I had the occasion to talk earlier about the two lines of action, one - the Divine line and the one which is parallel to it, the line of Humanity. We had occasion to observe that unless our heart which may be perhaps dissected into two and then one is the upper heart and the other is the lower and observe, most of us tend to live in the lower level. I also said it is necessary to move on to upper portion of the Heart. This is nothing new. Most of us know all these concepts, the crudest form of explaining this is the Jivatma and then the Antaratma. The Jivatma is the lower self and the Antaratma is the upper self and when you tend to obey or yield to the Antaratma, you start progressing in spirituality. On the other hand if you go on yielding to the Jivatma you will end up as Jivi, another existence, another living existence nothing more than that. I am not going into the details of whether one should be at a Jivatma or at the Antaratma level. But one thing everybody has to grant is the tyranny of the Jivatma over us. The Antaratma is supressed most of the time.

You know what is correct. But then you will suppress it. The reason for the suppression is the inertia of matter. Animals also have certain types of intelligence. Most of you know the story of the crow which has stolen the necklace of queen and threw it into the anthill of the snake and somebody had to come and destroy the particular anthill and then kill the serpent also to rescue that. It had the intelligence. It had the wisdom to know that. There are many stories which portray the cunningness and intelligence of various animals. Similar has been our trend in utilizing our mental tendencies for the lower self. There are enough number of crows amongst us. There are enough number of foxes and tigers, bulls and jackals, name what you want you find them in the human species. The basic character continues and that is what we today are trying to do, with all our management skills. We are managing the lower tendencies of other people with these type of ideas. It is a betrayal of trust of God in us.

In the Bhagavat Gita you have got a sloka which says, must be very popular for you also, but I will quote only the last portion Pradidane Priyamsime, Manmanamava Bhakto. That is the sloka. The idea behind it is, God loves us most, it was not just meant for Arjuna. Among all the creatures that are there in the world he has got a particular fascination for us. Why this fascination with him we really don't know. Perhaps we will never know. But this is his greatest creation. The best among all the creatures that have been, ushered in from the Divine we are and we have been endowed in the mind which can see down or up. We have been squandering the trust He has placed on us. Instead of thinking about the upper self we have been thinking about the lower self and all our advancements, our civilization is now turning towards that portion which can be considered at best as bestial. Nothing more than that can be granted to earth.

The Jiva, the earthly existence or Prani, these are the two things that are governing us. There are no great ideals to which we are prepared to sacrifice. There have been quite a few queries asking as to what is yielding? This act you know it already, you have been yielding to the beast in you so far. Learn to yield to God in you. It is all what yielding is, an act you know already. It is not something that you do not know. You are very much aware of how to yield. How to become a slave of your wishes, you know I am yet a slave of my wishes. This is what the prayer starts with. We are slaves of wishes of the bestial nature prepared to sink to any level and degrade our own dignity and the Divine dignity in us. You must have a firm resolve to come out of it. Then only you will have a balanced living. Otherwise the parallelism is affected. There will be skews and curves in your life which are not in tune with that original line of God. The line of humanity will be not be in consonance with the line of Divinity, and therefore this problem will be there. If you are seeking Balanced existence you have got to seek this. Earlier in our own tradition and in our own great land people have said you have got to totally annihilate whatever is the animal in you. Otherwise there is no chance of your going to the Upper Heart. But that will be one more skew. God has given you both and both shall be used, proportionately in a balanced way. If you don't understand this, naturally there will be a skew or some extremist view taken, that is what you generally happens.

The reason is obvious because there is phenomenal pressure from this side. It pulls you down every second. Therefore the upper portion is under stress beyond a limit to a large extent and such a stress is justified, because everyone knows that they are not going to overcome that. The greatest of the saints have fallen several times. The greatest of the Rishis who gave us the Gayatri mantra, Sage Vishwamitra himself fell several times. Gayatri is good. The rishi is also good, but what is more good is to learn the lesson from his life, namely that we can fall several times, inspite of being on the right path. That is the lesson that we have to learn. It helps us enormously to read about these people. But there were fictitious personalities or a real personality is not a matter for discussion for us at all. It doesn't matter much. The lesson that they have given is much more important. The message they have conveyed is more important to us that we shall try to liberate ourselves from the lower tendencies. Such was the effort of that great sage and definitely all our appreciation goes to him. He was not prepared for any other recognition except that recognition that he knows the Brahman. He never compromised on that. Are we prepared for it?

