|
 He
is There with You, Whether You Are Conscious of Him or Not
Outside the unchanging Truth,
outside the inseparable, all-wonderful God, there can be no peace, no joy, no
strength, no life possible. You try to be a billionaire, and see if you can
really find any peace, or happiness, or true life. You try to do what you may in
the world and possess what you like in the world – through that there is no
chance of your having any true peace, or true happiness, or true power, or true
knowledge, or true life. Therefore, instead of wasting time in pursuing these
things, get back to the unlimited Power, unlimited Happiness, unlimited Peace,
unlimited Life, eternal Life, that God is. And in order to get back to God you
need not to move even a metre. He is there where you are sitting. He is within
you and around you; you have not seen Him.
A great cinema actress in Paris
had a wonderful, very costly, expensive, three million dollar chain of diamonds.
One day in her excitement, she absent-mindedly put her chain round her neck and
began to search for it. And in her big house and among her many servants she
made such a chaos, thinking that it is lost, thinking that she has misplaced it
somewhere in the house and the servants have stolen it. She made a great
disorder in the whole house. She sent her servant maids searching for it. She
telephoned to the police. She created a great chaos in her restlessness to find
the necklace. Several hours were lost in this. At the end, one among the wise
and calm persons of the household asked, ”Where did you last keep it?”
”Well, it was in my dressing
room.”
”Did someone enter your dressing
room?”
She said, ”No one except myself.”
And the wise man said, ”Good. Take
off your mantle. What is there around your neck?”
She was astonished to find it was all the time there, and the scarf was hiding
it! She was searching, suspecting the servants, accusing them, telephoning to
the police; all the time the necklace was there around her neck.
Even so, all the time the necklace
of billions of dollars, the necklace of infinite Happiness, Peace, Joy, Power,
Grace, Beauty, Perfection, is around every man’s neck. Not knowing this, every
man is restlessly searching for pleasure, in the cinema, in the restaurant, with
people. People are trying to cheat, deceive, in search of happiness, destroy
other nations, grapple for the wealth of other countries, kill each other for a
little power and a little wealth. All this human drama of restless chaos,
disorder, sufferings, sorrow, injustice, evil is enstaged in search of pleasure
and power and peace which no man finds. While all the time, around their necks
there is the God of infinite Peace, Happiness, Power, true Love, true Freedom,
true Grace. Remember this Truth. Do all you can to relate yourself to the
Kingdom of God, to God who is within you. And remember also the truth, outside
this God you cannot find any true Wealth, true Peace, true Freedom, true
Happiness, true Power, true eternal Life.
Mantra
Gives Back to You in Experience What Is Already in You
So long as the mind persists in
any form, so long as the mind persists as your body, as the world around you, as
your name, as your experiences, as your thoughts and feelings, as your awareness
of the earth underneath, there is no true experience of God. When your mind
becomes of the nature of God and ceases to be the body that you are, the world
that you experience around you, then you have God-experience. The mind must
forget itself, forget itself as your body, as the earth underneath, as
everything that you see and know and experience in the outer world, as your
thoughts and feelings. The moment mind ceases to be so, and assumes the form and
nature of the heart of the Divine, it becomes divine, it has a true experience
of God. Till then you have no true experience of God; you have the experience of
anything else, but not of God. So in order there may be a true experience of
God, your mind must cease to be aware of yourself as so and so, your mind has to
cease to be aware of the earth beneath and the environment around, and must
subsist as a boundless Light, Love, Grace and divine Consciousness.
The moment the pure in heart sit
for meditation, they do not know that there is the earth underneath them, or
people around them. No other thoughts are arising: the consciousness is
immediately absorbed in the Infinite.
The mantra repetition is a
powerful means of being in tune with this infinite and absolute God. The simple
Saints go on saying millions of times during the day, God, God, God. And thus
they secure for themselves the experience of only one thing: God, God, God.
The normal man is completely lost
in hundreds of silly experiences. Therefore, the normal man is so ignorant and
morally imperfect, unhappy and restless, always seeking for goals which are
never fulfilled. Your heart has also said millions of times: my body, my things,
your body, your things, my father, my mother, my children, my typewriter, my
happiness, my unhappiness, my salad, my chocolate. Millions of times this is
going on in the unconscious, and therefore you are tied to the earth. When the
opposite process is started, you are liberated, spiritually freed and
enlightened. You must say millions of times, God, God, God, in order that all
these dirty experiences and impressions are effaced.
Mind is so treacherous that it
makes us always forget God, and it makes us experience only a sensuous,
physical, material world. Mind is completely absorbing us in a physical, earthly
experience of pains and pleasure, good and bad; it is not allowing us to get
closer to God. Therefore, we must discover special ways by which we can make the
mind always think of God. In order to do that, supposing if you have a word like
OM, every time you say OM, you are reminded of God. And remember, the greatest
Mystics and Saints have discovered that this OM is one and the same with God. If
that is so, why don’t you try to control the mind and constantly put it in
memory of God by repetition of the word OM?
Suppose you are Mrs. Smith. You
don’t like Mrs. Brown. The moment you see Mrs. Brown, there are in you deep
feelings of dislike for her. If you see her, you think of her daughter who
offended you, and so on. So long as you are lost in this kind of experience,
where is God in your life? On the other hand, with one word, OM, you can bring
down God into your everyday existence. The moment you see Mrs. Brown, don’t
recognise her as Mrs. Brown; let all your heart and mind say OM. Now there is no
more any feeling of hatred for Mrs. Brown, no more memory of her daughter’s
offending you. And there is a constant consciousness that God is omniscient,
all-powerful, all-beautiful, that He is all-loving, all-seeing, that He is in
Mrs. Brown and in yourself also. So instead of mind displaying the reactions of
hatred, dislike, in the presence of Mrs. Brown, with that wonderful word OM it
is full of a reflection upon God’s Omniscience, Omnipotence, Protection, Beauty,
Love, Light. So in this way you see how very valuable such a word, a mantra, is
for daily life.
