As regards Sannyasa, let us consider what Sri Krishna says in the Gita on this subject. He speaks of two paths that lead to Him. One is Karma-Sannyasa and the other Karma-Yoga.
Karma-Sannyasa is renunciation of all worldly activity and environment, in order that one may engage oneself exclusively in special Sadhanas for realising God.
Karma-Yoga is renunciation of the fruits of our actions. Worldly activity and environment need not be abandoned, and the Karmas one performs in the situation in which one is placed are offered up to the Divine, realising oneself only as an instrument in divine hands. The first step is to dedicate the fruits of actions to the Lord, next the actions themselves, and lastly a total and complete surrender of oneself – action, fruit, individuality and all.
Of the two paths, Sri Krishna points out, Karma-Yoga is the better path. In both cases the object is to free the mind from its desires and attachments. So the answer to your question resolves itself into this. It is not necessary to have recourse to Karma-Sannyasa for spiritual progress.
Όσον αφορά στην Σανυάσα (Αποκήρυξη), ας δούμε τί αναφέρεται στην Μπαγκαβάτ Γκίτα επί του θέματος. Ο Υπέρτατος Κύριος Κρίσνα μιλάει για δύο δρόμους που οδηγούν σε Αυτόν. Ο ένας είναι η Κάρμα-Σανυάσα (Πράξεων Αποκήρυξη) και ο άλλος η Κάρμα-Γιόγκα (Πράξεων Έν-Ωση, ώθηση προς το Εν, προσφορά τους στο Εν).
Η Κάρμα-Σανυάσα είναι η αποκήρυξη όλων των εγκόσμιων δραστηριοτήτων και περιβαλλόντων, προκειμένου ο άνθρωπος να μπορεί να αφοσιωθεί αποκλειστικά σε πνευματικές ασκήσεις που θα οδηγήσουν στην αφύπνισή του στο Θείον.
Η Κάρμα-Γιόγκα είναι η αποκήρυξη των καρπών των πράξεών μας, κατά την οποία δεν χρειάζεται να εγκαταλείψουμε τα περιβάλλοντά μας και τις εγκόσμιες δραστηριότητές μας. Τις πράξεις στις οποίες προβαίνουμε εν μέσω οποιωνδήποτε κατάστασεων, τις υψώνουμε ως προσφορά προς το Θείον, βιώνοντας τον εαυτό μας ως απλώς ένα εργαλείο σε θεία χέρια. Το πρώτο βήμα λοιπόν είναι η αφιέρωση των καρπών των όποιων πράξεών μας στον Κύριο, στη συνέχεια η εξ αρχής συνειδητή αφιέρωση των πράξεών μας, και τελικώς η πλήρης και απόλυτη παράδοση ολόκληρου του εαυτού μας: πράξεων, καρπών, ατομικότητας… η παράδοση των πάντων στο Θείον.
Από τους δύο δρόμους, επισημαίνει ο Υπέρτατος Κύριος Κρίσνα, αυτός της Κάρμα-Γιόγκα είναι ο προτιμότερος και αποτελεσματικότερος. Αμφότεροι αποσκοπούν στην αποδέσμευση του ανθρώπινου νου από όλες τις επιθυμίες του και τις προσκολλήσεις του. Η απάντηση λοιπόν στο ερώτημά σου καταλήγει ξεκάθαρα σε αυτό. Δεν είναι απαραίτητο να καταφύγεις στην Κάρμα-Σανυάσα για πνευματική πρόοδο.
Indeed Sri Ram is the sole doer. His Divine Shakti is alone responsible for all activity, movement and change in this universe of name and form. So the ego sense is utterly false. Complete surrender to the Divine Will or Shakti brings about our identification in spirit with the changeless and immortal Truth. Bhakti is the beginning; Bhakti is the end. In the middle, there is Jnana which gives us the knowledge of immortality, of our oneness with God. Bhakti leads to Jnana; but even afterwards, Bhakti continues, elevated, enlarged and enlightened. It gives us the universal vision of God. God is the friend of all creatures. He is all-loving and all-merciful. He is our master and mother. We are His servants and children. We can be His true servants and children, ever fearless and always blissful, only when we have realised, through love, our oneness with Him, Him who is within and without, and everywhere.
Ramdas4-7-1928 [p. 13*]
(12) M. B. S. R. – Bangalore
Beloved Ram,
Bhakti is the beginning; Bhakti is the end. Bhakti is the way; Bhakti is the goal. Jnana and Karma are only necessary props on which is hoisted the majestic dome of Bhakti. God says, “I am the same to all beings but My devotees are dear to Me”. So, true devotion is based on the equality of vision. Samadarshan gives knowledge and peace. Bhakti gives pure love and Premanand. Knowledge enlightens and upholds; devotion yields thrills of joy and ecstasy. The two combined make Purna Yoga. Behold God as all, and still be His child and servant. You are at once He and His child. God is His own devotee. He is a mystery, but a revealed mystery – revealed in love and joy.
To be ever singing His name and glories is to be in tune with Him. Beloved Ram is captured within our heart. “Where can You go, O Beloved? Thou art always in Thy child.”
Surrender to Him, and He looks after you, plans and arranges everything for the best for you. He is the all-loving Divine Mother.
The Ashram is always ringing with Bhajan. Hundreds of Rams come here every day. O Ram, all glory to Thy name!
Don’t give up evening Bhajan. All of you join in it. More and more of Nam Sankirtan or Smaran together! Let the Name ring, and ring on, to awaken in the hearts of you all, the inexpressible bliss of Prem.
Love to you all!
Ramdas 7-7-1928 [p. 15*]
(13) P. S. R – Ernakulam
Beloved Ram,
The only prayer of a Bhakta to God is made in this strain: “O God, keep Thy sweet name always on my lips; may my heart be ever filled with Thy Prem!” To love Him with all our heart is the supreme joy of this life. Let us exclaim with rapture, “O Sri Ram, Thou art mine, and I am Thine, for ever and for ever.”
Nowadays, Ramdas can scarcely stand on his legs without his starting on a dance. Sri Ram’s Prem is tingling in every vein of his body; and Ramdas dances, lost in ecstasy. The mere sound of His name sends thrills of joy through Ramdas. Sri Ram is “Prem’.
[…] Your kind and loving letter to hand. You are He. You are He. Ramdas and Ram are one, not two. So, Ramdas is in the hearts of all. All hearts are His. Ramdas dwells in Him. O, the mystery of mysteries! Thou art all and Thou art One.
Ramdas 14-7-1928 [p. 16*]
(14) P. S. R. – Nasik
Beloved Ram,
Truly, unquenchable faith in and love for God is the only object of our life. Let us pray to Him to grant us His unbroken remembrance. To fulfil this prayer, He brings about such changes in our life as to enable us to be in touch with Him always. Here He proves to us that He is infinitely kind. Verily, He is kindness and love itself.
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 17*]
(18) P. S. R. – Ernakulam
Beloved Ram,
It is He who gives us every situation and every change. He knows what is good for us. His main object is to draw us towards Him. He brings about all the incidents in our life to fulfil this purpose of His. Our attachment to the ever-changing and perishable forms about us is the cause of our misery. We ignore the fact that whatever is born must die. Let us ask ourselves, “Is it then worthwhile to be attached to the inconstant and transient things?” The Eternal has no death, and the perishable cannot escape dissolution. Then why grieve over the dead! Let us not forget that we came alone into the world and that we shall depart also alone from it. We never bring with us our vaunted wealth and our relations, and when we give up this earthly life, we take them not with us either. God is the beginning; God is the end. Let us realise God also in the middle state in which we are. The question naturally arises, “Why this life at all?” It is intended solely for striving to reach Him, and for transforming, in that striving, all our trials and sufferings into joy by the touch of our single-hearted devotion to Him. When we are on this path of devotion, it is truly a joy to live in whatever position God places us. Hence it is that Bhaktas did not desire for a complete absorption in God, i.e., Moksha, but prayed to Him to grant them as many lives or births as He willed, provided He made them live for His love alone. Then again the question, “Why should He have left so many beings in utter ignorance of His love and the resulting bliss?” His Maya is mysterious. To probe deeper into the question brings to light the subtlest truth that He alone is the sole actor behind this variegated and multiple veil of Maya. He, the Supreme One, pretends to be all, in their varied masks, nature and activity. Whatever it is, ours is not to puzzle our puny intellect with the questions. We know that He is pure love, and that our salvation lies in our complete submission to Him. Let us be His ignorant children, ever basking in the rays of His unbounded love and grace. He is dwelling in our hearts always.
Ramdas 27-7-1928 [p. 22*]
(20) B.M. – Mohol
Beloved Ram,
When the Name begins to work in the mind, automatically peace settles upon it. All actions proceeding from this calm state of mind become naturally pure and therefore beneficent. A constant watch upon our actions is still necessary, lest we might do such acts as would throw us into forgetfulness of God. Let us not fret over situations that God has given us….. It is a mistake to think that by mere change of situation or activity we can attain to peace. Ramdas, by His will, now stays in a newly built Ashram, called “Anandashram”. As usual, Ramdas is swimming in a veritable ocean of love and joy. His kindness and love are boundless.
Ramdas 29-7-1928 [p. 24*]
(22) K. G. P. – Puttur
Beloved Ram,
The Lord is Infinite Love. Our body is the temple. Our heart is the throne. And He, the supreme Paramatman, is seated on this throne in all His magnificence and glory. His Divine Power or Shakti is responsible for all activity, movement and change in the universe.
Sages point out surrender to God’s will, i.e., to His Power or Shakti, as the path of Self-realisation. This surrender is effected only by the total eradication of the ego. Let us know once for all that we are merely instruments in His hands. He is the Sutradhari and we are every second being made to dance like puppets to His will. Consciousness of this truth must be with us always. Hence we are asked to keep up His remembrance unceasingly. Earthly honour and dishonour, praise and blame, loss and gain, should have no importance for us. Ours is to do the work entrusted to us by Him in the field of action in which He has chosen to place us.
Bhakta is He; Bhagawan is He. As Bhakta, He pretends to be different from Himself; though Bhagawan, He pretends to be seeking Himself. Wonderful is His Lila!
Let us give up all doubts, fears and anxieties, and merge our mind in the sweet sound of His glorious name. Let us sing, with all love and devotion, His great attributes. He is our Mother. We are His children. He is our all in all. Life is sweet and blessed when it is lived for His sake. There is nothing so blissful as devotion to His lotus feet. All glory to Him and His name.
Ramdas 1-8-1928 [p. 26*]
(32) P. S. R. – Ernakulam
Beloved Ram,
Whatever you do is done by Prakriti, with ego-sense or without it. So, external renunciation of work, in which God has engaged us, is not necessary. No action by itself is sinful. No field of work is undesirable. Our ignorance, the cause of misery, consists in our thinking “I”, the individual, as the doer of work. No change of situation can bring us peace and rest unless, simultaneously with the change, the ego-sense of actorship also vanishes away.
You simply play the part that Prakriti has set for you. Play it out as Her work. When She chooses to change the game, you slip naturally into the change. You have no right to judge if the work She has put you to, is proper or improper, right or wrong. No discarding it! It is simply Her work and you do it. So with all your physical, vocal and mental functions. They are all Hers. No sin, no merit; it is all He and She. Narada, in his Bhakti Sutra, gives the true nature of Bhakti in practical life. He says, he is a Bhakta who always remembers God and surrenders all his actions to Him.
Ramdas 27-8-1928 [p. 41*]
(37) P. S. S. R. – Ahmedabad
Beloved Ram,
May Sri Ram bless you all!
“Courage, brother, do not stumble, Though thy path be dark as night. There is a star to guide the humble. Trust in God and do the right.”
