The Triple Consciousness

There is a Triple Consciousness which we call Sat-Chit-Ananda. Sat means reality or existence. Chit means consciousness. Ananda means bliss manifested here on earth. Until now it has not been manifested.

Reincarnation

I wish to say a few words about reincarnation. To deny the existence of reincarnation is to deny the possibility of perfect Perfection, that is to say of absolute Fulfilment. In one incarnation nobody can fulfil himself absolutely. Sometimes it happens that when we know of our past incarnations we get inspiration, we get encouragement. But, on the other hand, we may become depressed and disheartened.

The purpose of reincarnation

We can truthfully say that we existed on earth, we exist, and we shall exist in the future. Why do we exist? Because we have been unable to fulfil ourselves, or God has not been able to fulfil Himself through us, in us and for us. At the beginning of our journey in this life, as young men and women we have or we had many, many ordinary earthly desires. Then what do we see or what will we see in the evening of our lives? We will see that some of the desires of our youth have borne fruit, but most of them have not. Instead of desire, if we have aspiration to grow into divinity, into our highest height, this aspiration will unmistakably bear fruit, either little or much, according to our sincerity. But if it takes fifty or sixty years just to fulfil an ordinary earthly desire, then we have to know that it will take quite a few lives for us to grow into our highest divinity, our highest and deepest fulfilment. What we are doing here on earth is participating in an eternal journey. This journey has no beginning and no end. In the process of cosmic evolution, we are fulfilling or unveiling our inner divinity and that is why we need reincarnation. One incarnation can never fulfil us either materially or spiritually.

From the form to the formless

Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent. These ideas we accept, but who can embody these qualities? When a flower thinks of something superior to itself, it thinks of something in the form of a flower, but much more beautiful and much more fragrant than itself. An animal too, will imagine another animal which is the most powerful and the greatest. So too, in man’s case, when he thinks of the Infinite man has first to conceive of the Infinite in a form. Only then can he transcend the form and enter into the formless. Without going to the form, one can never enter into the formless.

Imperfection and Perfection

The Upanishadic seers sang, “Lead me from untruth to Truth. Lead me from darkness to Light. Lead me from death to Immortality.” What is this untruth? It is nothing but imperfection. Darkness is nothing but imperfection. Death is nothing but imperfection.

The Gayatri Mantra

In India we have many mantras, or incantations. In the Gita, Sri Krishna says that the Gayatri Mantra is the best of all the mantras. It means, we meditate or we contemplate on the Supreme Intelligence to endow us with the Supreme Knowledge. It is said that if one can recite this special mantra one hundred thousand times, then any desire he has, no matter how mighty will be fulfilled. And in the field of aspiration, if someone chants this particular mantra, he will get inner Illumination.

Meditation on the Master's Picture

When we meditate in front of the picture of a spiritual Master, we should always try to identify ourselves with the consciousness of the spiritual Master, which is embodied in that picture. If we want to enter into his consciousness, then the first thing we have to do is to concentrate on the picture, the whole picture. Gradually we have to focus our attention only on the face, then finally on the eyebrows. Between the eyebrows on the forehead is the actual inner, spiritual wealth. This is the place of vision. The moment we can identify ourselves with the vision of our inner Reality, we shall achieve the greatest success.

I want only one student, heart

There was a spiritual Master who had hundreds of followers and disciples. The Master often gave discourses at different places — churches, synagogues, temples, schools and universities. Wherever he was invited and wherever his disciples made all possible arrangements for him, he gave talks. This went on for about twenty years. He gave talks for children and for adults. He gave talks for university students and for housewives. Sometimes he gave talks before scholars and most advanced seekers.

Finally there came a time when the Master decided to discontinue his lectures. He told his disciples, “Enough. I have done this for many years. Now I shall not give any more talks any place. Only silence. I shall maintain silence.”

For about ten years the Master did not give talks; he maintained silence. He maintained silence in his ashram. He maintained silence everywhere. He had answered thousands of questions, but now he did not even meditate before the public. After ten years his disciples begged him to resume his previous practice, that is to say, to give talks, answer questions and hold public meditations. They all pleaded with him and finally he consented.

Immediately the disciples put advertisements in the newspapers and put up posters everywhere to announce that their Master was going to give talks once again and hold high meditations for the public. They made arrangements at many places. The Master went with some of his favourite disciples who were most devoted and dedicated and hundreds of people gathered together to listen to the Master and have their questions answered. But to everyone’s wide surprise, the Master would not talk at all. From the beginning to the end of the meeting, for two hours, he would remain in silence.

Some of the seekers in the audiences were annoyed. They said that it was written in the newspaper and in the posters that the Master would give a short talk and answer questions as well as meditating. How was it that he did not speak at all, they added. “He is a liar”, said many, and they got disgusted and left the meetings early. Others remained for the whole two hours with the hope that perhaps he would speak at the end, but the Master ended the meditations and closed the meeting without saying anything. Some of the people in the audiences felt inner joy. Some stayed only because they were afraid of what others would think of them if they left early. They thought that others would think that they were not spiritual and that they could not meditate at all; in order to prove themselves to the rest of the audience, these people stayed. Some left, some stayed with great reluctance, and very few stayed with utmost sincerity, devotion and inner cry.