If you are prepared for it, you are bargaining for restlessness throughout your life. Beware of what you are going to get and what you are going to get is restlessness. If the goal is very clear before you, you will have restlessness. You will have no complacency you will have no time to sleep. You will have no time to waste. You cannot squander, every second becomes important for us in search of the goal. The beast is always ready to pounce on us through various means of intellect of trying to imitate as if it is the Divine. All these things are done. Cunningness, it somehow sneaks in, laziness sneaks in, somehow or the other, the passions sneak in, undue attachments sneak in as well. You know you ought not to be unduly attached, this much of viveka everyone of us has, but then it does sneak in. Those of you who know something about Gayopakyanam, please remember after all the only sin he has committed is not to wash the feet. Then he lost his wisdom. I am not going into the details of which planet has affected him or which Planet has not affected him. What is of consequence is that the slightest of errors that we do can totally bring us down to a stage of helplessness. That's what you should understand. There cannot be any slip here. Your commitment to your self alone is capable of making you a Mahatma from the Jivatma. Everyone of us has got a born right to be a Mahatmas, we are capable of becoming Vishwatmas, we are also capable of becoming Paramatmas. There is no doubt about this.

When the self interest is dissolved, naturally we move on. We start thinking about others. From there we start thinking about the Universe. Then we start thinking identical with that of the Divine, namely the Divine plan becomes our plan of existence and that is the balanced existence.

Balanced existence is not something that you achieve today. It is a goal to which we have to go whereby you will be in a position to say that my Jiva, my Prana is subordinate to the will of the Divine. It shall serve the purposes of the Divine and nothing else and now the question comes what am I to do with the mundane life. There are people who have been entrusted to you. What shall be your responsibility towards them? One of trust, God has kept his trust in us. That we will be behaving like God for others who are kept in our care, you have to be a trustee. You should know that whoever is attached to you is basically of the Divine and for the Divine and not for you. The meanings change, the context changes, our way of looking at things changes. Some people confuse this as constant remembrance. This is not and shall not be confused with the constant remembrance. Constant remembrance is a separate practice that we have got. This is trusteeship. We have to discharge our responsibilities to our people who are around us. To the society, to the world, to the universe we have responsibilities to keep. Pollution is one word which will never get into your head afterwards. Then you will not be in a position to keep your rooms dirty, but still say you are doing sadhana, leave alone your mind being dirty. That's a separate subject. Your environment will be clean - Shuddha, Parisuddha. This comes to you, not because you are greedy enough to retain all that, but we are sensible enough to use it for Divine purposes.

I had occasions to move with my Master. But I could not understand what exactly he was doing when I was just about 20-22 years old. Master used to be very frugal in his spending. He always used to save money. Imagine we squander how much, each one has to answer for himself and then he told me whatever I save I give it to the Master's work. We do save, not for Master's work but for ourselves, our progeny, for the progeny of the progeny of ours and perhaps four generations down and to our utter dismay when we go to the other world find our own progeny has squandered what we have saved. Miserable is the life of souls in the higher worlds. Whatever good you want to do you can do it now. But we have forgotten this and we have become no more a trust. The Jivatma has taken over. It has sneaked in under our carpet and it is making noise. Master's don't waste time like that, they would like to save and then give it back to Master's work. Savings is not for our progeny but for the posterity, for general good. All religions have stressed this. We have the unique distinction of forgetting this, all other religions follow that to some extent, so far as I know, we have a unique distinction of not trying to save for the good of others around us, to the society to which we belong and to the world to which we belong. This is a self or your own self which you want to see in your sons and grand sons, or your own love for your self. Any student of psychology would tell you very clearly that the interest in the progeny is only self interest. You want to continue in them. Therefore my son is more important than others. Not because of anything else but if you come to know that all progeny that is here is that of the Divine, you will not restrict it, a balanced existence would be one where there would be a sense of sharing. It is that principle of sharing that gave us the mind because the Divine agreed to share the mind that is common to him and to us, without that man would not be here. You would be one more beast without the capacity to think, analyse, critically evaluate and then move on. It is because of the greatest gift of the Divine namely mind which is His. He shared it with us. Those people, who know a bit of Purusha suktha know that it is the Divine Sacrifice that has come here as creation. The Divine example that he was already set saying that I am going to share and I am going to sacrifice myself. Now in turn we say we do not share we don't want to sacrifice.

What are we asked to sacrifice? Sacrifice our laziness, sacrifice our indifference, sacrifice our self-interest what else! This is what He is asking us, sacrifice the meanest thing in you, in return to the sacrifice that He has made about the greatest thing. Even this much little we are not prepared to do back to God, service back to God. Balanced existence is possible only when we remember the Divine all the time in all our actions and know that it is He who acts not you who acts. It is not our wisdom but it is the Divine wisdom that is working with all of us. We are not the owners of that. We enjoy it "Tena Tyaktena Bhunjitha", we enjoy not as self but as a Divine self. By renunciation we enjoy. Renunciation is not enjoyed, by renunciation. Know everything here as Divine. The first of the Upanisads starts like this, Isavasyopanisad starts like this. Now we begin to understand here that the call is for balanced existence and our choice was imbalanced existence.

