and from the mind bring us to a simple idea: There is nothing outside the mind. The human mind is as vast as the entire universe, and if you individualize it, it only means that you are viewing one bubble in a vast pond. And that bubble has no separate existence from the pond. A human being has the capacity within himself to experience, with the mind, the entirety of the universe; while the spirit remains aloof, for the spirit cannot experience this journey. Therefore we say, “From Silence we proceed, and we return to Silence.” It means that the mind that has been manifested, as fragrance is from a flower, goes through this journey, be it illusion or not, and then finds itself at total “at-one-ment” with the spirit. That is the journey, so in reality there has been no journey.

But the mind assumes that this is a  journey, that there is a journey. What are the reasons for this? The spirit just is, while the mind travels thinks it is traveling from here to there. From the beginning of the present cycle of this universe there is a manifestation, wrongly called creation, because creation requires a will behind, while manifestation is just an emanation. It is the nature of the manifestor to manifest, like it is the nature of a flower to give off fragrance, but there is no will involved. The powers in the manifestation are known in sanskrit as the three gunas, tamas rajas and satvas. It is this interaction between darkness and light that operates in the manifestation of this universe, which is the Universal Mind also.

THE MIND CREATES EXPERIENCE

The entire mind, or the universe, is nothing else but a propulsion which seemingly goes forth in our concept of linear time and space. In the third dimension that we exist in, we find this movement proceeding from A to B, while beyond the mind there is no space and no time. Like Blake said, “Eternity in an hour”, we would rather say, in a moment.

Gururaj Ananda Yogi and Raman in Cyprus

In this process put forth through manifestation in which the three gunas operate, the mind feels itself traveling. Why does it feel itself traveling; why does itself feel mixed up in the process of evolution? In this process of contraction and expansion generated by the three gunas, matter and it’s various atomic structures is always in motion. The mind enmeshed in this process of contraction and expansion thinks it is moving.

If you watch a wave in the ocean, you think the wave is coming from a distance and going to the shore. This is not so. There is a rhythm in the ocean created by currents where each wave is bobbing up and down where it is, and the next then bobs up and down, and so on so forth giving us the illusion that the wave is moving from that end to the shore. Likewise there is the flux of the universe, the perpetual motion that perpetuates itself, within itself, by itself, because its nature is motion. What we are trying to find is that which is silent behind all the motion: for that which is motion cannot be silent, and that which is silent can have no motion. Very simple.

The mind because it has the ability to act and interact within its own components, becomes more and more complex, and it is this very complexity that adds onto the motion of the mind. The  mind creates the experience, and the mind itself is the experiencer, for the eternal spirit within humanity is beyond all experience of motion or anything else. It just is. Here it is a question of a superimposition.

Heat rises from the sun. The sun does not intentionally create the heat: it is the nature of the sun to give off heat. Similarly, that eternal energy, in its very silent form, first manifests itself as mind.

When mind assumes this motion, it also finds a direction, and this direction is what we term as will- Divine Will. Because there was Divine Will, all this you observe, including our individual wills, has come about.

This is very true from from the theological point of view and the philosophical point of view. But from the mystical point of view, this truth assumes a totally different approach: In the manifestation which one could call Divine Will , the Will itself becomes the individual mind. Here there is no differentiation between mind and will. Ordinarily it is the directed activity of an individual mind, which is self-created, that is called will.

When manifestation occurs, this divine force, in the process of manifestation, has to grossify itself in the form of matter, or grosser energies. From the subtlest level of that silent energy, ever inaccessible like in limits in mathematics, this divine force assumes the form of activated energy, and the more that energy is activated, the grosser and grosser it becomes. This is why science today can neither reach nor explain the entire structure of atoms. Scientists talk of sub atomic matter and sub-sub atomic matter, but when coming to experimental experience it will be impossible to capture the nature of that energy, as the very test-tube they are using is made of the same energy in which they are trying to trap it in.

What can be proven is only that which has motion. Yet motion  is such that at the moment you view it, it changes, and viewer in it’s own changing cannot have a true picture of that motion at its most subtlest level. That is why we know so little, from laboratory experiments, of the mind.  (to be continued…)

Gururaj Ananda Yogi

International Foundation for Spiritual Unfoldment

Meditacion Barcelona

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Question: I am that which causes awareness to flow from the grossness of the lower mind to the un‑differentiated bliss of the superconscious.  I am not mind, but upon me the mind rests.  I do not move, yet through me all things move.  I am neither this nor that.  What am I?

Gururaj Ananda: That you are.

Who am I if I am not the mind?  Who am I if I am not the body?  What makes you presume that you are not the body and not the mind. What point of reference have you to tell you that I am not the mind and neither the body?  Show me that point of reference.

When I say to myself, “I am that I am,” who is this that I am that I am?  Who is this Brahmas mi‑‑I am Brahma?  Who is this that could say, “I and my Father are one?”  Who is this that could say that I, as the mind and body, is non‑existent?

