A Third Grade Planet

I welcome you with all my heart. Anyone here for the first time? I ask you not to believe anything I say. Don't believe a word of it. Why should you? When I tell you that you are Sat-Chit-Ananda, that you are absolute Reality_, why should you believe me? After all, you believe that you've got problems, and you believe that you are living a life of humanity, and you're part of the community, and you've got a job and family. That is your reality. Why should you believe anything else? But I ask you to have an open heart and ponder the things that we discuss. I am not a philosopher. I am not a preacher. I am nothing. And our teaching is a teaching of silence. Even the words that I appear to speak are words of silence. If you listen to the silence you too will become silent and experience the bliss which you are.

To begin with, chanting is very efficacious. It is something that makes your mind one pointed and allows you to accept the realities as outlined. So we're going to do a little chanting first. Everything we do is part of the unfoldment. All is well.

(chanting--Usually Self-Realization Fellowship Tapes, Muktananda tapes or a few others. Sometimes we had live musicians leading the chants.)

Looking at some of you, you look too serious, as if you're carrying the whole world on your shoulders. No thing is ever that bad, so I guess it's time for Robert's two finger formula. Put your right index finger in this side of your mouth, and put your left index finger in this side of the mouth, and pull. (laughter) That's better. This world is a cosmic joke. Do not take it seriously. Everything will take care of itself. You are not who you think you are.

As most of you know, I walk my dog every morning in the park and people start talking to me and we have nice conversations. I have been talking to a certain gentleman for about three months and I gave him one of the lessons that we put out now. And by the way I think these lessons that Kerima and Ed so graciously transcribed are very important for you to have and read, for it is the entire teaching, if you are interested.

And to digress for a moment. The way you should read these lessons is not like you read a book, but when you get hold of a lesson, go over the whole thing first, read it through, and then every night before you go to sleep, take a paragraph and ponder on the paragraph, for the whole month, until you get the next one, going over paragraph, paragraph, paragraph. Don't read it through and go to the next one. Assimilate it and digest it. And if you do not have any of the lessons then see Ed after the meeting. He'll take good care of you.

Back to the park. So I gave this person a lesson to read and I saw him this morning. And he said to me, "You know what's wrong with you Advaita Vedantists? You only think of yourselves. All you care about is moksha, awakening, liberation, self-realization. But what about the world? What about the war and man's inhumanity to man? The new age philosophy only talks about me, me, me."

Of course we have nothing to do with new age philosophy, and I'll take the remainder of the time this morning to sort of answer that question, because that's a valid question, and it's in the minds of many people today. There's a war going on, there's man's inhumanity to man, which has always been so. What's going on? What's happening?

Well, the way I usually answer a question like that is I ask him, "What do you mean by peace, that you want peace in the world, and you want us to pray and meditate for peace?" That was his request. In the request that he said, "Why don't you Advaita Vedantists pray and meditate for peace in the world, to end the war?" What do you mean by peace? What is peace? To most people peace simply means having the world turn the way they want it to turn. If everything goes their way, in other words, they've got peace. If they have everything they think they should have, they're peaceful.

But there is something else. You can only give the world what you are yourself. In other words, you cannot be confused and angry and upset, and walk around with a peace sign, shouting peace, and hitting everyone else over the head with your sign if they don’t agree with you. Peace is your real nature. But it’s been covered up for years, as the clouds cover the sun. You do not say the sun doesn't shine any longer. You realize that in due time the clouds will dissipate and you will have the sun shining once more in all its glorious splendor.

So it is with humanhood. There are certain people, because of God's grace, karma, they're able to understand the truth about the world, about reality, and these people become the peacemakers, for they become an example. By their very presence, peace falls. They do not go out and try to demonstrate for peace or talk about peace. They become an example. A rose need not declare, "I am fragrant". By its very presence it exudes fragrance. A being with peace in his or her heart need not say, "I am peaceful. Lets make peace in the world." By their very presence people become peaceful.

Another way to look at it is this planet earth is unfolding the way it's supposed to. We can say that this planet is a third grade planet and everything is happening on this planet the way it was intended to. There’s a greater power than you can ever imagine that looks after the welfare of the planet. It's not your business to really get involved. What is this power? You can say God or Ishwara. As you know I'm going to deny it all in the end. But for the sake of talking, something takes care of this planet and doesn't need your help. If you observe the animal kingdom you'll see that there are lions who eat sheep, but yet there are a lot more sheep than lions. It's a cleansing process. The earth cleanses itself after a while and we have what we call war.

Now I know that some people don't take this lightly, what I'm saying right now. Everything is necessary. There are no mistakes. No mistakes have ever been made, none are being made, and none will ever be made. Your job is to find out who you are, and then you'll understand what's going on in the world.

