Day 4: Transformation is Required

Meditation

And being aware of it naturally brings about some change. So neither to initiate a change nor to resist a change. But simply to watch. Now we'll try a very simple exercise to become directly aware of the relationship of my breathing quality with my feeling. Usually each one of us says I am here.

First of all just to watch where in the body does this resonate. Do I feel some specific tension somewhere or relaxation? Maybe to use that expression two or three times just simply to be aware of how does my whole body respond including my breathing to I am here. Now intentionally I use the same words but with the attitude or the feeling behind it I am here get out of my way and watch where in the body does this resonate and how does it manifest itself in my breathing. I am simply repeating that I am here get out of my way.

I don't need to use all those words. I am simply saying I am here. Now the same words I am here but with the feeling. How can I serve? Watch where it resonates in the body.

What kind of tensions or relaxation is created by this and how does it affect the quality of my breathing? How does it affect the quality of my breathing? What is important is to realize that the mind does not experience. All experience is by sensation or feeling even in the sciences all measurements are made by externalized sensation and in the spiritual enterprise it's internalized sensation. I can close my eyes and can say I see what is taking place.

All experience is by sensation and in the spiritual enterprise it's internalized sensation will return to something we have tried in the past but with an attitude and a feeling of gratitude for the fact that there is this energy in my various limbs. So I sense my right leg with both the sense of gratitude and also wonder why have I been given these limbs and watch the does it affect my awareness or my quality of my breathing when I place my out breath in my right leg. Now in the left leg. With more and more sensitivity. Now in the whole of the pelvic area.

Amazing mystery how would any of these organs actually function. Chest right arm for most of us the right and the left arm have different kind of efficiency and maneuverability why. Left arm back arm for most of us the right arm for most of us the right arm for most of us the right arm for most of us the right arm for most of us the right arm for most of us the right arm. Now placing my out breath into the whole of my body from the top of the head to the toes. Whole organism very intricate laws running it.

The gratitude for the fact that I have this body and really a question to oneself. Take three more breaths then we'll stop. Thank you.

Talk

So the devil represents the shadow side of oneself or of the whole universe. So then the very strong suggestion that we have already come across for example this is the remark of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16 unless you leave yourself behind you cannot be a follower of mine. And putting much the same idea but in slightly different language your remark of Madame Persalsman you don't love yourself enough the self that wishes and needs to emerge. Very strong suggestion that we have if you like a real self or a real eye that has taken on my usual self or my body mine and that wishes and needs to emerge. And that is also the reminder that I don't love that enough.

And of course if I need to be free of my usual self which also means to be free of what is usually driving me in the world what is occupying my time or energy as I occasionally remind people one can actually if you look at your bank account and your calendar you see what is occupying your energy and time and money. And so there is no need to just fantasize that one is very spiritually oriented how does this manifest in one's life. So therefore naturally everywhere a very strong emphasis on self-inquiry or other words got used self-knowledge self-study self-awareness self-inquiry one can use any of these words. And this is the fundamental requirement for anything practical in any spiritual teaching. However here is one of the tragedies you can look at the concordance of the whole of the Bible that gets promoted hundreds of entries under faith or belief a few entries under knowledge not a single entry under self-knowledge because that is not emphasized.

But you look at the writings or sayings of any of the Christian sages not only Christian any other sages from any tradition great deal of emphasis on self-knowledge or self-inquiry that is the fundamental requirement. And so we have for example in the Christian tradition this is a non-canonical gospel gospel of Thomas here Jesus said the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you when you come to know yourselves then you will be known and you will realize that it is you who are the children of the living father. The churches don't like that idea but if you will not know yourselves you live in poverty and you are the poverty I actually don't know a stronger statement anywhere than this is the gospel of Thomas a remark of Christ. And there is another non-canonical saying of Christ the kingdom of heaven is within you and whoever knows the self shall find it and having found it you shall know yourselves that you are the sons and heirs of the father the Almighty and shall know yourself that you are in God and God in you and you are the city of God another remark of Christ. So the whole idea of self-knowledge is very very much emphasized and since you folks are involved in the yoga here are the quotations from the yoga sutras.

