My dear associates in the Path,

My humble salutation at the feet of all the holy ones gathered here on this auspicious occasion of the Basanth celebrations commemorating the 138th birthday of our Great Master Lalaji Maharaj of Fategarh. More appropriately I should say we are commemorating the birth of a New Era in human life. Even when we are seasoned travelers on the journey to heal our inner selves, there is always more to understand. The unconscious, sub conscious and super conscious can spring surprise lessons from deep within at any time. These surprises which are positive as well as negative need not scare us. However we should remember that we are on a journey to Infinity or wholeness and in the process pick quite a few jewels which are in fact our own parts or as Master calls them Knots.

These parts of our being or consciousness called as Viveka, Vairagya, Bhakti, Saranatva, Prapanna, Prabhu and Prapanna Prabhu have to be recognized as our jewels and we should start owning them to gain the much awaited passport to higher realms of divine being. An exciting point of view is that life, at whatever stage-childhood, youth, adult or old age is always creative and never a closed chapter. So there is always more to learn about ourselves as we heal, grow, and integrate all aspects of ourselves. The more integrated we are the better we are able to participate in creative evolution of life. Life I would rather say is a creative balancing sport. When spirituality is intertwined with life the act of balancing is more interesting and lively. When we appreciate the role of the Master in His spiritual splendor in our individual game of life, it gains a greater meaning.

Master while expressing his longing to get fellow associates in the path to reach the Destination poetically states that "... will surely come to the conclusion that you are sailing towards your own Home, wherefrom you have been snatched away by the Irony of fate." Elaborating further he states that 'when we use the phrase of 'irony of fate' the idea of unbalanced character presents itself to our memory. So long as there was the Balanced state, we had no form of our own. We have simply to unfold ourselves and restore our own Balance which we had lost." Rather than getting off track and being seduced into the highs or lows of life, we live with courage, confidence and faith in the Master as life unfolds, ready to meet new experiences, all the time dwelling in the immediate presence of the Master deep within our hearts where it beats. The rhyme and rhythm of the heart beats we hear during our meditations is the splendor of divine play within us and lending our ears to it we enter deep states of Samadhi as if we are entertained with a lullaby.

One of the helpful ways to become aware of our imbalanced states is to learn as to how we got lost disconnecting our parts: as Rev. Babuji puts it is that 'irony of fate'. We can learn this only through meditation and diary writing. When the song of the divine is not heard and we hear the trumpets and drums of internal strife and external war we find ourselves thrown in noise and tempest as it were. Watching our thoughts and feelings going amuck and none of the individual thoughts and feelings lasting more than a few seconds we start learning how temporary and transient the thoughts are. We remember the Master and relax and let go and do nothing with the thoughts and feelings. This is the internal Vairagya we develop. Once this is established we find we are in a state of Surrender to the moment and immediately the thought of the Master flashes and along with it we start feeling reverence and devotion. Thus by being detached and observing the immediate presence of the Master we feel very simply the most fundamental and basic state of our being. This is really the 'ground' of our being. It is then we can say we are in the state we seek for in the fourth part of our prayer "Thou are the only God and Power to being us up to that stage".

The logic behind this is the power of thought. Thought has divine origin and in its prestine purity is simple consciousness where awareness itself is not there. And more than anything else it has enormous power in a latent state. Master says" When one resolves to do a thing, the connecting link between the thought and the work becomes intensified, and one begins to draw power from the real source in accordance with the strength of his thought. (Reference: BWS 125)" So during our meditation if we keep the thought of the prayer imbedded in our hearts it grants us the power to be in His thought undisturbed by any alien or extraneous feelings and thoughts. One of the thoughts that disturb the abhyasis relates to the physical posture. Classic sitting is a vital part of our meditation technique. Somehow the approach that demands the aspirant to sit motionless for hours on end, as if becoming a frozen human statue is the key to enlightenment, has got deep rooted in some and this has been one of their undesirable thoughts.

Masters' path suggests a more scientific approach of not making the human body as our enemy but rather works with our natural physiology to allow more intense meditation with less effort and discomfort. If the aspirant is clear about this concept he may not gloat around with an idea that he is as stable as a rock during meditation or suffer a feeling of incapacity to be such a rock. Surely masochism is not an effective path to self-realization.

It is the general principle that we keep our place of meditation lit. It is because meditating in a darkened room presents fundamental physiological problems. When we sit quietly with our eyes closed in darkness, our brain interprets this situation as a signal to start shutting itself down for sleep. We are informed by scientists that sleep inducing hormones such as melatonin are released at the same time our heart rate and circulation are reduced due to lack of movement. We feel swept away on a sea of quiet relaxation. This pleasant experience may be a type of hypnosis and should not be construed as meditation at all. If the aspirant were to bend the head such that it glares the stomach it would induce sleep like state more easily. Meditation means that we are relaxed as if sleeping, but our consciousness has to be fully and intensely awake. Therefore, it is a general principle that when we meditate closing our eyes, the room should be lit so that significant amount of light passes through our eyelids.