We suffer imbalance. God never gave us imbalance. We are balanced from the beginning by God's will. We choose to develop this angularities, because we started thinking that something is ours. Something else is somebody else's, we started distinguishing. We went down to forms we gave for each one of us. We gave a name and then also a form there and then we say that my God is different from your God and your God is different from my God. There is only one God and one fails to understand how we have so many Gods. I am delving into religion. I don't want to get into that field at all; because it can be quite emotional for most of you. I would not like to get into that. Not that I do not know but, this much is sure, the functions of the Divine have been personified and therefore we have got millions of Gods.

The functions of God, have been personified; for purposes of thinking, for purposes of meditation. So when we ask people to meditate on Divine light they find it difficult because they say we are not able to conceive that. Yes you are not, you will not be in a position to conceive that on any day. Divine by definition is something that we will never know. Once we know him, He ceases to be God. We can be dependent upon Him. The unseen force can be still guiding us. We can experience him through various acts of grace that he has got for us. But to see him in some form is just an imagination which will never be accepted by the Divine because unfortunately he wants freedom, freedom from the forms that we want to impose upon him, freedom from the names that we try to ascribe to him. He would not like to confine himself with that particular name or form that we want to rub onto him. However much he appreciates our emotions for that he is not prepared to confine himself for that. He may appear for all that I know in that form and name as we want. He may bless us. I am not going to question that. But to say that is all about him, would be an infringement of the rights of the Divine. It is an infringement. We have no business to do such things and we are of catholic mind, we accept. We can also think like that. But to say divinity can be comprehended with our vision and demand it at the time of meditation, is I think too much of a request. A prayer that is not likely to be answered. Just as when we start our meditation we want balanced living we are asking for our freedom, freedom from the skews and angularities, freedom from the distortions contortions. That is what we are asking for and then why should we try to give that contortion back to him.

We have got more grace coming from him because naturally a disabled child is loved more by the mother than the able bodied one. Perverse logics are available, but none of them are balanced, because every one of us is disabled. Here disable referred to is the lack of ability to function. But many of us are disabled to think. Not mentally retarded, there are other reasons for that. Namely our pride prejudice, and arrogance. These three things come to us as basic barriers in sadhana. Some trees are long, some other trees are short but there is no comparison between them. They don't compare. Each one is happy to what he is. But then pride comes when we compare. Comparison leads to pride. While God has given all of us equal rights to love him and to be happy, here we unfortunately look at the other person and say he seems to be happier than me and then we get into troubles. Comparison - contrast, when we have got a plus side it leads to arrogance, pride and prejudice is common for both. And this thing definitely affects our balanced living. If one is seeking balanced living, first he should try to get rid of the idea of comparing himself with others. Know that we have come from the same source where the other person has come and one has as much right to go to him as the other has. There is no need for oneself to compare himself with others. Once comparison is lost, hierarchy is lost. Then there will be a universe of people who are prepared to understand, compassionately each other and the great Krishna's dictum 'Bodhayanthi parasparam will come. We try to exchange our views, our thoughts, our difficulties. We move on, we move on the path, nobody is superior, nobody is inferior. There is only one superior and that is the Divine, and every one of us is the children of that God. Once we understand this we get balanced living.

You will see behind all this the stream of the Divine running all the time. We have to keep ourselves parallel to it. If we go against it then we are going to have distortions. We will definitely end up in unbalanced living or imbalanced living. So balanced living is essentially a call for all of us to be in tune with the Divine.

Looking at the concept with the organic way of approach you will see there is a great organism. And there are several limbs, several cells, several parts of that organism. Every one shall work in tune with the remaining. Then it's a balanced existence. One limb working contrary to other will not lead us anywhere except conflict. And this body of which you and I are part of, has to work in consonance with the Divine Will for Divine purposes. It is God who uses us. For his purposes as he deems fit. If you are given the role of a person who has to be a attendant, by all means happily enjoy that. That is enough. There is no need to compare yourself with somebody else because a attendant is as much important in the office as an officer in charge of the office. Neither he nor the other is dispensable. Both of them are required. Each one of us has been blessed by the Divine, with certain endowments and it shall be used of his sake. Whatever we do shall be for the good of others which naturally includes your good. Whatever you want to do if it is only good for you it may not be likely to be good for others. The reverse proposition however is not correct. When you try to do something which is good for all, naturally your good is included in that. So the jivatma has to be somehow or the other be transcended. And we should atleast enter into the realms of the Mahatma, start thinking about the higher things. So the yielding to the Divine is the first step in that.

People have asked me what is yielding. Both the Divine as well as the beast are with us. We have been serving a bad master in the form of the beast all these days. We have squandered several lives doing that. It is time we start serving the Divine and not the beast in us. So such a person alone is one who has moved to the higher self. Atmanah Atmanah Jitah that is what they say. One has to control the lower with the higher. The lower self is one's own, the higher self is also one's own. We have yielded to the lower self so far; the call is to yield to the Divine, yield to the conscience, yield to the antaratma, then it leads one on.