First is from the second chapter first sutra the practice of yoga consists of self-discipline self-study and dedication to God self-study Swadhyaya it can be translated as self-knowledge or self-inquiry and again this is one of the niyamas also the niyamas are purity contentment self-discipline self-study and dedication so very much emphasized similarly in the Bhagavad Gita here is a remark of Krishna. First of all I should just take a moment here to mention one word in Sanskrit Yajja or pronounced Yajja which is really in fact almost any spiritual practice but its literal translation is sacrifice which is not wrong translation but it is slightly inadequate because what is involved very much here is Yajja requires an intervention of subtler or deeper or higher levels within oneself we call them bevas you can call them angels if you like but they are also inside us so unless something is coming from a deeper level in me it cannot be a Yajja but sacrifice is correct in the sense that I need to sacrifice my attachment to my usual level so the reason I'm mentioning this here because Krishna uses this remark or this word in this remark I'm just going to read there are some who practice Yajja by offering their material goods others who undertake austere efforts and practice of yoga as Yajja and for still others with serious vows Yajja consists of self-inquiry and sacred knowledge so these are all spiritual practices I can give charity or I can practice yoga in the sense of austere efforts hard work but as Krishna says for those who have serious vows for them it is Swadhyaya self-inquiry so you see all teachings very much emphasize the requirement of self-study self-inquiry and partly here this is something that needs to be understood and emphasized self-awareness and self-transformation are not two things because why one is undertaking this self-study to undergo transformation of this self and because the kind of knowing or awareness that is being emphasized is something that actually transforms the person in fact a very strong remark actually of Plotinus my favorite philosopher knowing and being is what he calls it are not two things there is a spiral nature to them if I know something it changes the quality of my being and then I wish to know more about something so spiral nature in fact this is true for development in any field not only in the spiritual matters if I am somewhat interested in mathematics so I try to study some more mathematics then I become more interested in it then I study more deeply some even more intricate books in mathematics so this is true everywhere that there is similarly if I practice some music and then that assists me to learn more music but then I wish to practice more as I learned so all development is spiral in nature it's never linear so self-awareness and self-transformation or to use Plotinus words knowing and being are not two things and again something that needs to be emphasized as strongly as I can people are always a bit surprised by this that self-awareness is the mechanism of transformation in fact there is no other mechanism I often ask people if they know any other mechanism of transformation please let me know because you see even for example I take an example a kid even at the age of seven or eight may be assaulted there are many such cases unfortunately and of course for survival we need certain kind of amnesia so the pit kid may even forget what happened but it stays in the psyche and it may be difficult even 40 years later for this person to have let us say a proper job or to even have a proper relationship with the opposite gender depending on the nature of the problem and if you then end up seeing a psychiatrist what does the psychiatrist do at best to make them feel easy or even to give them some medicine so that they can be more relaxed and can actually become aware of what took place until they become aware of what actually happened things are not changed awareness is the mechanism of transformation this is an important principle to keep in mind and as I have even said perhaps some of you heard me say this in another context if you pay attention to something the quality of that something changes we don't always use the word awareness sometimes we say if I perceive if I see clearly if I bring consciousness or if I pay attention so don't get stuck on just one expression here but the point really is if I am bringing some of my own attention as well as intention to pay attention to something the quality of that something changes this is actually one of the tragedies one can see I have known in my life only two really wealthy people billionaires and in both of their cases their children were having a lot of trouble they are very rich they can provide them the fenciest computers and cell phones but they have no time to pay any attention to them and I'm suggesting to you if you pay attention to anything the quality of that thing changes the quality of the kid if you have a kid or one experiment I have suggested to people they don't believe it so you'll have to try it if you like you can have two plants as close to each other as you can possibly manage and put one plant same amount of sunlight or manure or whatever is required but after you put it there you pay no attention to it the other plant same amount of sunlight same amount of water manure but then every day spend about five minutes standing in front of it just