Our goal here is to seek rest in activity. In the rush of movement and work, find the haven of peace and joy. Identifying yourself with the Immortal, do all work as His worship, as His service. This is Yoga. Shrink not. Faint not. Trust the Almighty Lord of the worlds. He is in you; you are in Him; He and you are one. Whatever work God provides you, do it dispassionately – yourself, a mere instrument, with God’s power or Shakti as the doer. God is love; He is in your heart. Surrender to Him. Let Him be your guide and master in all matters. Give up doubts, cares and fears.
Love to you and all.
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 46*]
(39) M. B. S. R. – Bangalore
Beloved Ram,
There is nothing to lose or gain in this life. We are ever dwelling in the consciousness of God. Our satisfactions or the reverse, relating to the perishable, are all ephemeral. The real is He, the immortal bliss and peace; and we are all He. Anandashram sees Ramdas dancing and playing in it like a child. No rules and no systems. Sri Ram has kept Ramdas under His law, which is a lawless law, which is joy – always joy. Love to you all.
Ramdas 23-9-1928 [p. 48*]
(42) G. P. B. – Orai
Beloved Ram,
Your letter gives a brief but masterly survey of the situation in which God has placed you at present. It is well that our intellect clearly perceives the issues and determines the possible avenues of approach to the solution of the tangled problem. But there is a limit to the mere calculation of the intellect. We can truly say of it, “Thus far thou shalt go, and no further”. Often our scientific methods, our deep laid plans, and our nicely worked out theories – all go to the winds, swept off by a power beyond our ken, which acts in its own inscrutable ways. Let us not reckon without the host. God is our guide. God is the motive power that drives us to action. What the intellect rejects as impossible is indeed possible in the divine dispensation. When He chooses, He works miracles and wonders, at which the acute scientist and the exact theorist stand aghast. And then it is, they flounder into the inexorable truth. What insignificant and erring mortals we are!
Let us humble ourselves before the Almighty Lord of the worlds, and pray to Him to use us as He wills, for the service of humanity. Such an occasion He has created for you. Be a mere instrument. Give up anxiety, fear and doubt. Let His divine energy work in you in its full and irresistible course.
The ideal you are seeking is within you. The perfected harmony and the ineffable peace are within you. The infinite power of God is within you. The eternal purity, wisdom and joy are within you. Be fixed up in the sublime Yoga, union with the great Ideal, and bring a divine touch to bear upon all your activities. The supreme fiat of Sri Krishna has gone forth: “To action you have the right, but not to the fruit thereof. Therefore fight.” So be it with you! May Sri Ram bless you! Love to you all.
Ramdas 26-9-1928 [p. 51*]
(43) P. S. R. – Ernakulam
Beloved Ram,
Reason and emotion are surely great aids; but we should remember that they are only means to an end. When they have served their purpose, if we still cling to them they prove as serious a hindrance as ignorance and callousness, to the attainment of the final liberation. Self-surrender means realising that our activity belongs to Shakti or Prakriti, and that we are the eternal, unaffected, immutable, blissful, peaceful Witness. Reason is not there to judge actions as right or wrong; and emotion that creates likes and dislikes has there no part to play. An action is only a movement of Prakriti, bereft of Gunas and Dwandwas. There is nothing to condemn, nothing to extol; all is the work of Shakti or Ishwara Lila.
So, beloved Ram, in Spirit you are immortal, in form you are changing. As former you are free, undefiled and changeless, a blissful witness of the passing phenomena of name and form. This phenomena is your own play. You dwell in all and you appear as all. You are both with form and without form. You are the watcher of your own Lila. The pleasure and pain belong to the passing appearance; but as the unchanging Atman you are the very essence of immortal bliss.
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 52*]
(44) J. E. K. – Aden
Beloved Ram,
The prompter of action is He; the doer also is He. It is He in movement, as also in rest. There is none but He. …..God’s name is most powerful. It dispels ignorance and gives knowledge. It breaks bondage and brings freedom. It destroys sorrow and yields bliss. The knowledge, freedom and bliss we realise are eternal. God is our father, mother, master, friend and all. …..When our longing to realise Him is intense, He comes to our rescue, without any doubt. He is the friend of the meek.
Take heart, beloved Ram. It is His will that you are what you are, and where you are. Submit to His will and be peaceful and cheerful.
Ramdas 2-10-1928 [p. 53*]
(45) P. S. R. – Ernakulam
Beloved Ram,
Your letters are always brilliant. They offer a beautiful commentary upon the words of Arjuna in the discourse between him and Sri Krishna. Arjuna was confronted with a problem similar to the one you are facing. The same reply briefly explained will suit the present purpose.
Arjuna, disgusted with the action he was engaged in, proposes to renounce it. But the Lord says, “Not so. Exchange of activity or inactivity or, for that matter, even substitution of one kind of activity for another kind is not the remedy.” As regards inactivity, the Lord declares, “This is impossible, because Prakriti is always at work. Even for the support of the body, some sort of activity is absolutely necessary.” Now a change in the form of activity is no solution, so long as one’s mentality remains unchanged; for, action in itself, whatever it is, is neither good nor evil. When the mind is free from the dual throng born of ignorance or Maya, no activity can fetter it, in whatever light ignorance may view it. So change of activity is not at all necessary. What is required is the renunciation of attachment from the mind.
Prakriti will force you to fight. So, fight you must. But, be in tune with the stainless Purusha and let Shakti or Para-Prakriti handle you as Her tool to do Her work. Then you act as though you do not act. As Purusha, the witness, you are non-doer, and as Prakriti or Shakti, you are the doer. “Behold action in inaction, and inaction in action.”
It is entirely true that, even after his realisation of Truth, a man may continue in the same vocation or form of activity as the one in which he was engaged previous to it. Then why seek or wish for an external change? It may come spontaneously by His will, or it may not. He knows best. All action, in whatever field, is the outcome of His Shakti. Let us realise that we live from moment to moment in the blissful union with Him, His Shakti doing all things in us and through us. He is the peace of our soul, the joy of our being. Every movement of ours is a thrill of His love and joy.
Your prayer has a crystalline ring of truth about it. You have been always an instrument in His hands, whether you know it or not. Know, now, once for all, that you have been so, and that at all times you will be so. Love and Namaskars to yourself.
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 54-55*]
(47) U.S.R. – Bombay
Beloved Ram,
Your letters are bubbling with Prem. Indeed every movement of our mind in thought, of our tongue in words, of our limbs in activity, is the play of Shakti. Shakti is nothing but God’s love. When we realise that all movement is a play of that supreme Love, we live continuously in a state of divine ecstasy, which is simply inexpressible. Prem fills us through and through. We are saturated with it. The quality of Prem is Anand. There is also the witness of this play of love or Shakti, namely the immutable, changeless, all-pervading, static aspect of our being, whose quality is ineffable peace. On this unaffected screen of Eternal Peace, dances, in flitting forms, Infinite Love producing the sweet intoxicating music of Anand.
Every particle of our body –as the whole universe– is thrilling with Sri Ram’s love. So there is nothing but Anand in all movement, change and activity. There is nothing but peace in the depths of all forms, the result of movement and change. So eternal peace-and-bliss is the only Reality.
The parcel of postcards and envelopes is also received. How kind
of you!
P. Sanjiv Rao is with us now. Indeed Prem comes to the Ashram in so many forms. Anand is added to Anand. It is like adding infinity to infinity.
Love and Namaskars to yourself.
Ramdas 10-10-1928 [p. 58*]
(49) M. B. S. R. – Bangalore
Beloved Ram,
When the Lord of the universe, Sri Ram, is dwelling ever in our hearts, how can we dare to call ourselves ”sinners”? It is all He, and His Shakti, which is the cause of all activity in the worlds and in us. We are merely instruments. We are what we are because He alone has made us so. We do as we do, because He wants us to act as we do, in all matters. He says, “I am seated in the hearts of all beings and things and by My power I make the entire wheel of the universal Lila revolve.” The ego is false. It is He everywhere, and in everybody.
Being enthroned as He is in our hearts, His grace is ever upon us. Sin and virtue, good and evil, are all mind-made. All activity in the universe belongs to His Divine Shakti, which is neither the one nor the other.
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 60*]
(50) P. N. R. – Puttur
Beloved Ram,
The ego or ignorance is utterly unreal. It is He, in separation, in union, in oneness. There is none but He. Co-existing with this immortal, immutable, unaffected and unattached witness, there is the universal, mutable aspect of God, manifested as the innumerable universes and all creatures and things in them. …..The calm, changeless Spirit witnesses the play of this Shakti or Power in manifestation. So, all movement, activity and work in the universe belong to this divine Shakti. The nature of Shakti is pure love and Anand. Her movements are only for the fulfilment of unity, harmony, love and Anand. The notion that I am the doer is a pure myth; the ego sense itself is a fabrication. Identification with the eternal witness, giving rise to knowledge, sublimates the unreal ego into the Divine Essence.
This is Moksha or liberation. It is not a state attained but realised, because we are always Mukta or free. There is nothing good, nothing bad. All, all is His doing. Let us rise above these harassing pairs of opposites. What does it matter whether the world blames or praises us? What is honour to us who are above them? These all pass away with the passing away of all things, and are cast into oblivion. Beloved Ram, give up anxiety and worry. The whole burden of the universe is on Him. Take it that yours also is on Him. All along, it has been nowhere else. It is He who guides, controls, protects us. Surrender completely to Him. Know, His will is done in all matters. He is all merciful and loving. He is the sole parent of the universe. We are His children. Since He is dwelling in our hearts, we are not sinners and have no cause to be unhappy and miserable. We are ever in blissful union with Him. All else is a passing show. May Sri Ram bless you with peace!
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 61*]
(51) P. S. S. R. – Calcutta
Beloved Ram,
It is perfectly true that Sri Ram’s gigantic Lila is wonderfully humorous. To look upon the whole thing as Lila, we must stand apart from it, identifying ourselves with the immutable, Eternal Witness, who is unaffected by, and unattached to, what is going on. All movement in the universe, i.e. all activity, motion and work, belong to God’s Will or Shakti. The individualities, I, you, and he, are all myths. It is all God’s will or Shakti. Identifying ourselves with the calm, equal, ineffable, all-pervading Spirit, the Witness, we rise above pleasure and pain, success and failure, gain or loss, praise and blame, honour and dishonour, like and dislike, etc., and look upon the world as play. There is nothing to be miserable or anxious about here. It is all the play of God’s power. We are merely Her instruments; and She uses us as She wills. No activity is then distasteful to us. In the depths of our being, we are ever fixed in absolute peace. We only look and watch unperturbed over our and others’ actions and movements determined by God’s Will, which has become our will. Actions do not, then, leave a stain or impression behind; they are spontaneous; there is no seeking for the result. And there does not exist even the pride of actorship.
Little Gurudutta is a little Ram, as you all are Rams. It is the divine Shakti that causes all his activity, which you call his mischief. His mischief reminds Ramdas of Krishna’s mischief. Take it, the child is a genius, God’s instrument. May He bless him! Love to you all.
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 62*]
(52) P. S. R. – Ernakulam
Beloved Ram,
Indeed the world is the manifestation of God, His love-form, His bliss-form. Union with Shakti through love is Bhakti. Identification with Purusha or Shiva is Jnana. Surrender to Shakti in action is Karma. The first and the last make for Anand, and the intervening one for peace. Accomplishment of any one of these leads to the attainment of the other two. He who has realised in himself the balance of all the three, is a perfect Yogi.
Bhakti without Jnana is either an imitation or an unsteady wave of passing emotion. Jnana without Bhakti is a tasteless and conceited thing. Jnana or Bhakti, without Karma, is a spiritually magnified selfishness.
Bhakti, Jnana, Karma, combined together, like the sherbet made in the Ashram (of water, lemon and sugar mixed together), produce the perfect and sweetest nectar of immortality. Your short stay in the Anandashram has left upon it a permanent impression of your presence. Divine love indeed is wonderfully impressive! Love and Namaskars to yourself.
