It is a great privilege for me to write a few lines about the book-let "Spiritual Journey in September" which contains excerpts from the book "The Universality of Being" by H.H. Sri Swami Krishnanandaji Maharaj of The Divine Life Society, Rishikesh. I am fortunate to read almost all the books of Revered Swamiji. Any reader of these books comes out with the Highest Knowledge of Reality, which leads him stage by stage to Samadhi, eventually to God-Realisation. This is particularly true with the book "The Universality of Being". Sri U. Narayana Rao who has brought out the present booklet, selected the salient sentence as the heading for the excerpts, such as "There is nothing in this world which cannot bless you.," "Anything that you want is everywhere.," "Why do I enter the bosom of the Absolute? "etc. The headings themselves attract the readers who open the booklet, and make them read. This is exactly the aim of the compiler of the booklet — his main intention is to introduce the great spiritual literature of Revered Swamiji to readers. Understanding the facts in these books and applying them to one's own perception results in Self-realisaion, liberation, moksha.

By reading the book, we learn Yoga in a Yogic way and not as an activity. There are two doctors with similar medical degrees, while the second among the two has kindness, compassion and patience in addition to his degrees. We can compare the first one to an Yogi, while the second one is also a Yogi with Yogic way of thinking. That is what is The Universality of Being.

I am really fortunate to have Swami Krishnanandaji, a real gem of Sivanandashram, Rishikesh, as my Spiritual preceptor. My congratulations to Sri U. Narayana Rao for his efforts in preparing this booklet. May all the readers of this booklet be blessed with good health, happiness and Bliss by Almighty God and Gurudev is my earnest prayer.

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih.

Dt. 8.9.2020 --P. Somasankara Rao

FOREWORD

Wolfgang & Marie-Louise Seitz,

Germany, D-78658 Zimmern,

11th of March, 2019.

By the Grace of the Lord, we could spend as spiritual seekers from Germany by permission of H.H. Sri Swami Krishnanandaji Maharaj in the years from 1985 -1997 longer periods of time in Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh.

Our intention was not going from one place to another, but staying firmly at one holy place for studying life and teachings there. Because of strong wish for studying Sanskrit, Marie-Louise soon came into con-tact with H.H. Sri Swami Hamsanandaji Maharaj, the post-master of Sivananda Ashram.

So, further on the post office was the place for studying Sanskrit, for assisting Swamiji with mail-work, for calm meditation and for enjoying the tea-time at afternoon, before participation in Kirtan and Ganga-Arati at Sivananda-Kutir.

Foreigners and Indian guests ever was very busy going to the Darshan of H.H. Sri Swami Krishnanandaji Maharaj for listening his inspiring lectures, mostly spoken in perfect English language, and for calm meditation. Every time was a tremendous experience to hear, what never was heard before; to understand, what never could understand before and to feel, what never was felt before, peace and bliss!

Swamiji could answer all questions of any person from all around the world in a manner, either satisfying the asking person totally or irritating, because of touching any internal resistances in the mind. To experience such an spiritual valcano, who did not destroy anybody with his ashes but did ignite the inner fire of man's soul - all that is possible only by the Grace of Lord in the form of the Guru. Sri Swami Krishnanandaji's teachings will be timeless guilty, because of the authenticity of both - the teacher himself and his teachings. If both become one in life, there is real peace and bliss!

May the Almighty Lord be ever with those, who read, practice and realize these monthly instructions of H.H. Sri Swami Krishnanandaji Maharaj?

Om Tat Sat.

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih -Wolfgang & Marie-Louise Seitz

Om Namo Bhagavate Krishnanandaya

PREFACE

H.H. Sri Swami Krishnanandaji, who was one of the greatest saints of Sivanandashram in Rishikesh, needs no introduction to the spiritual world. When any devotee happens to go through a book of him, he comes out burnt and burnished, beautified and purified, be-cause of a very graduated purificatory process which one undergoes in one's emotions and understandings. The original book "The Universality of Being" by H. H. Sri Swami Krishnanandaji is a compilation of discourses delivered by the author in the Ashram's Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy during March and April, 1996. The present book, "Spiritual Journey in September" by name, contains excerpts from this original book. This book would be useful to those readers who couldn't find sufficient time to read (original) big books, but have a strong wish to taste at least some sentences of Revered Swamiji Maharaj. I am conscious of the fact that the abridged explanations in these excerpts may somehow hamper the powerful flow of disquisitions by the great saint; but my intention in preparing these excerpts is only to introduce to the readers the spiritual expositions of the great saint, so that the interested readers would go in for the original volume and derive much benefit. Swami Hamsanandaji of Sivanandashram has given me a good opportunity to prepare this book for distribution as Jnana Prasad on the auspicious 19h Punya Tithi Aradhana of H.H.Sri Swami Krishnanandaji Maharaj on 22-11-2020 (Gopashtami)

This book can be used by the Sadhaks for Swadhyaaya at any time (not only in the month specified). I profusely thank Wolfgang & Marie-Louise Seitz, Germany, Sri Pochiraju Somasankara Rao of B. Doddavaram village in Andhra Pradesh for offering valuable Forewords for this book. Abundant bene-dictions would be showered by Revered Swamiji upon all the readers with Infinite wisdom and peace for their effort they put in reading this book patiently.

Om Shantih Shantih Shantih

Razole,

Date: 8.9.2020 Yours,

In the Service of Gurudev,

-U. NARAYANA RAO.

1. THE VERY STUFF OF THE WORLD IS THE STUFF OF YOUR PERSONALITY.

Take a little time to think whether you belong to this world or you are a totally independent person with the freedom to do whatever you like. Have you any obligation to this world so that you may expect an obligation from the world in respect of you? Why should you expect any gifts from the world if you cannot give any-thing to the world? The process of life is a phenomenon of interrelationship, cooperative living —a give-and-take policy, we may say—so that everyone is related to everything in this world. Philosophers tell us that our physical body is made up of the substance of nature. You think that nature is outside you, and you are totally outside it. This is not so. The very building bricks of your personality are the substance of the world outside. The physicality of your body is the earth principle. The air that you breathe is the very same air that is in the world outside. The liquid content in your personality and in your body is the very same as the water principle outside. The heat in your body is the same as the fire principle outside. There is also space inside your body; you are not a compact indivisible rock. That space is the same as the space that is outside. The space that is out-side, the air that is outside, the heat that is outside, the water that is outside, the earth that is outside, are the substances out of which you are made If you analyse this situation, you will wonder how you are really different from the world. The very stuff of the world is the stuff of your personality. The world is not merely touching you, it is you. When I utter this sentence, I have introduced you into the methodology of yoga practice. I have spoken simple sentences without any kind of technicality about them, but if you have appreciated the meaning and implication of what I spoke, you are certainly in a position to appreciate that you are a world individual. What a joy to feel like that! "How happy I am to be a world individual, and not a tiny tot helplessly walking on the road. Is it so that the whole world is structured in my being? What a wonder! If that is the case, the world will give to me everything that it has!"

2. THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS WORLD WHICH CANNOT BLESS YOU.

The mind is not your prerogative. Your mind is not your property, as you wrongly consider it to be. Your body is not your property; it belongs to the whole world. And your social existence is not your property; you belong to the entire society of humanity. There is a contributory, cooperative activity going on in the mental structure of every living being. Minds act and react. Biological re-searchers have demonstrated that if you think something about the tree in front of you, it will know what you are thinking. If you say. "Tomorrow we will cut this tree," it will immediately vibrate at your nearness. It will shake because you said you are going to cut it. The leaves will tremble; they will shrivel, agitate, and will resent your very presence. On the other hand, you could say, "How beautiful is this tree! How beautifully the foliage is spreading around! How beautiful are the flowers! What nice fruit! Beautiful thou art, this magnificent banyan tree in front of me. I love you. You give shade to all people. You give fruit. You give oxygen to me during the daytime. I am grateful." If you tell this to a tree, it will bless you. There is nothing in this world which cannot bless you. Even a n ant can bless you. Incidentally, there is a passage in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad which says: "Those whom you take care of, they will take care of you." You may wonder how an ant will take care of you. Remember, there are no ants in this world; they are integral parts of the cosmical setup. Even an atom will take care of you. You will laugh at this idea. Your body is made up of the very same atomic core which makes up the ant, the tree, the protoplasm. The bloodstream, everything. There is a vital connection with the core of all things in the world. They act and react. There was an Englishman who walked in the sunlight and got sunstroke. He thought about it. "Why is the sun so cruel to me? He is a god, giving light and life and energy to all people. God of the universe, bless me!" From the next day onwards, he collected beautiful flowers, brought some holy water, stood before the rising sun and said, "Great Lord, bless me. I offer thee these humble flowers and this holy water. You are the life of all life. You are the most beautiful thing I can imagine. Representative of God, 1 beseech you, bless me." From the core of his heart he developed a religious feeling towards the sun, and then he could stand in it the whole day without getting sun-stroke. In a similar manner, we must develop knowledge of the psychology of all living beings.

3. PEOPLE MAKE A DISTINCTION BE-TWEEN REALITY AND APPEARANCE.

What is the difference between things as it is in itself, and as it appears to us? There is a great difference. People make a distinction between reality and appearance. Perhaps an analogy may be more clarifying. At dusk you see something coiled up, and because there is not enough light to see what it actually is, you may mistake it for a snake and jump over it in fear. Even if you shine a torch on it and find it is only a rope, it will still look like a coiled -up serpent. What is the relationship between the rope and the snake? Or is th ere no relationship? You will agree that the rope is the reality, and the snake is the appearance. Did the appearance come from reality? If you accept that position, it would mean that the snake has come from the rope. But how can a snake come from a rope? If the snake has not come from the rope, will you agree that the snake is itself the rope? Then accepting that it is the rope, there is no necessity for you to jump over it in a state of fear. The rope has not produced the snake; the snake is not a modification of the rope. There is no creator-created relationship between the rope and the snake, yet there is some relationship from the point of view of common sense because they seem to be two different things. The snake is not the rope and the rope is not t he snake, and yet the rope is the snake and the snake is the rope. This is a transcendental enigma before us which is involved in every kind of perception in the world. This also answers the question whether God has created the world. It is like the question whether the rope has created the snake. We may say the rope has created the snake because the snake is seen in it, just as we see the world and, therefore, there must be a creator of it. We are afraid of the world just as we are afraid of the snake. Who created this thing, this world? An indescribable situation is before us. This situation arises on account of our adopting the system of looking at things through the sense organs. There are eyes which see, ears which hear, and so on. The way of perception—of beholding any-thing through the sense organs—involves a peculiar charging of the sense organs with consciousness, as an iron rod may be charged with fire when it is red hot. And the impelling character of the sense organs, motivated by the externality of perception, compels the consciousness to get dragged outwardly, as it were, external to its own self. Consciousness cannot become outside itself, because it has no externality or internality.

4. THE SELF LOSES ITSELF IN THE ACT OF PERCEPTION

Why does the object appear to be outside? That happens because there is a power in the structure of the sense organs which pulls everything externally, draws sustenance from its own source, or cause, and throws that power of sustenance externally on that thing which appears to be an object in front of it. that is the reason why everything looks as if it is outside us .it is an erroneous activity of the sense organs, which are perpetually involved in a centrifugal activity, we may say, which urges a thing to run away from the center to the periphery or the circumference .the impulsion of any –thing that urges itself to rush outward from the center to the external periphery of its existence is called centrifugal, and a force that rushes from outside towards toward the center is called centripetal. Instead of being our own selves through the centripetal action of consciousness trying to maintain its self identity, the sense organs condemn consciousness to subject itself to a centrifugal action of running away from its own centre to the outer space time periphery of life. Thus, in every act of perception we cease to be ourselves, and we become another thing. What can be a greater tragedy for a person than not to be one’s own self? What can be a greater difficulty and problem? This is the reason why there is sorrow hidden behind every act of perception. By running after the object of our sensory perception, we lose our energy, the consciousness force, in proportion to the intensity of our longing for the object. We become weaker and weaker, mentally and physically, the more we long to contact that which seems to be outside us. A sensuous person is a weak person, morally, intellectually, and physically, he will fall sick socially, physically, and mentally, the reason is, the Self loses itself in the act of perception.

5. PERCEPTION IS OF TWO TYPES ORDINARY PERCEPTION AND EMOTIONAL PERCEPTION

According to the psychology of yoga, perception is of two types: ordinary perception and emotional perception. We see so many things around us. There is the sun, the moon and the stars, trees in the forest, mountains, rivers, etc. This is general perception. By beholding the sun or mountains and rivers, we are not emotionally disturbed in any way. Yet even in this undisturbed perception, consciousness moves outside to the object. Even in that general perception which is not emotionally conditioned, our energy moves out and we see ourselves outside, as we see ourselves outside in the mirror which reflects our face. Similarly, perception of the world is like the perception of ourselves through our reflection in a mirror. Some activity of the externalising of consciousness takes place; otherwise, we will not see anything outside. But there is a more dangerous activity of the sense organs, which is emotional perception. When we behold a thing, we are disturbed by intense longing or intense hatred for it. This is another result altogether of perception. These two kinds of mental modifications are called psychoses: one which in a normal way opens a passage of consciousness to its own externality, and the other which is irritating in its nature. It disturbs us, and we cannot have rest. A desire for wealth disturbs the mind, and a tiger in front of us will disturb our mind in a different way. Whether it is a generally perceived externality of consciousness or a disturbed process of the externality of consciousness, one thing is common to both processes of perception, namely, we go out of ourselves. Would you like to go out of yourself and become something else, and temporarily cease to be yourself? Immediately a shock is injected into your personality while seeing something which you want and seeing another thing which you do not want. You are pulled outside towards that thing which you want or do not want. For the time being you are elsewhere; you are not in yourself. This is mental sickness. Lovers can go mad, and criminals can also go mad because of the intensity of the externalising activity of the consciousness operating through the sense organs. You know now in what kind of world you are living. Is it a blissful world? Are you in heaven, or are you in a concentration camp where you are brainwashed to believe something which is totally erroneous, out of context? Yoga is the process of an active withdrawal of consciousness from its externalising process, and allowing it to rest in itself so that it sees things as they are, and not as they appear through the media of the sense organs.

6. THAT WHICH IS EVERYWHERE CAN-NOT BE SEEN AS SOMETHING OUTSIDE.

There are two types of withdrawal of consciousness from this process of its externalisation. The first step to be taken is to free oneself from the emotional turmoil involved in the perception of things, positively or negatively. The second step is to free oneself from even being conscious that there is anything outside at all. In yoga psychology, technical terms are used to characterise these two types of psychoses. The painful, emotional modification of the mind is called klishta vritti. Klishta means painful, agonising, sorrow-giving. Vritti is a mental modification. There is another modification which is known as aklishta vritti. Aklishta means non-painful, but it is still a modification of the mind, such as the modification taking place in the mind when we look at a tree in front of us. It does not matter to us whether the tree is there or not, but yet the consciousness of the fact of its being there is immediately an indication that our mind has moved outside. Though it is not causing any agony, still it has moved. That kind of movement should also cease because the Self is not an external object. God is not outside somewhere. The Absolute is everywhere, and that which is everywhere cannot be seen as something outside. Here is the whole secret behind the foundation of yoga psychology. Self -restraint is the way by which you restrain consciousness from moving outside itself, and station it in itself. When you behold things in a dream, you are apparently outside your own self. You see a mountain in a dream, but the mountain is inside you only. You present yourself as an external world in the dream state. This is exactly what is happening in the waking condition also. Just as an individual mind in the waking state projects itself outwardly in a manufactured space-time process as the world before it, the universal mind projects itself as all the individuals, such as us here, and here is space-time and the world before us. As we see people in dream, the cosmic mind sees people such as our-selves. Just as the individuals, the people we see in dream are within the waking mind, so all of us are within the cosmic mind.