You see a car flying by. The
moment you see it you say OM. That seeing the car becomes an excuse for
remembering God, repeating God’s name and submerging yourself in
God-Consciousness. And instead of the car leaving an impression upon your mind,
the emotion and awareness of God’s presence remains in the mind the moment you
repeat OM.
Thus, you can apply this word
everywhere, in all conditions of life, in all experiences, and in all
situations. If you are going from Winterthur to Zurich with the train, don’t put
your leg into the carriage until you say mentally or with all your heart, OM.
And don’t sit down without uttering in your heart, OM, and experiencing God’s
presence. If in the interval you get up from the seat for a minute, say OM, and
get up. And if the people around you in the carriage are constituting a
distraction upon your eyes, you can pretend to be tired and close your eyes, and
having closed your eyes again mentally and by heart say OM. And you know what OM
is – an omnipresent, omnipotent, all-beautiful, all-protecting, all-seeing Power
and Presence.
* * *
There are many types of mantras.
The kind of mantra you repeat depends upon the kind of conception you have of
God and the way you love Him. Mantra can be a verse, or it can be one mystic
syllable like OM, or it can be a name of God; and the mantra has to be repeated
again and again, until the mind is controlled, transformed, uplifted, united
with God.
Mantras like OM are fundamental
sounds, mystical sounds. They are not words created by man; they are not sounds
caused, formed, created by the genius of man. Man, in his genius, has created
many languages. All communications have been rendered possible by special
languages he has evolved, but OM and other mystical syllables consist of sounds
which are eternal, timeless, uncreated. Whereas there are other mantras which
are created by the holiness and the divinity of an aspiring soul. They too are
called mantras, because they, in the long run, lead one to God-experience.
Om is the supreme mantra, highest
mantra. It is prefixed to every other mantra – it is the battery; if you put it
in anything it becomes light. Add to the OM names of God, and it becomes a
mantra.
When you are constantly repeating
it, and all your heart and mind is in it, and through it you have spiritual
experience, it is your mantra. If through its instrumentality you have
God-experience, it becomes a mantra.
So mantra is the means by which
you commune with the Divinity. Mantra is that by which you call upon the
Divinity and ask It to be with you, in you, around you, in your experience.
Mantra is something that holds your heart in Light, inspiration. Mantra purifies
the mind, elevates the mind, makes the mind one-pointed; and from there you can
meditate better. It also gives you strength in times of fear and distress. It
also helps you see things clearly, mentally, in thought and in judgement, in
times of doubt and difficulties.
* * *
Supposing your greatest friend
suddenly enters into the room – how will you feel? Suddenly you jump out of the
chair. Your face is full of smiles, and you warmly try to shake hands and
embrace the friend. In the same way, always feel yourself suddenly in the
presence of Someone called your greatest Friend: God. As your heart jumps into
smiles and makes you embrace the friend, when you think of God let your heart
jump with smiles, and embrace God’s Presence. Every time you say the mantra let
this experience be undergone. God is the greatest Reality – more real than the
bones in your fingers – and is with you, around you, listening to you always.
So mantra is not merely a verbal
repetition. It is being accompanied by love for God, faith in God, a perception
which is in itself purifying you, transforming you, changing you, altering you
radically within. When you are in the mantra, whatever nonsense you have heard,
nothing has entered you. When you are in the mantra, whatever pains are
experienced in the body, they have not touched you. When you are in the mantra,
whatever may be the hundred limitations and weaknesses you have, they have not
affected you. And when you are in this state, day after day, and year after
year, nothing will any more trouble you: you are all-perfect.
* * *
OM is a divine Word, the Word of
God, that was in the beginning and that will be at the end, that is always in
the universe, that is always in your inner spiritual heart. All the highest
mysteries of the infinite Consciousness, the potentialities and powers of
absolute Consciousness, are resident in OM. Therefore, It is something which
constitutes the key to the whole reality of the Infinite.
OM is that fundamental Sound which
has brought into existence all forms of sounds, all types and frequencies of
sound. It is the Energy behind all energies. It is the Infinite. It has brought
into existence time and space, and in the time and space universe It is
resident. Resident in it, It is yet exceeding it. The beautiful tree that you
see with its green leaves and beautiful flowers and fruits is also a product of
OM, is being sustained in its energy by OM. The life in the tree by which the
tree grows is a product of OM and is sustained by OM. So OM is the pervasive,
all-permeating Energy in the universe. It is the Music of the celestial spheres
that is in all the magnificent activity of the stellar universes beyond, and the
fundamental, all-pervasive, all-creating Force, the Force which is the basis and
foundation even of consciousness and intelligence and awareness, the Force which
bears all magnetism. All forces like the gravitational force, even powers like
the power of love and faith, are energies, forces, emanating from the universal,
all-pervading OM. So this grand, infinite Being that OM is has not only brought
into existence, by the million energies in Its Being, this universe, but It is
also something transcendent, and exceeding and standing beyond what It has
created.
Now, how to understand this much
better? Take the case of our own mind. Can you see what mind is? Nobody knows
what mind is – not your greatest psychologist. He can frighten you by special
cases published by the world-leading universities, but he is a poor fool, a
child playing tricks. Nobody knows what mind is, what its nature is. Let us take
a hypothesis. Let us consider mind as something like an atom, an electronic atom
in our brains. Let us say it is a tiny little particle of light in our brains.
We fall asleep. Now the body is at complete rest, the mind’s activities are
completely suspended, we are not conscious of the body or the external world, we
don’t know what time it is, we don’t know that we are sleeping. All this
knowledge is blocked out; we are in a deep darkness; we are in deep sleep.