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 63*]
(55) M. G. B. – Bombay
Beloved Mother,
May Sri Ram bless you all. Your loving letter to hand. Immortal joy and peace, purity and love – is ever dwelling within your heart, Oh mother. That is the imperishable Swarup of your Gopal. So, he resides ever in you and with you. In spirit we are ever one with our Beloved. Forms and bodies that are seen only by the mortal eyes are all transient and perishable. Your body and all bodies, just as Gopal’s assumed body, are bound to disappear in due time.
Knowing this truth, let us give up attachment to the mere physical, changing forms of the one immortal Spirit.
Your Gopal is alive in God, is one with God. That you are separate from him is ignorance. Physical bodies are of no account. In their very nature, they are perishable. To feel separation due to the destruction of the body is utter folly. Let us realise we are the immortal Atman, ever one with our Beloved. Death cannot separate us. We are the heirs of immortal joy and peace. Why forget this and be miserable for no reason at all? Oh mother, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti!
May Sri Ram grant peace to your soul. Take heart, mother. God-Gopal is always with you. Love and Namaskars to yourself.
Ever your child
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 66*]
(57) Sri Shanti Vijayji, Mount Abu
Beloved Ram,
Dandawats at your holy feet.
Your love for your child, Ramdas, is indeed unlimited. You are Ramdas’ Divine Lord and Mother at once. For His wonderful Lila, the Absolute One has become Himself the Bhagawan and Bhakta, Guru and Chela, Lord and servant, and Mother and child. This assumption of duality, in eternal union and oneness of the two, is due to His will to enjoy Premanandam. In truth, all, all is He. The one chooses to be many. The one manifests as many. His infinite Prem and Anand are in His manifestation. In the form of Bhakta, He merges Himself in this boundless ocean of bliss and love. The multitudinous forms, beings, creatures and things in the universe are all He in His Self-expression, Self-revealment. Out of pure love, the mother brings forth the child, the expression of her love. The child is the flesh of her flesh, being of her being. Still there are two, the mother and the child, one and yet two. It is the one Atman, one Truth, that is both, at play, enjoying the bliss of immortal love. O, Lord of the worlds, wonderful is Thy Lila!
In the heart of child Ramdas, is seated the God of gods, the highest Truth, the transcendent Reality. The universe we behold is a mere speck in the infinite vastness of His Existence. He is purer than the purest, greater than the greatest, light of all lights, the inexpressible, grandest Truth. Child Ramdas is He, and everything that is, and is not, is He.
Your ever loving child and servant,
Ramdas 1-11-1928 [p. 68*]
(61) B.G. – Konch
Beloved Ram,
Constant repetition of God’s sacred name gives us the inner sight. That is the path. Firm faith and continuous practice are what is wanted. Having these, the progress is easy and the goal is near.
Sing on His name, until the mind is filled with the sound of it, until the divine consciousness dawns upon you, until the latent springs of joy, love and peace have become manifest in you. The supreme truth awaits unfoldment in you; remove the barriers, the ego, ignorance and desires. Know, you are the imperishable Reality, the immortal Spirit, the deathless Existence. Sin, sorrow and fear cannot touch you. You are the ever-pure, the ever-shining, the ever-glorious Truth. You are Eternal Bliss, Love and Peace.
Ramdas – -1928 [p. 72*]
(62) A. B. – Srinagar
Beloved Ram,
May Sri Ram bless you all. Your loving and pathetic letter to hand. Don’t be sorry, beloved Ram, that Ram could not make it convenient for you to visit Anandashram this time. Ram does everything for the best. It may be His will that you come here next time with family. May He grant you this opportunity and fulfil your ardent desire. Certainly, submission to His will at all times means patience, contentment and peace.
Let us not forget the truth that we are merely instruments in His hands, and that He alone determines all things for us. We have absolutely no reason to regret or feel disappointed over any happening. His will be done in all matters!
Ramdas looks upon your reference to “money” in your first letter as only belonging to the great play of Ram. He acts in various ways. There is nothing to be surprised at, or grieved at, in His doings. Truly, you are all He. All glory to Him. Om. Om. Om.
Love and Namaskars to yourself,
Ramdas 24-12-1928 [p. 73*]
(63) R. G. N. – Bombay
Beloved Ram,
Your loving letter simply breathes the sweet perfume of divine love. When you extol Ramdas you are only becoming conscious of the ideal of love seated in your own heart. What a grand and exalted vision you ought to possess to behold in Ramdas such a pure and perfect ideal! Blessed are you! Verily, perfection is with you, and everywhere. Whatever you see, it is the image of that great and all-perfect Truth. You are not a whit less than P., A., J. and others. All of you are He.
Ramdas 11-1-1929 [p. 74*]
(64) M. K. S. – Wadhwan
Beloved Ram,
Your letters are always sweetened with the nectar of divine love. When such pure love lightens your heart, where is the lack of strength and joy? The fount of immortal bliss is ever within you; you are that itself. Our real being is, indeed, an illuminated mass of eternal splendour and delight. Even as the waves are not different from the ocean, so the Lila or the manifestation, is only a series of vast movements of the Eternal Anandam which is at the base, heart and core of all things in the universe.
Behold in all movements of your mind and in all activities of your body nothing but the play of Anand.
Joy and grief, pain and loss, success and failure, virtue and sin are all mind-made. Supreme, everlasting joy is the only Reality. Realise that you are the blissful Atman – motion in external work, rest in the inner calmness of the Spirit. The Atman is the cosmic soul and your action belongs to the cosmic activity. Your physical body is but an instrument of the Divine. Let His power work through you, as He wills, unhampered by the ego-sense. Yours is to enjoy immortal joy, by complete surrender. Doubt not, fear not, worry not. Realise that He and His infinite power within you guide you, control you, and actuate you to do all things at all times. Rise above the conditioned conception of things, i.e., rise above the Gunas and Dwandwas.
First be the witness of your own and the world’s actions. Then identify yourself with Him who is both the witness and the world-actor.
Repetition of the holy Mantram purifies the mind. Satsang elevates you and grants you the right knowledge. Last comes Gurukripa; the awareness of it makes you realise that you are the embodiment of an eternal existence full of bliss and peace.
Ramdas has no command to leave Anandashram.
Ramdas 11-1-1929 [p. 75*]
(65) M. M. G. – Puttur
Beloved Ram,
Ours is not to make other people rich and wise, but become wise ourselves, by serving humanity with all love and humility. Pray to God that you may be pure, noble and good.
Ramdas 11-1-1929 [p. 76*]
(66) J. – Rawalpindi
Beloved Ram,
When the Lord of the universe is seated in our hearts, we have no reason to think that we are mean, sinful and despicable. It is His power, within and without us, that is the cause of all activity. Let us always recognise this truth and attain peace by perfect communion with Him, the Master of our existence, who is eternal bliss, peace, power and light.
Teach little Ramu that Ram is in his heart. He need not go in search of Him anywhere. May God bless him!
Ramdas 12-1-1929 [p. 77*]
(70) A. B. – Jammu
Beloved Ram,
Your letters are always sweet, sweetened by your selfless love for this child of God – a God, who dwells in the hearts of us all, who is pure love and joy. He is within you – He is yourself – this is the truth! Ramdas’ stay with you in Kashmir was really a continued feast of love. Ram does not yet bid Ramdas to quit Anandashram. He seems to have fixed up Ramdas once for all. Never mind; he is ever with you. In bodies we are separate, but in Atman we are eternally united and one. How kind of Radhenath to remember Ramdas so much! How could Ramdas forget? The touch of Prem is indeed eternal.
Ramdas 30-1-1929 [p. 81*]
(71) M. G. B. – Bombay
Beloved Mother,
May Sri Ram bless you all!
Your loving but sorrowful letter to hand. Ramdas has been all along speaking and writing to you on spiritual things, from his own experience of this life.
Ramdas is entirely in the hands of God. God alone is his great Teacher.
Based upon Ramdas’ experience, through which God made him pass, he is giving briefly in this letter, what should be our true outlook upon life.
The world with all beings and things in it is evanescent, and God alone is real, eternal and unchanging. All forms have a beginning and an end. Whatever is born is bound to perish and pass away. The sense of misery here is due to our attachment to the perishable forms. Our goal of life is to realise God, i.e., our immortality. In order to do that, we have to withdraw our mind from whatever is seen, which is transient, and direct it to Him –who is within us and pervades the entire universe– the one absolute Existence, the sole Reality. When the mind transcends name and form, it attains the vision of the Supreme. The joys and griefs relating to the external world are caused by the workings of the mind. Stop the restlessness of the mind, and the joys and griefs both cease to be, and are thereby proved to be entirely unreal. And a calmness settles upon the mind which is of the Eternal, of the Truth of our being. Hence, to lament over the loss of anything here is utter folly; only that which is by nature perishable has passed away. Behold, the whole universe is a huge passing show. In it, innumerable forms appear and disappear at every moment. This is the nature and order of all things. So instead of allowing ourselves to be upset by the change in the transient, let us strive to fix our mind upon the deathless, formless, eternal Truth. This is done only by stilling the mind – by the quieting of all waves of thought that trouble it. The path is the repetition of God’s name and meditation, and the surrender of all our actions to God.
We can realise fully the transitory and illusory nature of the world only when we have turned our mind to God. Then, taking our stand on the immortal, let us view the vast and changing play of the universe and remain unaffected by it. This is liberation.
There is no reason whatever to be miserable. We make ourselves miserable owing to our ignorance. Ignorance can go only when we approach God and surrender ourselves to Him. Then we discover we are unhappy for nothing at all, and that there is no more for us to be miserable for, hereafter. We are then ever peaceful and resigned.
This life is a splendid gift from God. It is not meant to be wasted away and torn to shreds by our dwelling upon unreal sorrows. God is indeed kind and all-loving. There is absolutely no doubt about this. Else, why should He give us blows and shocks in the shape of losses and calamities that wake us up from the dream of a fool’s paradise to the great Reality?
How can we know that He is all kindness and love, if He did not make us pass through trials and tribulations, so as to bring us face to face with Him – the only Truth? He teaches that He alone is real and that we must live for Him and Him alone, Him whom we can never really afford to lose at any time. Is it a wonder then that Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, prayed to Sri Krishna for difficulties? She knew she could attain Krishna only by remembering Him when beset with difficulties. Blessed are we, when God, in His mercy, sends us calamities unasked, with a view to lead us to Him. He is indeed kindness and love.
We may live for thousands of years, for the matter of that we may live thousands of lives, and obtain whatever we desire of the world; but never shall we be happy as long as our hunger for earthly things persists. Complete repose once for all, on the bosom of the infinite God, can alone grant us the true and everlasting peace, freedom and joy.
So Ramdas prays to you, beloved mother, give up your unreasonable sorrow by turning your mind to the Divine Master of our being and of the universe. Serve Him in all humility, in any sphere of activity in which He might place you. Don’t be crushed down by grief which is unreal and false; rise superior to it.
Make God –call Him by any name you like– the goal and purpose of your existence. Nothing short of this is worth any the least consideration and thought, O mother. Why throw away a precious life? Dedicate it to God and His service as Mirabai did. Love Him in all. Serve Him in all. And make yourself blessed, pure and peaceful. May God bless you!
Now a word about Bhakti obtaining in these days. Some of us cling only to the dead forms of it, simply because they are handed down to us by our forefathers, without understanding their right significance. When we perform worship according to these forms, we either do not know why we do it, or are actuated by the desire to obtain some worldly object. This kind of Bhakti can bring us no solace in our moments of grief. Real peace can be ours only when we have offered ourselves up entirely to God, and then do everything for His sake and pray to Him constantly for nothing but, “To lead us from the unreal to the real; From darkness to light, And from death to immortality.”