7. THE SENSES ARE NOT ALL-PERVADING; THEY HAVE SOME LIMITED APERTURES.

All problems arise from the unavoidable phenomenon called perception of an object. Generally, we usually consider the object as totally different in its nature from our faculty of perception. In order that the existence of an object be known, there must be a knowing principle. If everything is an object, and there is nothing other than the object anywhere, there would be nobody to know that the object exists at all. Matter cannot know itself because matter is bereft of consciousness. Matter is everywhere, and the result is that consciousness must also be everywhere. Since two everywhere is not conceivable because two infinities would overlap each other, and such a thing is inconceivable and not possible, th is assumption also falls flat. Is matter knowing itself in the form of consciousness when there is perception or knowledge of an object? Strange would be this conclusion that matter has to know itself by means of that which is supposed to be its product. Nothing can be more absurd than this proposition. The knower cannot be identified with that which is known. If we attempt to identify the knower with the known object, either the knower would become the object or the object would become the knower. Either way, there would be a very fantastic conclusion, beyond what we actually expected at the beginning of our inquiry. Yoga takes its stand on this great problem before us—the perceptional problem. The insistence of the sense organs and the mind, which always works in terms of the sense organs that everything is outside, has created the difficulty, which usually looks insurmountable. Consciousness becomes aware of an object, which is nothing but a form. The senses are not all-pervading; they have some limited apertures through which consciousness moves outside in a five-fold form —seeing, hearing, etc. Hence, common perception contradicts the facts as such. Consciousness is agitated always because while it is truly universal, it looks as if it is limited within the body. It is like a prisoner in a jail which resents its location within the ramparts of the jail. It wants to break the walls of the prison and go outside. It is trying to do this adventure by moving out of itself into a world of space and time, which is considered to be totally outside, and by a psychosis, a modification of the mind, it touches the form which it has assumed to be totally outside it.

8. ANYTHING THAT YOU WANT EVERYWHERE.

We think we are happy by looking at an object, but it is not so. This so-called happiness which apparently arises when the assumed consciousness comes in contact with an object is a tremendous illusion presented before the whole process in this manner which I am describing to you. Consciousness is agitated always because while it is truly universal, it looks as if it is limited within the body. It is like a prisoner in a jail which resents its location within the ramparts of the jail. It wants to break the walls of the prison and go outside. It is trying to do this adventure by moving out of itself into a world of space and time, which is considered to be totally outside, and by a psychosis, a modification of the mind, it touches the form which it has assumed to be totally outside it. The so-called happiness of the imagined contact of consciousness with the object is totally unconvincing and absurd, and so we may say that all joys of the world are the result of a tremendous illusion that is cast before the sense organs. Great saints have said that the world is like a madhouse where there is a crazy continuous effort of the individual to break its boundaries by the erroneous effort of contacting something else, by which means it imagines that it can expand its boundaries. Contact is not the way that the dimension of consciousness expands because contact of two things is not possible; they always remain apart. Since all the efforts of life in imagining that some joy will come from earthly existence become futile, and will go to dust one day or the other, all happiness in this world eventually becomes the dust of the earth. As we do not want to die in that miserable condition we are trying to see that our mind is set in tune with the facts of nature, which is possible only if the senses do not insist on externalising the object, making the mind believe that the world is outside. The world is not outside. What you want is not external in space and time. What you want, the so -called thing or object is everywhere. Anything that you want is everywhere. All things are everywhere, and they are at all times. That which is everywhere is also at all times and, therefore. You can realise your aspiration to fulfil the I onging. For all-pervaingness at any time, and at any place. There is no space, time and condition that limits this process. Here we are actually at the gates of spiritual practice.

9. THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS NOT OUTSIDE THE COSMIC MIND.

All that happens in this world is actually a cosmic dream, and whatever we experience in this world, in any manner whatsoever, is exactly comparable to the process of perception in the individual's dream perception. The difference is that one is cosmic and the other is individual, but the process of perception is the same. In order that we may not be entangled in this wrong perception of externality in our daily life, we must enter into the bosom of the cosmic mind. Just as the waking mind is pervading ever ything in the dream world, the cosmic mind is pervading everything in our waking life. So who is seeing the world? The answer comes from the dream perception it-self. Who is seeing the dream world? The comprehensive waking consciousness erroneously projects itself as an external world, and sees itself as an outward total. This is also the case with the cosmic mind. It is a universally operative total whole manifesting itself, as it were. Comparable to the dream experience, in the form of this world which app ears outside. Just as the dream world is not outside the waking consciousness, the whole universe is not outside the cosmic mind. As we are included in the operations of this cosmic conscious-ness, the universal mind, the world that we behold before us is not actually beheld by Mr. Soandso, Mrs. So-and-so, this person, that person; it is beheld by the all-pervading mind. Suffice it to say, God sees the world —not you, not me. But the ego, the affirming principle in each individual, refutes this possibility of a universal mind seeing everything everywhere, and like a crazy, isolated, cut -off individual, hangs in a very precarious manner in its individual cocoon of existence, and obtains nothing—because whatever there is, that something is not capable of contact by perception. All things being involved in the cosmic mind, contact is not possible, and even perception is not possible. There is no such thing as perception of an object; it is an experience of a total involvement of self -awareness in an al I pervading manner. This attitude of the establishment of conscious-ness in itself is the goal of yoga.

10. YOU SHOULD NOT TAKE YOGA PRACTICE AS A KIND OF TEMPORARY EXERCISE.

There is a clash between the transcendent and the empirical, the real and the unreal, the Absolute and the relative, God and the world, you and somebody else. This conflict is perpetual. We ma y say it is actually the great war of the Mahabharata or the Ramayana—the war of consciousness against the object that it sees and wants to absorb into itself. The victory of consciousness here is the abolition not of the object, but of the objectivity of the object. The renunciation we speak of in spiritual life is not the abandoning of the object, but the wrong notion that it is outside. You cannot abandon the object. It is there. Even if you say you have renounced the objects of the world, the objects are there, and they cannot go away from your consciousness. Even if that which you clung to is thou-sands of miles away from you, you cannot say that you have renounced it, because it is there. That which is really there cannot be renounced. The only thing that is possible, and it is necessary, is the renunciation of the mode of perceiving the object. The externality of the object is renounced, not the object as such. When the externality of the object is renounced, the object becomes the subject. The world becomes yourself. Towards this end, self-restraint is to be attempted in all its methods. It is not a single effort. The senses are very violent; they refuse to subjugate them-selves to your efforts. Like a gust of wind or a tornado that blows in one direction or a blast which cannot be resisted by the efforts of your hands and feet, so is the outward rushing of consciousness through the sense organs like a river in flood that refuses to be retarded by a bund or by any other means. Months and months, and years of effort are necessary. You should not take yoga practice as a kind of temporary exercise, like a schoolboy education which stops after some time and then you call yourself educated. This education will not stop at any time. It is eternity operating through eternity. The finite that everyone and everything is wishes to maintain its finitude. Even an ant does not want to perish as a finite ant. Even a sick man does not want to die. A poor man would like to continue, and even in his poverty he does not wish to perish. The desire for an imperishable continuance of oneself is the action of an infinite operating behind all finite actions and experiences.

11. “WHEN I AM HERE, YOU NEED NOT FEAR. BUT BE WITH ME.”