Now that leads you on and takes us to various stages of progress. Not that we are going to get extra ears, extra hands and extra feet, surely not!. As I told in the beginning, the best of the creatures is man. There is no possibility of perfection in the physical levels than man. The claims of Nikshepa or a Aurobindo for a super mind, these won't work because you are trying to dictate terms to the Divine on the lines of evolution. We have evolved ourselves to this level. Whether it is creation or evolution is a matter of minor interest. We can see there is a gradual progress in the creation or evolution at the lowest form to the highest form. This form of the human being is there now. The call for the next call is not at the physical level because whatever physical perfection is expected of an animal we have it. The small intelligence that was there with the small birds and animals has been perfected to the human intellect.

The body is there, the intellect is there, all that is now required is a conscience to develop. That is the call that is before us today. That is why we say Divinisation of man is the goal of Sri Ramchandra. We have to Divinise ourselves. This cannot be done by putting a shanka and a chakra on the shoulders, not by taking a linga dharana or many other mudras that are available for the face and the body. These are all the means by which people have attempted to say that some people are a bit different from others. The people who take recourse to these things have evolved upto the extent they have evolved. They have evolved to the extent of being Dasas or saranas. Because they became a sarana, we said they will give you this branding. There is nothing wrong in this. It is good. It is good to the extent it was, but to say that it is Divinisation is wrong. Divinisation requires that your higher self has to control the lower self under all circumstances which is a tough job. The only way for doing that is to go through the process of meditation. Look into yourself, see the blemishes that are there, presenting themselves before you. They stare at you. When you close your eyes they stare at you. They tell you these are all the things you have been doing. Are you not ugly, we don't like to see these things, who likes to see himself ugly. No we try to either brush it below the carpet or totally deny when somebody points out the lapses. This is what usually occurs. So first the yielding attitude has to develop and yielding attitude to the Divine leads us to discriminative intelligence. Intelligence we have, but do we have discriminative intelligence. Is a particular thing right or wrong, are you prepared to question that. No. whatever is good for me is good. That's how we are using our intelligence. That's how the fox has used it. That's how the crow has used it. We also do the same thing, perhaps in a more refined way. But, as and when you start yielding to the Divine, you start thinking about. Is it viveka? Is it correct? There the problems of ethics start and there is no end to ethics. There are social ethics, personal ethics, so many aspects are there behind it. But you come to know that, your laziness is not going to allow you to meditate properly. That is viveka for me. I look at it from this angle. Postponement is not viveka. All these things finally tell us that our existence is transitory and his stream of consciousness shall go on. I am but a small speck in that, a bubble, at any time it can be pricked and it is lost. When a bubble looses its existence it is a mystery. Not all the bubbles created by you in the soap water, die at the same time. Some live longer some live shorter. Similar is the existence here. We come to know this. We understand that we should work for permanent values and not self interest values. These things will not work once yielding develops.

The next thing that develops in us is a sense of non-attachment. We know the transitoriness of the existence of others also and then we automatically tend to be non-attached. It doesn't mean that we don't love them. We do love them. We have got enormous concern for them. We would like to pray for them also, all that is right and just and is due attachment. But to say that the other person is inevitable for existence is just stupidity. There is only one thing that is inevitable for existence, that is Divinity. Divinity is the closest friend we have got. A friend who came along with us and a person who is going to continue after we pass out of this mortal coil. The company of the Divine with which we are born is something that is permanent. There is a one to one relationship between oneself and the Divine, between us and the Divine and this is something that can never be broken. We can be blind to the existence of the Divine in us. Similarly we can be blind to the existence of the beast in us and that is the Real Vairagya. At present we are blind to the existence of Divine in us. Be blind to the existence of the animal in us. This gives us enormous courage afterwards because all that energy which has used by the animals are the beastly instincts in us.

We become Divine, we are charged with the Divine and we go upwards not downwards. We move on to the higher realms. The energy that is getting wasted for the lower things gets used by the Divine for His purposes through us and no tiresomeness is possible. Enormous energy is available which is flittered, squandered, lost in nothingness. A Master had occasion to observe in me a lapse on this part and asked why are you idle. A thing that is not productive, goes by the name idle. That is the only designation for it. And most of the people know how they are using their energy, which is not productive. The energy that is not ours, but that is of the Divine which has been kept with us in store for his purposes is being squandered and still we talk about being loyal to the Divine. Such a knowledge comes to us when we have real viveka and when viveka is developed in us we become aware of this. Otherwise that block is always there. It is wisdom to use for progeny. It is unwise to squander. This each sadhaka has to evaluate himself with reference to this criteria then he knows upto what stage he has progressed. Whatever is the stage of progress, one is not going to have extra wings or extra horns or extra feet. But he will have the natural capacity to live in tune with the Divine. We are capable of that. That is the assurance of the great Rishis. That is the comfort that the Master gives and He says you put an effort and I am prepared to lead you further.