Suddenly a dream arises. You feel that it is 9 o’clock. There is a blazing sun.
You feel that you are in a tropical forest in Africa. You feel that you are a
young person, aged 20 years, a man. You experience that you are walking along a
path in the forest. There is a terrific glare of the blazing sun. You find the
deer and some animals of the forest crossing your path. In the meantime,
something awakens you from the sleep. Your dream is broken.
Now you are, say, a woman. You had
a dream. In that dream you felt that you were a boy walking in the blazing sun
at 9 o’clock on the path in a South African forest. Who created that boy? Who
created that sun in the dream? That forest? Those animals which you saw? This
fantastic mind in you, which is just this tiny little thing in your brain, in
your head, had created a sun, a world, the sunshine, the animals, the huge
forest. This tiny little space in the head which does not hold even a single
tree could hold the whole forest, could give you experiences which embrace vast
spaces.
All these experiences you had
within your brain, within your mind, within such a short time. Was not that boy
you saw and felt yourself to be in the dream purely a creation of your mind? Was
not that person formed of the substance of your mind? Were not that sun, those
forests, the trees that you saw all formed by the mind? And as you were walking
as that young man, and while all the time thinking that you are different and
distinct from whatever you have been experiencing in that forest, was not all
this a possibility, a grand self-expression of the power of the mind in you? Was
not, in everything that you saw, the central mind’s capacity and energy present,
pervasive?
Even so, OM, which is a tiny
little Particle, has brought into existence all these vast and immeasurable
spaces of the universe, all this creation, and all that time that accompanies
the processes of this universal being. All these have emerged from that tiny
little OM.
What is this tiny Thing which is
infinite in Its expression? That is why a passage in the Upanishad says God, the
supreme Reality, is smaller than the smallest particle, and vaster than the
infinite space. Is this not a paradox? How can the smallest, the tiniest thing.
which is smaller than the smallest atom, be, at the same time, vaster, greater
than the vast, immeasurable space which cannot be measured even by light-years?
It is not a paradox for those who have direct experience of God.
* * *
OM is both God as impersonal and
transcendental, and God as immanent and personal. It combines both aspects of
God.
OM is divine Harmony. It is divine
Consciousness. It is divine Intelligence. Its very nature is Luminosity. It is
indescribably brilliant. Its nature is also Love. It is infinite and boundless
Love. Its nature is also Beauty. It is Fullness. It is infinite and absolute
Peace. It is the Music of music. It is absolute Joy. It is everything, and
transcends everything. OM contains in Itself the manifest and the unmanifest
aspects of the Divine.
Every repetition of OM should help
your mind and heart suddenly touch something of God’s Presence, Power, Light.
Every repetition of OM should be for you a means of establishing active
relations with God. Let every repetition of OM be accompanied by the knowledge
that It is the Word of God and God is in It, that It is of God, that It is God’s
sound-form. Let every hair and foot and tooth, everything, repeat the mantra,
let everything repeat the mantra. Take it into the subconscious. Take the mantra
into the unconscious. Take the mantra into the conscious memory, and so on.
Every part and portion of your inner being and consciousness must be charged
with the mantra power.
You must repeat the mantra, not
mechanically, but with a feeling, awareness, that the Divinity is present with
you, around you. When you are repeating the mantra – if you are full of faith
and love for the Divine, if you are conscious that God, or Jesus, is omnipotent,
omnipresent, omniscient, if you know that there is Someone who loves you
supremely, Someone who is your beloved, Someone who is your strength and support
and life, the Divinity all-seeing, all-powerful, all-wonderful, eternal, and
that we cannot separate ourselves from It, – then such a Divinity is with you.
When you meditate and find peace
in meditation, and also a sense of God’s Consciousness, you can bring that peace
and God-consciousness into your work through the help of this word OM. Whenever
you say OM, let peace be poured into your mind and heart and will, and let peace
express itself through your outer actions. So through continuous repetition of
OM you will be able to sustain yourself in peace and God-inspiration.
Whenever peace or inspiration or
God-consciousness wanes, at once repeat OM, loudly or mentally or by heart. When
OM is chanted, it releases such a fire and force and energy which harmonize the
atmosphere around us, drive away and destroy discordant forces around us. Repeat
OM for fifteen minutes. As you repeat, disturbing thoughts and feelings subside.
And with every repetition feel that you are in the immediate presence of God,
that OM is God, that God is expressing Himself through OM, that this mantra is
the means of your establishing relations with God. And wherever OM is repeated,
there God’s presence is at once generated: there, at once the obstacles and the
veils that are hiding God’s presence from your view are broken.
* * *
Men of highest God-experience are
always listening to the OM sound everywhere in the universe. Put your ear to the
telegraph post; you will hear a sound. In the same way, the whole world is
resonating, all the universes are resonant, with this fundamental sound OM.
The human ear is so gross and so
limited that it cannot hear finer and higher sounds, but in the state of
mystical consciousness and God-experience, they are disclosed to the
super-scientists that the greatest Sages are.
Why do I say these Mystics and
Sages are super-scientists? In the textbooks of science, books that relate to
sound phenomena, you might have learned there are frequencies of sound which are
inaudible to the ear. There are delicate sounds which our ear cannot catch.
There are terrific sounds which also our ear does not catch. Our ear is
capacitated to catch only those sounds which fall within a certain specific,
small, tiny band. This poor human ear of ours is a petty power, a useless thing,
useful only for conducting an animal existence, but not useful for higher
purposes. So the scientist governed and guided by a spirit of search for more
knowledge, devoted to discovery of facts, laws, truths of physical things, has
been studying the phenomena of sound in the laboratory.
