HOW TO MAKE DIVINITY CONCRETE?

 

IN MEDITATION, THERE IS NO FOCUS REQUIRED

Focusing does necessarily involve some kind of concentration, and concentration is something which is at a level not as deep as meditation. In meditation, we go beyond focusing or concentration; we go beyond contemplation, and then we enter into the field of meditation, where it just is.

When we focus our attention, specific mechanisms of the mind start functioning. In that very focus process, we activate the brain’s left hemisphere. In the process of focusing, you will find various analyses coming up. Rationalizations will take place, and a weighing takes place, while in meditation, we go beyond the process of weighing or analyzing.

When we start weighing, we want to see which weighs more or less. So, it is a complete mental process which would lead one into contemplation. Contemplation is reasonable, and I have often said that true contemplation is like pouring oil from one vessel into another in an unbroken stream.

When you think, you will always have thoughts that do not deal with the subject. The mind floats away onto other topics, and then you bring it back. For example, you start reading a book, and the mind will think, “What am I going to cook for supper tonight?” Then you bring your attention back. Your focus goes back to the book.

When you are meditating, there is no focus required at all. If you are contemplating accurately and adequately, the doorbell will ring, you will be alert, answer the door, and then sit down to meditate again. The very process of getting up and answering the door forms part and parcel of your meditation.

If your mind focused on something, you would not hear the doorbell. The ears and inner organs of perception are there, yet you will not hear the doorbell because your mind is focused.

THE FINITE MIND IS INCAPABLE OF CONCEIVING THAT WHICH IS INFINITE

Focusing serves its purposes, but when it comes to consciousness, you are not conscious of your consciousness. You and Christ have the same consciousness as I would have; the difference is that you are unaware of what consciousness is because your awareness is limited. In other words, the finite mind, the little section that is not even 10% of the mind that you use, cannot conceive of the infinite. The limited is incapable of creating that which is infinite by mental processes, and total consciousness is infinite.

So, if rationalization, or the workings of the mind, cannot reach that level, then we cannot conceive of the whole. Then, with our rationalizations, we become judgmental, start judging, and start comparing.

I DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN JESUS AND CHRIST

Embodied beings like Krishna, Buddha and Christ have limitations, for the very consciousness becoming embodied implies limitations, and in an embodied form, there can never be a perfect man. It is impossible. Therefore, I differentiated between Jesus and Christ.

If we study the life of Christ, we will find him doing various things in the embodied form. He was given to great anger. He was a passionate man, and he was a loving man, loving as a man would love. As Jesus, his love also required a kind of reciprocation. When he was tortured and tormented, his emotional self also felt the torture and the torment, and that was the suffering that theology speaks about. Theology speaks about all those tortures and torments as far as the embodied Jesus was concerned. But one thing is sure: what differentiates you and me from Jesus is that he had developed that awareness; he had gone beyond the 10% conscious mind and delved into deeper and deeper realms of that mind, which is universal. Having explored all the territories of the various layers of the conscious mind and all the various layers of the subconscious mind and reaching the subtlest, the finest layer of relativity known as the superconscious mind, he could conceive of, perceive, and comprehend the entire universe.

So there lies the difference. Our view is narrow because the conscious mind acts only as a vehicle for the upper strata of the subconscious to flow through it. In other words, the patterns in the upper strata of the subconscious mind are expressed through the conscious mind. That is why you have different behaviour patterns, which are dependent upon the conditioning of one’s mind.

Meditation and spiritual practices are designed to rid oneself of the patternings, and the patterning is the stains or the dirt on the glass window. The spiritual practices help one to cleanse the window so that more profound layers of the subconscious mind come to the fore. That dirt is washed away until we reach the superconscious level, which is closest to what we could describe as the Absolute, and the full force of the Absolute can shine through. But when the personage, the embodied person, has reached that level, we are beyond the area of questioning such a man, for he becomes a law unto himself. He has transcended the law of opposites and the polarities; he has brought into a oneness between himself, the entire universe, and the Absolute, the Father.

This mechanism is essential. The reason why one person is born with a limited consciousness or awareness and another with a vaster awareness is not only dependent upon hereditary factors, but it goes further back right to the time of the Big Bang where all these minute particles, all this sub, sub, subatomic matter was expelled in this explosion. This very expulsion, this very force, is what constitutes evolution. That mere particle can duplicate itself, replicate itself, and interchange itself with other particles so that various forms of life occur on this planet and everywhere else. But let us think of this planet where it progresses from the mineral to the plant to the animal and the kingdom of man.