looking at it with affection if in three weeks you don't see the difference in the quality of those two plants I'll give you a ticket to come to Halifax to meet I guarantee it affects even at that level so you can certainly see at the level of if you pay attention to a cat or to a dog and even more so human beings any child in fact the very reason why I myself and perhaps some of you have been fortunate to meet some people who you really very much admire or appreciate why do we go to meet them it's not because what they are saying but because the way they look at you it changes the person who is being looked at I certainly mean I actually have occasionally even said even in writing that I met Krishnamurthy and Madam Risalsman so frequently I could almost complete their sentence what they were going to say but that's not the reason why one goes there too it's not that what they are saying sure that is important also but that's not the main thing it's their presence that has an effect on the person to whom they give any attention so awareness is the mechanism of transformation this is the point I'm really trying to make here and so to bring awareness to oneself impartially not to wish for this result or that result that actually already is not recommended by any of the teachers especially Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita spends a lot of time trying to say to be free of attachment to the fruits of your action one needs to undertake what needs to be undertaken whether it will succeed or fail depends on many factors including ultimately he says also on the devas the benediction of the devas so but we need to do our part here and this is a remark of the gospel of Philip very much related with it is impossible for anyone to see the everlasting reality and not become like it if you know the Christ you become the Christ that's here you have a slightly different way of expressing what I just tried to say that awareness brings about a transformation in the person who is aware as well as the person who is being aware of if somebody is being looked at and this is from a very old Upanishad Munda Kupanishad quite nice in Sanskrit Paramabrahma Veda Brahma Veda Bhavati one who knows Brahma which is the ultimate reality becomes Brahma so knowing and being are very intimately connected with each other I have to be at a certain level to know something but if I know it it changes the quality of the or the level of my being very much a spiral movement as I said earlier also it's not no development or no understanding is linear it's always spiral but then this is the danger of self-inquiry Rumi makes this remark if you have not yet seen the devil go look in the mirror whatever we understand by the devil is also in us as is the divine in fact slightly more perhaps slightly more comforting statement is of the Buddha in this very body you can discover all the demons and all the gods what is behind that is a very large principle that each human being is actually a hologram of the entire universe so that the whole entire if you like external universe in principle can be mirrored inside each one of us depends on the quality of our perception how deeply and clearly we see the whole universe can be mirrored inside us but if the whole universe can be mirrored why not the devil he's also in the universe so this remark of the Buddha for example you can discover all the demons and all the gods they're all there and here I first of all need to remind you because it's a very strong tendency especially in Christianity to say Jesus was the only son of God that's not what the Bible says here is a direct quote from the book of Job repeated twice first chapter sixth verse second chapter first verse there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord Satan also came among them he was also a son of God people don't like to acknowledge this but this is right in the book of Job you don't need to take my word for it and but this is if you have read the book of Job this is where then God says to Satan go test Job because Job is claiming to be a very devoted servant of God so the whole function of the devil is actually he's the examiner he's the head examiner so to be against the devil is a bad idea he'll flunk you no because he's the head examiner nobody can come to God or to enlightenment or whatever other words we want to use without being tested or verified by the devil you can look at any of the prophets so it is important to realize that to be against the devil is really not a good idea and I have here a very extraordinary painting by William Blake of Lucifer because Lucifer first of all let me take a moment here to remind you was the highest of all angels literally the word Lucifer means the light carrier or the light bearer and why was he expelled from heaven is prophet Isaiah is the only place in the book on Isaiah where it is mentioned specifically pride entered into him and he wished to be like the most high this is actually an important thing to realize in India for example some of you would know something in Indian mythology some of the great demonic figures like Ravan in the Ramayana was so highly learned that he's always shown with ten heads and most of these demonic figures are very exalted in many ways but then some one particular fall takes place usually pride more than anything else but it could be something else could be greed this is all the manifestation of