Talk delivered on the occasion of Basant Pancami Celebrations 10th Feb 2008

Dear co-travelers in the Path,

My humble Pranam to all,

After having been in the company of the Master more intensely for the past one hour it is no pleasant feeling to part with it and come out of the Roaring Silence. Obviously the sweet love and celestial silence is what I call roaring. The magnetic gripping power that passeth understanding that enwrapped us all this while is what we have been asked to share with others and spread the message of the Master. It is over 16 years the ISRC has been assiduously engaged in this task of educating and doing further research even as desired by the Great Master Babuji Maharaj in a letter to me in 1979. The power imperienced is such that we are all overwhelmed by it and some thought it will take care of everything in sadhana. That thought is the main reason for some persons who have blown out of proportion the role of Pranahuti and the role of the master. The words master and Master have different meanings and unfortunately one was confused with the other by many. Having created the confusion the role of the aspirant was sought to be reduced to nothing. Rev.Babuji Maharaj has made it clear through his messages and writings that the aspirants have a great role to play as well as the preceptors. The articles ‘They lost the Ocean’ and ‘Determination’ are among the many that puts forward his point forcibly.

Accordingly and in compliance of the Masters’ wishes we have tried to explain the role of the aspirant as well as that of the trainer as clearly as possible through our publications, C.D.s, training slides, seminars, training programs and the program of Manasarover. I am sure that many of you have played the ‘game of life’ which teaches us many aspects of sadhana. Our latest self evaluation tool to assess our progress in the Pind desh has been found by many aspirants highly useful and they are taking measures to own up the conditions desirable for permanent stay in the Brahmand and other higher regions. Naturally that requires courage and absolute faith in the Master and we are happy that we could bring many aspirants to the state of being lions in the path. That is a reward by itself for ISRC. I do not intend to dwell on those aspects in detail now. I am sure that many have had occasion to see our web sites and I appeal to those who have not, to see our web sites. The coordinating agency for training and research is our institution “Imperience”. And those who do not have access to computers may contact any of the members of ‘Imperience’ who would be too happy to help you.

All these efforts of ours have been aimed to making us deserving as both the aspirants and trainers. When we imperience the divine and divine commands, it is but necessary that we own up those conditions and ISRC has been particularly emphasizing this aspect. More so in the case of trainers there was a stress laid on their owning up the condition so that their service to the aspirants would be of a high order.

Recently we heard a very ingenious yet ill informed argument that ‘if the trainers were to own the condition what will Rev. Babuji do’ and it was added that this means that Rev. Babuji does not exist in ISRC. This argument derives its sap from the notions mentioned above which were popular in some circles of disciples of the Master but which were never true. Their belief maintains the notion that Pranahuti flows up from the blues or directly from the heart of the Master and the Master would work according to the need automatically and the trainers need do nothing except sit and get honoured for such a noble job! This and many such magical and mysterious notions of such an effect from Pranahuti were sought to be cleared off in one of our latest publications ‘Pranahuti’. That Pranahuti is the will power of a person who is advanced in Raja yoga and who can foment another with his own internal divine power has been stated very clearly more than once. The notions about Pranahuti in any other manner and thinking that the Master does all the work is surely the desire of those who would like to call themselves as aspirants and trainers but would crave and indulge in the realms of sloth, laziness, unaccountability and irresponsibility.

There is some error in thinking among our associates. They feel that service is a means of progress in spirituality and donate in cash and kind liberally to Sahaj Seva Samsthan which does lot of noble service. The quality of service rendered by SSS is well appreciated by the Governmental agencies as well as funding agencies which have inspected the institutions of Sahaj Seva Samsthan. However, I may be permitted to clarify that it is those who are advanced in spirituality and stepped into universal consciousness and live in altruistic consciousness that feel the genuine need for service. It is not as though who ever does social service moves to higher realms in spiritually. An article by Dr. K.C.V. on Service to Mankind was published in our Satya Padamu more than once just to clarify these types of notions. I appeal to aspirants to clearly understand that spiritual training that we seek to impart through ISRC and its sister wing Imperience has nothing what so ever to do with Sahaj Seva Samsthan, which is run of course by the aspirants following ISRC, whose character and nobility is of a very high order. It is true we say that since SSS is doing good work fellow brethren may help that organization grow in the manner in which they think they can.