Now, by the fruitfulness of these
marvellous researches, experiments, and by a combination of several
technological factors, the modern scientist has helped us to have what you call
hearing-aids, has made for us the radio, transistor, and so on. And this radio
catches those sound-waves (or electromagnetic waves) which are inaudible to the
physical ear. The radio catches these sound-waves of all frequencies and
amplifies these sounds in order that our ear may catch them. From this we
understand that our physical ears are extremely limited in their capacity for
hearing sounds.
Some heroic souls in the field of
music, like Beethoven, are also conscious of the limitations of the physical
ear. Therefore, they have, in their passionate, God-inspired devotion to music,
developed the soul’s capacity for hearing. Even if Beethoven was a deaf fellow,
yet his soul was marvellous enough to receive the grand musical forms and sounds
which were audible only to his soul, and not to his physical ear. So, there is
the possibility of developing the soul’s capacity for hearing sounds which are
not of the earth.
It is also possible to hear the
radio-waves and frequencies without the aid of the radio-apparatus. The Sage and
Mystic is sitting with us, and the news broadcasted by BBC in London is heard by
him – though he has no radio apparatus. Is not the brain of this Mystic more
marvellous than the radio? He can tune himself to any station while sitting that
way. Is not his brain super-scientific? He can not only tune himself to any
radio-station, but he can tune himself to a man in Bern, Switzerland, and report
what is happening in his head, what he is thinking. He can also tune himself to
some lady in some corner in some city in Australia, and immediately give the
whole story of her activities right from the morning till now.
You have a television. When you
turn to a particular station, you see the whole picture, the whole story
unfolded. Whereas this Sage can see any street, any house, in any city of the
world. Suppose war is taking place in South Vietnam. Cables are received by
newspaper offices in London, in Paris, in Zurich, and all over the world,
concerning the happenings on the field of war. But the Sage who is sitting here
with us is a direct witness to what is happening there. Is not this Sage’s mind
far more marvellous than the most marvellous scientific apparatus that
television is? Can you not therefore call him a super-scientist?
Your mind is limited in its
powers. You do not even know what Mrs. Herrmann (the interpreter) is thinking
now, you do not even know what is happening deep down in her subconscious and
unconscious. You do not know what is going to happen to you tomorrow. Whereas
this Saint and Mystic’s mind is unlimited, timeless, spaceless in its function
and power. Therefore, he can also tell you, and present picture for picture,
what happened 5000 years ago in the place where the city of Zurich now stands,
how it looked like, how the people dressed themselves, how they lived and ate
and drank, and the complete life-story of any one of them.
The mind of the Saint can travel
back in time, or travel ahead in time, or make all space an immediate here. If
scientists are struggling hard to fly to the moon, yet the knowledge that they
have acquired concerning the moon is inadequate, insufficient; their efforts are
not successful. But the Saint looks at the moon as if you are looking at a ball
on this table – not only at the moon, but at any planet. For him there are no
spacial limitations. His mind is moving in a spaceless, timeless universe.
Science tells us that if a star
dies somewhere it takes millions and millions and millions of light-years before
its light arrives here on earth. Whereas the mind of the Sage in half a split
second is by the star. That means the mind of the Sage is moving at a terrific
speed at which light cannot travel. His consciousness is the Light behind all
lights. Space, time, all are meaningless for him.
He is living in the world of real marvels and wonders of divine Consciousness.
He has not only access to this world of time and space, this physical universe;
he has also access to all the invisible mental worlds, psychic worlds, spiritual
worlds. So he can penetrate into the minds of humanity, live in and know
directly all the worlds. He can move into the other higher worlds, heaven or
hell, or whatever may be, as easily as you move from one room of your house into
the next one. Such is the state of the mind achieved in illumination; such are
the powers of the mind in God-consciousness.
Suppose the Sage is the father of
a son. Now the son dies. Does the Sage weep and cry? No, it has made no
impression on him. Why? Wherever the soul of the son is going, there his mind is
already present. So he knows all about the son, what is happening there now. Not
only that, you know it is reported historically that Buddha, when he got
God-illumination, saw the whole of his past lives. This has happened to other
Mystics also. There was Pythagoras in ancient Greece who was a kind of Mystic
and who also saw his past lives. The consciousness in the Mystic not only can
see his own past lives; it can also see all the past lives of his son, and also
see, in the immediate present, the future lives of the son. Not only that. His
mind can see the past lives of all sons in all the world; it can also see,
immediately, in the present, all the future lives of all the sons in the world.
So such a mind cannot weep at the death of the son. So what is the cause of our
weeping and crying when the son dies? The great darkness of ignorance in which
our mind is. Illuminate this darkness of the mind with mantra power and
God-consciousness: you will see things very clearly – the past and future of
yourself, your son and the others.
Your body is a tiny little animal
product, and by an animal function you have produced another animal body called
your son. The body is breakable. It is subject to death – if not today, hundred
years later your body is bound to die. It will be buried, and it will become
part of the clay. If you achieve this illuminated consciousness, if you rise
into this highest dimension of divine Consciousness through mantra power, how do
you look upon yourself? Not as a physical body. If it is a physical body that
you are, you cannot be at the same time now in Australia and in New York. If you
are the physical body, there are time-space limitations. But the moment you
close your eyes, you are in a different world of timelessness and spacelessness,
you are able to see past and future and everything.
In this state of mind and
experience, when you do not recognise yourself as a body, but as a light and a
power of the Godhead, will you acknowledge the reality of someone called a
physical son of yours? No. You will see in the son the same power of the divine
Consciousness that you are seeing in yourself. You will see in the son the same
all-creative, timeless, spaceless Consciousness that you are experiencing and
using in yourself. And the moment there is a tendency to recognize the physical
body of the physical son, you will fall from the height of divine Consciousness
and experience, and there are the complications created by ignorance, error. So,
wise men do not see in their sons, sons, but Godhead. What will they do if they
don’t weep and cry? They will remain in profound prayer, and if they have a
mantra to repeat, they will repeat the mantra in prayer, and release tremendous
spiritual currents and vibrations which go and touch the son and make him
peaceful, happy, powerful, strong. That is why wisdom is strength, wisdom is
life.