Then what part of you is existent to make you cognize your non‑existence?  You don’t know, that is for sure.

Your mind is a reality, your body is a reality, and the spiritual self within you is a reality, but it is only the mind that could cognize its own realness which is also, at the same time, erroneous.

You say I am this body.  Now this body has been changing so much.  I was an infant, then l grew up into adolescence, became an old man…

So this body is the same body, but over a period of time ‑‑ which you regard to be time ‑‑ has gone through various changes.  Who is that which perceives this particular form of reality?

The spirit that is within you, the Divinity that is within you, is non‑cognizable and neither would it cognize anything besides itself in its own cognition.

The mind says this is a handkerchief.  Why does the mind say this is a handkerchief?  Because my mind, or a certain recollection or experiences that has gone through me in this lifetime or even in past lifetimes, perhaps, make me cognize this to be a cloth, a piece of cloth to be used on my nose.

Now, where does this come from?  What tells you that this is a nose and that’s a handkerchief?  So you go further back to realize that my mind is saying that, then you will ask yourself what perpetuates this mind in this mold of having this particular kind of cognition?

And like that you go on and on and on until you reach a point which is zero.  Then only can you say, “I’m not the body.”  Then only can you say, “I’m not the mind.”

Look, I can touch, feel, smell, taste, go to bed and make love, go to the toilet.  Is the body then not functional?  Of course  it is functional.  Then why do I deny the body?

I deny the body because I feel within myself‑‑or rather some force is feeling within myself‑‑that I am far beyond the body and the mind.  Now, the greatest mistake that has been made‑‑or is being made by various theologies‑‑is the denial of the body and mind.  Let’s look at it from a different angle.  Do not deny this body.  Do not deny this mind.  And do not deny that which cognizes the body and the mind.

So how are you dealing with yourself, then?  We’re still going to come to the cognitive factor.  But at this moment how do you stand?  You stand in the position of saying, my body exists, my mind exists, and the cognitive factor also exists, so therefore I am existence and being existing I can deny nothing.  For I am that I am.

There is no differentation between your body and your mind and your cognitive self.  The I that cognizes the very existence of this body and this mind is thought forms which we can call the ego self that is forever trying to preserve itself in the cognitive factors of saying I am this handsome guru [comments and laughs from audience].   Who’s saying that?  That stupid ego self.

Now, what is the ego worth?  The ego is worth nothing, because it is just a formation of patterns which you have superimposed upon yourself through the various experiences that you have gone through, and that has left impressions.  And those impressions is that which we call the ego.

Now, I put my hand on this table and I remove this hand.  But an imprint is there.  The hand is not there anymore, but an impression or an imprint of the hand is existing on this table.  Get out your magnifying glass and you will see it.  What reality is there in this imprint?  Nil!

This very imprint that cognizes me as a body, this very imprint that cognizes me as a mind.  So my body and mind is totally dependent upon that imprint.  And yet, what is the reality of this imprint? Nil.  It’s an impression created through patternings of experiences.

So now if I deny this imprint, or if I do not attach value to this imprint in bringing about the recognitions of the existence of this body and this mind, then I am basing the existence of this body and this mind with something that has no substance but which has just created an impression there, presuming that this mind and this body is real.

So now, what have we done so far?  We are accepting the reality of the mind and the body, and, at the same time, we are denying the mind and the body.  Because both are true. You are not the body, yet the body; you are not the mind, yet the mind.  Then what is your reality?  And how are you going to prove this reality?

You can only prove it by inference.  Or by the very factor that reality requires no proof.  It exists because of its own existence.  The only time you can prove reality is when you have a reference point.  And where can there be any reference point as as far as Divinity is concerned.

There is consciousness and non‑consciousness.  Non‑ consciousness means you are not aware.  And conscious means that you are aware.  Now, what proof is there of awareness.  Does awareness require any proof?  Does the light burning there require any proof that it is burning?  Its very act of giving light is its own proof.

You do not need to prove anything.  Because when it comes to the highest level, you need a point of reference, and the highest level being the one, without a second, cannot have a reference point.

I exist, I exist, because I exist.  That’s all.  And because I, the real me to which I have no reference point exists, I can only refer it back to a grosser level of the mind and the body, which finds its existence in that which I cannot prove is existing.

I’m taking the highest factor in life and bringing it down to the grossest factor and that is what I could compare things with.  But when we reach the point beyond comparison ‑‑ Beautiful word.  You’re pairing up things in comparison.  There have to be two to compare.  But what if I want to exist as I am in my full totality, then will I not lose the idea of comparing myself to anything else?  And the very moment I lose the idea of comparing myself to any subject or object, that is the very moment when I will lose the ego self, that imprint that is existing in my experience.  Or the impression of the experience.  Then where will I be?  I shall be incomparable.