the devil one should not so to say that we don't have the devil would be really amazing if the Buddha had all these things in fact this is a very standard remark of the Buddha last remark before his enlightenment saying to Mara which is the Buddhist equivalent of the devil Mara you are a part and parcel of myself but that doesn't mean that he's being driven by Mara but Mara is also a part of him and maybe I will come to this later on Christ actually said he was also being tempted by Satan nobody can come to God without being tempted by the Satan Satan or devil or Lucifer Beelzebub these become the various labels get all combined together in the Judeo-Christian tradition and what Christ said to the devil was get the behind me Satan to help behind from behind not just go away or go to hell or to die ego is a good servant but a bad master let me remind you again and again these people have a lot of energy all our devilish tendencies have a lot of energy after all devilish tendencies are acquisition determination hell with it I will conquer it I will stay there I am going to work hard all those are that's exactly what the devil does but also wanting this or that so here are these two remarks that I just mentioned you can see this is Christ in the Gospel of Luke 4th chapter get the behind me Satan not just disappear and the Buddha said Mara you are a part and parcel of myself it is very important to keep this in mind all our usual energies are coming from the ego and maybe I had mentioned this the other day let me just perhaps it's a repetition for some of you on one occasion I was particularly struck by my own vanity and also realizing that one wastes a lot of time and energy on it and that one doesn't gain very much from it so I asked my teacher Madame de Salsman how to get rid of this vanity and I was very surprised by her response this is what she said if you did not have vanity what will you do unless there is the real I there is only the ego so let it be one recognizes the presence of I from the fact that I wishes to serve ego does not wish to serve but until there is the I let the ego be it can be useful what else are you going to do when the eye appears the ego automatically loses energy and becomes unimportant it can still be there but it is not in control so it's this is something which is some very often forgotten maybe I tell you another personal incident in 2001 the International Theosophical Society they every six or seven years they have one international meeting so that year 2001 it was in Sydney Australia they had invited me to give a one hour lecture it takes me two days to get there two days to get back but one hour lecture for which I was so I in any case I had extended my stay for a few days to see something in Australia Samdhan Rinpoche some of you may know his name he was the Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile for eight years before that he was one of the really one of the teachers of the Dalai Lama and also head of the Sarnath Institute in Tibetan Studies a highly learned character in fact he did not want to be the Prime Minister he was as it were compelled by the Dalai Lama to become the Prime Minister he was the other person invited to give you one hour talk he came from India I came from Canada so after our talks they asked us to have a public discourse with each other and Joy Mills some of you would know she was she was the as it were the adjudicator or the moderator and so Samdhan Rinpoche made standard remark about needing to be free of the ego which is like also keep repeating every teacher says this but then I said to him that if I had not done a PhD and if I had not written some of these books do you think they would invite me here and then I was a little hesitant but I also said if you were not the Prime Minister do you think they would invite you here why be against the ego that does the PhD or does he writes these books obviously as you can well imagine there was stunned silence but after that he and I became very good friends by the way very good because he often realized obviousness of what I was saying in fact later on he even invited me as a state guest in Dharamsala which I can tell you is not an easy enterprise I say all kinds of meals all kinds of dancing and this and that going on all day long but the important point I'm trying to make that everything has its place including the devil including the ego and all of this is inside us to be free of something does not mean to be against that I have tried to say this more than once everything has its place if I wish to be free of something I need to see what is its right place and therefore it doesn't become the chief organizer of everything in me which is the reason we had this quotation from Adam DeSaulsman ego is a good servant but a bad master so who needs a servant who just wants to lie around doing nothing but if the servant begins to make all the decisions in the household then there is a problem so can one imagine that the Buddha can sit under the Bodhi tree for 49 days without strong determination in fact I occasionally remind people that the two practices that Patanjali very much emphasizes in the yoga sutras and Krishna does in the Bhagavad Gita as well which is Abhyas and Vairagya in Sanskrit that Abhyas simply means practice to staying in front and Vairagya means really detachment of non-identification but the first one practice requires the