Talk delivered on the occasion of Pujya Babuji Maharaj Birthday celebrations 7th May 2007

My dear brothers and sisters,

My humble salutations to all of you. It is not my intention to disturb you from the melody of Silence we have had in the company of the Master for the past one hour. The melody is not only sweet but has individually conveyed very eloquently into our hearts the deeper secrets of our oneness of spirit. Even though I realise that this action of mine namely talking to you after we all have had the intimate hug with the Master is some thing not very spiritual it has become a convention to yield to lower frequencies of mind particularly talks for reasons only tradition can answer.

The Master has whispered into our hearts that he is with us and is carefully monitoring our progress in the path and has given all of us a reassurance. It is not the first time we experienced that the centre has yawned towards the circumference. We feel that our focus on Him is less than this act of love of His. Many of us have an illusion that we can become very deserving of the grace of Master. This would mean that we think we can guide the course of love but it is wisdom of the Masters that teaches us, Love or God when it finds us worthy starts guiding our course in the path. Real love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. I have an honest feeling that all of us have such a love for the Master and that is the reason we find the canopy these days is oozing with the grace of the Master.

Many aspirants have reported on similar occasions earlier and I am sure now also there will be some who might have seen forms like snow or smoke. They might have felt a strong wind blowing or a wave of heat. They might have seen within them more and more light, fireflies, lightning, sun, or moon. These are signs, the Svetasvatara Upanishad said, that one is far ahead on the path to Brahman. My salutations to all of you and the Master within us all.

However I am also aware that many aspirants feel not in the same manner. I think that is mainly because they are not sure as to what they are seeking. The minimum goal Master has stated should be liberation from the cycle of births. Liberation from the cycle of births and rebirths is possible only when there is a cessation of slavery to desires. This should not be confused with the cessation of desires per se. It is the slavery that we need to get rid off. Enough on this subject has been written and spoken in our literature. However briefly stated, it is craving, which gives rise to fresh rebirth, and, bound up with pleasure and lust, here and there finds ever-fresh delight. The craving arises and takes root wherever in the world there are delightful and pleasurable things to the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. What I like to stress most is that those of us who are slaves to these desires should atleast not bother about them during meditations. Meditation it should be remembered is an act of our remembering Master and our goal and thoughts other than those relating to these are positive proof of our not being determined to get liberated from the clutches of these desires. These desires I read from the reports of the aspirants are being sought to be explained as due attachments. Our Masters advice to get rid of these is being published in our Satyapadamu quarterly under the title Determination. It is the conscience of the aspirant alone that can guide him in this matter.

Transience being the truth of all that is expressed as existence, any attachment to any person or thing or place is never due. Sincere sadhakas realise this and work their way out of these attachments through the help of the trainer who assists them through Pranahuti to cross the barriers of Pind desh. The person who is liberated from the desires understands that he is out of the cycle of births and has no fear of death. Those of the aspirants who are clear about this goal will definitely strive to feel this. All virtues are imbibed by then and one may be considered to be a living Satya, Ahimsa, Asteya, Aparigraha and a brahmachari. Chastity is the flowering of man and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it. Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open. By turns our purity inspires and our impurity casts us down. He is blessed who is assured that the animal is dying out in him day by day, and the divine being established in him.

Many due to the rather vague notions they entertain acquired from pseudo spiritual literature, of what happens afterlife feel like asking the Master for what they already have. The happiness that they have gained by being free from the clutches of desires is lost by them due to the three methods of complaining (that the experience is not according to the versions of liberation that are given by others), criticizing (the help that is received) and condemning (themselves). Not going to details I can only invite the attention of the aspirants to the Masters statement “They take milk but also eat pickles after that.”

Free from the cycles of birth does not mean that one has realised his true nature. The process of realisation in fact starts after one crosses the pind desh. It is only then we come to know little by little about our true self. It is the wisdom of our tradition that states ‘that it is but few who hear about the self, fewer still dedicate their lives to its Realization. Wonderful is the one who speaks about the self; rare are they who make it the supreme goal of their lives.’(Katha Upanishad). The journey in the pind desh can be considered as an extension of the journey we have had in the knot 1 and 1a when we struggled to come out of attachments of various kinds.