It is said that it takes one to know one: what this really means is that we cannot feel, see, or experience something in someone else UNLESS it is also inside us. So, if one could feel, see, or experience appreciation, respect, happiness, excitement, conversational compatibility, humour, inner peace, extreme support, and deep meaningful passion in ones’ mirror, we should appreciate that person for having amazing qualities of what may be called Love.

Many aspirants seek to know their condition in spiritual life. For this they should be attentive during meditation and other practices connected with sadhana. Attentiveness is effective in noting the arising of our thoughts and in recognising the contents of our thoughts and beliefs. It is particularly useful in changing the self limiting beliefs we have that is preventing us from unlimited possibilities. Since changing these unconscious self limiting beliefs requires that we first identify them, attentiveness plays a crucial role in this identification process. When we are attentive to the thoughts and beliefs in our mind, we can then work on replacing beliefs that limit us with wholesome and life-enhancing ones.

How can we increase our attentiveness? We do that through meditation. Those of the aspirants who ask how to be attentive during meditation may kindly note that continuous meditation alone enable us to be attentive to our states of mind. Meditation, when done on a regular basis, increases our attentiveness about the object of meditation and allows us to gradually peel off layers upon layers of negative mental and emotional imprints (samskaras). The more we are attentive of the goal and the object of meditation the more we create room for positive belief systems and they in turn efface imprints that are not in consonance with the goal, and create room for new positive and divine centred beliefs and imprints that we are pregnant with.

The one imprint that we have inherited from the days when we were descending from the Base while passing through the rings of splendour is dependency on Master. Such dependency is infact our real or true nature. It is our soul mate. Dependency precedes Consciousness according to some great mystics. Without it we are not and without us it is not.

But before we come to the state of being permanently abiding in the consciousness of dependency we need to as pointed out above get rid of the negative mental and emotional imprints which were also gathered by us in the journey of our individual manifestation. The compliance to the Commandments of the Master enables us to effectively attend to this task. More particularly with a clear understanding without yielding to all sorts of logic for sloth and other intellectual aberrations we need to learn through implementing the commandments 1,5,6 and 7 the attitude and ability to live in the state of dependency. Dependency enables us to live by the principle of ‘Letting Go’, which has been fully explained by the Master in his commentary on the commandment seven.

The ability to let go complements attentiveness. Attentiveness allows us to be aware of our negative thoughts, beliefs and feelings. With the awareness and insights we can then let go of them. Since we spend almost every waking hour seeking, acquiring, grasping and clinging on to things, we have the tendency to resist letting go. In fact, most people find it extremely difficult to let go of anything and particularly of feelings and beliefs. This is because we have learned to identify our feelings and beliefs as ourselves. We think we are our feelings and beliefs. Thus we fight and struggle to keep these feelings and beliefs in an effort to preserve our ‘self’, regardless of whether they are useful or harmful to us.

The effective method of letting go is through attentiveness itself. When we become aware of our negative thoughts and feelings due to our attentiveness, which often hide in our subconscious mind, we have to decide to let them go. This of course is not easy as we all know. It is here our dependency on the Master comes to play. Here we find that we are unfortunate slaves of our wishes and we find ourselves incapable of being free. If our innate nature of dependency on the Master is remembered through the period of meditation and purification process our attentiveness to the flaws and defects in us get washed out.

Now that we are all drenched in the shower of the grace of the Master, and are immersed in the thought of the Master, I would request you to remember the Masters’ advise “We should utilize this occasion in getting into the Master and Master alone, which will act as food and tonic for spiritual elevation. Remembrance should be in a way that we feel the thought of remembrance oozing out from the objects everywhere. It is the real remembrance which mortals can have. It is a play for our good.”(SDG.29)

My humble Pranam to all spiritual fraternity.