The prayer of our system is very vast in scope and needs to be understood carefully. Surely seeking desires and wants is a part of family life. There is always the primary need to exist so that we can do our duty. To feel our existence and assure ourselves of our identity we want to survive, create, procreate and build our families and wealth and develop our ideas and ideals. Thus keeping in view the ideal of preserving human race on this planet seeking or wanting is prima facie a good thing. Therefore the sentence "we are yet but slaves of our wishes putting bar to our advancement" in the prayer needs careful examination. If our sadhana is directed to being an awakened Buddha the sentence would make sense, in the manner in which the recluses think. But then we are committed to realise in the family life itself and have no desire (is that a desire?) to become a recluse even if it were to be an enlightened recluse.

Desire creates duality- the person who desires and the object of desire. Buddhism taught that desire is a root cause of suffering and advocated the abolition of wanting mechanism entirely. Rev. Babuji instead suggested balancing our craving and needs. Further he advocated that every thought of ours be taken as an injunction from the Master and develop a detached perspective as to the outcome of efforts of need gratification. We are not slaves of desires and wishes as such but slaves to the results of our action leading to satisfaction of desires. In the philosophy of recluses 'not wanting' means not wanting anything, not just dropping the desire for sex, money, and power, but also dropping the desire for justice, family, and nation. It is not what we want that matters, it is the wanting mechanism itself that is the barrier and according to them has to be abolished. This will not apply in a family set up. Whatever may be the merits of deep meditation, reason and norms of society cannot be dispensed with in a civilized world. The half naked fakirs and totally naked jains are not specimens of human perfection. The call for such abdication given by the orders of renunciation is not acceptable to a rational being. Ending the wanting mechanism brings time to a halt, annihilates the future and the past, and plays no part in His expression.

The Natural Path wants us to be responsible persons committed to common good and welfare of the society. Deep meditation is a giant leap beyond our petty wishes and desires and not of logic and the norms of society. It is dissolving into infinity to become aware of our insignificance and is a state into which we enter and come back wiser and cohesive and we see the grandeur of His manifestation called in tradition as Leela. Though we get into such a state due to the blessings of the Master to remain in that state requires a total commitment and dedication to the divine and our developing a capacity to view all that is in creation with the point of view of the 'monas monadum.'(God) It is true that very few humans have been able to manage that radical transformation totally, but the possibility of every human being reaching that condition is what the Natural Path promises provided one follows the system in letter and spirit.

We have an uncanny method of cheating ourselves of the chosen objective of life. Infinite are the methods by which we try to cheat our conscience. A sincere aspirant once wrote to me 'during morning meditation, thoughts related to having second child for service to the Master and betterment of humanity. Felt like someone begging, pleading to have birth and quite surprised with experience.' What a way to conceal the carnality?

What a mischievous way of bringing in the Master into the picture? I felt a bit dazed and much more puzzled when I read the letter of the aspirant. And this during the morning meditation? The importance of the timing to offer our prayer stated by the Master must be remembered and its implication well appreciated. He stated that ' Performing of Sandhya before sunrise is stressed upon for the reason that the external heat and other influences, which have been driven out of the body, may not creep in again by the effect of the sun which would prevent our deriving the best advantage of the time.' (Reference: BWS 125)

For sure we are all serious that we should get enlightened and we are doing our sadhana and with the help of Pranahuti are progressing in the path. But it is necessary that though the goal of our life is most desirable thing to be achieved there is a catch. While we want enlightenment, we should realise that our wanting mechanism is still active and thoughts relating to the wants and desires will persist during meditation. We need to understand our thoughts are all governed by the wants and desires. At some point in our practice of meditation we may clearly realise that wanting is a barrier to further progress. Only when we can perceive this very clearly should we try to step back from the wanting mechanism, otherwise we will suppress desires and lead a false life. Stepping back from the wanting mechanism is a form of intense self-observation and not suppression. The repeated influx of Pranahuti which grants us comfort in deep silence and safe and smooth passage into Void also concomitantly and certainly ensures the reduction of wants. We find comfort and safety in the Void, its certainty and indestructibility is all through palpable. It is something we should wait for in patience and perseverance. We are left with our only option and that is to pray to the Master. The fulcrum of the balance which we seek is the Master Himself and this is one of the primary realizations we have in the Path.

I encourage myself and implore you all 'to pray so that we pray and continue to pray so that prayer may continue.' What else is the goal of human life and its perfection?