This is not a fiction I am talking
about. Down through the centuries for the past thousands of years, hundreds of
such Mystics and Sages have arisen. Their life-stories are available to us. Some
of them are still living. Purity of heart and divine Grace can bring us into
contact with them. They are all-merciful, all-compassionate people. To the
deserving aspirants they are accessible. Almost from childhood I was brought up
in the environs of these great ones. I have hundreds of truths of this state of
mystical consciousness. It is to these Mystics and Sages of highest divine
Consciousness that OM and other mystical mantras are audible.
Now if a Mystic were to put his
ear to the tree, he will hear the sound of OM, the fundamental Sound. If he
looks at the universe, he is conscious of the vibrations of OM sustaining,
maintaining, forming that universe. All that he sees, knows, feels through the
senses is found to be formulations of this fundamental divine Consciousness,
Energy, Force. So the Mystic is not only conscious of God in the universe, in
the space-time-universe, but also is conscious of God beyond the universe.
* * *
How can we ourselves achieve this
state? You know, as science tells you, that tremendous energy, inconceivable
energy, is locked up in the tiny little atom. Science says split that atom, and
you will release terrific atomic energy, sufficient to destroy cities, or
sufficient to put a number of factories at work. In the same way, mantra is that
power which splits the atom of our inner consciousness. Go on splitting the
inner atom of the consciousness; tomorrow you yourself will become this
super-scientist that the Sage or Mystic is.
You see the point? The scientists
are splitting the material atoms. The material atoms are inferior, infinitely
inferior to the atom of consciousness. What happens when you go on splitting the
atoms of consciousness by the mystic power that mantra is? After some years,
your own mind will be full of millions of television and radio-sets and millions
of kingdoms of heaven. Your joy will be so great that you cannot imagine it.
Your peace will be so much that nobody can understand it – a peace that passes
understanding, as the Bible says, a joy that is indescribable, as the Veda says.
You will be living in a self-sufficient, self-contained world. This is your real
destiny.
Wherever the Sage is, there inside
his being is the Kingdom of God. Now supposing this city is going to be bombed,
the government at once announces: “Walk out of the city”. All are frightened.
The Sage is simply sitting, smiling. You understand? What can attempt to catch
this person who is a super-atom? Now there is a blazing fire. In that blazing
fire, if you put a cup of water, what does it do? It only evaporates in the
fire. So, when you yourself become a super-atom, no fear. You become absolutely
fearless; you will be smiling; there is no such thing as danger. When you are
brought face to face with a dozen lions, you will still be smiling; they are
tiny cats for you – more afraid of you, and more happy in your presence, and
incapable of mischief in your presence. Why? Because the vibrations of your
personality affect them, touch them.
There are beautiful rose plants.
You are not seeing them, but their fragrance is reaching us, and we suspect
there is some rose plant somewhere there. In the same way, everything is
emanating its own fragrance and its own vibration. Now you have sandalwood; it
is emanating a fragrant smell. In the same way, all of us – all of our bodies,
our minds and personalities – are emanating vibrations. How much more elevated,
happy, inspired in the presence of a holy personality we feel! We feel in his
presence God-realisation is an easy matter. We feel in his presence life’s
difficulties are nothing. If an evil person is there he feels somehow depressed;
automatically he feels slightly uneasy. He will say, ”Let us go for a walk!” So
all of us are emanating our own vibrations. We are constantly radiating specific
energies; they are good or bad in accordance with the goodness or badness of our
minds and hearts.
So when you are repeating the
mantra, all the negative, dark vibrations, energies in you are becoming
illuminated, you are being transformed inside, a spiritual power is being
generated in you. This spiritual power is felt by all sensitive minds that come
into contact with you. If you go to a sick man he feels enlivened, he feels
inspired, he feels that he will recover soon, he feels he is happy and he can
manage and everything will be all right.
So I say go on repeating your
mantra. You will release wonderful vibrations. Your very car will draw, suck in
your vibrations, and if there were to be an accident for the car it would
miraculously escape it, because the vibrations will not allow any damage to take
place.
Now the accident has to come from
another car, and as the other car is coming, the vibrations here delay its
coming and divert it elsewhere, and it may hit itself against a post or another
car, but not yours. Every time you are repeating the mantra you are releasing
specific, definite vibrations of which you may not be conscious, but whose
results and effects you can always notice and see in what is happening around
you and in your life.
Om
Tat Sat
‘God’ is a word made by man for
God. OM is a Power, a Word, immanent in the universe, and is revelatory of God.
Therefore, highest Mystics and individuals of ancient India, having discovered,
uncovered by the power of their soul this fundamental Sound, have always used It
as a means of naming God, as a means of developing the God-power in the human
soul. So all the Upanishads start with OM and end with OM. All divine knowledge
is resident in OM. The Upanishads have come from OM. The Upanishads subsist in
OM, and the Upanishads are there to disclose to us the glory and the greatness
and the divinity of OM.
There is another mantra in the
Upanishads which is formed of three words: Om Tat Sat. The world is not Sat; it
is asat. What is asat? Untruth. Why is the world untruth? Sixteen million years
ago there was no Mr. Jones. Sixty years ago Mr. Jones was born. Sixty years
later there won’t be ”Mr. Jones”. All that has a beginning has an end. All that
has come goes away. This is not Reality; this is non-reality, asat.
Then what is Reality? Reality is
that which was six million years ago, and before that, and always, and It will
be there sixty million years later, and again and again, forever. It was, is and
will always be. Beginningless and endless Being is Reality. That is Sat.