Points A and B Meditation is the unique feature of this system. This is the contribution of the Mahatma Sri Ramchandra to the World, the Humanity. Nobody ever said anything about how to control the baser instincts, how to control the beast in us. They resorted to tapas, they resorted to austerity, penances and enormous punishment to oneself. They tried to control the beast like a circus master who tries to control the beasts under his control. He wants to display those things. So he controls them with punishment. Similarly the beast in us was sought to be punished like this. But the Great Master says you can bring yourselves in tune with the Divine by practicing these two meditations on Points A&B and once you do properly the meditation on points A and B the aspiration to progress starts.

One starts thinking in terms of a Mahatma i.e. the prayer itself is that everyone in this world are my brothers and sisters and they are developing True Love and Devotion to the Master, not to you, not to me, but to the Master. So the jivatma is getting tuned to the aspirations of the Mahatma, a practical suggestion, a thought that is required, a must for our progress, without it there is no progress. In this system the progress depends upon the purity of points A and B which one maintains. Any neglect of that is likely only to lead oneself down and not up and there is a natural tendency not to do them. I must warn you about that. There is a natural tendency, because the beast never wants to be conquered. The beast has got its own designs and plans as to how to bring us down. It will use so many sentiments, so many emotions into play and then one gets pulled down. Again and again we are pulled down. This is the reason why I talked about Viswamitra in the beginning. Look at the number of times he has been fooled by his lower self. If one tries and understand him as his own brother, he will feel sorry for him. He was a great man because his tenacity was such. Most of us leave sadhana at the slightest excuse. We have given a large number of excuses but not one reason to say I am determined to reach the Ultimate and I will be one with the Divine and therefore all these things are trivial and trash, the determination is missing. Unless one has got the determination he is not going to progress. That goal must be very clear before us and then only do we progress.

Yoga is not one more Bhakti marga. Yoga is a conscious awareness of one's loneliness and then trying to seek the help of the Divine who is the best friend for all of us. It is one inseparable friend for all of us. You can't separate. This one friend will never go. Every person leaves you and goes. One person who remains with you is the Ultimate, God. He comes with us. His company is constant, continuous, and ever refreshing. Think about the Divine and you feel refreshed. Think about something else and you feel the strain.

How do thoughts arise. Anything that is not in consonance with the Divine is bound to be reflected in us and when we have got only Divinity in our mind, we will be in tune with it and we will be totally absorbed in it. There are people who complain that during meditations they have got several ideas. This is bound to be there otherwise the mind will loose its nomenclature. The very nature of mind is to think. It will think. The only point to be noted is what does it think? Does it think about the lower level, does it think about the higher level or does it think about the Ultimate. It will cease. It will definitely not cease to think. But when you think about the Divine, there will be a certain amount of absorption which we generally call as deep meditation or samadhi.

An absorbed state of mind is different from a state of mind where there are no thoughts. This is another distinguishing feature of this system where we lay stress on this point that mind is not likely to loose all thoughts as have been told by people who do not meditate how total meditation or absolute meditation should be and how Samadhi should be by people who have not experienced it.

There are many who have experienced Samadhi. I am not going to deny anybody's greatness, but a person who has experienced Samadhi knows it is a state of absorption and not one of annihilation of thoughts. Absorption of all thoughts in the Divine is what you get. Not annihilation of thoughts; because that seems to be a parameter which is effecting many people in the sadhana. They expect such and such a thing to be there and when this does not occur, they say they are disturbed by thoughts.

Viveka has got so many tinges of this, several colours of this, it is a very vast field. That is designated as knot 1 in our system. It is a tricky one also. This is where most of us loose our balance. Our balance is lost here. We do not proportionately respond, we disproportionately respond as on date. When you proportionately respond that is the balanced state. When I hinted earlier about sukha dukha samekrutva I was trying to tell you it is not total denial of a sukha or dukha but to keep them under balance. That is how a Jivi reacts. Jiva reacts like that and it is so. Pain is pain, pleasure is pleasure, but then no undue attachment to either. But we seem to be asking more and more of pleasure and less and less of pain which is basically an imbalance. Don't ask for that. Every bright side has got a dark side, a coin has two sides. There is a positive angle there is a negative angle. People who have progressed in spirituality considerably have also gone to the nether worlds not only to the higher worlds. For eg:. Bali the great chakravarthi, a man known for his Righteousness, man known for his austerities, man known for his discipline, man known for his obedience to the Divine, still his particular greed to have more than one world under control took him down to the nether worlds. He started owning up a particular world and then they said such a concept is possible only at the lower world and he was asked to go there. He was blessed by the Divine. Because many of the people say that Pada Sparsha should lead me to the Ultimate. It can also lead you to the sutalapatha. That's where Bali chakravarthi is supposed to be. The same feet of God, brought him down. Saranagati is not falling at the feet of somebody else. Bali had the full feet of the Lord on him. We only want a sparsha. So this viveka keeps everything under balance. Not more and more but balance in equanimity, it is directly linked to the first knot. If you do not know what is 1st Knot and if you don't have that quality the chances are you will be unbalanced. Nothing wrong about it. People are too kind. There are disproportionately kind and disproportionately greedy. Neither does one becomes great nor the other, the balanced person moves on. Because God wants balance. Not an extremist proposition. Then only this manifestation shall continue. If every one of us were to become viraktas and then say I am not going to bother about this world then God's purpose is defeated and therefore we should consider ourselves sinners if we contribute to that idea. It is a sin to work against the will of God. Manifestation is his will. When we have to go, we have to go naturally and when the drama is over we will be back there, but so long as you are on the stage it is our duty to act. So the first knot refers to the Viveka and a small knot by its side is the Vairagya.