strong ego determination hard work willingness to try something to stay there Vairagya on the other hand is really freedom from oneself ultimately that's the higher Vairagya and which is what of course Christ is recommending freedom from oneself etc everybody's recommending that to have the Vairagya but how can one come to Vairagya without a strong ego I actually often say only those who have a strong ego can try to practice freedom from the ego just as only the rich can practice poverty the poor have no choice one needs to understand this I know it sounds sort of contradictory to some people but really which is another reason I often say especially to parents with young children don't interfere with their ego assertion this will destroy their self-confidence and even a linguistic change some of you may have heard me say that the Sanskrit word asmita which is the first klesha or the first hindrance is often translated as ego or a separate self my older brother who was actually a professor of Hindi literature himself a poet has published several books and he's now passed away he named his granddaughter asmita I was very surprised I was in Canada so I wrote this is much before emails so I wrote to him saying brother asmita is said to be the first hindrance to enlightenment why would you name your granddaughter asmita but you see the language has shifted in from Sanskrit to Hindi asmita became self-confidence that's why he named his granddaughter asmita so I mentioned this some of these things these changes actually take place maybe another simple reminder very relevant to the biblical tradition actually Socrates makes this remark no real philosophy can be undertaken except in a state of eros but by the time of the New Testament eros now simply means erotic love in Greek itself the language has shifted so other words are required agape or philia from which we got the word philadelphia which means the city of brotherly love more murders per year in Philadelphia than any other city but it's the city of brotherly love but the language shifts and one can actually get into trouble if one these days said philosophy can be done only in a state of eros which is what a boss tries to say to a young lady working in his office so similar shifts are there in Sanskrit as well and for example in the Theosophical literature if you're familiar with it eros is the first fohat absolutely responsible for the running of the cosmos actually but its contemporary meanings would be completely misunderstood so what is the as I just said that self-study is actually a very dangerous enterprise for two reasons one is it can lead to despair the other is it can lead to fantasy I am the son of God I have been asked to kill the infidels you know we have many cases of this in history or the other is that I alone am driven by jealousy or greed or fear that is another danger because we take things too personally I say after all how does the devil manifest in me these are the very tendencies of the devil more and more ego centeredness what do I get out of this I am the number one or how do I become number one jealousy greed here it is useful to recall when the Buddha is sitting under the Bodhi tree he is naturally tested by the devil Mara what are the tests and I can guarantee if the Buddha is tested we'll all be tested they need big devils we need only little devils first test is Mara sends his own daughters to seduce him sometimes it is said three daughters sometimes seven daughters but even one will do so that's who is free of this bodily pleasures generally but in this case it is senses the other thing he says I will turn this mountain into a mountain of gold I'm afraid in my case with just one million dollars will do don't need a mountain of gold but each one of us needs to be sincerely looking at ourselves are we free of this so that doesn't work then he says I will give you sovereignty over the whole world power wealth pleasure these are the test these are exactly the test by the way of Christ by the devil except they don't mention sex because they are Christians other things are mentioned it's quite interesting to see how can one actually be free of this but then that doesn't work then Mara senses armies to try to kill him so desire and fear these are the two in a way two words can get used traditionally but they have a lot of meaning what kind of desire there is all sorts of desire desire for wealth for pleasure for comfort for power in fact some of the feminist theologians about 20 odd years ago used to say that these are all really combined with each other they are not so separate in fact in many many cases of cases of rape sexual pleasure is not the issue it is often to do with power so these things are not so separated from each other but in order to more or less to illustrate it they are separated just to enlarge the idea so Mara has all of these three things he tries and fear is the other side so desire and fear that the whole world is being run by desire and fear a remark of Christ the world is in the sway of the prince of darkness we don't need to just believe this we can now look at let us say four or five major important leaders in the world running the whole world in the USA you have Trump in Russia we have Putin in China we have Chi in Britain we have Johnson in India we have Modi if you put the population of these five countries that's more than half the population of the world and