Take, as an example, if you were the size of a molecule and you were in the earth. Someone plants a rose seed. In order for the rose to grow the seed has to be destroyed. And if you are the size of a molecule standing next to the seed, it would seem like a nuclear holocaust, a nuclear explosion, as the seed becomes destroyed in order for the beautiful rose to grow. In the same way, everything that happens on this planet is necessary.

If you do not understand, do not judge anything or anyone, but work on yourself. As you awaken you will find that you begin to see clearly. You begin to realize that you are the Self of the universe. Everything in this universe is an emanation of your own mind. You are creating everything that exists. You will understand this and you will rejoice. Yet you must do what you must do. It is the dharma of yourself and the dharma of the earth to unfold the way it does. Everything is right.

As an example. There was once a traveler who was walking down a dirt road. He saw a sadhu on his knees bending down ,looking at something. The traveler was curious. He kneeled down next to the sadhu. He noticed something very strange. He noticed there was a puddle of muddy water and there was a scorpion trying to cross from one side to the other. And every time the scorpion got to the middle of the muddy pond, the muddy water, he would begin to drown. So the sadhu would pick up the scorpion, and the scorpion would sting the sadhu, but he would put the scorpion down on the other side. And again the scorpion decided to walk across the puddle and begin to drown. So the sadhu would pick up the scorpion, and the scorpion would sting the sadhu. And he would put down the scorpion on the other side of the pond. And he did this over and over and over again. The traveler said, "Excuse me Sir, but can I ask you what you’re doing? Why are you doing this? Every time you pick up the scorpion you get stung?" The sadhu looked at the traveler and he smiled and he said: "It is the scorpion's dharma to sting, it is my dharma to save."

And so it is with us. As we go through the vicissitudes of life we’re always finding something that does not please us, as if we were that important. We try to change people, places and things, to no avail. There have been peace movements since time immemorial. There have been wars since man first came to this planet. There has been man's inhumanity to man since the beginning of time. What does this all mean? It means you live in a world of constant change. Everything is always changing. A world of duality. For every back, there’s a front. For every up, there’s a down. For every forward, there’s a backward. When a jet plane flies it has to have friction to oppose it. This is all duality.

But who are you? That is the question. Never mind the world. Begin to leave the world alone. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It doesn't matter what you’re going through. It doesn't matter where you live or what you do. This is all preordained. This is all karmic. What matters is how you react to what's going on. What matters is what you see, what your senses tell you. This determines what is going to happen to you, thereon in.

The first step you should take is to realize that you exist. You can never deny your existence. So you may say to yourself, "I exist in this world. I hate my job. I hate my family. I hate the world. I hate everything. But I exist." Then you ask yourself, "Who is it that exists? Who exists and who’s going through these particular things that are disgusting to me? My job, my environment, the war that I see everyday on television? Who is going through all this? Is this reality? How can this be reality?"

The thinking person begins to ponder these things. You begin to realize it's a mystery. But if you ponder these things enough, there’s an inner guru within each one of you that will awaken, simply by pondering the questions of life. And the inner guru will push you towards the right book, the right teacher, the right situation, where it will be explained to you what life is really all about. And sometimes there is no outer experience that you need.

With your pondering and with the grace of God, which is always available, you will awaken to your true nature. However it happens, the first step is to be dissatisfied with life. I don't mean where you feel sorry for yourself. But be dissatisfied by realizing everything comes to an end. What was the use of being born and working and slaving when I'm going to die in the end anyway? What is life's purpose? And one day something within yourself will tell you, life has no purpose, as we know it.

But then you say, "I exist," and you go back to your existence. As you have pondered this long enough, and gone over this in your head, over and over again, something will finally catch on and you will say to yourself, "All of these years or months I've been saying I exist, I. Who is this I? It appears to be the same I that says I am awake, or I feel hurt, I feel angry, I feel upset, I dreamt, I slept. There is always this I. Where does it come from? Who gave it birth?" And you begin to ponder the I. You think about the I. By thinking about the I, you're following it. Just by thinking of I, I, I, you are following the I to your heart center, without even knowing what you're doing. See, you do not have to understand the ramification of how this works. You just have to do it. Do not try to figure out what's going to happen. Do not try to ask yourself, "I wonder if I'll be enlightened tomorrow?", but merely look at the I without qualification. The steps that you take will be made available by themselves. You simply have to take the first step, to be curious, to be dissatisfied with the world, to realize that you exist, and then to realize that you exist as I.

And you remain on the I for as long as it takes. It's called following the I. You will go deeper, and deeper, and the next realization that comes to you, will be that everything, everything in this universe is attached to I. "My job," that's I, I’ve got this job. "My family," I has a family. "My disappointments," I has been disappointed. And onward and onward and onward. The whole universe, all the physical existence, including your body and your mind, is attached to the I.