I shall be the source of existence itself, which I am.  Not in reality, but in actuality.  For reality changes from day to day.  What is real to you today might be unreal to you tomorrow. You see.  But when I become actual, when I become the source and recognize that source within me, or the source recognizes itself, then I will say, let me enjoy this body.  Let me enjoy this mind, for it is a product of a collection of impressions.  And if they are there, let me make the best use of it.

Here we are fusing two factors.  The fusion lies in the fact that that which is created by impressions‑‑or maya or illusion‑‑, is brought into reality, and reality is converted into illusion.  So I make the best of both worlds.

For example, let’s see what example we can use.  Say I loved a woman very much, I was deeply involved with that woman.  Fine. And she has left me.  She has jilted me or died or whatever or jumped in the lake.  Now, is she there or is she not there?  She’s dead, we know.  But is she there or is she not there?  She is there because you think she is there.  What makes you think she is there is because those impressions, those experiences, and you are reliving something so far in the past which has no reality today, which has become an illusion.  Because she is not there.  I have developed a dependency upon her when she was there.  So what am I living on now?  On dependencies.

I am existing with a reality, which is my body and my mind.  Though in essence it is unreal, but for the moment of three score years and ten, let me do the best with it I can.  Why not. Who would deny me that right?  And why should it be denied to me? You think all these organs we have are there just for the fun of it or for the show of it?  You think I have ears and I must not hear?  Or I have eyes and I must not see?  Or a nose and not smell?  Or any other organ of my body that has been there created through an evolutionary process and not to be used.  Why should I not use every organ in this body of mine to its fullest value? Honestly and sincerely.

So these monks  say become celibate, become this and that, become this and I don’t know what all.  I say, “become yourself!”  Be yourself!

Be yourself.  How can I make myself be myself?  Ahh!  How can I make myself be myself?  And the answer to that riddle is so simple.  Do you know that beautiful hymn which I like very much, lead thou me on, kindly light, one step at a time is enough for me.  Don’t you know that beautiful hymn?

Firstly, I must admit to myself that  I’m living a fragmented life.  Part of my mind is pulling that way, part of my mind is pulling that way, part of my mind is floating up there in Chicago and another part somewhere in some heaven or some hell which has no existence in reality.

Admit to oneself that I’m fragmented.  Lead thou me on, kindly light to integration away from fragmentation.  Let me be whole.  Let me function in this life holistically.  Let me not find any more the discriminatory factors between body, mind, and spirit.  Let me regard it to be one continuum.  And this continuum, after finding through spiritual practices and meditation, when you find this continuum of yourself, mind, body, and spirit, this continuum will extend and extend and develop so much that the entire universe becomes you and you become the universe.

Existence and non‑existence, what am I going to do about it?  I’m both.  I am existing, and at the same time, the impressions which I’m existing upon is non‑existent.

So let me tell you this, that 99.999% of your problems in your mind are self‑created without any damn substance.  So that which you have created without substance… very easy way out of it‑‑pull the chain!

That is the secret of life.  Forget the past.  It is gone. Do not project yourself into the future, it might not be there. But live for this moment.  Live for this moment.  And then you’ll preserve your physical health, you’ll preserve your mental health, you’ll become integrated in mind, body and spirit, and you’ll enjoy life.  For life is joy.  So, as I always say, enjoy the joy.  Why deny yourself of that beautiful joy of this so‑ called existence when you can have fun.

What’s wrong with fun. Enjoy it.  But be honest and sincere, that’s important.

MEDITACION BARCELONA

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Knowledge

From Duality to Non-Duality

Meditacion Barcelona

Emptiness
Just emptiness
Nothing to do
Nowhere to go
Pulsating life that laughs back at
This bunch of impressions
That feel have an existence by its own
But just exist as impressions of this singled drop of water

Moment by moment, this form performs within this universal dance
And carries images to this singled drop of water
Still pictures of a film
Only existing in its own maya of mind
Clouds that hide the sun
Amazing sun that created those very same clouds

At times merging into my soul – a moment of perfection,
Vain seems my learning, and incomplete
The world’s knowledge gathered through its lifetime,
Impressions of what is, moment by moment, gathered in this singled drop of water

At this moment into timelessness, spacelessness, perfection;
Vain is all art, cults, creeds, humanity – all incomplete
Illusions! Mirages! And then that moment lapses:
The limitless becomes limited, the infinite becomes finite
The machinery of mind starts rolling in its own disturbance -
Surveying the din and tumult of the world,
All existence becomes real and time is divided;
The mind gropes in its own darkness
Real becomes the multitude stricken with pain -
All striving for wealth or fame or a dreamed “forever” prince.

A strive for perfection – the aim of all – consciously or unconsciously.
Knowledge and art and cults and creeds are not in vain
In the world of mind; toiling, striving, fathoming -
Seeking completeness from without
Images gathered reflected back in this moment of delight.

I that have tasted of infinity
Fight with my own mind at times, to loosen its bonds,
And try to seek within
For another moment of eternity

Through these series of articles I will be introducing the teachings of Gururaj Ananda Yogi from which many will be able to benefit

Namaste

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