We belong to two worlds together: the empirical world of space ad time, and the eternal world of the transcendent Absolute. We are pulled simultaneously from two different directions. The world of empirical perception, motivated by the power of the sense organs, drags us out of ourselves, and we always want to see that which is outside us. But, at the same time, the perishable nature of this perception reminds us that this is not going to be a worthwhile exercise because even if we obtain the whole world of contact it will perish, and nothing will remain. Nobody wants to perish. The imperishable aspiration collides with the perishable nature of things, so we are partially lovers of an eternal life and partially involved in sense activity and conf lict of every kind. This conflict has to be eradicated by introducing an element of infinity into every thought that arises in our mind every, work that we do, and every word that we speak. This is what is called karma yoga. Action charged with the character of infinity becomes karma yoga, whereas action which is purely material and finite, arising from t motivations of the sense organs is finite. The whole of the Bhagavadgita is simply this much. Cosmic action has no object outside itself. Therefore, one who works like a cosmic person in the form of the true karma yoga of the Gita will never suffer reaction and rebirth, whereas if it is you that are doing something outside you, totally unconnected with your mode of action, it will react. Actually, what is called the reaction of karma is nothing but the infinite kicking you back for the wrong attitude that you developed towards it. Here is a philosophy, a philosophy and a mode of practice, all which is yoga. All yoga is eternity operating through every one of us. It is going to be perfectly successful, and you need not have even the least doubt that you will be benefitted by it because the whole of eternity —that is what is called God or the Absolute—is behind you, i propelling you. "I am here; therefore, you need not f ear." This is the Supreme Absolute speaking to you. "When I am here, you need not fear. But be with me." "Come unto me all those that are weary and heavy laden, and I shall see that you are perpetually guarded." The Absolute perpetually guards you —not tomorrow, but always. It is not like a boss who says, "Let me see after two days." An immediate i action takes place. Because the Absolute is timeless and spaceless, it is just now and here.

12. THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS A CONCRETISED FORM OF SPATIOTEMPORAL OBJECTS.

Let the chant of Om be a musical performance on your part. It is not merely music in the ordinary audible sense; it is a vibration that you are creating. The whole world is nothing but vibration. The so-called solidity of things is a condensation of impersonal vibrations in space and time. This body of yours that looks so hard and rigid is actually a condensed rock-like form, as it were, of a ubiquitous all -pervading liquid universal force, so that you are a centre of force in an internal communion with all things in the world. Nothing is outside you, and the vibratory chant of Om enables you to reduce your so-called solidity of personal existence into a point of vibratory centre which, when liquefied, as it were, comes in contact with all other things, which are also of the same nature. You enter into a sea of power, an ocean of force, a cosmic vibration which, perhaps, is the beginning of the universe. In the beginning, there was a tremendous Om. We do not know what kind of Om it was, but it broke the barriers of limitation, spread itself continuously through all space and time, and manifested itself in every nook and corner, in every form that you can conceive in your mind. The whole universe is a concretised form of spatiotemporal objects. It has to be me lied down, back to its own source. Do not imagine that you are far away from this centre. The centre is here, within you—here just now. There is no distance between the universal centre and your existence here. There is no such thing as distance at all. It does not exist. Everything touches everything else. This possibility should be introduced into your mind by a deep chanting of Om. Do it every day. Close your doors, sit alone for one hour, chant Om, and feel that you are melting into the all pervading force of nature—which is not only your friend, your parent, but your own very, very beloved substance of which you are made. You will feel you are everywhere at that time, and nothing can give you a greater joy than this kind of feeling by merely chanting Om properly, once, twice or three times daily. All your activities and performances will become galvanised into a golden form. This recitation, this concentration, this satisfaction will act like a philosopher's stone that converts all iron into gold, so that you live in joy, perceive joy, contact joy, and you are in a deep bliss of self-complete perfection. Even in this first stage you will feel this.

13. HUMANITY IS AN ORGANIC INTEGRALITY.

There are seven gatekeepers to the palace of the absolute, and they will prevent your entry. These gatekeepers are actually taxation officers. There are seven kinds of tax you have to pay before you are allowed entry into that great magnificence. The moment you take a step in the direction of this great attainment, you will be stopped at the first gate and told to pay your dues. The first dues—the types of obligation which you have to discharge—are the impulses arising from within yourself in connection with your social relations. There is nothing wrong with society and there is nothing wrong with people, but, generally speaking, something is not all right with your attitude to people. Any attitude you have within yourself has to be accepted by the law of the Absolute, so you cannot just go ahead with your whims and fantasies. Everyone is involved in society. There is a give-and-take arrangement between one person and another person. Whatever you are obliged to give to society for the extent of service it has rendered to you, that obligation has to be dis-charged. If you have taken nothing, you need not give anything. There should not be a feeling pinching you that some obligation has not been discharged. A harmonious relationship between yourself and the atmosphere of society has to be carefully attempted—slowly, not abruptly by taking a sudden step. The process of yoga practice is a gradual, wholesome growth from lesser maturity to higher maturity, as a baby grows into an adult. The baby does not suddenly jump into adulthood; it is a systematic, organic, wholesome, complete, mature developmental process into the adult condition. In a similar manner is the whole practice of the limbs of yoga. There is no jump. Some say that there is a ladder of ascent in yoga, which gives the impression that there are rungs, one different from the other—or rather, one unconnected to the others. But here, each rung is organically related to the others. It is not like a ladder that is used to climb to the top of a building, where one rung is not organically connected with an-other. Here the rungs are vitally connected, and any error at the base will affect the further rungs. So tell the gatekeeper, "I have no misgivings about human relations, and people have no misgivings about me." In the Bhagavadgita there is a brief statement about it: "You should not behave in such a way that people shrink away from you, nor it or should you shrink away from them." This is a harmonious relationship of the so-called external atmosphere—so-called, because it is really not external.

14. NOBODY CAN OWN ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD BECAUSE THINGS ARE EXTERNAL.

The second gatekeeper stops you. All your material entanglements should also be dealt with properly. You cling to money, you cling to property, you cling to your house, and to all the economic values connected with your existence. Will you lose all your property and then go to the Absolute? The heart will rebel against this proposal. The things outside are not a difficulty. When you go inside yourself, it is a terror. When you leave this body, what happens to your property? Property is not a problem. The wealth that is given to you, the property that is bestowed upon you, have to be managed as if you are a trustee—a caretaker, and not a possessor. It is the possessorship that creates the problem within you because if you are a possessor, you cannot leave it. But if you are a trustee, you have a great responsibility over it but you are not the possessor of it, so if you get transferred to another place you will lose nothing. Nobody can own anything in this world because things are external. What is called property is external. It is not inside your body and, therefore, it cannot be held in the grip of your hand. Anything outside is not your property; and as all property is outside, nothing belongs to you. These taxation officers do not expect anything from you materially. They expect a transformation of your evaluation of things. Your problem is an evaluation—a mental operation—and not the thing as such. No thing can trouble you; it is your evaluation of things that troubles you. Here is a person. This person can be considered as many things: your father, your boss, or you can consider the very same person as your servant. You may consider that person as a friend or as an opponent. Now, has the person become so many things in one minute? He is the same person, but your relationship has interpreted him in various ways. It is this interpretation that will cling to you and bite you like a scorpion if you try to move forward without making amends for these attitudes. All problems are inside you. Your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions are the problems. Do not make complaints against the trees and the mountains, the sun and the stars, and so on. This adjustment to the concept of position, property, belonging, house, relation, etc.—this trans-valuation of the values of this kind of relationship that you have with property should be modified into an integral concept. When you are given a clean chit, you enter through that gate.

