10. Sri. N.V.Viswanath

In this message the ‘past’ means our complete past right from this life to the beginning of our first life. The past what we have is a set of ideas, notions, opinions, prejudices, aspirations and attachments. Demolition of the past means undoing the above and getting back to our Balance.

To understand our past we need to study our thoughts that we get during the meditations, sittings, satsanghs, cleaning sessions, dreams and also during the day. The quality of the thoughts that we get during these periods help us to know about our self.

As we are getting cleaned with the help of the master the thoughts in the core of our heart come to our awareness. When we analyze these thoughts we understand that these thoughts are not due to our actions in the current life but they are due to our actions/thoughts of the previous lives. This gives us a feeling that we had previous lives. Also when we do yarta in the knot I and when we imperience the transitory nature of life we understand that our body is temporary and we have carried forward the thoughts and feelings of our past lives. This helps us to understand that our consciousness is permanent.

We have altered our pure consciousness with our past actions and thoughts. Now we have to alter it back to the original consciousness, which is pure and unalloyed love.

Now that we have got the Viveka about our tranisitory nature of our life and also understood that we have to alter back our consciousness to its original nature our seriousness in sadhana increases. This is what Master said “The real form of viveka is that when a man begins to realise his own defects and shortcomings and at the bottom of his heart feels repentant for them. (DR-109)”.

To demolish our past the solution is to fully co-operate with our guide/master.

The first thing that we need to develop is “Anukulasya Sankalpa and Pratikulasya Varjanam”. All things which are detrimental to our sadhana must be stopped. Things like movies, magazines etc must be stopped as they do only harm to our state of mind. We should always do things, which will help us to be in the thought of the master.

Demolition of the past is possible with master’s support through pranahuti and by our self-effort. We have the continuous support of the master till we reach the goal. We should do our best to co-operate with our master in all respects. All the instructions from the master must be implemented without any excuses.

We need to develop single pointed orientation towards the master and towards the method given by the Master. Our aspiration should be such that every single thought of ours should be about our master only. This we have to develop consciously. This does not mean repeating his name like a mantra but thinking about his help, his love towards every one, his commitment to solve our problem of life. When we try to think about our master with love and devotion we feel the divine grace coming from him. The more we think about him the more we get the grace from him. This grace helps to purify us.

Our orientation to the master must be total for the reason that master works on us not only during our individual sittings and satsanghs but also during many other times. It is clear from the below sentences.

“The reason for much of the spiritual work to be done during the deep sleep of the abhyasi or the Samadhi condition or the deep dhyana shows that what real transformation can be done is only during the period of the astral life.” (BP Vol1 page 435)

Because most of the work is done when we are asleep we should try our best to orient to our master before going to bed also. After the bedtime prayer we should think about our Master and then sleep in his thought. This way we will be in his thought even while we are sleeping.

Another very important attitude that we need to develop in our sadhana is the attitude of yielding to our guide. Yielding means allowing our guide to work on us with out any resistance. The more we think about his help the more we will yield. The Pranahuti offered by our trainer works on us only when we yield to him. The more we yield the more the trainer’s work will be effective on us.

Patience is another important quality that we should develop. Rev.Sir told this in one of his lectures that it is patience with our own self than with others. When our trainer attends to our cleaning the thoughts, which are there in the core of our heart, come up for fruition. When they are going out we become aware of them. During this period we have to be patient. We need to depend more on the master for his help. We have to undergo whatever we have done so we should have patience. We will be impatient to better ourselves. Our impatience must be converted to restlessness to reach the goal.

For our progress restlessness is a must. We should be always restless to reach the Goal. Since the concept of Goal is dynamic this restlessness must be forever. For this reason our guide always tries to keep us restless.

When we have understood that we have a long past and we have to undergo our past samskaras then following commandments 5 and 7 becomes possible to a certain extent. Why I say to a certain extent is that our ego is such it does not so easily accept our own mistakes but it easily finds faults with others. To follow 7th commandment we should remember our mistakes so that we can accept others mistakes without much resistance.

When we get to know more about ourselves we become more humble. In my opinion bedtime prayer becomes sincere when we know our lowliness and His greatness.

The continuous help of the master is the most unique feature of PAM. The work of the master is “To clean the Chakras and carry on the yatra of the aspirant to the Ultimate is the responsibility of the real spiritual trainer. (BP Vol1 Page 76)”

This does not mean that we do not have to do anything and he will do everything. It is our responsibility to own up the conditions given by the master. If we do not own up the conditions given to us then master’s hard work gets wasted.

Till recently my feeling was that it is enough if I do the meditational practices seriously and be in the thought of the master and it is not necessary to do yatra on our own. But after started doing yatra as per Rev.Sir’s instruction my opinion changed. I would like to share some of the feelings which I imperienced because of doing yatra in knots 1 and 2

1. I had the feelings of the transitory ness of life. Had the feelings that the body is temporary and the consciousness is permanent. All attachments related to this body are temporary. Every thing in this world is consciousness.

2. On one occasion while doing yatra had the feeling that everything is only one consciousness. This feeling continued for 3-4 hours after completing the yatra. On contemplating on this condition I understood that I am nothing and Master is everything.

3. There cannot be any comparision between people. Each soul is unique. There can only be sharing and co-operation amongst all the souls.

When we get these feelings on our own the feeling is really great. Now I understand the need for doing yatra repeatedly in all the knots. We have to make these feelings as part of our consciousness.

Rev.Sir told us many times that without service there is no progress in spirituality. 9.00 PM prayer is an opportunity given to us by the Mater to serve others. Initially it is not easy to maintain the thought during 9.00 PM prayer. But as we start progressing on the path this gets better.

Demolition of the past is possible only by serving the Master. My little experience shows that we receive His grace when we think about good of others. We become pure by receiving His grace. So thinking about good of others helps us in our progress. The more we get purified the more effective is our service to the master. Hence service to the master helps us reduce our load.

As we progress on the path the lightness increases. This is the indication that our past is getting demolished. As Master says “If the aspirant begins to feel himself lighter and lighter, it means he is progressing. (IPAM 58)”

Since our goal is towards infinity I am of the opinion that the process of demolishing the past is never ending.

Conclusion:

Let us always remember that each one of us had a past and luckily we got a great master who can demolish it with our co-operation. Let us utilize this opportunity and work hard to get back to our balance as soon as possible and serve Him.