God is kind. He teaches us through our experience that desires are our enemies and sense-objects are wombs of misery. Still we crave for them and suffer. Whose fault? Ours only. Why then blame God? We want lasting happiness by the enjoyment of things which are in their very nature incapable of yielding us such happiness!
God is patiently waiting for His children to turn to Him with a longing to be with Him only. When we do so, He at once takes us in His arms and blesses us with immortal happiness, a happiness not dependent upon perishable objects but upon Him – who ever dwells in our hearts – the eternal Reality. True Bhakti is, therefore, Nishkama Bhakti; any other form of it, however faithfully practised, cannot save us.
Truly, Pitaji is a pure saint. When you write to him next, kindly convey to him Ramdas’ love and Namaskars.
Love to you and all there,
Your child,
Ramdas 2-2-1929
P.S. Mother Rukmabai is in the Ashram and sends you her love and Namaskars.
If I was given just a short space of time to impart what I feel
– ’tis most important – it again comes back to this thing:
If you were not,
the world would not be;
as far as you are concerned.
We are all experiencing a very unique world!
A world shaped by conditioning, identity, belief, habits, traditions…
But each one in a very unique way; is experiencing.
So the world that you see,
is a unique world picture
shaped in your own consciousness.
And if you are at the heart of your world,
and you really are clear within your self,
you can begin to change it;
if you wish to spend time.
But I would say
the most important thing
is to know who you are.
When you know who you are,
your world is changing automatically.
If you go out wanting to change things,
then you become an entity wanting to do something.
The blessing that comes from the Self,
shines upon everything.
If somebody is asking for help, for prayers or something,
then the prayer that goes out is not a particular…
“Oh,” you know, “this is George… I want to pray for George…”
Yes, it can be this.
But just:
“Let goodwill happen there!
I send goodwill there;
to everything there!”
I don’t have to get personal at all.
And that energy goes there.
So, you remember
that whatever it is that’s coming up
–either inside the body energetically, or
in the mind as thoughts and feelings,
or whatever, no?–
Don’t try and stop them.
Your duty is not to just stop them,
but to use them to remember
that you are the witness of them.
And that if you pay attention to the witness,
rather than the things that are being witnessed,
you will change the vibration of them.
Because they have come,
they must somehow serve the witness.
And the witnessing of them… witnessing of them…
At first we are looking at the thing, because it’s what everyone is doing in the world. This is at the heart of all our… –what do you call these things now… Facebook… and all this kind of stuff, and all, you know…– everything is about what the person is thinking and feeling. And it’s all external. And all unreliable. And very unfair, actually. Okay? So we are all reporting what we are seeing and what we think… and all la la la la la…
But we’re never reporting, you know,
“But wait a second; I am speaking like that because, you know,
I just broke up with my family, or my partner”,
and so on and so forth…
“So that is part of what I am sharing with you about the world I’m seeing!”
The saying is,
“I’m not seeing the world as it really is;
I’m seeing the world as I am at this moment”.
So you are perceiving that, but now I ask you:
You who are perceiving
(this very perceiving itself –okay?– is taking place)
but That which is Perceiving itself,
That which is Perceiving…
What is That like?
Does the story live in the Perceiver?
And, immediately,
you will begin to feel
the environment
and the impact of
what you are seeing
is changed;
from the object of perception,
to the sense of the subject of perceiving.
The subject is more still… More quiet…
Then also, there is a change in the environment
and the climate becomes much more calm,
and more peaceful… Maybe agreeable…
But you still remember:
That also is perceived.
So when That
is also perceived…
By What is it perceived?
Yeah.
Wordless…
Wordless…
You are
in the Wordless…
You’ve come back…
Your eyes and your seeing
have returned to their Source;
mind has come back to the Source.
✨
Many people are researching many, many, many things! Their research is researching all kinds of things.
But you are here to research one thing!
And That is even closer than intimacy!
I don’t even want to say It’s close.
It’s not even near.
It’s Here!
Who can research “Here”,
where even the researcher gets absorbed in the discovery?
And neither the seeker,
nor the finder,
nor the thing found,
will exist There.
That sounds strange!
I’m just telling you how perfect it is!
You’re not going to die, physically,
but all that is not true in you,
will not accompany you.
Now, who is hearing me right now?
[Voices in sangha] Yes… Yes… Yes…
I’m looking at you guys on the screen too:
That which permeates every form in the universe…
known and unknown…
conscious or unconscious…
without Which nothing can exist
or even appear to exist…
where neither truth nor false could even manifest…
That which alone is effortlessly unchangingly perfect…
Which even the mind denying it,
appears in it…
and That which we should totally fall in love with,
until the duality of love merges in the Oneness itself,
Which is the same as true love,
Which is the same as pure awareness…
So this is not a pep talk, you know?
Not a… you know… a little “let’s fan the flames only”…
I’m only pointing to
That which cannot be achieved even!
By whom would it be achieved?
We can only wake up from a sleep
that we are other than This.
And we must be consistent in our waking up;
we must love the waking up,
but don’t be attached to waking up.
Don’t be attached to waking up!
Very good.
[Looks at questioner who deeply gratefully looks at him.]
I would like to begin today with a story that happened about fifty years ago. My teacher Irina Tweedie was in India, and after her teacher died, she needed to be alone. So, she went to the Gandhi Ashram, in the foothills of the Himalayas. And she was given a little cottage to stay in, on a hill just outside the ashram. And there was this deep valley of pine trees that went down to where the ashram was. And she was there for some months in silence. And one morning, she opened the door of her little cottage, and there on the doorstep was a piece of paper. And she opened this piece of paper, and it was some writing in Sanskrit. And she couldn’t read Sanskrit, so she tossed the piece of paper over the edge of the hill, and it floated down to the pine trees. And she went to the ashram and… did some shopping and… Later in the day she came back and there on her doorstep was this little piece of paper again! [sweet low laughter in the audience] So she thought that it must have some significance! So she took it to the swami in the ashram, and he translated it:
“Lord of the universe, Prabu, Sovereign Spirit,
beneficent and merciful Allah,
at Thy command only
will I carry out the pilgrimage of life,
for the love of all created by Thee,
and for Thy glory.”
And she made this into a personal prayer for herself.
And in recent years, part of my work, in a way, has been to recover certain things that I feel have been lost.
It’s like seeds; to recover certain seeds that I feel are important to our spiritual well-being, our spiritual understanding and of course our spiritual journey in the West, both individually and also collectively.
Because I have a sense that we have lost or misunderstood certain key aspects of spiritual life.
And in particular, when certain spiritual traditions came from the East to the West in the seventies, whether from India, the Middle East, or from Japan, that they brought with them a deep wisdom and certain spiritual techniques, such as meditation, that have become central to many people’s spiritual practice, but the key ingredient or element was often missing, or it just had got… I think the phrase is, “lost in translation”.
And as many of you know, for example, I feel that we have personalized the spiritual journey. In a way that was never intended. That many people approach spiritual life from…
For example, discovering their soul’s destiny.
Or discovering a deep meaning for life.
And although spiritual life can give you both the sense of your own destiny or a deep meaning or fulfillment, in my understanding that was never the original intention.
In fact, in Sufism we say, “Take one step away from yourself and behold the path.”
And the moment we approach spiritual life from a point of view of
“What can I get out of it?” or “How can it give me something?”
([lowering his voice] even “How can it give me meaning,
or fulfillment, or a sense of my destiny”)
we losesomething essential.
Something got lost in translation.
And I feel this very strongly.
That the spiritual journey is not about us.
And one of the things in this little prayer,
“… at Thy command only will I carry out the pilgrimage of life,
for the love of all created by Thee,
and for Thy glory”,
nowhere does it mention “My spiritual journey”.
It is really about the Divine.
Something very simple, but for me very essential, which got lost in translation.
We made it about us.
And this is…
If you lose that essential note,
then…
something is missing.
Something primal.
A particular note is not heard.
A particular resonance is not lived.
Both for oneself and also for the bigger community.
And there is another note, which, I also feel strongly, has been lost; has been lost in translation. And that’s really what I want to talk about today. Which has to do with Oneness, and also has to do with the bigger picture of spirituality.
And it is in the first phrase in this line, “… at Thy command only will I carry out the pilgrimage of life, for the love of all created by Thee”.
It’s very simple: I am here for the love of all created by Thee;
or as Joanna Macy puts it so beautifully, “just for love of the Earth”.
And…
and this should…
shouldn’t be something new.
Again, it’s something that I feel got lost in translation;
that We are here for love of all created by Thee.
And I was wondering, why did we lose it? Why did we forget about it? In today’s image of the spiritual journey, this is very rarely at the forefront. What happened… when all these traditions came to the West?
I understand, in Christianity, that…
I don’t think it’s in Christ’s teachings.
There was a shadow put over the physical world. And this whole image of the sins of the flesh, and this rejection of the physical. In my understanding, something… It’s a shadow that came afterwards, and then this became this rejection of this beautiful world. God is in Heaven, and the Earth is a place of sin and suffering.
And then there were these other traditions that came to the West and brought a certain freshness; a different quality of spiritual life.
And one of the first traditions that touched me, was Zen Buddhism. And when I was sixteen, I became very immersed in Zen Buddhism. It really awoke me, actually, to the beauty of the physical world, as much as to inner states of meditation.
And yet, when you think of Zen Buddhism, and you have this image of the monk in meditation, in the zen-dō, something again is missing. And I did a little research about this, and what I discovered was, in Japan, almost everybody in Japan, at least eighty percent or more, is Shinto. And that’s never been a problem; in fact, Buddhism in Japan became integrated into the Shinto. Shinto is not really a religion; it is more an understanding. And so, woven into the whole texture of Zen Buddhism, in Japan, is Shinto. And, I don’t understand a lot about Shinto, but it is about the Shinto gods, which are called kami. And [reading] “they are sacred spirits which take the form of things and concepts important to life, such as wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers and fertility. Kami and people are not separate, they exist within the same world and share its interrelated complexity.”
So, in the Zen Buddhist consciousness, there is also a whole world of embodied spirits; it’s an animate world, in which they live; in which the mountains, the rivers, the trees, places… are embodied… are embodied by kami, by spirits. The world is spiritually alive. And everything is full; permeated with this spiritual presence, in the physical world in which they live. The spiritual world and the physical world never became separated, as happened in the West. And this is very, very, very important. And yet, when Zen Buddhism came to the West, this got lost in translation. Because when we think of Zen Buddhism, we’re not aware of a whole animate world in which the Zen monk lived; of this whole spiritually embodied universe in which… everything… everything in nature, everything in people, all the sacred places were embodiments of kami, of spirits. Somehow that got left aside. So we inherited certain wonderful practices in meditation –and I’ve done them; they’re very clear, very simple, very beautiful– but we lost the world in which they belonged. And so something became sterile, that should never have been sterile.
And of course, anybody who’s studied Tibetan Buddhism… Tibetan Buddhism is very bound up with shamanism; with the whole spirit world, that… some of which is very place-specific. You think of the deities in the mountains in Tibet, that were worshipped. They were part of that whole rich culture of sacred place, and spiritual place, and deities that embodied place, as well as the deep meditation practices of Tibetan Buddhism. And I’m not an expert in Tibetan Buddhism, but I have a sense that a lot of that embodied world got lost when it came to the West; that they were Tibetan Buddhist practices, but not an understanding of the spiritual world, and the spirit world, and the world of deities, and the Earth magic… that was central to Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. A lot of that Earth magic got lost. And so again, something essential got lost in translation.
And the third example I will give, has to do with Ramana Maharshi. And Ramana Maharshi in his wonderful teachings of non-duality have become quite popular recently in what’s called Neo-Advaita or non-dual teachings, and they have to do with self-enquiry… So, very good spiritual practice. What am I not, looking at yourself very clearly, this whole business of self-enquiry.