Viveka automatically grants you vairagya. Vairagya is a most confused word. It is basically anuraga for the Divine, more attachment to the Divine. Bairagi, vairagi is a word, raga is one word. We know attachment and vai, B is viseshana in sanskrit and can also mean specific. Instead of that they took it as a negative prefix. Vai may not necessarily be negative Viseshana. When you qualify it, qualify with the attachment to the Divine and detachment to anything other than the Divine, qualify yourself with attachment to what is permanent, detach yourself to the extent that is necessary to what is temporary. Develop a due attachment to every thing which includes the Divine that brings us to the concept of parallelism. One has to get himself attached to the line of humanity as much as to the line of Divinity that is exactly the meaning of flying with both the wings. At present we are trying to fly either keeping one wing in our particular angle and the other opposite angle. Either this way or that way and then call ourselves a virakta or a Bhogi. No neither of this is correct. We have to go balanced. Tougher are the tasks that we face in this field than what I speak. It is not that easy.

The infinite is really infinite. The journey goes on and then on and on and so long as we retain our identity which is again something that is not real which we have granted for ourselves other than the Divine. None of us have an identity of our own. Every one of us is an expression of Divine, a particle of Divine meant for the purposes of the Divine. But we have granted for ourselves an identity and this identity is the main problem. So long as you try to get rid of certain attachment and try to say I am more wise or less wise etc. this is the problem that you are going to have and there will be a particular angle, that which will be fine. It will not be flying like this. When the birds fly you must have seen many times you will see that it is going on the same plane stretching both the wings. Crows cannot do that. Only the high flown birds can do that. Eagles can do that. Garuda can do that. Not crows and sparrows. Similarly here we should have a vision which is global then only you move like that. If you have got a small vision of small ambit, naturally it is small. You don't require such wings. God doesn't grant them such wings. There is no necessity for it. If you have got to fly very low what is the need for an eagles wings for it. It will be too much of a burden perhaps. It will be akin to an ostrich trying to fly with heavy wings. Poor creature. That's what most of us have opted to become. In more than one sense we don't like to see when we are in danger or difficulties. We try to put our head below this hand and then worry ourselves and then say world is lost. That is the ostrich problem. That's what is happening to us. The ostrich mentality of trying to fly with heavy wings at low levels and then trying to deny a reality that is very much there. Let us be like the big birds. Fly very high like a Garuda. Go on and up and reach the Higher World. There is no point in being crows and sparrows.

When Viveka comes to the finest level, you know that you are the part and parcel of the Divine, you don't have an existence of your own. You know the nature of yourself. You cease to think you are there and start thinking that you are the part of the Divine. That is the Viswarupa Gnana of Atma. It is existence - Sat, It is consciousness - Chit and Ananda. ANANDA in remembering the Divine connection and similarly the other two, namely, the Chit and the Sat. Its existence is because of the Divine. Its consciousness is because of the Divine. Its happiness is in the consciousness that it is linked with all the time that is satchitananda - An experience that you will have in the second knot. An absorption that you will feel as you progress, which makes you feel inseparably one with Him and you start thinking about how best you can express, how best as a body you can express the Divine interests. Without it, the talk is just philosophical. They are not inspirational. People can read philosophies and give lectures on that for hours together. But an experienced man knows that philosophy is not just words. It is a commitment to the Divine.

I live because of the Divine and work here for the Divine as long as I have to work. That alone is the basis of Bhakti that would be the third stage of progress. People think that everybody is a Bhakta. Everybody who goes to a temple thinks so. Everybody who bows before a photo thinks so and everybody who bows before a mahatma also thinks so. But bhakti is an awareness of the inseparable unity we have got with the Divine and a commitment to our own self, which is the Divine. Our smaller self looses its value. Viveka grants us this knowledge and that becomes perfected here when knowledge of self is revealed. We are not seeking Him any more but are seeking to serve him more and more. We seek to see that his greatness is expressed everywhere and wherever people are not able to see it. We take it as your responsibility to tell them. We do not expect rewards like a pujari or an archaka. We are not persons who are there trying to get some advantage of our alleged devotion to the Divine. People go to temples, take money. A pujari is more interested in the money that he gets rather than the God whom he decorates in the day not for whom he tells so many stotras. This is what happens from that imitation of Bhakti with which it started in the beginning, to the real stage of Bhakti. Bhakti tells you that you are insignificant. At least small, the task that has been entrusted to you. The task is trying to tell others and to make other people feel the presence of the Divine and express greatness of the Divine. You know that you are too small for that, insignificantly small. Your infinite is too small use any word you like.