THE ONE CAN ONLY BE EXPERIENCED

We are not after a comparison between the embodied person or the guru or the Christ or the Krishna or the Buddha. We are not after any comparisons because we have no standard to compare. We have no standard to compare whatsoever. What you have heard of Buddha and Christ is to you now hearsay and not experience, and the most outstanding teacher of life is experience, where you can experience something. You could take honey and send it to the various laboratories, and they will analyze it for you. They will discover what constitutes honey and from which flower or mixture of different flowers this nectar came. But the scientists or the laboratories cannot explain sweetness. So, sweetness is an experience. I can experience that totality of existence in the ant that crawls on the floor. The ant, too, has within itself total consciousness yet is unexpressed. But when I combine my consciousness with the consciousness of the ant, then I become the ant, for I experience the ant.

So, it all depends upon us and how much our awareness has been unfolded. Remember the word “unfolded,” not expanded, because man is born with all this in him. The awareness of the entire universe is within him. The entirety of Divinity is within man, so there is nothing to search for. Meditation and spiritual practices take you to the point of just being. “Just to be” is very difficult to understand. The process practised by many is becoming, not being. But that becoming is also helpful because through becoming, one can experience being, and then you would say, “Yahweh, I am.” That I-am-ness could never be analyzed. There is nothing to compare with the One. The One can only be experienced.

WE COMBINE THE ABSOLUTE AND THE RELATIVE TO BRING ABOUT THE FULLNESS OF LIFE

When we differentiate between the embodied man, the enlightened guru, Christ, or Krishna, we separate. We are splitting the man from the guru and the guru from the Christ. We separate them, and to our conscious mind, this is a so-called logical process where we indulge in all kinds of dualities. When there is a duality, friction begins because, as they say, you need two for a tango. That is where friction begins.

To find the oneness of all things in existence, one has to experience that oneness. Duality is one of the paths, and most of the world’s theologies today are based on dualism, and it also has its purpose. I see nothing wrong in anything or any theology. Dualism means that you and I are apart and that apartness is necessary to develop love and devotion. We would term it bhakti or bhakti yoga.

As one progresses on the path of evolution, one does not say, “I am apart from you”, but “I am a part of you.” That is qualified non-dualism. But that is not the end. You still go further and say, “Thou and I are one,” where a mergence occurs. There is only one consciousness, not on the physical level but on the conscious level. There is only this one vast ocean with thousands and thousands of waves that we seem to see as being apart from each other—a big wave, a small wave and a medium-sized wave. But speaking, who can separate the wave from the ocean, for the wave is the ocean, and the sea is the wave? If we indulge only in observing the wave, then we would remain on the surface level and start analysing Krishna with his 1400 gopis. Then, we would begin to explore Buddha with his extreme austerities and his indulging in intense pleasures of life when he lived in the Garden of Amrapali, the courtesan. Then, he found a way, which was the middle way. Have both. Which we do through our meditational practices, we allow the Absolute and the relative to combine. For that brings about the fullness of life. Otherwise, there will be an imbalance.

SPIRITUAL PRACTICES ARE AIMED AT BRINGING LIGHT INTO LIFE

As we meditate and do our spiritual practices, we draw from deep down the Kingdom of Heaven, which is within, and draw forth those energies that start permeating the mind, bringing it greater quietude. Mind is nothing but thought, and thought forms are forever in motion, perpetually trying to balance themselves to experience peace. But if you use the mind to control it, you cannot do it; you are fighting the mind with the mind. You are fighting turbulence with turbulence, and it just does not work. There has to be another factor which should be brought in to quieten the mind.

The mind is nothing else but thoughts or impressions of experiences that we have gained, and these experiences, these impressions cannot be eradicated at all, but they can be shed off. The tree can be pruned, and as this happens, as greater and greater pruning takes place, a greater and greater balance between the gunas – rajas, tamas and sattva – takes place; the quieter and quieter the mind becomes. It is like a pond: if stirred, you will get a distorted reflection of the sun, but if it is still, you will see the sun’s reflection as it should be seen.

Through meditational practices, we bring about this balance in the mind. We bring about a balance of the impressions in the mind, which constitutes the mind, and these impressions have three characteristics: tamas, which is inertia; rajas, which is the activating force, as you would know; and sattva, the force of light. Through spiritual practices, we allow the light to cover the darkness. It does not get rid of the dark, but it becomes dominant. The activating force of rajas always tries to bring tamas – inertia or darkness – and light together. That is its primal job, its primal duty. And when it gets it together, and the light overshadows the shadows, then rajas go to rest. In the equilibrium created by the intermixing of sattva with tamas, it would seem that the darkness has disappeared; in reality, it is still there but brought under control by the forces of light.