And yet again, when I went to look more deeply at Ramana Maharshi,
I also saw that something was lost.
A lot of the non-dual teachings say, You don’t need a guru. Awaken spontaneously. And yet if you read Ramana Maharshi’s teachings, he did have a guru! And in fact his whole life was spent in the presence of his guru. And he never moved away from his guru.
And his guru was, Arunachala! The sacred mountain. [Reading] “Arunachala is truly the holy place. Of all holy places, it is the most sacred. Know that it is the heart of the world. It is truly Shiva himself. It is his heart abode. In that place, the Lord ever abides, the hill of Light named Arunachala.”
So there again, the Earth is very present in his spiritual awakening, in his spiritual practice, and he actually did write a whole series of hymns, in which he referred to “My sacred mountain” as his guru. And what is interesting actually is, “From ancient times, various spiritual centres in India have represented various powers and modes of doctrine. And Arunachala among them, the doctrine of Advaita on the path of self-enquiry. Although the ultimate doctrine and supreme and most direct path, this through the ages has not been most popular, because for most people it seemed too austere and difficult. The Maharishi attained realization through a spontaneous act of self-enquiry, with no human guru; Maharishi agreed with all other masters that the guru is necessary, adding however that the guru need not necessarily take human form. When he left home as a youth, Arunachala drew him like a powerful magnet. He went straight there and stayed there for the rest of his life. It was Arunachala that he regarded as his guru.
And somehow, we have to reclaim this note that has got lost. It is present in all of these Eastern traditions; in different ways. Where there Ramana Maharshi just sitting there in the sacred mountain, where he spent his life, his realization was deeply grounded in the Earth, in sacred place. In the same way as for the Zen monk is realization, or his practice, what’s part of an animate world, in which everything was alive with spirit, with kami.
Now, there’s a particular difficulty here in this country; there are two aspects of it. First of all, there is this Puritan heritage that somehow became very divorced from the spirit world. I won’t go into it now, but it… the Puritan Christianity does not allow much of the spirit world to become present. The Roman Catholic tradition opens the door to more of the world of saints, of… the world of… The inner world. With ritual, with symbolic practice. And then there is the other tragedy that happened here, that I think will take still many many generations to unravel. And that is, the holders of sacred place, in this country, were systematically and brutally killed off in this terrible act of genocide, when the white people killed the Native Americans. The Native Americans held the sacred meaning of place. And the spiritual relationship to place. And there was this terrible act of systematic genocide that took place in this country, which… the spiritual scars of which are really understood. But if you destroy all the wisdom-keepers of sacred place, and then try to have real spiritual practice, you hit this place of deep pain and deep suffering and deep rejection. And one has to acknowledge that, if one is going to do real spiritual practice, in this country, that is grounded; that includes the Earth.
So go back to this prayer that Mrs. Tweedie was given,
“… at Thy command only will I carry out the pilgrimage of life,
for the love of all created by Thee,
and for Thy glory”.
We are here for the glory of God. The Sufis say this very simply. There was this moment, outside of time, it’s called the primordial covenant, when God spoke to the souls of the not-yet-created humanity and said, “Am I not your Lord”, and they said, “Yes, we witness it”. And there is this deep pledge, from the right core of the soul of humanity, to witness, to remember, that He is Lord, or… Goddess… it doesn’t matter; the gender is irrelevant. And we are here to witness that One Being. And that is, in a way, a primary spiritual practice in Sufism; whether you call it remembrance, or witnessing… This incredible One Being that we are surrounded by, that we are part of, that we live and breathe, that we exist in. It is one living being that is The One. The Sufis talk about the unity of Being. It is in our breath; it’s in everything we are. And there is a very very important, very foundational spiritual practice: to turn towards the One. In this Oneness. And that takes us home, that reconnects is with the Source; the Source of all life.
It’s very simple. My teacher used to say, “Mystics teach simple things, but those simple things change people’s lives.”
It’s not complicated: everything is One. And it is a simple spiritual practice. Wonderful practice. It’s like Brother Lawrence’s practice of the Presence of God. To see the One, to see the Creator, in everything around you. Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of God.
It’s not about us!
It’s about God!
It’s about turning back to the Divine!
Turning back to what is sacred. Reclaiming this connection that is at the root of the root of the root of everything.
That nourishes us, that makes us truly alive, that makes us truly human beings.
“For Thy glory”
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” That’s the English mystical poet
Gerard Manley Hopkins;
he was also a priest.
And to live that from the core of your being; to live that recognition; that was always part of every other culture; we say, we are the only culture to have forgotten it; this simple connection to what is sacred… to what is One… to what is…
And then, “for the love of all created by Thee.”
Again, it’s very simple. And somehow, we have forgotten it; we have… [looking at a loss].
[Raising his voice] I was thinking this morning, I went for an early morning walk before I left to drive here. I was very early; the sun was just coming up… [melodiously] and I was walking… listening to the birds… and seeing the blossoms on the trees… And there on a telephone wire, there was a young falcon, whose feathers were still downy –you know, that beautiful downiness of young birds– it wasn’t a baby anymore, but it was sitting alone, kinda proudly alone, and it didn’t mind me walking underneath; it wasn’t frightened. And a little bit later, it spread its wings and flew away. And I thought, this is… “this wonder of all created by Thee.” And we are part of it. We are part of this incredible celebration. And it should be foundational in our spiritual practice. It should be the root! It connects us! I like to go for a walk early in the morning ’cause it reminds me! It connects me! You know, we so easily get lost in our thoughts, in our… all the stuff that goes round and round, and it becomes more with computers and… all of that, in this bizarre world that we live in, that we have forgotten what is essential.
I was thinking also, my great passion this year is growing potatoes. Ahm… For some reason, I thought I hadn’t done it before, I thought I was too involved in writing spiritual books, or leading a spiritual life, that I hadn’t realized, you know, the simple wonder of growing potatoes. And [eyes glowing]you put your hands in the earth, and you discover a great round potato and you pull it out, and it’s a meal in itself, and it’s like… And you know, there’ve been cultures that just lived off that. And it’s something so simple, and it provides a balance, it provides the root, it provides… And it’s profoundly spiritual.
And I think again, it’s a really important balance to this… –again I say– this bizarre world we live in, this… This civilization is running on empty, faster and faster and faster; it’s like those cartoon characters –I don’t know if you remember, used to see Bugs Bunny, and…– and those cartoon characters, they’d run to the end of the cliff, and they’d run over the end of the cliff and their feet would be going round and round like this for a few seconds, till they realized that they were over the edge, and then they fell and crashed. I think that mirrors a perfect image of our present culture, where we’ve run over the edge, you know, we’ve passed the point of no return, what they call the tipping point, and we’re right over… and we’re still going round and round very very fast, ’cause we haven’t quite realized there’s nothing… there’s no ground under our feet, and that, and… you know, it amazes me that this culture can continue running on empty for so long. At what point the crash will happen, and…
And those of us who have a little bit of awareness, and hopefully our spiritual practice has given us a little bit of awareness, can, you know, grab a root on the edge of a cliff and pull ourselves back and say, There must be another way to live, that is rooted in something real. And that is why something has driven me in the past a few years to find what we have lost; to find these essential ingredients that we seem to have dismissed.
And I say, one for me very simple [ingredient that has] to do
with spiritual life, is, It’s not about us.
And that is something so essential…
And yet, ahm, you know,
the fact that it’s about God!
The fact that it’s about the Divine.
The fact that it’s about what is sacred.
That you only begin spiritual life,
because, as the Sufis say,
the Beloved looks into your heart,
and gives you a glance of divine love.
You only turn towards God,
because God has turned towards you.
None of you would be here otherwise,
if the Beloved hadn’t looked into your heart;
it wouldn’t interest you.
You know, if you were in the rest of the world, you’d be watching soccer now. I’m not quite sure what the Americans do when the rest of the world watches the World Cup, but… [laughter in the audience] You know, you certainly wouldn’t be in a public gathering… If you were in England, you’d be in a pub, watching the English Squad in the Amazon jungle not knowing what to do [laughter] ’cause it’s so humid and hot there. If you were in Spain, you’d be in despair today, ’cause they lost 5-1 to the Netherlands, and it’s never happened like that before since 1950 and your life would be over [more laughter].
But here you are, because something has touched your heart;
because there has been a call, and this is the echo;
the call and the echo, this is the response.
And it’s all because of the Beloved.
There is no other reason
that you turn towards God.
And yet, how quickly we forget that… How quickly we practice spiritual life for this sake of meaning, for the sake of purpose, for the sake of something deeper… And yes, these are all valid, secondary reasons.
But the first reason has to be… [ever so tenderly] for the sake of the Beloved;
because the Beloved called;
because the Beloved wants you…
Because, He loves you…
or She loves you;
or It loves you;
or LOVE loves you!
There is no other reason!
Something so simple…
And how often do you hear it?
How often do you hear people exploring spiritual life for ten thousand other reasons, but not the glory of God…
Because
your heart
has been touched.
And there is this innermost touching;
this intimate, innermost touching that, in whatever way,
the Beloved wants your soul to remember.
And then there is… living it! In the outer world.
And the Sufis have this saying,
“Outwardly to be with the people,
Inwardly to be with God”.
It’s a Naqshbandi saying, actually,
“Solitude in the crowd –
–Outwardly to be with the people,
Inwardly to be with God”.
And combined with this call of the Divine, there is at this time a call of the Earth. And the Earth is calling; the Earth needs our attention; the Earth needs our remembrance because the Earth is dying.
So very simple. Again, these are not complicated ideas; we have forgotten “for the love of all created by Thee”; we have forgotten what was well-known and understood in the East for thousands of years, that in our spiritual practice, every leaf, every bud, every butterfly, even every mosquito, is also included.
The most famous Zen poem of all time,
by Basho, the Old pond –a frog jumps in– plop!
That is enlightenment! That is the pond, that is the frog, that is life; that is where we are! This is the world into which the soul has incarnated. That’s one of the reasons I like meeting here in the Mercy Center, because in the break you can go and you can feel the garden which is attended with love and care… You don’t need much to remember. Just one bud breaking open in the springtime; this falcon with his downy feathers, before he took flight; reminding me of this…
And I always find it interesting, it’s when I go for my walk, you know, there are the thoughts of the day, even first thing in the morning, they’re there! And wanting to come in.
[Lowering voice] And then, nature is present and it reminds me again for something else: It’s not about me; it’s about the glory of God!
And the Earth needs it… It… The Earth needs our prayers. This was always understood; again, I go back that something has driven me to find these kind of key ingredients –they were always understood– that we have forgotten –it’s like the salt you need for cooking– to flavour your practice; to make it taste.
So the first one is, it’s not about us; it’s about God; it’s about the Beloved; it’s about the heart.
And then this other ingredient that
our practice should include:
Oneness!
The Sufis talk about the unity of being.
Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of God.
The outbreathing! And it is in everything.
If it’s not in everything, then it’s not One,
then it’s not the God that I know.
And we have enough gods with sectarian divides, and “your God” and “my God” and… All of that.
But as mystics, as seekers, we’ve been asked to hold, to seek a different truth that is about One, that includes everything. And there is this calling from the soul of the Earth, this cry, that it has been forgotten. It has been forgotten. It needs us to remember that it is sacred. It is like a primary contribution. Yes, some people are called to action, to try to hold this crazy ecocide that as a culture we are perpetuating. It’s bizarre! To think of it logically, it has been described like somebody is completely pathological, what we are doing. I don’t want to go into that now; too distressing! It breaks your heart.
But there is this inner calling to respond;
to respond, again, just by remembering!
Just to remember…
Real spiritual practices
are very simple, and
incredibly important.
Because we then make this connection; it’s all about connection.