Then another great value of spirituality comes namely humility. Humility is not something that is common to us and one does not start as a humble being. We start as arrogant fellows. We say that through my sadhana I am going to reach the Ultimate. No, Sadhana is a must. We do not reach the Ultimate by Sadhana. Sadhana is a must. It is an essential step. It is an unavoidable step in all its details. But it doesn't lead us to the Ultimate. So the concept of comparison discussed earlier recurs. One starts comparing that somebody else is supposedly at a higher level than him. We start comparing, comparing one yogi with another, one saint with another, one God with other. All conflict situations arise. Humility is questioned there. Somebody comes and then says why is your Master alone good, my master is also good, and you are prepared to wage a war with that fellow. We have no tolerance. That's the nature of our Bhakti. Bhakti doesn't grant us that. Bhakti grants us humility. We say "what you say is right, however this is the method I have followed, this is what I have done. If you are interested we will tell you, otherwise you kindly follow your system, May God bless you". That would be the attitude that comes to us. So tolerance is not just learnt. Tolerance is a byproduct of humility. However much you know you should have the tendency to think that perhaps I do not know, you have no exclusive right or prerogative to say that I know everything and the other man is wrong. Nobody has got that right. When the faith is shallow that is required. Kotta Bitchagadu Poddu Eragadu. That's what it is. When you are new to the system you go on talking about it as though it is the only thing that is positive in the world. Such a conviction is necessary I agree, but there is no need to deny others. You can have your conviction. There is nothing wrong about it, you are fully justified to that. But, then, your conviction in your system depends not on your experiences and it so happens that you start trying to seek other people to join you in order to derive support in your conviction. The drama goes on. The lower self plays, so we gather people around. Various names are used, we can call it Satsangh, we can call it Groups, Bhajans and so on. But that shallow belief that was there earlier before we got our viveka gets ripened here and we know here, we are on the path. There may be others also in the same direction moving towards him. And all that we try to do as our Master says is, if you trust us we will take you there, that is what he says.

In one of the messages of the Revered Master you find him telling, "My interest is trying to take you there. There is no other interest. There are several paths. But this is what I offer". That humility Master maintained. That is one reason why I always accepted my Master because he never lost his humility. He said humility should continue till the end. The humility before the Divine is our real stature. That is the real Atma Gnana. Real Atma Gnana is always trying to say yes there is a Divine and I will bow my head before him. Not for my self interest not for the sake of getting certain things done not for my son's promotion or daughter's marriage or curing grand daughter or husband. All these things are not our consideration. Our real stature is to be humble. To be a true Bhakta is our real nature that you come to know when you cross the second knot and you become totally devoted to him. All the time thinking about him. Try to think more and more of the closeness that you have got with you and the animal is sought to be destroyed, but the animal continues with us till our time goes on. It continues.

Greatest of saints there have cried there at that time. Have you not remembered O! Cupid who have already been burnt by Siva, why are you trying to pester me again. I am also a great devotee of Siva. I am also a great devotee of Vishnu. You better be aware of him. Such type of threats were given to cupid. If you read the literature you can see the agony of the souls who are ripened. The agony of the Satvik soul which was trying to move up is something that needs our attention in sadhana, we should know that. We should know that we have been haunted by these thoughts even of being a devotee and the only way by which you can come out of it is to seek refuge under the Master that is the prayer. You will see in the prayer 'we are yet but slaves of wishes putting bar to our advancement. Thou art the only God and power to bring me up to that stage.' That is a state of surrender. Manmanabhava, you become one with me. Aaishyathi - you become one with me. That I love you most; this is the call of the Divine Prayer is the call of the Divine. Better yield to him, surrender to him in every sense of the term. Then what happens is real nature of dependency on the Divine becomes fructified. You get to know how much depended upon the Divine you are. That is the fourth knot.