15. SEX IS NOT MERELY A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN.

The third gatekeeper stops you. These are the vital longings of your personality. Your Pranas urge you in the direction of a kind of satisfaction. The vital longings are the intense desire to live only in this body and not bother about any other body. You would not like to be transferred to someone else's body. You cling to your body only, and to none other. This is one kind of vital attachment. The second vital longing is for sex. Sex is not merely a relationship between a man and a woman. That is only an outer manifestation of an internal longing. You are bound by the time processes, and you know that you are going to die one day. But nobody would like to die. You would like to continue in the process of time, even if this physical body is to pass away. That is the longing for the perpetuation of the species. You want a child to be born to you. Th e child is a reproduction of your own self, so you feel that you are physically immortalised because you have produced a child. People marry, but they do not know why they marry. It is a hobgoblin in front of them, a great nightmare. Nobody knows that it i s a yawning demon wanting to swallow them. You think you must marry, but what is the purpose? Why are you pushed in that direction so vehemently? The species tells you: "You fellows are going to perish. I shall see that your species continues." The voice of the species is like a terrifying rod telling you that you cannot go without transforming yourself into another form of your own self. The species cannot perish. It is the rod of time that is punishing you in the form of the longing for the production of children. This urge is called sex. It is not man wanting woman or woman wanting man. That is a misconception. It is something else inside—a devilish urge to perpetuate the physical personality in the form of progeny. Nobody understands this because if it is clear to your mind, you will never go for it. So an illusion is cast by nature for its own purposes: This demonical voice that you are hearing from inside is like Satan speaking to Adam and Eve: "Eat the forbidden fruit. How beautiful, how tasty!" When the tasty fruit was eaten, hell descended the next moment. It is said that God kept a flaming sword at the gates of heaven. You fall down headlong into the perdition of human sorrow. The power of illusion connected with this impulse is so strong that nobody can pierce through i it; and while it is a devastation of one's welfare, it looks like a great blessing.

16. WHY DO YOU HIDE THAT PART OF YOUR BODY?

Overcoming the urge of the species is as difficult, or even more difficult, than the urge for possession of material property and social relations. The urge cannot be resisted by the power of will or by any kind of foolish austerity, starvation or by running away. You cannot run away from the devil; it will pursue you wherever you go. You are misguided by the voice of the species, which wants to perpetuate the sorrow of existence. Schopenhauer was one of the persons who thought about this matter. Why do you hide that pan of your body? You can expose your mouth, you can expose your chest, legs and hands, but you always cover that part of the body. This is the demon that is sitting inside, and if you treat it with a callous attitude, the demon's work will not go on properly. So it is a shame before you, and you do not want to expose your shame. Why is it a shame? You are going to do something devastating to the soul and, therefore, it is a shame. You are guarding your pugnacious attitude which appears to be the beautiful voice of a friend, but it is actually from a satanic manifestation in the form of a snake. Psychologists and psychoanalysts say that the snake represents sexual desire, and those who have intense sexual longing have dreams of snakes. If you are able to visualise the cosmical significance of this urge which is pushing you exteriorly—not internally or universally—by understanding this situation, you will be able to overcome this im-pulse. A divine universality will take possession of you, and this externalised urge will stop in one second, if you want. If this is overcome and you pass through, the next gatekeeper is your emotional turmoil.

17. "WHY DO I ENTER THE BOSOM OF THE ABSOLUTE?"

The emotional turmoil is very difficult to explain. "Why do I enter the bosom of the Absolute? What will I get from that? I have so many things in this world. The whole world will vanish for me if I have the temerity to think that the Absolute can give me everything. So much is there before me. All the beautiful, grand, wonderful manifestation of this world is there, and it will vanish completely. I, too, will vanish." Do you hear this statement? You will not be existing there when you enter the Absolute. "Oh, goodbye. Thank you very much! 111 am not going to enjoy the bliss of the Absolute because I will not exist there, what is the purpose of this exercise? There is something wrong." The emotion says, "Be careful. What do you gain by entering the Absolute?" Let anyone answer this question. Nothing that the world can give you can be found there, but the grandfather of all these things, the one who has manufactured all the grandest things in the world, will be there. These wonderful things that you see in the world are shadows cast by the realities which are the ramifications of the Absolute. Therefore, fear not. Do you want shadows, or do you want the substances which cast the shadows? You go on saying, "I want this, I want that," but you are running after the shadow of a reality, which is not here. So do not be afraid that you are losing everything, because you yourself are a shadow of another thing which is your original reality, the archetype of your own existence. You are a Reflection of your own Self which is some-where else; and if you can enter that, do you think you are losing any-thing? You are gaining yourself. Now you have lost all things by looking at your own shadow existence here and the shadow existence of the world. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the world is a paradise. It is a shadow show, and you must be very cautious about it. So, do not be afraid of what you will find when you enter the Absolute. What you will find cannot be explained. It is wonderful. Your father, grandfather mother—everybody will be there, and all the wonderful things, beautiful things, ecstasies of this world. They are in the original there; these are shadows dancing here. The ecstasies of earthly life are shadows of a wonderful majestic ecstasy in Reality, and you will see them in the Absolute. You will find yourself in Reality. Are you not happy to hear all these things? Tell the emotions, "I am cleared of all these doubts." Then the gatekeeper allows you to go through.

18. EVEN IF THEY DIE THEY DO NOT WANT THEIR NAME TO BE FORGOTTEN.

You think you are a Hindu, a Christian or a fundamentalist, and you are the owner of property and are a big man. Name and fame catch hold of you. Who would like to be insignificant? People work hard day in and day out to become important, to gain high positions. Even if they die they do not want their name to be forgotten, so it is engraved on a marble slab to let people know the \ existed. What a desire to perpetuate their name! Even after the &ill, of the body, they cling to the name that was attached to their personality. The desire for name, fame and respect is so strong that people can commit suicide if this is denied. You can leave every-thing, discard all things, but if your name is affected, nothing can be worse than that. This is a prejudice that you have, and here your ego is speaking. "I am. My name cannot be removed." This I-am-ness will come and say, "You cannot throw me out like that." Here you find yourself in a very difficult situation. Would you like to be a stupid man, unwanted, spat at, a good-for-nothing? "No, this kind of life is no good. I am a wonderful man.

I have achieved so much. i have received so much encomium and recognition, and should I throw everything away and go like a pauper to the Absolute?" This is the ego speaking. Tell the gatekeeper that you understand that you have to pay your dues to this erroneous clinging to name and fame. What is there in a name? It is only a sound, a word that people utter, and that word is attached to you. You are thrilled merely because a word is uttered in front of you.

Clear these doubts.

19. IS IT GOD THAT IS THERE, OR IS IT MATTER THAT IS THERE?

There is another (VI th) gatekeeper-the power of causation, the intense action of the notion of the relationship of cause and effect, which is insisting that something has come form

Something else: God has created the world; there was a time when God sat in heaven and thought, “Let me create the world.” The world is an effect, God is the cause. What is the relationship between the cause and the effect? You do not want to answer this question. Is the effect the same as the cause? Is the pot identical with the clay out of which it is made? Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. You cannot say anything. The clay is not the pot, but there is nothing in the pot minus the clay. The clay is the pot, but the clay is not the pot. Now. What is this situation between God and the world? Is the world made up of the substance of God, or has God has created it not out of His substance, but from a material external to Him? There is no 'external' to God. It is said that God created the world out of nothing. If that is the case, the world is nothing; it is not created at all. This is philosophical jugglery and a quandary of a metaphysical nature. Philosophers both in the West and the East have struggled to know what this thing called causation is. Modem physics, in its highest reaches, has denied causation. Nothing is produced by something else; everything is producing everything. The cause is the effect; the effect is the cause. It is like a circular movement of one thing in connection with another. Nothing is produced by anything; things are as they are. But what is it that is actually there? Is it God that is there, or is it matter that is there? These are intellectual quandaries and philosophical doubts that arise in the mind, finally landing upon the difficulty of knowing your relationship with God Himself. Are you a part of God, are you totally different from God, or do you not exist at all in light of the omnipresence of God? These doubts are rational, intellectual, and arise from some deep convictions on account of the logic that you adopt in understanding things. The intellectual and rational attachments also have to go.

20. "GOD IS IN HEAVEN AND ALL IS WELL IN THE WORLD," SAID THE POET.