In fact, in Saint Teresa’s stages of prayer, she says the first stage
is more difficult, because you have to make a connection, with your Higher Self or with God, that sticks.
That is the most difficult; that requires the most effort. Once you’ve made that connection, then the Grace comes; then the gifts come; then it starts to spin. We have to make a connection with the Divine within our consciousness. It takes usually, if you’re really serious, it takes five or six years, to make that connection, so nothing can break it! So that it’s your lifeline, it’s your… like the underwater diver, it’s the bit that gives you air! It’s what sustains you, this connection; wherever you go, you have this connection to what is real, to what loves you beyond measure, and what eventually takes you home. And that is where the effort is required: to do your practices, to do your prayers, to do your meditation, to work on yourself, so this connection can’t be broken.
And then it’s very beautiful, because really more and more It does the work, in fact. In Saint Teresa’s stages of prayer, she uses the image of watering the garden. The first stage [effortful expression], he has to go to the well, and take the water out of the well, and take it to the garden, and water the garden. And in the last stage… [relieved] it just rains. It’s just the grace of God. And you have to have this connection to be open to the grace of God, so it can be given, and… God gives, and… [moved]you know, the Beloved is so generous…
One thing that often saddens me about people is how little they allow themselves to be given. There is this wonderful line from the Song of Songs, “and He brought me to His banqueting house, and His banner over me was Love”. And this is banqueting house of love. And I often feel sad that people are satisfied with just a few crumbs from the table of love. They don’t want too much, I guess, in case it disturbs their lives.
And the Beloved is so generous; He just wants to give and give and give! Sometimes troubles, yes… [laughter] but you can’t discriminate. And that is also reflected in this world, with the incredible generosity of nature; one just plants one little seed potato, and out come this… these meals! And this is generosity!
I was feeling, in this culture where everybody works too hard, it’s this Puritan work ethic… It’s so tedious! And it’s not meant to be like that. In fact, the future I’ve been shown, once I was given a whole series of visions for the future of humanity, and there wasn’t so much effort involved. It’s something about Oneness, actually, if you really work with Oneness, there’s… it’s much less effort.
All this duality is so exhausting! “You…” and “Me…” and “You want…” and “I want…” and “Who wants more…” and “You’re supposed to be ambitious, and to want more than somebody else wants”, and it gets really hard work!
It was something my father said to me actually, when I was like seventeen; he didn’t understand why I wasn’t ambitious, and he said, “It must be because you’re vegetarian!” [Laughter] He had a good simple understanding of life. If you don’t eat meat, you’re not gonna go for it.
Ahm… But…
There’s a different way to live,
there’s a different way to be,
there are different rhythms,
there’s a different… song!
There is this song in life!
And we are here, we are part of it all. And we are part…
The moment you eat your Wheaties in the morning;
you are part of it; they’ve been grown; a seed has given it,
from the Earth, to your plate; you are part of it.
And of course you should give thanks.
This is the most natural human way.
And what we don’t understand
–because… it’s a whole other story–
that the Earth responds when we give thanks!
We’ve forgotten
that the Earth is alive,
we’ve forgotten that the Earth has ears,
we’ve forgotten the Earth has a heart!
We’ve forgotten the Earth
needs our prayer,
needs our praise,
needs our thanks!
Just like… anybody else!
We’re not separate from it, we’re part of it,
and our spiritual journey is a celebration of that.
There’s a… I love this English mystical poet, Hopkins, and he has this one line: “Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;” it goes on and on…
Glory be to God! Praise! It’s very immediate! “Thank you Beloved!”
So it is really a simple way of
reclaiming, remembering this prayer,
“For the love of all created by Thee”.
We are here to love everything!
There are two Buddhists, interestingly, whose message I really, really like at this time.
One is Joanna Macy, who’s often here in the Mercy Center, and she’s really been on the frontlines of the environmental movement, also the movement against nuclear… And when asked about saving the Earth, she says, “Yes, we have to be aware of what is happening and deal with the grief of what is happening, but really it is our love for the Earth, that will save the Earth”.
And there’s also the wonderful Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, who says, “We need to fall in love with the Earth; and only then can the ecological crisis be redeemed.”
We need to fall back in love with the Earth, and, you know, I am a Sufi, and Sufis are about love, and so we should know about love, because what else is there that nourishes us. And if it nourishes us, it nourishes the Earth. What else is there that really touches our soul… It is love!
Love has already personally been the great… ingredient of my life’s journey, because of the fact I was brought up in a family that… didn’t know about love. Love was never mentioned, looking back. It’s like nobody asked me how did I feel, and love was never mentioned. And I didn’t really know that love existed.
Until I met the Sufis. And I’ve been given many, many extraordinary experiences of love, over the years. Unbelievable! I mean, to feel every cell in your body, loved! Even right down onto the physical plane, and then –that was in my twenties– and then later to be taken into a whole other dimension… It was just complete love, in which love is all there is, and it’s this ocean of love, or sea of love… I don’t know how to describe it, because there there are very few words, and I have really… My eyes or my heart has been opened to love, in a way that I never believed possible.
When I began my spiritual practice, in my teens, I believed that spirituality was about austerity, and about being ascetic, and about discipline, and about rigorous meditation. Yes, those are stepping stones on the path; you need self-discipline, you need to meditate, you need to have a certain austerity…
But love is something completely different.
Love is like the whole larder just full of abundance,
it’s like, you know, a harvest garden, it permeates everything!
It is incredibly… it is sweet, it is tender, it is destructive, it is…
It does everything you want to you,
and all sorts of things you don’t want to you,
and breaks your heart,
and puts your heart back together,
and it is just unbelievable; and [sigh]
it’s really what there is;
underneath everything,
there is this…
heartbeat of love… [almost whispering] and it‘s this…
it is…
like…
[Raising voice] That’s why I always say, that
when you get to the other side
and you look back at your life,
to be able to say,
I have done two things:
I have lived, and I have loved.
Then… Then I think it’s OK to go, because, you know, this world gives you an opportunity to live! To breathe, to live, to experience, to give yourself… Whatever it is, even if it’s not successful.
Success and failure are,
Kipling says,
“And treat those two impostors just the same”.
Success and failure… We are too caught up in success and failure, and often we don’t know, till we get to the other side, what is real success, and what is real failure, but you can just give yourself to the experiences that life brings you. And, yes, it’s a wild ride, it’s not an easy ride, it’s like… sometimes out-of-control ride, but… it’s a ride.
And to have loved… I remember once saying to my teacher about love, “Can your love increase?” and she said, “And HOW!” [Audience sweetly laugh] You know, you can actually… there comes a time in your practice, you can actually learn how to give love consciously. You can… you take it out of… Somehow we have caught… Again, everything in our culture has become very personalized, and… ahm… and love has become very personalized, and so love is about whether you’re loved by your parents, or something you work out with your therapist, or… It’s all to do with personal relations! And I think that’s OK when you’re in your twenties, and you’re in love, and you know, all the craziness of that, but… But it’s like saying a little pond is the whole ocean!
Love is much vaster than the personal, it’s much bigger than people, it includes everything! “You are… You are…” –that lovely line from E. E. Cummings– “You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars”! It’s everything! And we have to take it back to everything, because we’ve forgotten that it’s everything; we’ve forgotten “for the love of all created by Thee, and for Thy glory”; we’ve forgotten this great explosion of love, which is what we call life, which is what we call creation. The Sufis say that God, He who was One and alone, He wanted to be loved and so He created the world. And this world is an expression of love that gives itself back to God. And we are part of it! And we live this kind of blinkered life, thinking life is about succeeding, even succeeding spiritually, and I failed enough times spiritually to know, that has nothing to do with succeeding!
And it’s really about loving! It’s very simple… It’s about the heart, it’s about this centre of the heart, and it’s not personal; you don’t work it out in the therapist’s office, because the heart isn’t like that.
And that’s why once you have begun the journey, once you have drunk just one sip of the wine of divine love, as the Sufis say, that’s when the journey begins; you make the mistake of drinking just one sip of the wine of divine love.
And then you begin this journey of love; this journey that includes everything, because everything is in the end about love! If you dare, if you are prepared to, if you… It’s so vast! And everything in creation… When I saw this morning this young falcon with his downy feathers… I just thought, Oh, Beloved, you’ve created this beautiful bird, out of so much love… And then we are part of it, as it’s meant to be! We are living the life that is actually around us; even if you live in the city; there is… there is still a flower somewhere… there is still a breeze somewhere, hopefully; there is… You still eat food that has been created out of love…; not when it got to the factory, but before that. Because it’s the Beloved’s expression of love; that’s what this world is, and it’s one of its most essential notes.
And we are this link of love; we are this… Human beings have this privilege: that their hearts can open. It is a privilege to be a human being, and your heart can be open, your heart can be touched by divine love. And then you can be this connection between the Creator and the creation. And to me, that’s what it means to be guardian of the planet; to look after creation; to be this connection that is infused with love; that remembers the divine nature of everything.
And it’s a very simple practice! Sufis call it remembrance. To remember the love that is in everything. And yes, you can take it out of your… (if you’re a guy) out of your mother complex, and give it to the Great Mother, and have a Great Mother complex! [Laughter] And then it’s all about creation! It’s all about… Everything! And then you are… Something in you becomes aligned.
You see really… as a spiritual teacher, I don’t do very much, but one of the few things I do, is just try to align people; try to align them with their Higher Self; try to align them with what is true. It’s like… I have a very good chiropractor I like, and I go there once a month, because he realigns me. Before, I only used to go to him when I got in real pain; when I’d been gardening, and dug something up, and my back started to scream, and then I used to wring and say [tortured] “Ahhh!” [Laughter] And then I discovered it’s much more efficient to go there once a month; I get a haircut… I live quite away, so once a month I get… go to the chiropractor and get a haircut, because they live down the street from each other, so I see Joe my barber, and I go to the chiropractor. And it just aligns me so that I stay aligned, and… so nothing too bad happens. So I can deal with the rough and tumble of stress, and all of that, without getting at agony.
And somehow, as a spiritual teacher, my job is just to keep people aligned, just to align them; they’re all a spiritual centre. So you can live then your real purpose, not this whacky, distorted purpose. You know, we live in a weird world; half the country doesn’t even believe that global warming is taking place, and it’s like being in a flat-earth society. I mean it’s bizarre! There is no logic, there is no reason, there is no rationale to this, you know, systematic… Anyway. It’s pathological.
And just try to remember a few essential ingredients. That’s why, again, I love this little piece of paper that was on the front of Mrs. Tweedie’s door, high up in the Himalayas:
“Lord of the universe, Prabu, Sovereign Spirit,
beneficent and merciful Allah,
my Infinite One…”
“Lord of the universe, Prabu, Sovereign Spirit,
beneficent and merciful Allah,
my Infinite One…”
I love the last bit; “my Infinite One”…
“… at Thy command only
will I carry out the pilgrimage of life…”
And that means you begin with this alignment! Like the chiropractor; you are aligned! With the highest purpose. You are here at the command of God, at the will of God. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, if He hadn’t willed it so. And you remember that. It is… very simple:
“… at Thy command only will I carry out the pilg…”
Not for any other reason!
“… at Thy command only will I carry out the pilgrimage of life,
for the love of all created by Thee,
and for Thy glory”!
For the love of everything! Every person, every butterfly… Everything! For the love of what’s created; what He has created.
How many species we are destroying every year… like forty thousand or something… Unbelievable. And He has created it all…
“…and for Thy glory.”
If it’s not for the glory of God, what is the point of living? Why live for yourself?! And what do you get? You know, it’s like… I don’t know. You’re dead. Just get yourself back. I have no idea what it means to live for yourself, but… really boring.
But to live, for the love of all created by Thee, and for the glory of God, for Thy glory… [looking up, whispering] Beloved… for Thy glory…
That is a life!
That is what life is meant to be!