If you can analyze yourself well, when you are in the first knot, your ideas will be mostly on the animals, the earthy level. When you move to the second knot, you will see more of water, attachments and sentiments. When you move to the third knot, it is aspiration, trying to seek the Divine think of only the Divine. When you are in the fourth knot, you are in the field of air. There you are becoming lighter and lighter. Not the heaviness of the heart of the Divine soul, but the lightness of the heart of the soul, that has surrendered. What you have in devotion you have got a cry. In surrender there are no words. It is like a child, which seeks the company of the mother. When you are here your attitude is "I am with the Master, I am with my mother". That is the attitude one has got in surrender. Total surrender is one when you are not aware whether he is capable of taking you or not. Taking you is immaterial. I depend upon him. I don't know anything else except him, He alone matters. So at the level of Bhakta we generally tend to go to places. Go from one place to another place. Trying to seek the Divine either here or there. Trying to see whether somebody will respond to his cry, there is cry in Bhakti. There is no cry in surrender. There is a total handing over of ones burden on to the Divine. This is what earlier people have classified as Bharanyasa. Your own bhara is given away. Your own burden is passed on. I have nothing to do for me. It is for him. People have lived up to that level. They have shown how a person can live at the state of surrender. To say I have surrendered to my Master of God or to somebody else you have got and also attended or attempted at the same time to so many things is ridiculous. Surrendering totally is what needs to be done. It is not like a robber who goes to the temple and say let me rob so and so person today and then come back and seek your blessings. He has already decided his action plan. Only he wants an approval for that. In surrender there is no action plan. It is like a child who seeks refuge of the mother. Anything that happens because of only one word 'amma' that's all. In troubles we run. Even today that's what you and I say. Because the Divine is the mother also, so that type of surrender, which is very natural for an infant, shall be the type of surrender to which we evolve. Our minds should grow up to that level. We don't grow, why not? Because we are perpetually trying to improve various qualities of Viveka, Vairagya, atma jnana and bhakti and in developing these things we keep running around in circles. It is not that you cut a knot and go to the other. In this system we go from one knot to another not by breaking them, but by loosening our bondages on them. We are freed enough to move on. The bonds are there, if bonds are cut off you cease to live. That is the reason why earlier they said you get away from people, you will not be in a position to manage the grihasta life because you will be unnecessarily putting everybody into troubles. Babuji says we move on the path. I will enable you to loosen the knots. He has got theory of brackets there. And he says, in the bracket you have got a whirling pool as the stream of continuous flow. There are several brackets in you, when any flow is particular through a particular bracket you start evolving on there and all that he says is I will loosen this particular knot to such an extent that the flow is continuous. Thereby making it possible for the Divine to use our bodies for his purposes effectively. That yielding to the Divine becomes total. The surrender which was a drama in the beginning, becomes total when you come to the fourth knot. This is one of the highest stages of progress in the tradition and once you come to that stage of air, you come to the stage of ether, where everything is balanced. The Akasa tatva is found here. The Akasa that we see outside is the Akasa we see inside.

The vastness of being is what is experienced. You experience a vastness of your own being and then whom people have experienced this vastness have had an experience of expansion as well. Your body will never expand. It will be what it is. It is what you experience in the heart. One does say "I have grown up and down, my width has gone this much and my height has gone this much". We have got enough number of film producers who are capable of depicting such picture for us and we have borrowed them. Please throw them off.

The next state is Brahmand, you cease to be controlled by these forms. These forms are not gone, they cease to control you. They are not annihilated. The higher we progress the less these thoughts tend to bother oneself. However one undergoes the same stages once again, the same viveka, vairagya, atma gnana, bhakti and surrender. Prapanna gati as we call it is a reflection of the third knot. The higher plane because whatever is there in macrocosm is there in microcosm and whatever is there in microcosm is there in macrocosm. This is a straight reflection of another five knots that takes us to sahasrara. As a matter of fact there are only six chakras as sadhana chakras. The seventh one is an anubhava charka. Sahasrara is not a plane of consciousness where you have anything to do. It is a place where satchitananda is experienced. The same satchitananda we had at the second knot is the one that you are going to have at the 10th knot. But the intensity will not be that much fine at that time. But it is not enough. If you reach sahasrara that it is not enough because the realms of the Divine are far beyond that. This is a realm of ourselves, the pinda not our jiva. Do distinguish between a jiva and a pinda. Pinda is something that ends there. No chance of pinda continuing beyond that. The heart region does not go beyond that because our heart is too small to comprehend the Divine. The Divine realms are far beyond our heart. To seek the outer one has to totally dissolve in the Master or in the God. They are interchangeable words. I am not talking about the Special Personality at all. I don't know what he does. He is as much an enigma for me as God. Since God's way are many total yielding is what we have to do. Then come the realms of the Divine. Actually this is the realm where your real identity or ego is faced not at the lower level. Lower level ego is one type. The ego that persists in the Divine realm is toughest to get rid off. It is toughest to get rid off except for those who are blessed. We entirely depend for this progress for the Grace of the Divine. The Divine shall grace you, it will bless you, it will take you not where you shed tears when the cry is there, the restlessness is there to reach him. There should be a continuous knock at the door of the God. One can't take rest in this journey. One has retain the awareness of the Divine, whether we do it at home, we do it at office or business which is possible only when you are in total surrender. So it is the surrender that goes on developing in its dimensions in the intensity. Dimensions of intensity are what I would like to call it. It is an intensity. The idea is the same. The experience is different. Everyone has the experience in their own individual way. Similarly the lower self, the pinda self enjoys surrender from your angle. Here at this stage everything is lost. There is no awareness of it, no awareness that there is a mother also. I really don't know whether there is anybody. One develops absolute Dependence on him.