Wisdom begins to take over and you laugh at yourself. You say, "Wait a minute. I no longer have to try to change conditions. I no longer have to get even with anyone. I no longer have to feel out of sorts. I simply have to follow the I to its source. And to the extent I follow the I to the source, will I experience my own reality." The wisdom comes to you also, "My own reality isn't really mine. It is simply called reality. It is omnipresence. What this means to me is this. When I discover my reality I will also discover the reality of the universe. For I am the microcosm in the macrocosm. The universe is simply an extension of I."

You therefore begin to spend all of your time abiding in the I. This becomes foremost in your life. Everything else becomes secondary if you really want to wake up. You become mindful of all of your actions. As you react you catch yourself and you say, "I reacted". But you're getting to the point where you say, "I reacted," you're no longer speaking about yourself. You say something like, "I has reacted, I got angry."

You see, I is becoming separate from you now as you advance. "I felt disappointed." And you keep laughing to yourself because you begin to understand that I is not I. You ask, "Where did I come from? Who gave it birth?" And all the time, remember, you're following I to its source. On the way to the source you notice that your life physically appears to become more comfortable. You're becoming happier. The things that used to annoy you stop. Your anger has left you. Your moods are becoming transcendent. You're becoming even minded, one-pointed on the I.

One day, as you keep following the I, as you keep abiding in the I, you find that your mind stops working. I don't mean you drop dead. I mean your thoughts have dissipated and you have found the silence. Now you stop abiding in the I and you begin to abide in the silence. You should have realized you're finished with the I. Now you have another battle, so to speak. You go deeper and deeper in the silence.

This is an advanced state. You have now reached the second plateau where you begin to see occult things happening in your life. You begin to envision geometrical figures. You hear the sound of ohm. You’re able to understand what people are thinking before they tell you. You have expanded your consciousness. But this is also a beginning stage. You do not get caught up in that stage. This is why a true aspirant of Advaita Vedanta needs to have a teacher that's been there. Otherwise you may believe that the sounds you hear, the lights you see within, the figures of saints and sages that appear to you, you begin to believe that they're real, and you get caught up in that.

It's like the example I always like to use. A king invites you to his kingdom to share the kingdom with him completely. But he has 150 acres of land and you have to drive through the acreage before you get to the king. On the way you see all the beauty, and the clouds, and the mountains, the grass and the wonderful flowers. You become enthralled, and you stop your car and you get out, forgetting about the king. You spend years enjoying the flowers and the beauty of the land.

Then one day you remember the king again. So you get back in your jeep, or your Rolls Royce, or your bicycle, and you're on the way to see the king again. But then you see beautiful caves of all sizes and dimensions, with lovely creatures coming in and out. So you stop to examine them and you become so enthralled that you forget all about the king and you spend years.

You remember the king again and you start driving. The same thing happens again and again. The years pass, and you've lost your opportunity. If you had driven straight through and ignored everything, you would have been able to share the kingdom with the king. But instead you got caught up with the beauty of the land.

And so it is with realization. According to your karma you went through the occult realms, you may perhaps materialize things, tell people's fortunes, do all kinds of occult things, astrology, and you forget what you’re searching for. That’s why it says in the Upanishads that the one who becomes waylaid, and has fallen in the occult realms, will have to go through thousands and thousands of reincarnations before they get out of it again. So we ignore the occult. We’re looking to awaken. We’re looking for liberation. And in your mind you bypass everything. You say, "I don't want to see visions of saints. I don't want to have powers, siddhis. I do not wish anything of the sort."

And you go beyond. The silence is becoming more acute. You're going deeper and deeper into the silence, and your consciousness is expanding. Your awareness is expanding. You finally begin to understand that you are consciousness, and that consciousness is pure awareness, and that pure awareness is absolute reality, and all of that is bliss. You have become sat-chit-ananda. You have become ParaBrahman. You have become Nirvana. And then you are able to say to yourself, "Everything I behold is the Self, and I am That." You have become liberated while still in the body. You have become a jiva mukta, a free soul.

It doesn't mean you stop functioning. You still do, perhaps, the same things you've done before, only this time the only vibration you can emanate is love. You have become an embodiment for peace and joy and happiness, yet you do not think of those words for you have simply awakened to your true Self.

Now you see the world differently. You see the world as a superimposition upon your Self. You are the Self, and the world and the universe is an appearance. It is real to others, for they believe that they are the body/mind phenomenon, but your body/mind has been transcended You have become space while in the body. You have become free. Wherever you look, you see yourself, and because you are an embodiment of loving kindness, peace and harmony, that's all you can see. You cannot explain this to anyone for there are no words to describe it.

People are looking through their senses. They see a war, they see man's inhumanity to man, and you keep silent for they will not understand. For all you see is love. All you see is joy. You are free.

It all begins with you. Won't you begin today to awaken? It's worth it.