Sat is Reality, and what is the
nature of Reality? Sat-Chit-Ananda. That means, It is not only Reality, It is
not only Existence (Sat), but It is also Consciousness, It is also Intelligence,
It is also Knowledge (Chit). And where there is Existence and Knowledge, there
is Joy (Ananda). We have a life, and that life is accompanied by intelligence.
We have intelligence, we have life, and so we are happy. And when somebody
threatens our life, we are unhappy, we want to protect ourselves. Wherever there
is life there is intelligence, and wherever there is life and intelligence there
is happiness. But in finite life and finite intelligence, there is much
unhappiness.
So, God is infinite Intelligence
and infinite Life. Where there is infinite Life, there is infinite Knowledge and
Intelligence, and therefore, infinite Joy. Therefore, Sat is the infinite Being,
the supreme Reality, the supreme Truth. The one, unlimited, absolute Existence –
that is Sat.
This Sat, how to point to this Sat? By saying That. That, not this. What is
this? This is all that is manifest. This is all that is created. This is all
that is phenomenal. This is all that is passing, changing. Five hours ago it was
day. Now it is night. Ten hours later there is again no night. It is all
changing, passing, passing. And what a foolishness it is for people to cry and
say, ”Oh, it is night. Oh, it is night.” Why won’t you have some patience; ten
hours later there won’t be night. What is passing, what is changing, what is
dying, what is limited, is not God, is not Reality, is not Truth.
Mr. Jones is unhappy. How long is
he unhappy? Two years? Six years? It is all passing, changing. Or you say he is
happy. How long is he going to be happy? For ten years? Twenty years? After...?
Therefore, this limited happiness and unhappiness are meaningless. Why are they
meaningless? Because they have a temporary reality, like the dream-reality. In
the dream Mr. Jones found himself in an airplane flying at a speed of 700 miles
per hour; but it was only a dream. In the same way, the whole life experience is
of the nature of a dream; it is passing, changing.
Wise men of deep God-experience
said not this – That is God. Not this name, not this form, not this world, not
these changing phenomena, not your give and take, not your goodness and badness
– all these are not God. They are all going to change, die and perish; and God
is unchangeable.
Think of That. Remember That. Be
That. Know That. Realize That. This is the central message of the highest
mystical experience. Say Om Tat Sat, that is: God is Reality. Have a cup of tea.
Say Om Tat Sat. The moment you say, ”Oh, I have taken a tea. It was beautiful”,
then tomorrow morning you will be craving for it, and if you don’t get it, you
feel unhappy. All such misery is not good. Therefore, always go back to God
first. From bad go to good; from good go to God. All that you do offer to the
Divine by saying Om Tat Sat. And so remind yourself always in life that God
alone is the Reality, your Strength and your Existence, your Joy and your Glory.
And there is no better way of reminding yourself of this than by uttering the
Truth and powerful mantra, Om Tat Sat. This mantra contains in itself all the
philosophy of divine experience, the whole philosophy of creation; and
withdrawal and absorption in God-consciousness is contained in these three
words. Om Tat Sat : you summed up the whole philosophy, the meaning of life, the
existence of life, the aim of life. Everything is included in this. Om Tat Sat.
If
You Don’t Repeat the Mantra, Thoughts of the World
Will Come and Stand Before You
If you think you can meditate on
the Divine, on the Absolute or the Truth, by merely thinking of It or by trying
to still the mind, you won’t succeed. Mind is not easy of conquering. It cannot
live without a thought; it can never remain still; hundred thoughts will catch
you. But you take up a mantra and go on revolving the mind around the mantra –
it is controlled; no other thought can come. Mind has something to lean upon.
And this something that it leans upon is something divine, and therefore, the
mind is purified and illuminated, and the Infinite is automatically reflected in
the mind. This is a quicker and more wonderful way than purely to attempt to
still the mind and think of the Infinite.
If you ask the horse to go
directly to Zurich, it never goes. It may graze the grass on the way and wander
wherever it wills. But if it is controlled and directed and led to Zurich, then
it goes. Exactly so it is the case with the mind: it is always wandering; it is
always grazing on something. Everywhere it has to be controlled and led into the
kingdom of the Divine. And the mantra does such a control and leads it into the
Kingdom of God. Mind cannot move towards the Kingdom of God of its own accord;
the mind must be led by the mantra. The meaning of the mantra is: that which
controls the mind and reveals to the individual soul the Divine.
* * *
Your conscious and unconscious
mind have been repeating their own ”mantras” for millions of years. What are
their ”mantras”? Love for sense pleasures, love for all kinds of petty things,
storing the mind with all sorts of bad impressions. Hundreds of forces are
constantly acting in our minds. Our mind is a restless thing; if we were not
repeating the mantra, our mind would have done a hundred mischievous things
inside. What are those mischievous things? It will think of what happened in the
biggest hotel in Zurich that night. It will think of how to change this car for
that car. It will think of what is the difference between this lady’s good looks
and that lady’s good looks; or Mrs. H. is a foolish woman; or E. is a good lady;
or A. has not prepared the coffee properly. In how many directions the mind will
be wandering!
But when you are repeating the
mantra, all this chaotic, restless activity depleting our inner energy stops.
During the repetition of the mantra, during that one or two hours, you are the
most blessed person. Whereas no human being is free from the restless, useless
activity of the mind, at least you were free from that restless, disastrous
activity of the mind for one hour while repeating the mantra. Is this not the
most blessed discipline? When you have checked and controlled the wandering of
the mind and its depletion of energies, don’t you think to that extent you are
integrating your personality, psychologically making yourself whole and sound,
and making yourself most sensitive spiritually?