if you put their armies together that will be more than 90% of all armed forces in the world and if you put their wealth together that will be close to about 80% or slightly more than that of the entire wealth in the world and do you think these people are being driven by anything other than fear and desire so to imagine that these forces are they don't apply to us or don't apply to our country or our culture is completely crazy I think one just needs to do the whole world is being driven by fear and desire this is why the remark of Christ that the whole world is in the sway of the prince of darkness which is why he repeatedly made this remark my kingdom is not of this world he's not against this world he actually even another of his remarks is given to Caesar what is Caesar's but my kingdom is not of this world this is also the reason why in any spiritual teaching what is very much emphasized is a community of fellow searchers because we all have a tendency to take things very personally as if I alone am driven by fear or desire but in a community of fellow searchers one discovers not to take it so personally this is why so much emphasis in any monastery whether Christian or Buddhist or Hindu the monks or the nuns are not allowed to be solitary to begin with precisely because as it were the solitary monk is much more troubled by the devil than in the community of monks and then occasionally somebody as it were graduates and they can be solitary monk which is one of the reasons why the monasteries ancient traditional monasteries are never on the top of the mountain partly for the sake of the water but also the solitary monk can then go up these monasteries will be halfway up the mountain or three-quarters of the way up the mountain like on Mount Athos or anywhere else if you look at any traditional monastery and then the mother monastery as it were takes care of the solitary monk there can be wild animals or he may get sick or be beaten by a snake these days the mother monastery also takes care of the tourists because as so tourism has become very common and very popular people just going from one monastery to another just tourism rather sad many monasteries are no longer actually able to maintain anything simply because it and in fact I have spent a fair amount of time in various monasteries some of the monks are running around with cell phones because monasteries are quite large we have to take care of it so this is the reason why the community of fellow searchers is very highly recommended and then of course much of the time you are not in the community so you're also alone but it is supported by the community which is some of you I'm sure have heard in Buddhism particularly emphasize this emphasized in Christianity as well ecclesia literally meant actually the it's not doesn't mean the church it actually means the community of believers ecclesia and in Buddhism it's a very standard remark buddham sharanam gachami dhammam sharanam gachami sangham sharanam gachami I take refuge in the Buddha I take refuge in the teaching of the Buddha which is called dharma in Sanskrit because dharma in Pali sangham means community I take refuge in the community so these three are more or less equally acknowledged as being important the Buddha himself in his teaching and the community of searchers and partly because as I said it is very tempting to imagine that I alone feel this I alone am subject to these demonic tendencies or devilish tendencies whereas theoretically one can understand that the whole external universe is actually mirrored inside me so why won't all the gods and all the demons are there and but always this tendency to take things very personally so I alone am subjected to this and the other is the fantasy that I have been specially chosen a group can make sure that you don't get carried away with that so I think it's very important to realize these first of all that these two natures in us various times I have mentioned they are different labels just for simplicity the spiritual nature and the bodily nature or the carnal nature and they have tendencies in two opposite sides which is why for example Patanjali in the yoga sutra speaks about parivartana parinivrata which is counter flow and one needs to have the counter flow of the usual tendencies moving in India one would say one is called pravriti which means going outside the other is called nivriti going inside I suppose in the Judeo-Christian context one would say one is going upwards the other is going downwards but those are different metaphors or different ways of expressing but the idea is that these two tendencies or their calls are in different directions in opposite directions and the call very much is not to be against the worldly tendency but to find the right order specially I was this was one of the things which very much interested me in the teaching of Guruji as I have already mentioned to you madam Dusasman who was the inheritor really of Guruji teaching that ego also has its place the wolf is also required to be taken care of not only the lamb and so because it's the wolf who is involved in the world so we need to take care of the world and that requires all these egotism striking struggling fighting conquering all that but yet my kingdom is not of this world as Christ reminds us but we want to Caesar what is Caesar's so I have two small

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