Talk delivered on the occasion of Pujya Babuji Maharaj Birthday Celebrations 6th May 2007

My dear associates in the path,

It is 24 years that is 2*12 years (the importance of the Jovian cycle is well known to spiritual persons) since our beloved Master has left his mortal coil and is guiding us from the astral plane where he is enthroned to stay for a millennia even as stated by him. His work of transforming human consciousness continues and we can effectively participate in the same process only when we are clear about our goal. When we understand that ultimate condition in this system is Nothingness it naturally follows that his third commandment can only mean that we can become one with God by our acquiring a stage of total Nothingness. Master has however asserted that total vacuum is an impossibility. It should be clear that man has to go beyond all his individual creations and shall live in total consonance and coherence with the divine archetype to which he/she belongs. Master stated that “When all my associates gather at one spot it becomes a temple for me and it is their duty to make their hearts as the temple themselves.” (SDG 117)

It is obvious that only the temple of God can receive God, namely, a soul predisposed by grace, grounded in the Path, purified of all blemishes of ego centricity, transformed in will, established in virtue which are all made possible in this path with the aid of Pranahuti. It has been clarified that Pranahuti works effectively only when there is adequate individual effort to receive the grace of God. It is because of our natural appetitive instincts, that result in our fallen nature we are fixed upon the world and then we need the help more. Without a determined effort, spiritual inspiration, and direction, one cannot hope to interrupt the centrifugal tendency which drags us down and delays the process of our integration. Thus it is, we have the admonition: "Gird up your loins”. We have to make ourselves the temples of God and when such temples gather, the shrine starts emitting the fragrance and brilliance and the temples get further sanctified with the Master in the sanctum sanctorum. Such is the occasion we are now having when we gathered together to worship our lord.

Many aspirants feel overjoyed when their minds are calm and silent during meditations. But it must be noted with caution that the emptying of the mind also clearly allows for negative forces and influences to enter and dominate the thinking of the aspirant. The rush of thoughts not at all relevant for spiritual progress immediately after meditation are not sought to be discussed here. Suffice it mention that these negative feelings such as violence are damaging to life whether we act upon them ourselves or cause or condone them in others. They are born out of greed, anger or delusion and may be slight, moderate or intense. Their fruit is endless ignorance and suffering. We should remember the Master before, during and after meditation if we want to come out of these states of mind. Remembrance of the opposites suggested in tradition does little good. But what is more important to understand is that there are certain seemingly spiritual states which are in fact negative. For example when individuals who after such mediation proclaim that they are one with Master or God or that they have had Laya with Brahm. It is true that the feeling of such an identity with the cosmic spirit arrives in the case of all serious aspirants at advanced stages but this condition is stated many a time prematurely by the uncleansed mind, manas and intellect. I am only trying to stress the point that the negative forces are ever waiting to enter our psyche that is not purified. It becomes then difficult to guide the aspirant as he is in no state of mind to accept the real condition; then work of the trainer becomes tough and tiring.

It is in fact true that we are all born temples of God as the Divine is enshrined in our hearts. The awareness of this condition should make everyone endeavour to keep the temple premises pure and crystal clear. Our determination to purify our psyche needs to be established and then we feel a deep yearning for that which is true, enduring, and trustworthy or what our Master said a pinching restlessness to reach the goal. We feel thanks to Pranahuti that the realisation of our true nature is more attainable now than at any other earlier time in the past. We feel more encouraged when we remember this promise of the Master.

It is no longer only a question of individuals becoming liberated from the dictates of the forces of ignorance, greed and aggression (or anger), as symbolized by the pig, cockerel and snake. These negative mental impulses obscure our limitless potential and are the root cause of our frustrations during meditations and we understand as the sadhana advances are the causes of our births and rebirths. Recognizing these three 'mind poisons' in their subtlest forms provides insight into the origins of all spiritual disease and acknowledging their influence is the first step in developing wisdom or Viveka. We have tried to present this problem in a pictorial fashion when we released our Game of Life. That game has to be made more popular among the children and youth so that higher values get enshrined in their hearts. It has become a necessity for the entire humanity to liberate itself from the clutches of the illusory egotistic possessiveness and arrogance and work globally and cosmically.

On the throes of a new Era there is need for a radical reassessment of the human situation especially concerning those basic values that give life some satisfactory meaning. We need something that will supply in our times what was supplied formerly by our traditional stories of religions. If we are to achieve this purpose, we must begin where everything begins in human affairs with the basic story, our narrative of how things came to be, how they came to be as they are, and how the future generations can be given some satisfying direction. We need a story that will educate us, a story that will heal, guide and discipline us.

Our present predicament is that we are in between two stories. The old Puranic stories which gave us the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it provided by the religions, is no longer effective. But we have not got any new story. Our traditional story of the universe created by God sustained us for a long period of time. It shaped our emotional attitudes, provided us with life purposes, and energized action. It gave some meaning to our suffering and helped us gain integrated knowledge. We could answer the questions of our children. We could identify the roots of crime and also punish transgressors. The traditional story of our roots did not necessarily make us good, nor did it take away the pains and stupidities of life or helped us in developing unfailing warmth in various kinds of human associations. However it did provide a context in which life could function in a meaningful manner.