That is what life was always meant to be!
These are the central ingredients of life, that… Simple!
That is the real dignity of a human being!
The real dignity of a human being that bows down before God!
And experiences this world that the Creator has created, of which we are a part!
And celebrates it!
Yes, it’s hard work… It’s difficult, and there are tears and there are backaches, and there are… All sorts…
And that matters, and it doesn’t matter, because really it is about something else; it is about the glory of God!
And we are the glory of God!
If we incarnate that,
if we live it,
if we allow this spiritual awakening to… take root!
And to be lived in relationship to the Earth.
If it’s not lived in the relationship to the Earth, it’s only half of it.
You can only look towards heaven if you also look to the Earth!
“As above, so below”;
that’s a basic Hermetic teaching;
that’s a basic alchemical teaching.
There has to be both!
There has to be the creation and the Creator!
There has to be the… you know, the soil and the flower.
That’s the thing about potatoes, you just need really good composted soil! Then you get these great potatoes; I say, this is my passion this year… [audience laugh]
If you are born into an indigenous tradition, then your journey is slightly different. Most of us here, we’ve not been born into an indigenous tradition; we’ve been born into a culture that has lost its connection. And so for us there is the work of reclaiming that. Reconnecting with that. And also dealing with…
I give you an example, because I come from England. And the England I grew up in, with all of its little villages, and in each little village there is a church, and they are often built in the fifteenth-sixteenth century. And they were built, I said it’s sacred geometry, and they were built often according to principles of sacred geometry, and they discovered in the last few years they were often built at a place of intersection of ley lines, where the energy patterns in the Earth come together. Among things, for example, I studied Chartres Cathedral, which is a very powerful spiritual monument, and it was originally sacred to the Black Madonna, which is the Earth energy, and the Black Madonna is there in the crypt of the cathedral, I think. And it’s also on a place where many ley lines come together. I was also brought up in the west country near to Glastonbury, which is also very ancient sacred Earth centre, and not far away is Stonehenge. And so I grew up in which there was this Christian spirituality, but there was still visible connections to the old Earth energy; to the old ways. And what I experienced coming here, is that connection wasn’t present. And it has… you can sense, somewhere like here, whether it’s been a spiritual centre for a number of years, there has been work done to reconnect. But it’s very very different if that connection is already present. And in a way there is a different quality of consciousness and a different spiritual work that needs to be done, if something is going to be rooted, if something is really going to nourish the human being in its deepest sense, and I think we have to discover that for ourselves.
An interesting example is… Fifteen years ago, we started to do these Sufi conferences of bringing together all the different Sufi orders. And the first gathering we had was down at the Asilomar, on the coast; beautiful place. And in the beginning, nothing worked. We couldn’t get a person on the phone… they wouldn’t get back to us… Nothing worked. So, I sent Barbara who runs their office, I said, “Go down there and just sit there… until it works!” And she went down there, and she sat there for three days. At the end of three days, somebody from the office came and –who discovered later, actually, that was Native American herigate– and then the connection was made, both to the Earth and to the people there, and then they opened their doors to us. And then we could start having these conferences which had to do with really grounding a certain Sufi energy here, bringing all different Sufi orders together and celebrating the Oneness that is at the heart of Sufism. But also connecting it to the Earth, otherwise it wasn’t Earth… it wouldn’t… nothing real can happen unless it’s connected. And this seems to be something that got lost in translation; a little thread.
If you’re brought up in an indigenous tradition, you have a different karma, and… both difficult and easy; easier. Both more difficult, because everything is being done to the indigenous people and… and also easier, because, God willing, you haven’t lost that connection. But it’s something that I’ve noticed, it’s like that isn’t really brought up in the spiritual dialogue in this country; at least not as I’ve experienced it. And that to me is… a certain sadness about it.
There is an esoteric teaching that, again, never came from the East.
Which is, women are actually spiritually different to men.
This is not really understood, they have a different spiritu… As much as they have a different physical body, a different psychological body, they also have a different spiritual body. And they have… my teacher used to say, “A woman is always pure; like the Earth; she’s always pure.” And they have this particular spiritual substance that has to do with the mystery of creation. And it’s in a woman’s spiritual centres, in woman’s chakras. From birth.
And part of its sacred purpose is to enable her to bring a soul into incarnation. Which is both natural, but also actually quite spiritually complicated… Ahm… A rabbit doesn’t have to do this; it is just part of the instinctual world. But a woman has the capacity to give us all an experience of this physical plane. So she has in her spiritual centres a certain substance that can bring the worlds together, so spirit and matter can be united in her womb. It’s a very beautiful process, to see how this happens from conception onwards, in particular after the first three months; the soul arrives after the first three months of pregnancy.
And this means that she has a deep instinctual natural understanding of the spiritual nature of creation, as a man doesn’t. And a woman has this spiritual connection to the Earth and to the… also to the sacred centres within the Earth. Because instinctually a woman and the Earth are one. It is like it used to be understood, that… ahm… you know, sexuality was a sacred mystery that belonged to the feminine. A man was always kind of on the outside, which is why traditionally in the temples, the temple priestesses would initiate a man into sexuality; it’s always the woman that initiated the man.
And part of the tragedy of our Western civilization is, because of what happened in the patriarchal era, not only have men forgotten this aspect of the feminine, women have also forgotten it for themselves. They’ve forgotten the sacred nature of their own instinctual self. And the ancient feminine initiations that took place for thousands of years, they were never written down, imaged in the myth of Demetra and Persephone, they have also been forgotten, so they’re not passed from mother to daughter, and women aren’t initiated into their own sacred connection to the Earth, to creativity, to… to life… And so a certain regenerative potential that belonged to women, that they also kept for the Earth –because again, there is no difference– has been forgotten. And so both women are impoverished and also the Earth is impoverished.
And my hope, which is also a need, is that in the next hundred years or two hundred years, enough women will regain that understanding, will regain that instinctual wisdom, will regain its connection to the creative centres within creation. That a certain healing can take place, because the patriarchy has… not only damaged women, has also damaged this connection between humanity and the Earth.
So it is really… women have this deep wisdom within them, and hopefully if enough women reconnect with that, in the right way, and understand its relationship to the Earth, then a certain healing can take place, and from this healing the Earth can once again be nourished by the spiritual substance that women carry within their spiritual body. As happened at the time of the priestess and also in the first few centuries even after the patriarchy; there was still a deep… it still continued.
And then something can be reborn. I don’t see how this can happen without the participation of women, because… women give birth! Men don’t. And I think women are needed to help the Earth to regenerate, and help the Earth to give birth to a new cycle of its existence. And if this doesn’t happen, then a certain regression will take place.
Again sadly, because so much spirituality in the West has become personalized –it’s about our own individual personal journey– that essential element has become lost. So, many women explore their spirituality without understanding the importance of their instinctual spiritual connection to the Earth and to the cycles of creation, and why that is so needed at this time.
The Sufis of course celebrate beauty. And Rumi says, “A woman is God’s shining through subtle veils.” And Ibn Arabi, one of the great other Sufis, says,
“A woman is the highest form of beauty.” And there is a whole Sufi tradition of celebrating the Divine in the beauty of a woman. And again sadly, that’s another thing that’s got lost.
And –I mean I could give another whole talk about that– ahm… It is like, [emphasizing his words] how many mothers teach their daughters how to deal with the projection of the Goddess when a young guy falls in love with them. Those secret, or not-so-secret, feminine understandings that used to be passed down from mother to daughter –in the West they’re encapsulated in the whole tradition of courtly love; it was one of the earliest explorations of that– ahm… they have got lost! The women don’t teach their daughters the feminine mysteries; probably because they don’t know them themselves. So there’s… the relationship between the Divine and the physical got cut. And so we are… that’s why, as Yates said, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”
And I think, again, for each of us,
it is to reclaim that connection of the Divine and the physical,
and as tradition says, a woman is the highest form of physical beauty.
And just to respect… not to see it, the woman as an end in herself,
but as a reflection of a divine beauty.
Just like sexuality and spirituality,
or sexuality and the Sacred,
got divorced in our culture.
So sex is just sex,
rather than a celebration of the Divine.
There is actually this…
the moment of orgasm, this moment of bliss,
and it is most people’s only experience of the soul.
If you have mystical experiences,
you get taken into this state and actually
it’s not just a moment; it can last
sometimes for hours.
It shows the deep connection
between sexuality and spirituality.
And of course there’s the whole tradition of tantra that has used that dynamic of sexuality; of course also got misused and misunderstood. But again it’s an example of… long ago, this connection used to be understood, and then it got separated. And I think it’s for… because sexuality is also an Earth energy, it has to do with kundalini, which has to do with the Earth energy, and it has to do with… each of us, in our own way, reclaiming it. And celebrating it.
And maybe at some time in the future, we will be given back those teachings. I am more and more aware, in the last few years, of how much we have lost as a culture. How much has been forgotten. I say it’s like the library of Alexandria that was destroyed… So many libraries have been destroyed, and so many deep esoteric teachings have been lost. Like we no longer have the teaching of names; we no longer understand how to name things; we no longer understand the power of naming something, and how that connects you also to creation, as it’s said in the Quran, “And God taught Adam the names”, which is a… The naming of something has to do with its magical connection, and we used to know the names; we used to know the names of creation. And if you know the names, that can be a real communion, a real communication, it’s like the birds used to talk to us, and some people can still listen to horses, for example. But most of that teaching has become lost, and most of the esoteric teachings about sexuality have become lost. We don’t know them anymore. Maybe they will be given back to us in a new way, but… ahm…
What is important, I think, is for each of us to remake that connection as it comes to us, as life gives it to us. And it could be, you know, to be in love with a beautiful woman, and to experience the divine, to experience the sacred feminine, and to be taken into the mystery of the feminine. And a man is always invited into that mystery of the feminine. You can’t take it. You can’t own it. And as a woman used to be taught how to take a man into that mystery of the sacred feminine, it’s interesting, in the temples, it had to be a completely impersonal relationship. And they often weren’t even allowed to know the name of the man they initiated. And in fact, traditionally, young men would go there before they got married, so that they could get initiated into the mystery of the sacred feminine, so they could then be with their wife.
There are whole teachings that belonged to that, that have got lost. You can’t just reinvent them. And maybe they will be given back to humanity, maybe they won’t, but it’s for each of us to reclaim that connection with the Sacred within creation in our own way, I think it’s very important, and for men to respect it, which the patriarchy didn’t, and for women to honour it within themselves. And that’s a whole other area; there are many many different ways it can be honoured. But it has to do with the sacred nature of creation. In Sufism, this is called the secret of the word kun, the whole mystery of the Divine being incarnated into matter; which as a culture we have lost.
Yeah. For me, it is more the mystery of forgetfulness. Destruction, look… You know, Kali is a great goddess and she’s also the goddess of destruction. Shiva is creator and destroyer. This is part of life; it’s created and it’s destroyed. Whole galaxies are created and destroyed. To me, on the human arena, it is the mystery of forgetfulness. How come we have forgotten? It is…
I remember once I had this experience actually in a Seattle airport, of all places. And it was in a waiting room; I’d come from Vancouver and I was getting a flight down back to California, and I was in this waiting room, and, you know, everybody… –this was even before cell phones were so used– but people were talking and reading newspapers etc… And for a moment –sometimes you get these moments when the veils of perception lift– and I saw how everybody was full of God. Every person there, I could just see, they were just full with the light of God. And it was the most obvious, the most apparent thing.
And I saw that the real mystery was not that they were full of God. Because that was obvious. The real mystery, the thing that I couldn’t understand, is they were completely unaware they were full of God. That they were doing all these things, talking on the cell phone, reading newspaper, just sitting there bored, completely unaware they were full of this divine mystery! And that is to me the great human saga.