The next (VII th) obstacle is: "God is sitting in heaven. The Absolute is very far from me." Is the Great Supreme Being inside this room, sitting here looking at you? You think It is something far away, in high heaven. "God is in heaven and all is well in the world," said the poet. The concept of distance and the futurity of achievement are also a problem. "Tomorrow I shall have Self -realisation." You must know that Self -realisation is not in the process of time and, therefore, there is no tomorrow for it. It is eternity. Eternity is not yesterday, today or tomorrow. "I shall attain God." The word 'shall' means a futurity. These are muddles created in the intellectual process of thinking which goes by the name of rational philosophy, metaphysical argument, etc. They must go. Finally, the concept of space and time comes. Everything is in space and time. The scriptures tell us that heaven is so vast. Whether it is a Hindu paradise, a Muslim paradise or a Christian paradise, it is said that greenery is everywhere, rivers flow, and there are ponds of nectar and other delights. Delights rain from all sides. This is the scriptural description of heaven that is ruled by God Almighty in His wonderful Garden of Eden. You cannot get out of this idea. You are a religious person, so you respect God as the Ruler of the great heavens above the seven levels of being. If this is cleared, the Great Light opens, and the Master comes out. The nature of the birth that you take after leaving this body will depend upon the last thought that you entertained at the time of passing—what you were thinking at that moment. Ordinarily, people cannot think at that time; they are confounded. Some people are born who, even in early life, are fired with a great consciousness of values. There are precocious children, geniuses even at a young age, all because of their efforts in their previous life. You will be born in a very congenial atmosphere of family relations, yogis, teachers, Gurus, Masters, etc. But If your under-standing is perfectly clear, you feel: "I do not want to have another birth. I do not want to be born somewhere and continue my practice. I do not want this tedious exercise. It should end now!" In yoga scriptures, that intensity of longing is called tivra samvega, which is flaming aspiration which burns up all desires, and wants nothing except that. If this longing is persisting, and is burning in your body and soul, melting down your personality, you will realise it in this very birth.

21. WHAT WE CALL PHYSICAL CONTACT IS ONLY A PHENOMENON CREATED BY ELECTRICAL IMPULSES.

Contact with reality, which is the aim of yoga, involves a divesting of ourselves from erroneous notions of what reality actually is. The descriptive characteristics of things and persons are not actually the essence of persons and things. Contact with reality is actually the contact with the essence or substantiality of things which, unfortunately for us, eludes our grasp because of the fact that it underlies both our own selves as perceivers and the objects that are perceived. We are caught as the objects are caught, and one cannot be seen or judged independently, freely. The reaction that is set up between the perception of the object and the nature of the object creates the illusion of there being real perception and that we have really contacted something. What we call physical contact is only a phenomenon created by electrical impulses. You will be surprised to hear that such a thing is possible. When we touch a physical object we may be under the impression that it is an object that we are touching, but actually the object is a mass of electrical impulses that rush outward in one way, and our fingers are also nothing but sensations of electrical impulses. When one impulse touches another, it looks as though there is a hard substance, and we believe that there is a solid object in front of us. If we get an electric shock by touching a high voltage current, we may feel that a huge mountain is hanging on our hand. A very heavy weight seems to be tied to our hand, while no object is actually there. Sensations are electrical impulses, really speaking, the prana vibrating in a particular given direction. In this way, we may say the world is an illusion. It does not exist as it appears to our eyes. There are only the forces of objective substance we call sattva, rajas and tamas. They are three forms of the action of force which constitutes matter. Matter—prakriti, as it is called—is itself not a hard substance. In modem terms, we may say it is a potential for manifestation in the form of electrical activity. We are completely befooled in this sort of appreciation of objects on account of the consciousness, which we ourselves are, moving together with the mental activity of perception. Because of its all-pervading nature, consciousness does not really move anywhere, but it is made to believe that it is an accomplice or a participant in the mental activity which forces the senses to move externally.

22. YOU ARE ETERNITY PARADING IN THIS WORLD OF TEMPORALITY.

In yoga, you are trying to contact that which is beyond this world. All the things in the world are beyond this world, really speaking—we ourselves included. We are not originally involved in the forms of perception which constitute this world. We hay e an original form, which is beyond the world of perception. Every-thing and everyone is of this nature. We do not belong to this world, really speaking, and nothing so belongs because the world of perception is a spatiotemporal complex, and we cannot say that we are really basically involved in it. We have a higher self, and that higher self is our real self. It is not in this world. It is above space and time. That is why we are restless in this world. Nothing satisfies us. Wherever we look, we see trouble, resentment, unhappiness. There is something very erroneous, a malady prevailing everywhere, and nothing can please us in this world. No one can be happy, finally, because that which we consider as our source of pleasure or happiness is involved in this error of spatiotemporal operation which externalises every-thing, one from the other. Since everything is externalised, one thing from the other, nobody can get anything in this world. There is no such thing as property. We can get nothing, and will have only dust and ashes, finally. The illusion in the very act of perception involves our consciousness itself, and is so intense that a hectic effort of meditational process is called for. In a sense, you have to be a yogi throughout the day. Do not say you are very busy, because your business is a part of the process by which you achieve this great end. If you think that your activities in the world are different from yoga concentration, you will be cutting the ground from under your own feet and you will have no place to stand. Yoga is not a mental activity. It is an adjustment of our whole personality with the truth of things. All great achievements in the world are the result of hard effort. You cannot dillydally; nothing will come of it. You must be sure that it is going to be achieved. You must be sure that you are on the right path. You must also be sure why you are doing it. Yoga is nothing but the conscious adjustment of your personality with your originality—which is above this world. Every one of you is a transcendental individual. You are eternity parading in this world of temporality, look-ing like ordinary persons and things. This conviction should be driven into your heart with great force, and this conviction itself will be a great blessing to you.

23. ANYTHING WE CAN CONCEIVE IN THIS WORLD IS A SELF-SUSTAINING COMPLETENESS.

Every cell in the body is a little human being, and contains all our characteristics in its DNA. The whole history of a human being is in one cell, but these cells are joined together in a comprehensiveness of cohesion so that they look like one individual, this particular person. Though millions of cells join together to constitute this so-called individual personality, we never feel that we are made up of several bricks heaped one over the other because the cohesive force of consciousness at the back of these cells permits not this division of consciousness, but one integrality. Every little thing is a whole. An atom is a complete being by itself; it is not a part. Anything we can conceive in this world is a self -sustaining completeness. No individual of any category feels that it is only a part, that it is not a whole. Even an insect is a whole; it moves as a complete being by itself. Thus, there are levels of wholeness. We move from perfection to perfection; rather, we move from joy to greater joy. Anandadd by eva khalv imani bhutani jayante (Tait. Up. 3.6.1): Bliss is the source of creation. It moves towards that great Bliss, and operates through the activity of the Self. The levels of Self are identical with the consciousness of the levels of the various planes—Bhuloka, Bhuvarloka, Svargaloka, etc.These are actually the objects of meditation. The various stages of samadhi are actually attempts at commingling oneself with different levels of experience, all which are wholes by themselves. A child is a whole, an adolescent is a whole, an adult is a whole, and an elderly person is a whole. Nobody can say that a baby is a partial human being; it is an entire human being. Even a little embryo in the womb is an entire being, not a part. There are no fractions anywhere. The idea of fraction is a misconception because nothing that is finite, so-called, will imagine that it is finite. Do you think you are a finite little nothing? You are complete in yourself You are full, you are a total, and you are filled with perfection. That is the feeling of every individual, whether it is a man, a superman or even a subhuman being. Thus, meditation in this line of samadhis is a movement of a whole con-sciousness from its lower level to the whole consciousness of its higher level. The meditation is not concentrating itself on something outside the process of meditation; it is the lower concentrating itself on the higher. It is not the internal that is concentrating itself on the external.