But the traditional story has become dysfunctional in its larger social dimensions even though some believe in it firmly even now and act according to its guidance. On an earlier occasion we have tried to understand the various stages where the aspirants get stuck namely the Magical, Power Gods, The conformist, The explorers, The sensitive seekers and the holistic super conscious men. The stories of each of these categories of persons are different but there is something of a thread that unites all these and that is why the society is still in some shape. A few days back my grand daughter Sriya asked why we are not celebrating the birthday of Sita the consort of Rama. I have no answer and those whom I asked also could not give one. She was in rage that there is so much of discrimination and she is just 9 years old! It is a fact that the old story did accommodate for this type of sex discrimination however much we try to defend our elders. Though we know that the Vedic wisdom is not the same as that of our puranas, our ethics based on this wisdom is something that is not clear. Aware of this problem our Master Rev. Babuji Maharaj has carefully dealt with the principles behind many aspects of the old story (refer his articles on Sati, Sita and her parrot, Bharata, Hanuman, Ravana etc., stories) and it is necessary that such understanding should develop in every one of us. There may be certain amount of similarities among religions. But it must be recognised that Hinduism emphasized the ultimacy of the spirit, more extensively, more persistently and more intensively than other cultures. Our Master has stressed this aspect of our tradition where the supremacy of the spirit is the key to understand its episodes of religion. There is need for us to work on this more and help the coming generations gain an integral understanding of life where the spirit is the centre.

Aware of the dysfunctional aspects of the traditional story, some persons have moved on into different orientations, which have consistently proved equally ineffective in dealing with our present life situation. Even with advanced science and technology, with superb techniques in manufacturing and commerce, in communications and computation, our secular society remains without satisfactory social discipline needed for a life leading to emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual fulfilment. Because of this lack of satisfaction many persons are returning to a religious fundamentalism. The number of Babas, masters and avatars being born every alternative day to meet this requirement is enough proof of this phenomenon. But we find that this phenomenon has developed its own problems and in most of them it is irrationality that runs the roost. In the old story as well as in the stories that are being created by these new masters and Babas we find the elements of magical and mystical notions of the traditions coming back with a vengeance and these unhealthy alternatives are not likely to survive long.

The currently popular story of the evolutionary universe among the rational thinkers is based on the discoveries largely in the last three centuries in the realms of geology and paleontology, indicating that there was a time sequence in the very formation of the earth and of all life forms upon the earth. The earth was not the eternal, fixed, abiding reality that it had been thought to be. It suddenly dawned upon us that earlier life forms were of a simpler nature than later life forms and that the later forms were derived from the earlier forms. The complex of life manifestation had not existed from the beginning by some external divine creative act setting all things in their place. The Earth in all its parts, especially in its life forms was in a state of continuing transformation. The evolutionary story has been vastly extended to include the beginning, the great flaring forth of primal radiation, sometimes called the Big Bang. The story of our Master which states that all existence emanated from the original stir or Kshob is nearer to this version than those provided by other traditional stories. In fact this is similar to the version of Sankhya and Yoga systems of Indian Darshanas.

Without being aware of what was happening, during the rule of Britishers and other westerners we found that because our education was adapted to suit the rulers requirements we learned attitudes and adopted philosophical and religious assumptions that directly contributed to our alienation from the spirit of our ancient tradition based on spirit. Instead of the dynamic interplay of the Purusha and Prakrti we accepted the common assumption of the dualism of matter and spirit, and the associated radical scientific materialism that suggests that we live in a meaningless, random universe. The great danger of this dualism, placing God outside the natural world and outside the person, is that the natural world and the human being is denuded of value and has become an object of commercial exploitation. The presence of the Divine light in the heart of all living beings is totally ignored and sought to be annihilated. Sanctity of life thus being lost now there are no restraints on exploitation. This resulted in tragic consequences where the individual person is denied intrinsic power, creativity, and value, leading to the loss of psychic energy and zest for life. The divine resource in us is totally ignored and any meaningful educational system has to restore this human dignity of being a temple of God. This is what we have been stressing when we were talking about divine resource development.

The modern culture whatever those words might mean has the inherent capacity to reinforce the illusions that the world consists of inert stuff out there and that we are the active agents of change whose role is to get that inert stuff into some order. This is the assumption on which most modern education has been based, an education aimed at giving us the tools to exercise dominion over the earth. It is misfortune that our children who were taught to respect and revere the Mother Earth thanks to the Old story now due to the dualistic notion of the Earth being alien to us do not experience any luminous aspect in their study of Earth and related subjects. The excitement of existence is diminished. If this fascination, this entrancement, with life is not evoked, the children will not have the psychic energies needed to sustain the sorrow inherent in the human condition. They might never discover their true place in the vast world of time and space. Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives.

Master has stated that the ultimate condition that we have is that of nothingness. Here I find that the teachers have a great role in establishing a deeper understanding of the spiritual dynamics of the universe as revealed through our own empirical insights into the mysteries of its functioning. Quantum physicists state this dramatically when they tell us that the wave/particles are so small that things made of matter, including ourselves, are proportionally as void as galactic space. Yet this very “emptiness,” we are told, is full rather than empty; it is only referred to as empty because it is empty of measurable things. The scientists give us the elementary perspective that; “the root foundation of anything or any being is not the matter out of which it is composed so much as the matter together with the power that gives rise to matter.” It is crucial for us to teach our children that what we call matter has an inside so to speak. It has to be conceived not as tiny particulate pieces, like very small grains of sand, but rather as a mysterious, generative emptiness within which there are interconnected, minute wave/particles of energy/matter. The unity has to be understood as the deepest level of reality and that is the ground of the vacuum or emptiness or nothingness.

It is only when we understand from deep within that there is only One and duality or separation are illusions it is possible to live according to great values of Life and Spirit. The Natural Path provides for such a realisation and living in God, by God and for God through a strict adherence to the Ten Commandments of the Master. As early birds we need to sing and call other souls to this great mission of the Master.

Pranams.