And we’ve begun to lose the tools that reconnect us and help us to remember. And to me this is the great human tragedy. That we’ve forgotten. And we’ve begun to lose those tools… That’s why I feel so strongly, when I said about, when certain teachings came from the East, and they got slowly corrupted. And certain essential notes got lost; so they no longer work as they were meant to work.
These ancient teachings, they were given to humanity by great masters long ago –like Tao Te Ching, great teachings given– and they have a very very specific purpose; they’re very beautifully made, and their purpose is to reconnect the human being with their highest nature. Like aligning it, like the chiropractor; realign us, reconnect us.
And if you change one of those ingredients –because it doesn’t suit you, because you can’t make money out of it, or… for all the reasons– and it no longer works. And it appears to work! And this is the most dangerous thing of all: it creates a spiritual illusion that appears to give people what they want. Rather than staying true to its original purpose.
And it’s so much of those… –maybe this is human nature, I don’t know, that human nature just corrupts, and they just corrupt and they corrupt…– but so many of those very precious teachings that came from the East, they began to lose a certain note; a certain, essential, core substance. And then they no longer serve their true purpose, which is to remind human beings of their divine nature. Because that is human being’s condition: we are in this world, we forget, we need to remember! It’s not complicated. And we were given all these practices, all these beautiful teachings… God, they are beautiful… When you see them, you can go into deep meditation, and there is a place in the inner world where they are preserved in their purity; where the original teachings are present. It’s like of certain books, very very beautiful, ancient; they’re guarded by angels. And you see them, and they are so beautiful! It is like those medieval books of hours, you know, with gilded illustrations and they are… they are so beautiful… And you see them, and you think, Uh! And then you see what is kind of sold in today’s marketplace, and Um, okay… But… it’s… Anyway, that’s just something personal for me, ’cause I’m a kind of traditional mystic, you know? I was brought up in the old school.
I think as mature human beings, there has to be an accounting of what we are doing. And there has to be an accounting spiritually. I don’t see how we can honour our own spirituality if we take it away from the Earth. Because we are not angels.
There is an angelic plane. It’s a very beautiful plane. And the angels live in a world of Light. And you can go there and you can work with the angels. And it’s a very very beautiful dimension. Angels have bodies of Light. And they only bow down before God. In Sufism it’s called the World of Divine Command. And even on the angelic plane, there are angels of power, and angels of beauty…
And, in some ways, it’s much easier just to go there, and to be with the angels! And to be in that angelic world! Because they just bow down before God. Because they are just made of Light.
But as human beings we have both worlds within us. We have the world of matter, the world of the elements, and we have the angelic world. And we can’t dismiss one; we can’t dismiss the Earth in favour of the Light. Just like we can’t deny the Light in favour of the Earth. And to me a spiritual maturity is being able to live in both worlds.
And, you know when I was twenty-three, I was taken into the world of Light. And of course part of me wanted just to remain there. Because it’s… It is just Light! You don’t have problems! You don’t have to earn a living! You don’t have to pay tax! You don’t have to put gas in the car! There you think, and you are, wherever you are! There is… It is beautiful! And you can be with the angels, you can be with the souls of other human beings there…
And yet, there is this whole mystery of incarnation, and it’s the one thing that the Christian myth, the Christian story, Christianity has taught us! It’s about the whole mystery of incarnation.
When the Divine incarnates, something remarkable happens. And it happens because it is incarnated. And there is a… That’s why I spoke earlier about… about women. About how… To me, the great sadness of feminine consciousness today, is they have forgotten the enormous mystery in which they can participate. Which is bringing the light of the soul into the physical world. And for some reason, that is being veiled from women! They don’t even know… I mean… they don’t even know the magnitude of the mystery in which they participate.
And this is… As human beings, we are at this place, where the two seas are coming together; where the material or physical and the world of Light intersect. And it’s interesting that in Christianity, this is also the mystery of Love! The Christ teachings were about the mystery of Love! They got covered over and forgotten. In some places. But, it is like in the meeting of the world of Light and the world of matter, it is the incarnations of Love. It’s the poet William Blake who says, “And we are put on earth a little space, that we may learn to bear the beams of love.” It’s how we hold and live that mystery.
And again: It’s easy –well, when you reach a certain stage– just to dissolve in the Love! But while we are human being, we also have the limitations of matter. The limitations of ordinary human life. And I really hope there are enough people who are mature enough in their spiritual practice to hold the two together, to hold the worlds together, because it is from bringing the worlds together that you can be born. Not just by going into the world of Light, or just staying in the world of matter. Staying in the world of matter, we have science, we have technology, we have Walmart, we have… however you like to see it. And staying in the world of Light, there are beautiful spiritual teachings, but they’ve been beautiful spiritual teachings for hundreds of years, and they’re still not being fully lived! And that is the opportunity for each of us: to bring the worlds together. To bring the Light of our own soul into our daily life, into relationship with the Earth. Because that is the work that needs to be done now! Now, if there is a meaning of the Now, it is What is the work that needs to be done Now!
Sufis are often described as children of the moment, because you respond to the need of the moment! Not some abstract Now, but a lived Now, a responsible Now! And this is what is present in our consciousness! We don’t even to read between the lines anymore. Traditionally Sufis read between the lines of life, to see what is really going on. You don’t even begin to read between the lines of life, to know that the sea level is rising, and to know that the air is becoming more toxic; to know the species are depleting. And that is the story of Now!
And we are here, and we have the Light of the Divine within us. And how are we going to use that Light of the Divine in relationship to the need of the moment, in relationship to the Earth. And then, as you are pointing out [looking at someone in the audience], from the mixture of all those elements, something new can be born. If it is God’s will.
In some ways, it is much easier, because there is such an obvious need; that we need to include the Earth in our prayers! It is not remote. It is… I find it interesting… I’m sure, if you belong to a spiritual community, you pray! You pray for people who are in suffering, you pray for people who are near death, we often pray for people who die, for the peace of the soul.
And these prayers have great healing properties, and they are powerful, and if a community prays, it’s very powerful. And it’s just one step to say, “Well, then we should pray for the Earth.” Because it needs our prayers, and why should we exclude the Earth? We pray for a dying friend; why shouldn’t we pray for a dying Mother? And then we complete the circle.
Ramana Maharshi’s first attendant, Palaniswami, had brought a copy of Ribhu Gita to his attention. Later in life, Ramana related how surprised he was at the time to hear an exact description of his own state recited in the Ribhu Gita and that it had been experienced by others as the bliss of the Self sought after by all true seekers. Ramana attributed unique value to it as being a lucid exposition of Supreme Truth. He quite often referred to it in his talks with devotees and seekers. He even stated that if one would repeatedly study Chapter 26 of the Ribhu Gita, one could spontaneously pass into the state of sahaja samadhi, or the natural state of true Self-realization.
Ahm, I don’t really know how to articulate it… But something about, you know… You talk about the layers of… the layers of the body, the layers of the self, the layers of resistance… Ahm, I’m just wondering, how that might show up in physical… pain. You know, pain is the description of something that… that we’ve seen, so it’s… You know, it has that label.
Well, yeah. Pain is…
Sometimes pain is just functional pain, you know, like a toothache, or…
And it’s not psychological, it’s just… something is not right,
and needs attention or a painkiller of something.
And it sometimes… it’s honest, clear what the pain is.
And it might be that it’s resistance, or chronic resistance,
or a feeling that is embedded somehow… constricted… not allowed to unfold,
or… There could be many possibilities. We don’t mind what it is; but…
Well. It’s hard to discriminate.
If it’s the first kind of pain, then you know what it is,
you have to… You can do something.
Or you have to… you have to [sensitively lowering her voice] somehow deal with it, and… bear it… and hope that it gets better…
But usually there’s something that we can do for that kind of pain.
The second, the psychological-physical, “psychosomatic” pain, requires… ah…
Well, requires what we were doing this morning, a quality of welcoming.
So the first requirement is that we have to take our stand.
We have to somehow be open to the possibility, or recognize…
–because we know it already, but– experientially recognize that
I,
the
true I,
right now,
right this moment,
is this borderless Presence
That may not be self-evident. It might be that you are very early in your expression of this so-called “Non-dual” understanding. So that might need some clarifying, both at the level of the mind and then at the level of feeling: “What does it mean?”
Again, this is what we’re doing here, but I’m not sure where you are in your process. Once we take our stand, you could say, as the sky –the sky is transparent; it’s borderless; it doesn’t have a preference in terms of the weather systems– so that means that you are experiencing yourself as something that is quite unfocused, and… unbothered. The sky doesn’t mind.
So as soon as you feel bothered, you know that you’ve narrowed your perspective again, that you’ve taken a point of view, as a cloud in fact –a cloud viewing another cloud– and so in this approach, you have to… When that happens, you can’t undo it; you will have to see it first. When you see it –meaning you feel it, you experience it, you see that this focusing of attention appears on the radar of experience as a contraction or resistance, and it’s appearing in Awareness.
So, in that seeing, in a way, the focusing relaxes. And it’s on and on and on throughout the session like that. It’s… [undulatingly moving her hand] it’s… I think you said, “back and forth, back and forth…” So, sometimes you’re back in the body, as the body, as the resistance…
Stuck. Lost in experience.
And then, “A!” Ellen says something, or you
realize it, and somehow there’s space again.
You are tasting the openness that you are!
And then, therefore, the tears can flow, or… [knowing, compassionate look]
And in terms of pain, over time, in this exploration,
we find that whatever psychosomatic contraction…
–which is what the separate self is, at the level of the body–
it’s what I-Awareness becomes when I believe myself to be a body;
a contraction, and, you know: Ouch!
In order to maintain that [separate self], there’s a lot of
tension that is generated at some localized, various places:
around the head… in the shoulders… in the feeling centres…
Depending on each of us… on our… preferences! [Laughs]
So, over time you find that these relax, and pains soften.
But it’s…
Sorry.
No, you go ahead.
It’s just, as you were saying, that… The other thing that occurred to me was, one that will… It’s what you said earlier, that there’s no [inaudible 13 seconds]
However, most of us,
at some point during the sessions,
we will feel the arising of an agenda!
Yeah…
Big time!
But that’s perfect.
Because then we can, instead of taking the train of the agenda, and saying, Yeah, I’m gonna get rid of this terrible resistance blah blah blah,
we say, Ah, agenda… Let’s see…
Let’s see what it’s made of; where… how does it appear on the body…
This anticipation, this… this desire; this… whatever we wanna call it;
and you know, there might be also a thought that comes with it,
but you’re even more interested in What is an agenda at the level of the body?
What is agenda-ing, at the level of the body. For you. Because it’s different for all of us.
You also said something…
You talked about offering to altar…
There’s something quite rich about that.
Yeah. That’s nice. That’s good; because…
In my experience, sometimes when you’re lost in “suffering”,
or in separation, or in believing that I am this bodymind,
and if we’ve lost sight of… I won’t say “God”, but…
If we’ve lost sight of the sweet… the sweetness, the…
So, before we can actually really step into the recognition of I Am God,
we somehow… we have to turn back towards God. As the separate self.
At this moment, we are the separate self! That’s what we believe!
So. That separate self needs to take herself to the shrine! [laughs understandingly]
Chris, even though she’s believing yourself to be a separate self;
in the heart, in her own heart, there’s such a longing…
In her body, there’s such a thirst for the Truth…
So, that thirst, or longing; or sadness, whatever it is, takes you to the shrine…!
Mm…
And there, you kneel in front of the altar…
The only thing you can do; is surrender.
My teacher used to say, “It sooo helped me,
to offer your experience to the altar”.
And “experience” means
EVERYTHING. Unconditionally.
And in doing that,
you realize that it’s not a doing. First you do it, and then you realize,
Oh, it’s the…
It’s the nature of experience
that it surrenders itself back to Presence.
Oh, I am… I!
in God's peace 