It went on for three years or four years this way and from the public there were many who criticised the Master mercilessly and embarrassed the disciples, saying, “Your Master is a liar and how do you people justify it? You put an ad in the paper that your Master is going to give a talk, answer questions and hold meditation. But he only holds meditation and we don’t learn anything from it. Who can meditate for two or three hours? He is fooling us and he is fooling himself.”

Some of the close disciples were very disturbed. They felt miserable that their Master was being insulted and criticised. They pleaded with their Master again to give just a short talk and to answer a few questions at the end of the meditation. The Master finally agreed.

Now on that particular occasion, the Master did not actually forget, but he changed his mind. He went on meditating and this time instead of two hours, he conducted meditation for four hours. Even his close disciples were sad. They could not get angry with their Master, for it is a serious Karmic mistake to get angry with the Master. But they were afraid that someone from the audience would actually stand up and insult the Master. In their minds they prepared themselves to protect their Master in case some calamity took place.

When four hours had passed and there was no sign that the Master would either talk or close the meeting, one of the very close disciples stood up and said, “Master, please do not forget your promise.”

The Master immediately said, “My promise. Yes, I have made a promise to you people, so now it is my bounden duty to give a talk. Today my talk will be very short. I wish to say that I have given hundreds of talks, thousands of talks. But who heard my talks? Thousands of ears and thousands of eyes. Now I really want to have different students. My students were the ears and the eyes of the audience — thousands and thousands of ears and eyes. But I have failed to teach them anything. Now I want to have different type of students. My new students will be hearts.

“I have offered messages in thousands of places. These messages entered into one ear and passed out through the other. All in the briefest possible moment. And people saw me giving talks and answering questions. Just for a fleeting second their eyes glimpsed something in me and then it was totally lost. While I was telling about sublime Truth, Peace, Light and Bliss, the ears could not receive it because the ears were already full of rumour, doubt, jealousy, insecurity and impurity which had accumulated for many years. The ears were totally polluted. They did not receive my message. And the eyes did not receive my Truth, Light, Peace and Bliss because the eyes saw everything in their own way. If they see something beautiful, the human eyes immediately start comparing. They say, 'How is it that he is beautiful, his speech is beautiful, his questions and answers are beautiful? How is it that I cannot be the same?' And immediately jealousy enters. The human eye responds through jealousy. If the ear has heard something good about another, immediately jealousy enters. If somebody sees somebody else who is beautiful, he becomes jealous. If he hears something nice about somebody else, he becomes jealous.

“The ears and the eyes have played their role. I have given thousands of talks and they have proved to be undivine students. I could not teach them; they could not learn from me. Their progress has been most unsatisfactory. Now I want to have new students and I have got new students. These students are the hearts, where oneness will grow — oneness with Truth, oneness with Light, oneness with inner beauty, oneness with what God has and what God is. It is heart the student that has the capacity to identify itself with the Master’s wisdom, light and bliss. And when it identifies itself with the Master, it discovers its own reality — infinite Truth, Peace, Light and Bliss. The heart is the real listener; the heart is the real observer; the heart is the real student who becomes one with the Master, with the Master’s realisation, with the Master’s vision and with the Master’s eternal light. From now on the heart will be my only student.”

Meditations

1.

“What is joy today may be sorrow tomorrow. But what is Truth today cannot be falsehood tomorrow.”

2.

“Every falsehood eventually dies in Truth, but Truth once revealed never dies.”

3.

“Speech is the bosom friend of fleeting moments; Silence, the Lover of Eternity.”

4.

“Be universal in your love. You will see the universe to be the picture of your own being.”

5.

“Suppression is as hostile and undeserving as attachment. It is our non-attachment that is the only master of nature.”

Initiation

For a disciple, initiation is the first experience of freedom and for a spiritual Teacher, initiation is a conscious acceptance and experience of bondage.

Initiation is the immediate expansion of the disciple’s consciousness and a conscious manifestation of the Master’s height of compassion.

The main purpose of initiation is to bring the soul to the fore. At the time of initiation, the Guru makes a solemn promise to the individual seeker or aspirant that he will do his best to help the seeker in his spiritual life. The Guru will offer his heart and soul to take the disciple to the highest region of the Beyond.

The Guru can initiate the disciple in various ways. He can perform the initiation in India’s traditional way while the disciple is meditating. He can also initiate while the disciple is sleeping or even while the disciple is in his normal consciousness, but calm and quiet. The Guru can initiate the disciple through the eyes alone. He can also do a physical initiation which is to touch the head or the heart or any part of the body. Along with the physical action, when he touches the heart, the Guru can initiate the disciple in a psychic way. The Guru can feel the soul within the disciple’s heart, he can see the soul and he can act upon the soul.