Now this one-hour discipline
becomes a power, and on the next day, if you take the same one-hour discipline,
it continues undisturbed for one and a quarter hours, and you acquire more
spiritual power. And after some months you will sit completely in the mantra for
five hours, six hours. After some years you will sit in mantra for all the 24
hours. And even if you are engaged in activities, your mantra-repetition is
continuous and unbroken; you will find it becomes your second nature to live in
the mantra.
And when your conscious mind,
subconscious and unconscious mind are thus purified and illuminated, your whole
life becomes divine. You are full of illumination. You are full of unlimited
love. You are full of a rare divine calmness; you command a peace that passes
understanding. And you do only things of light and love and joy and confidence.
The world will say, here is an illuminated personality. The world will say, we
feel happy and inspired in his presence.
Offer
Everything to the Divine
Everything belongs to the Divine,
and has to be offered to the Divine. Only by such an offering can we retain
everything, and also have the Divine Himself.
The ego comes and disturbs always.
The ego says, ”The body is mine”, and the trouble starts. The ego says, ”This
belongs to me”, and the trouble starts. The moment one recognises that
everything belongs to the Divine, one is free from the trouble. Having come to
the knowledge that everything belongs to the Divine, everything has to be
mentally offered to the Divine, in order the ego may not offer everything to
itself and create difficulties. So mentally offer all works to the Divine, all
thoughts and feelings to the Divine, all life and its energies to the Divine,
the mind and will and their capacities to the Divine. Offer and dedicate the
body to the Divine. Offer even the earth to the Divine, – and you will be living
on an earth which is divinised, spiritualised, freed from the ego, the
destructive force. Offer everything in the universe to the Divine. Offer the
heart and mind and soul to the Divine. Offer the food you take to the Divine.
Offer the breath you breathe to the Divine. This is the way to growth, to
reception of divine Grace. This is the way of liberation and freedom.
Keep
the Mind Occupied with Great Thoughts
Keep the mind always preoccupied
with great questions: ”How is God omnipresent? Why is he invisible to me, though
He is omnipresent? How is God all-merciful? What are the obstacles in my life
that are preventing me from knowing His All-mercifulness? What great sacrifices,
great disciplines can I take upon myself in order to arrive at infinite, eternal
Perfection? How ignorant I am that I am not able to know this world to be a very
structure of the divine Consciousness, while hundreds of Saints and Sages have
experienced it to be so!” Such thoughts must occupy you, and the mind must be
always fed with intensive mantra repetition.
Secretly
Adore Everyone as the Divine Himself
From time to time close your eyes
for a moment and adore the Divine in the hearts of all beings, the Divine who is
present as highest Intelligence in all beings, the Divine who is present in all
beings as the witnessing Principle, the observing Principle. Give adorations to
the Divine who is present in the hearts of all beings as infinite Peace and Joy,
as infinite Love and Light, as infinite Power, as infinite Beauty and
Perfection. Stand with the Divinity in all – not with their imperfections.
By that you will be loved by all.
All will be pleased with you. And you will be pleased with them; you will love
all. You will feel yourself at home, no matter in which country you are, no
matter what the religion of the people is, what the social customs of the people
are. Everywhere, with all people you will be at home. You will never more say,
”These people are not good; these people are good for me.” You will be at
harmony with everyone, and everyone will love you and admire you.
So, from time to time, close your
eyes and adore the Divine in all beings. Stand back only from the wrong thoughts
in you – not from the people and circumstances.
Always
Absorb Yourself in Intensive Good Works
There is enormous work all around,
for those who see, for those who wish to contribute selflessly something great
to the world: and through that lies one’s immense, rapid inner development. God
does not enter a dog in order to preach to the world. God enters into the heart
of a good man and does immense good to the world. He enters the hearts of
hard-working men of selflessness, of universal love, of devotion to divine
knowledge, of self-sacrifice. God enters the heart of those who take enormous
pains to do good. That is the place for God, and God dwells not in the churches
but in such hearts.
Work is the condition of salvation
when it is ensouled by devotion and faith. When you work, work intensively,
efficiently, joyously, enthusiastically. Then you progress. Otherwise your work
will be like the work of the ordinary worldly people, leading to no real
progress. Do your work with an intensive consciousness of the Divine. When you
are painting the house with the feeling that you are building the greatest
temple in the world, when you are conscious of the divine Presence by you,
naturally you will do the work most silently and in an exalted, inspired state
of consciousness. Real progress is necessary, and if that progress is to be
visible, inwardly cling to the Divine intensively.
The child has many problems and is
a constant source of disturbance to the mother only when she is not playing with
her toys, only when she is not absorbed in the play. When she is absorbed in the
play, she is a great joy to the mother. And the child does less bad things, or
no bad things.
Even so, your child-mind does all
kinds of bad things, creates artificial problems, imagines all false things,
always puts the blame on others and on circumstances, always looks for other
circumstances, always creates difficulties for you and for others. Therefore,
keep the child-mind completely absorbed in service and in mantra-repetition,
intensively – so intensively that even if others are talking you hear nothing,
even if others are doing something which distracts, you are never distracted,
even when others are misled by temptations, you remain unaffected by
temptations. Repeat the mantra so intensively, and do the work so intensively,
and so quickly, and so fully, that the whole world does not exist for you, that
even the pain is not felt by you when it comes: there is no memory of who came
and who went away; there is no memory of how old you are, how you feel, what
your worldly relations are, what is the time of the day, what is the day, what
is happening in the world. You will never know what depression or failure is.
So, intensify mantra repetition,
and intensify absorption in services. If you are possessed by these two things,
no ignorance can possess you, no unhappiness can possess you, no bad weather or
bad news can possess you. Therefore, be possessed by the mantra and the work.
They are the best medicines, best tonics, best protections, best means of
evolution, best methods of becoming divine.