24. WE ARE ALL CENTRES OF FORCE, NOT PHYSICAL ENTITIES MADE OF FLESH AND BLOOD.

Energy is the substance of the universe. It is a fluid movement, as it were, of a wave of indistinguishable content which, in different points of stress and pressure, appears as localised individualities. Here, the concept is of force rather than of an object or a thing. We are all centres of force, not physical entities made of flesh and blood. There is a centralisation of all-pervading force in everything, whether human or otherwise—a concretisation of this allpervading force in a particular manner by action and reaction within itself. To cite the illustration of the waves in the ocean, it is like one wave dashing against another wave in order that it may become the ocean itself. In savichara samapatti you are not a person; you are a centre of fluid force, and that which you are aiming at is also a counterpart of this fluid force. Energy contemplates on energy, force concentrates on force, so that it is something like the dance of particulars around a cosmic centre. In the language of the Puranas, it is called the Rasa Lila of Bhagavan Sri Krishna. This can be compared to how electrons in an atom roam, dance and move with great velocity around a nucleus which determines their movements, from which they are not different and yet are not identical. Such an experience takes place here, where every-thing moves around yourself not as something totally outside, but as a part of your own ubiquitous existence, as if your higher dimension dashes against your own self and calls you, summons you. The Infinite that is everywhere summons the Infinite that is inside you. Purnamadah pumamidam is the illustration here that the whole comes from the whole; and the whole that comes from the whole is also whole; and if you deduct the whole from the whole, there is no frac-tion; the whole alone remains. Towards this end the mind moves in a highly rarefied form. Here the mind is not an ordinary, sensory mind. It is not the mind that simply okays the reports of the sense organs. It is a super reason—or, we may say, supra reason, which acts as an am-bassador of the Supreme Absolute. We have a lower reason and a higher reason. The lower reason is what we are accustomed to—namely, just interpreting the complex sensations coming from outside. The lower reason is mere psychological activity. But there is a super reason in us which makes us restless always, and which points to the existence of a super being, and makes us aspire for that which is beyond the under-standing itself.

25. SAMADHI IS A MELTING DOWN OF YOURSELF TOGETHER WITH THAT ON WHICH YOU ARE MEDITATING

The most difficult thing that a seeker will face during the effort to ascend from one state of consciousness to another state is the inveterate habit of imagining that everything is a solid form or object, implying thereby that one thing may not have any real, vital connection with the other. The location which is associated with the solidity is trying to be obviated in savichara samadhi where an intense attempt is made to visualise the so-called things of this world as centres of moving force, eddies of a large sea of energy. Every little thing in the world is an energy potential. This energy can be liberated by intense concentration, either physically by bombardment or mentally by concentration. You cannot bombard the atoms of the whole cosmos except by intense concentration of the mind, relating everything to everything else, and melting down objectivity into a liquefied form. It does not mean that when you practice meditation on the universal sea of fluidity of power or force, you sit cosily apart from it as a solid individual observing the movement of these tempestuous forces of energy. Samadhi is not a perception. It is a melting down of yourself together with that on which you are meditating. The subject and the object, yourself and the other thing, are on a par always, and they both stand on an equal footing. The adamantine attachment of the individuality of a person is so hard that whatever instruction is given and whatever effort is made, it will persist. They call it ego conscious-ness, or the affirmative principle. Persistent educational instruction is to be given to the mind in order that it may not again and again move in the subconscious mind, the subconscious level, towards the old notion of the isolation of the world from the object of meditation. The object of meditation is not standing above the world; it includes the world. There is a transcendent perception, we may say, which ceases to accept your existence as the seer of this wonderful phenomenon. The seer is not you, not that which is beheld, but another thing which beholds both this side and that side. Strength of imagination is necessary to posit oneself in this condition: This is explained as savichara samadhi,. In samadhi you are not going inside, nor are you going outside, but you become universalised. The highest purity of mind, great dispassion, and tremendous love for this achievement are necessary to have success in this meditation. Suffice it to say that this is the state of experience known as savichara samapatti, also known as savichara samadhi.

26. SANANDA SAMADHI IS SUPERIOR TO ALL THE SAMADHIS.

The higher state is nirvichara, wherein the idea that forces are moving in space is again obviated. This universal force is not moving in space. It is not like the ocean that you see with your eyes, which is a body of water with space above it. Space is a barrier to the thinking of the totality of things In nirvichara samadhi a great, incomprehensible joy bursts forth which i s not comparable to any kind of joy that you can imagine in this world. It is a joy not because you have obtained something, but because you have become the thing. Mind is not a poor thing, as it appears on the surface. It is a direct representation of Absolute existence. As you can conceive levels of reality, degrees of experience, you can also conceive the levels of mental operation. The mind is a kind of ocean; it has a tremendous potential for comprehensiveness. It can touch anything, obtain anything, and become united with anything. It can instantly touch even the heavens without moving through distance. The mind, so-called, is employed as a means to practice this meditation. It rises gradually, stage by stage, from the lower stage to the higher stage, corresponding to the stage in which the object of meditation is. The mind goes with that object which is the Universal Being. The joy is called ananda, bliss Absolute. This indescribable blend of existence, consciousness and bliss is what is commonly known as sat-chit-ananda. Sat-chitananda, which means existence, consciousness and bliss, are not three ingredients of a super substance; they are three designations of one and the same experience. Sananda samadhi, bliss experience, is superior to all the samadhis. Such a super experience is sananda samapatti, divinity dancing on itself. In the Puranas and the epics we hear of Lord Siva dancing his cosmic performance. When Lord Siva dances his Tandava, as it is called, everything melts into liquid. This is not a visible dance, with the movement of limbs to music. The entire cosmos dances. Every atom starts rising up from its own self. Yoga is not going to leave you so easily. It pulls you, pulls you, pulls you, until you reach the centre of the universe. There is no experience of bliss at that time; it is only 'I am I'. The universal I has no you, he, she, it, etc.; it is just the one I which is self identical universal existence. This is sasmita samadhi. When that 'I am I' also is transcended, we have attained moksha (kaivalya.)

27. YOGA IS BASICALLYA PERCEPTIONAL CHANGE.

Yoga is basically a perceptional change, and not merely an act of doing something with your body. You may do anything, stand on your head for hours, but the perception of things has not changed. The erroneous perception will condition even the practice of your asanas, Pranayama, etc. because the whole problem is perception, and not something that is being done. People say, "I do yoga." What kind of yoga are they doing? The same persons that they were years back, they are today also. The same operational method of perceiving things continues, and no attempt is made to change the way of perceiving things. This basic requirement is forgotten, and it is not known that every step in yoga is a corresponding change in one's own perceptional procedure. If you have not changed even one whit and you are still the same person, all your doings are outside you, not connected with you. For instance, whatever I have told you earlier would have made you have the confirmation that things are not just standing in front of you. No thing is just sitting in front of you as the eyes report to you. But we always look outward. The basic relationship of things in general will require you to know that the very thing that you are seeing in front of you is also behind you, in another form altogether. As things are not in one place, they are not just in front of you. Not only are they also behind you, they are to your right, to your left, above and below. Things are everywhere. Now, how would you look at a thing if this is the case? A practice, a kind of exercise is to be undertaken in order to change the perception of things. Never look at an object as you generally look at it, because it is not in front of you. The pervasiveness of the location of every object necessitates the acceptance of its presence everywhere. So you are actually looking, so-called, at an object which is pervading you from all sides. You must know very well that yoga is not i a change in the way of doing things, but a change in the way of your being itself because all doing proceeds from being. Whatever you are. That comes out of you. The doing cannot be great if you yourself are not a great person. A puny, stupid individual cannot perform great things; because the thing that is done is an emanation of one’s own self a finite individual cannot produce an infinite result. It is necessary to know there is a parallel action taking place between oneself and everything that one thinks or sees. Action is not taking place outside; it is taking place everywhere, so wherever you start doing something, the reaction will come from every side.