Whoever is my disciple need not ask me to initiate him because I know what is best for him, that is to say, whether the outer initiation will expedite his inner progress or not. The act of initiation can also be done by occult and spiritual processes. There are various ways, but I prefer initiation through the Third Eye which I feel to be the most convincing and effective way. When I am in my highest consciousness, my ordinary eyes, my human eyes, become totally one with my Third Eye. They receive infinite light from the Third Eye and then they enter into the aspirant’s eyes. In this way I initiate. Immediately the Light enters into the aspirant’s whole body; it percolates there from head to foot. I see the light, my own light, glowing in the disciple’s body. And when I do initiate, it is my light, the light of the Supreme, that enters into the disciple.

Real initiation, as I said, is the total acceptance of the disciple by the Master. The Guru accepts the disciple unreservedly and unconditionally. And even if the disciple goes away after initiation, finding fault with the Guru, the Guru will act in and through that disciple forever. After accepting the spiritual life and being initiated by a spiritual Master, the disciple may drop from the spiritual path for one incarnation, two incarnations or even many incarnations. But his Guru, whether he be in the body or in the higher regions, disembodied, will constantly watch over the disciple and wait for an opportunity to help him actively when the disciple again turns to the spiritual path. A time comes when the disciple is bound to come again for the Master’s spiritual guidance.

Those who have been close to me must feel the actual flowering of their initiation the moment they have dedicated wholeheartedly to me their entire life — body, mind, heart and soul. This is really more than initiation, it is their revelation of their own inner divinity. At this moment they feel that they and their Guru have become totally one. They feel that their Guru has no existence without them and that they have no existence without the Guru. The Guru and disciple fulfil each other mutually and they feel that their fulfilment is coming directly from the Supreme. The greatest secret they learn from their Guru is this: only by fulfilling the Supreme first can they fulfil the rest of the world. Now you may ask, “How can they fulfil the Supreme?” The disciple fulfils the Supreme by constantly staying in the Guru’s boat, in the inmost recesses of the Guru’s heart, and by feeling that he exists only for the fulfilment of his Master. Him to fulfil, him to manifest is the only meaning, the only purpose of the disciple’s life. This is the most important thing to know about initiation.

My first friendship with the muse

My days and nights

My days and nights are fast asleep,
Long lost am I in their bosoms wide.
The gloom and pangs of unknown caverns
Within, without my heart abide.

My life-river is hushed in awe,
And all my acts in vain now end.
No mighty Soul to soothe my heart;
My sinking breath without a friend.

A tortuous stream

A tortuous stream our only fate,
A sluggish evolution’s flow
We feel from morn to eve of our life.
Who says the One in us shall grow?

Covered we are with Nothingness,
The Ignorance breathes deep in our heart,
No hope of dawn in our Stupor-breast,
Before our heart-beat gleams death-dart.

We dwell upon the barren surface.
Alas, we never go within.
The Supreme’s Bliss remains unknown;
Around us sports a dreadful din.

Thy Wisdom

Thy Wisdom fills my heart.
Everything, everywhere,
Present, future, past
I am — and all I bear.

My rapture knows no bounds;
My sombre eyeless dole
Beyond the ken of all.
It is I who build my Goal.

My life’s ignorance-dream
I drive toward Thy Will;
I alter now the course
Of my bosom’s goalless rill.

My secret and sacred bird

My secret and sacred bird now flies
To meet the Spirit’s vacancy.
All chaos of life to-day dissolved;
In me a surge of ecstasy.

Gold flames within my longing heart
Invoke the cosmos’ Parent-Sun.
A tapestry of Truth unseen
Bursts forth within; the Play is begun.

The inner sun succeeds, the outer sun fails

Akbar said, “Birbal, for a long time I have been thinking of one thing. Here is my question. I am sure you will be able to answer it. We see everything clearly in the sunlight, but is there anything that cannot be seen even with the help of sunlight?”

"Yes, your Majesty, there is something that cannot be seen by the sunlight. Even the sunlight fails to illumine it. Sunlight cannot make us see that particular thing.”

“What is it, Birbal?”

“Your Majesty, it is the darkness of the mind.”

Spiritual Comment

Birbal’s answer is absolutely correct. The only thing is that perhaps Birbal would not have been in a position to answer if Akbar had asked him if there is anything that can show us the ignorance of the mind and illumine it. Or even if he had been able to answer, he would not have given an adequate answer. He would not actually have been able to illumine the darkness of anybody’s mind with his answer.

How do we illumine the mind? We illumine the dark, unlit, obscure, impure mind by bringing to the fore our inner sun. The outer sun can show us earthly objects, but the inner sun can show us what the mind is, how it operates, what it contains and what it is made of. So, in order to illumine the mind, we have to bring to the fore our inner sun.

How do we bring our inner sun to the fore? We bring the inner sun to the fore by digging deep within. As we dig very deep in the ground to reach water, similarly when we dig very deep within, we see that there is an inner sun. At this point I must say that there is not only one inner sun, but there are many inner suns. How many we bring to the fore depends on how we dig and how deep we dig. If we dig deep within most soulfully, in the way the Supreme wants us to dig, then we discover many more than one inner sun and we can easily bring them to the fore.

Once we bring our inner suns to the fore, our role is not over. First we illumine our own inner and outer existence. Then we try to illumine the world around us — our friends, our relatives, our dear ones. Then we try to illumine the entire world. But first we have to dig deep within in order to get in touch with our inner suns.