Thus work is a powerful means of
transformation – transformation of oneself, transformation of the environment,
many forms of transformation. You cannot grow except by work. And work does not
tire you – work has no negative results; work has always the best results. Work
makes you a king. What brings you negative results, what makes you sick, what
makes you unhappy and weak, is your feelings, your thoughts. One falls sick by
bad feelings, bad thoughts, bad desires, bad reactions. If one lady is jealous
of another lady, no matter whether they are working or not working, they will
fall sick. They will be unfortunate, depressed, a dark force to themselves and a
dark force to the world. So work is always a positive force, provided you are
doing sensible, good work, with good feelings, good thoughts, and God-awareness.
Work purifies. Work exalts, elevates, enriches. It is the only means by which
you can express the Grace of God you have received. Work is the only way by
which you can use profitably your energies, your capacities, your abilities,
your talents. And work teaches work, and work leads from success to success.
Work is God; work is worship; work is an adoration, an expression of devotion to
the Divine. Work is a means of finding release for the unlimited capacities of
your inner consciousness. So recognise the spiritual potentialities of work, the
value of work for psychological self-transformation, the value of work for
creating a new environment and wealth in the world. Therefore, use every minute
profitably and turn out more work.
Thus, the earnest seeker of the
Divine has his great joy in constant, dynamic, selfless service of the Divine.
Great love constantly expresses itself in great service. Without self-expression
in service love is lifeless, and it is only a name without any substance. Love
always expresses itself in actions, in service, in sacrifices, in
self-effacement, in creative activities. Love is never tired, and it is full of
resources. It is full of creative possibilities. It is perpetually inspired.
Always love suggests hundreds of new ways of expressing one’s usefulness to the
object loved.
Love in its best form is devotion.
No emotion is greater than devotion. Devotion binds the soul to the Divine. That
is religion. Any force, any factor, any principle that ties the human soul to
the Divine is the real religion. That is the meaning of religion.
Devotion binds the soul to the
Divine, and for the sake of the Divine every work is done with great joy and a
sense of inner peace and freedom and strength. Constant inspiration and
enthusiasm for service is obtained from devotion. Devotion initiates newer and
newer works in order to express itself.
The creative service, productive
service, joyful service flows voluntarily. It is unthinkable that there is some
mother somewhere in the world who needs to be told to serve the child.
Automatically, her affection for
the child brings forth voluntary services. A hundred times more so, the devotion
in the heart of the devotee tells him automatically to pour himself into
voluntary service. It causes in him the initiative; he does not need to be told.
Always creative ideas are arising; always there is a new way; always there is a
solution to every problem; everything can be done better. Creativity,
productivity, selflessness are characteristics of an earnest seeker of the
Divine.
Condition
Your Consciousness to Infinite Peace, Light, Love, Truth
The normal way of life cannot
acquire for you quick spiritual progress. Always you have to be very
enthusiastic, very inspired, full of the fire of aspiration, a fire which
swallows up all negative thoughts and feelings, which conditions you to
God-consciousness, which uplifts your thoughts and feelings and your spirit
always.
The spiritual heart again and
again asserts: ”Above me, around me is the Divine. I am in the ocean of Light. I
am surrounded by the all-blessing, all-seeing Eyes and Hands of the Divine. All
around me there is the infinite Power penetrating into my body and heart and
soul, transforming me, uplifting me. My life is fulfilled. I have a mission to
fulfil. I have a work to do for the Divine. My life is blessed. My mind is full
of divine knowledge. I am uncompromisingly devoted to the Divine. Unceasing
strength, peace, joy fill me always. The Divine is the joy of my existence, I am
uplifted by the thought of the Divine. I am born to do great works. With me,
through me, by me, God Himself is working. My strength is endless. I am born of
the Truth. I live for the Truth. I spread the Truth.”
Thus, the spiritual aspirant is
characterised by enormous power, enormous peace, enormous joy, enormous
knowledge.
Breathe in the divine Power. Speak
of the divine Truth. Feel the divine Love. Bless and uplift your energies by
dedicating them to the service of the Divine. Feel that the whole world is
ablaze with the Fire of divine Consciousness. Find every wall luminous with the
Fire of the Divine Presence. Again and again repeat the mantra intensively, and
assert the divine Presence above, below, all around.
Get rid of the hallucinations and
obsessions of the human life. Aim at constant communion with the Divine Truth.
Truth is boundless Love and Light. Deepen your relations to this wonderful
divine Truth. Those alone who deepen their relations with the Truth live truly,
and are happy and peaceful and prosperous and blessed.
Plunge
into this Infinite One Called God!
These are the secrets for you to
arrive at the state of the Mystic’s mind and consciousness, which is an
extraordinary, supra-scientific phenomenon, which is a marvel of all marvels, a
world of endless creative possibilities, a world of infinite Light, a world of
timelessness and spacelessness; a consciousness to which all, everything, is
HERE, right now, a consciousness to which the past and the future is immediate
NOW; a consciousness which is able to see what is going to happen to the world
ten thousand million years later, as if it is taking place just now before his
eyes, a consciousness which is able to turn back in time and see what happened
ten thousand million years ago as if it is taking place just now, in the
immediate time. So in order to arrive at this stage of achievement and
experience, go on repeating the mantra.
When you close your eyes and
repeat the mantra, start living in a timeless, spaceless world already, so that
you might arrive at it later on. Start the moment you close your eyes. Forget
the body. Silence the mind. Feel the divine presence. See no limits anywhere:
there is no past, present or future now; there is only an immediate NOW; there
are no limits of space, and therefore, everywhere your inner consciousness IS.
In this illimitable world of Consciousness and Light repeat the mantra. Feel it
charging the whole universe with its power. Infinitise yourself. Cosmicise
yourself. Expand so much that the skies are small carpets. And with all the
power of your heart, love. This is the way to supermanhood; this is the way to
be a son or daughter of God.
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