The knot 2 where lessons of dependency and interdependency are learnt matures and after pind desh we start understanding our real nature. It is for this reason that knot 2 has been considered to grant us Atma jnana or the knot itself called Atman point. But the seeds at knot 2 come to fruition only after we enter the Brahmand. Realisation is realisation of our true nature of being a thinking and growing being (Brahman) and not just thinking and moving being (atman). This Realisation of our nature as a growing being metamorphoses itself when the awareness of understanding resonates with the will of the Master/divine which makes us understand that our consciousness is entirely dependant on the divine and this matures when we cross the Prapanna and Prapanna Prabhu gatis. No one can be a Prapanna unless he is out of the clutches of individual desires and wants. What ever he desires has at its back the divine will and command. The usage of the word Prapanna by the Master for this condition has led to some avoidable confusion as this word Prapanna is also being used by some religious sects. Except for the similarity of pronunciation of the word there is nothing common between these two. The realised aspirant works for the divine and divine only. This state is possible only for those who are blessed by the Master. It is only after one starts living in this condition it becomes possible to live and move in Sri Ramchandra Consciousness. Here as Dr. K.C.V. puts it “Instead of feeling that he is a particular individual with his own particular separate life to live, he finds himself to be a member of a universe. In this sense what happens is that his own physico-psychical body is infused with vibrations of force far exceeding its personal vibration with which it was endowed. The life one lives is no longer circumscribed to the individual organism. He finds that a vaster world is open to him. Of course this is not a sense identical with the experience of the world around us in a physical sense or geographical or planetary sense. Far from it: one feels drawn into a vaster experience – a freer world to live in. A sense of growing freedom is available.” (Vol.1 pp 408). It is then we partake in the divine work according to the will of the Master and this is what realisation is all about. This I may say is the condition of Freedom in Prayer.

This condition of Realisation is the ground on which the condition of Nothingness stands. Nothingness is the last stage of our spiritual life. In liberation it is our body bondage that is totally annihilated and in realisation it is the mental bondage is metamorphosed into bondage to the divine where Freedom in Prayer gets established and our true nature is revealed in Nothingness – our Home. This truth may be stated as the state of consciousness where the individual identity knows that it is neither the body nor the mind but the immemorial divine Principle of existence, the source of all joy and abiding bliss. The final point of approach is where every kind of force, power, activity or even stimulus disappears and a man enters a state of complete negation; Nothingness or Zero.(Reference:DR 19)

The actual condition is only Tam which is the source and the expression of joy and bliss are off shoots of that condition. But this is still not the final condition. It is here that silence becomes silent. Many well meaning aspirants despite the clarification given by the Master that the ultimate truth is revealed only now for the first time in human history somehow entertain thoughts that our tradition knew that earlier and try to persuade themselves into such thinking. When their inner psyche informs that it is not true they feel unhappy about the condition though they do have peep into that ultimate condition. The last state of Tam is beyond all the three gunas and is therefore beyond the reach of Vedas. This is a state of equipoise where the roots of Balance are. Advanced persons do get into this state often during meditation particularly when they abide in the thought of the Master to the extent they are totally oblivious of their identity. It is a matter of experience and the Institute appeals to all to reach upto this level.

Thus we may see that in the path there are broadly three definite stages which may be considered as goals in their own right, that is, liberation, realisation and the Homeland. One of the difficulties we have is to think that these three are the same and the confusion gets worst confounded. Master has stated that “Longing for Reality brings a person to the right path. It gives a new life to the sleeping condition of man and prepares him for the highest approach reserved for human beings.’ We are aware that He has also classified disciples under four categories. It is true longing for reality brings us to the Path. But this should be known as an unconscious process in the case of many sadhakas. It is obvious that the highest approach is possible only for Murads. The 9 P.M. Prayer is aimed at making all other categories of disciples as Murads and it is in that spirit it has to be offered. It is not proper on my part to go into the details of various aspects mentioned for two reasons. 1. Most of the aspirants here are as much deeply entrenched in their love to Master as I am and 2. I feel that while the Masters grace is oozing one should take the opportunity to abide in his consciousness and drench oneself in his infinite unbounded love to the extent ones identity is totally lost and there should be no disturbance.

Seeking pardon for disturbing the Silence, I offer again my pranam to all.