Here, the superconscious mind starts dominating, being nearest to the finest level of relativity and having the most significant amount of clarity, allowing the light of the Absolute to shine through with greater and greater force. You have not got rid of darkness, but you have covered it. You have merged the darkness into light. By switching on this hall’s lights, we have eliminated darkness. Switch them off, and dark is there, and when darkness is there, switch on the light, and the lamp is there.

So, spiritual practices are aimed at bringing that light to life.

THE OPENING OF THE HEART IS WHAT WE NEED

Jesus, too, was a great guru; what shall we look at? Shall we look at the man Jesus or the consciousness? Jesus is associated with the tax collectors, Pharisees, and whoever. Shall we look at the man, or shall we look at the consciousness that is so awakened in that man? That consciousness that we have not got! Is Jesus important to us today, be he a historical personage or not? There are disputes about that. We are concerned about his teachings, which can only come from a very high level of consciousness. That is why it carries so much force. That is why even Krishna’s teachings – Krishna lived about 5000 years ago – his teachings and Christ’s teachings are still alive today, as they had been in those days. Today, with a little sophisticated mind, not a more evolved mind, but a little worldly mind, we may be able to grasp the inner meanings of what Jesus taught. Those times, he taught not for the sophisticated mind. He led the peasants around, and among his close disciples, there was only one educated man, Judas. The rest were fishermen and very ordinary folk.

This also goes to show the unimportance of the mind. In this technological age, man concentrates more on mind, mind, mind. Intellectual development. It serves its purpose, but that instrument of the intellect could also be used for destructive purposes and this we have seen with all these various hydrogen bombs and germ warfare and neutron bombs and all kinds of things. We have seen how damaging the development of the intellect can be.

So, what is needed today is the opening of the Heart, the core of the human personality where that Divinity, that personal God which we could call love, resides. When the mind and the Heart could operate in conjunction with each other, when the mind is merged into the Heart and the Heart is merged into the reason, technological progress will always be used constructively. And that is what the world needs today. The mind has been searching outwardly for so long. But it is perfect to know that it is now turning inward to find the answers to life, for outward search has failed. Yet one has to start outwardly in some instances, where there is a subject and object, until one reaches the region where there is no subject and no object; they have just merged. And that is where true consciousness is found.

FINDING THE DIVINITY WITHIN US ENABLES US TO FIND THE DIVINITY IN OTHERS

We can never know the consciousness of Jesus by looking at Jesus. You could never see the consciousness of Buddha or Krishna by looking at the man. For, being embodied, no matter how evolved he is, he will still have a trace of ego, which gives him individuality. Without that individuality, he cannot perform any biological function. He would not be able to eat, sleep, or drink water. None of these things would become possible. Yet, through his teachings, he could, as if through a funnel, bring down that consciousness to a level where man could understand him, and that understanding is not dependent upon him, the giver, but dependent upon the receiver. Your awareness could tell you of the man or his consciousness. Therefore, they have said, “Judge ye not that ye be judged.” Because you are not capable of judging that, but you are capable of accepting.

But because you cannot know that person’s personality, you are only accepting the reflection of your thought processes. That means non-acceptance. Whatever you see in another is the product of your thought projection.

Like that, in every way possible, we are forever projecting our thought processes upon another. For no one is good and no one is bad if we understand the core of his personality and the Divinity within him. We realise that Divinity by finding that Divinity in ourselves first. Then only can we know the Divinity in the other. We can only see the top of a 15-story building if we stand on another 15 or 16-story building. But standing on the street, you could have no idea what is on top of the other tower. You will only see a certain angle of it, which could be distorted. When I was in New York, I stood on the street and looked at those tall buildings, and they all seemed so slanting to me as though they were going to fall over. But if I stood on another higher building and went up on the Empire State Building and looked, they would seem very steady.

HOW TO MAKE DIVINITY CONCRETE?

So, finding the Divinity within us will enable us to see the Divinity in others, and then we know the meaning, “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” Throw the whole Bible away, throw the Buddhist scriptures away, throw the Gita away, throw all those theologies away, if man can only really understand the meaning of “love thy neighbour as thyself.” For thy neighbour is thyself. He is not apart from you. He is not even a part of you. He is you”. So, how can you hate yourself? That is the secret of life. That is the secret of merging away into that Divinity. That is how we bring abstract Divinity into its concrete value, appreciate the tangible value, and love the concrete value, not for what the person is outwardly, not the person’s outerness, but the person’s innerness. So, you love for the sake of love.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1980 – 15