28. WHEN THE ABSOLUTE IS WITH YOU THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS WITH YOU.

Yoga is not 'doing' something; it is a change of 'being' inside—not only your personal physical being, but the total being in which you are involved in every circumstance. This is a refurbishing of psychological thinking, washing your brain completely—cleaning it thoroughly from dirt accumulated in the form of erroneous thinking, whose impressions are imbedded in the brain, in the setup of the mind, in the unconscious and subconscious levels, and even in your social life. All these problems become naught in one second if the consciousness becomes concentrated on the greatness of the Absolute. These psychological and social difficulties will be set at naught in one second, just as all the troubles of your dream world are set at naught by waking because in waking you are in a different state of consciousness. Your meditation on the Absolute is an enhancement of the type of consciousness which is required, and it abolishes all problems in one second. All troubles are operations of con-sciousness. Waking into the consciousness of the Absolute is an awakening which is beyond the ordinary way of thinking, such as thinking in terms of checks and balances, profits and losses, statistics, etc.These are no statistics before the Absolute. It is a total inclusive-ness which merges, absorbs into itself all your problems. When you reach the Absolute, your problems also go with you. They do not exist anymore. They become nectar. If that concentration—the power of affiliation to Absolute consciousness—is deep in you, that one act of intense love for this Great Being is sufficient to save you forever and ever. And every other thing that you have to do is included in that one act because it is a supreme total act which removes the necessity to have any kind of individualised action. When God comes, everything comes. When the Absolute is with you, the whole universe is with you. Your problems are gone in one moment when you awake to this consciousness. Mumukshutva, longing for liberation, is the final solution for your psychological problems, etc. The disire for the Absolute is the one thing that is necessary. You do not want anything else, and you need not do anything else. Love God, love the Absolute, and be free. All sadhana is concentrated in this deep longing within us for entry into this great, wonderful, immortal, magnificient, glorious Being, which is our own highter Self. Love for God, love for the Absolute, is the panacea for every kind of suffering. All suffering goes away. Your are blessed.

29. TIME IS NECESSARY FOR SPACE; SPACE IS NECESSARY FOR TIME.

The relativity of space and time is the reason why it is possible liar everyone to transcend space and time, and attain realisation of the Ultimate Reality. If space and time were a hard screen of steel or iron, impregnable and impossible to cross over, they would permanently obstruct our attempt to go beyond them. Inasmuch as the whole world, including our body, is a product of the space-time operation, there is only space-time and there is nothing else anywhere. It is a dance of the activity of the space-time complex that appears as this whole world and even as individuals like us. Some philosophers say that we are totally caught within the phenomena and there is no possibility of contacting the Ultimate Reality. If that is the case, we are doomed for-ever. But it is also said that space and time are relative. You must understand the meaning of the word 'relative'. In the sense of relativity, one thing hanging on the other is called relation. If one thing exists because of another thing, neither of them exists independently. As there is a borrowed existence on both sides, no side can exist entirely independently. Time is necessary for space; space is necessary for time. In order to understand this mystery of the relation between space and time, modern thinkers have abandoned the use of the word `and' between space and time; they call it space-time. There are no words to say anything beyond this peculiar combination. What can we call the combination of space-time? We always see space and time, but we never see space-time. It is a necessary logical deduction that is arrived at by the observation of action through the interaction of space and time. As we are also the product of this relative interaction between space and time, the whole world-stuff being that, there is nothing permanently existing anywhere—neither our body, nor the world of nature, nor the sun, moon and stars. The whole thing is a mysterious performance, something like a magical performance, projected by an indescribable phenomenon we poorly call space-time. It is a poor description because we have no way of saying anything more than that. But Self-realisation is a great possibility. If we are mere puppets, products of this indescribable phenomenon of the space-time complex, then there is nothing more to say. It is like living in a concentration camp without knowing where we are staying, why we have come, and what we are supposed to think. It is a complete blockage of even the process of thinking because of space-time intervening .even. in the process of thinking. Philosophers who are very acute in this matter conclude that even the mind cannot act without space and time.

30. THIS IS THE CONCEPT OF SACRIFICE IN INDIA.

Yoga is the acceptance of your commitment to the entire creation before you. You are obliged to anything and everything in the world. In the ancient traditional system, the duties of a man are divided into five obligations, known in Sanskrit as the Pancha Mahayajnas because the performance of a duty is the performance of a sacrifice. You are obliged to the source from where you have come, and you should be grateful to that person who has made you what you are. You have an obligation to human beings because they are human beings like yourself. Entertaining a guest and lovingly offering your greetings to those who come to you for help, whether by way of food or in any other i way, is also an obligation. Those who come to you for help, who need your compassion and goodwill, are veritable gods, says this tradition. Uninvited people do not come by accident. It is a compulsive operation taking place somewhere else which pushes this individual in the direction of some other person who is able to assist him. When we think of the welfare of the world, we do not think it includes the welfare of animals. The vibrations around animals also have an impact upon everybody else. It is said the vibration of a cow is highly salubrious, and the smell that emanates from its body is supposed to be very purifying. That is why in India the cow is considered as a divinity and should not be killed, much less eaten. Likewise, there are vital associations of every animal with the whole atmosphere, to which reference is made by Bhagavan Sri Krishna in the Tenth Chapter of the Bhagavadaita. Wonderful is the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that says the little ants and the birds, in their originality in the higher regions, will receive you with great love and affection. The soul of an ant that is operating above may give you the strength of an elephant there, which you cannot understand. Different things are of different statures in different space-time orders. Though in one space-time order it is an ant, it may not be like that everywhere. Therefore, there should be compassionate treatment of animals, human beings, guests, teachers who give you knowledge and the gods in heaven. This is the concept of sacrifice in India. It covers everything that is required of you.

SANKIRTAN

Krishna Krishna Mukundaa Janaardanaa,

Krishna Govindaa Naaraayanaa Hare,

Achyutaananda Govinda Maadhavaa,

Satchidaananda Naaraayanaa Hare.

Krishna Vasudeva Hari

Raama Raama Narasimhaa,

Purushottamaa,

Raaghavaa Raama Naaraayanaa Hare.

Krishna Vasudeva Hari

Garuda Gamanaa Kamsaari Madhusudanaa,

Shesha Shayanaa Shri Naaraayanaa Hare,

Murali Krishnaa Muraari Mana Mohanaa,

Madana Gopaalaa Naaraayanaa Hare.

Krishna Vasudeva Hari

Vaasudevaa Govindaa Daamodaraa,

Nanda Nandana Naaraayanaa Hare,

Vaamanaa Vishnu Gauri Lakshmi Dharaa,

Venugopaalaa Naaraayanaa Hare.

Krishna Vasudeva Hari

Padmanaabhaa Parameshaa Sanaatanaa,

Parama Purushaa Shri Naaraayanaa Hare,

Paandurangaa Vitthaala Purandaraa,

Pundarikaakshaa Naaraayanaa Hare.

Krishna Vasudeva Hari

Shrinivaasaa Aniruddhaa Dharanidharaa,

Aprameyaatmaa Naaraayanaa Hare,

Dinabandhu Bhagavantaa Dayaanidhe,

Devakitanayaa Naaraayanaa Hare.

Krishna Vasudeva Hari

SANKIRTAN

Sitaaraama Kaho Raadhe

Shyaama Kaho,

Sitaaraama Kaho Raadhe

Shyaama Kaho. Sitaaraama

Sitaaraama Binaa Sukh Kaun Kare,

Raadhe Shyaama Binaa Dukh

Kaun Hare. Sitaaraama

Sitaaraama Binaa Uddhaara Nahin,

Raadhe Shyaama Binaa Bedaa Paar

Nahin. Sitaaraama

Sitaaraama Binaa Sukha Svapna Nahin,

Raadhe Shyaama Binaa Koi

Apana Nahin. Sitaaraama

SANKIRTAN

Om Shiva Om Shiva Paraatparaa.

Omkaaraa Shiva Tava Sharanam.

Namaami Shankara Bhajaami Shankara,

Girijaa Shankara Tava Charanam.

Gauri Shankara Tava Charanam,

Rhavaani Shankara Tava Charanam.

Shambho Shankara Tava Charanam,

Umaa Maheshvara Tava Charanam.

Thank You,