For example, there is a blind man in a big room. He touches the wall, he feels his way along the wall. And just as he approaches the door, he scratches himself and just keeps on walking. Because he has missed the door, he has to walk around the room again by touching the wall and finally he says, “There is no way out.” So he is completely trapped in the room, because he did not find the door. In the same way, through meditation, through Knowledge, when we find the door, that spiritual door leads us to liberation. All the scriptures, the ancient scriptures, talk about Knowledge.
When Lord Christ was asked by some disciples, “There are many commandments, so which is the most important commandment?” he replied that the most important commandment is, First ye shall seek the kingdom of heaven, and all other things shall be added unto you . So, if you are liberated, the mission of your life is completed, the aim of your life is completed. That is why we go to a Spiritual Teacher. For example, if I have to learn English, I go to an English teacher. If somebody has to learn Spanish, he has to go to a Spanish teacher. If somebody wants to learn science, he goes to a science teacher. In the same way, to learn spirituality, we go to a Spiritual Teacher.
Even John the Baptist said, “I am not worthy to tie the shoelaces of the one who is going to come.” And the Master gave the understanding to understand scriptures; he gave the spiritual Knowledge to go within ourselves. Because through the senses, through the working organs and sensory organs, we are going outside. But through spiritual Knowledge we go within ourselves, and that is why the scriptures proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is within you, and to enter it you have to be born again. So the disciples asked the Master, “Do we have to enter our mother's womb to be born again?” And the Master said, “No.” With the physical birth, we are aware of our body, we are aware of heat, pain, cold. But when we attain spiritual Knowledge we are conscious of our own consciousness. We are aware of the power which is within us, which makes us conscious of this entire world. So the person who has Knowledge sees his spirit and with the spirit, having the knowledge of the spirit, he becomes liberated.
I will give an analogy, an example from the Vedas. A person came to a Master and he asked him the question, “By what light does a man see in the daytime?” The disciple replied that during the day a person sees everything by the light of the sun. The Master asked him, “When the sun sets, there is no sun, by what light does a man see?” The disciple answered, “The moon shines at night and by the light of the moon a man sees everything.” The Master again questioned, “When there is no moon, when there is absolute darkness, by what light does a man see?” The disciple answered, “By the light of fire, one perceives.” Again he asked, “When there is no fire, when there are no stars, when there is no moon, when there is no sun, when there is total, absolute darkness, how does a man perceive?” So the disciple answered, “By the light of sound, a person perceives.” When there is total darkness, we shout from one end to the other. So again the Master asked, “When there is no sound, when there is no speech, when there is no fire, when there is no moon, no sun, how does a man perceive?” And the disciple answered that by the power of the breath, which is called prana , the power of breathing in and breathing out, one sees everything.
So, what we are talking about is the breath, because when “God made man, he made man from the dust of ground, he breathed into his nostrils and man became a living soul”. Within everybody God has breathed the breath of life and we are living beings. Without the breath we cease to exist and this is why our scriptures have told us to know this breath, know the élan vital . What is the power which makes you live? And knowing that is the Knowledge of God. “God made man in his own image, in the image of God man was created.” And what is that one image?
People are fingerprinted, because everybody's fingerprint is different. People have their photo on their passport, because their photos are different, their faces are different. One person's retina map is different from another person's. Our DNA is different. So in the physical world things are different, but God is one. And in one image, in His own image, He has created us. So what is that image of God in which we all have been created? People in Mexico , people in America , people in India , people in China may speak different languages, our color may be different, our creed may be different, but God is one, His image is one and He has made us in His own image. So that image is the élan-vital, the prana .
I would like to give you an example. Jesus Christ was fasting, he had faith in God, and he was fasting for forty days. The Devil comes to him, the negativity comes to him, worldly doubts come to him, and they question him, “You believe in God, you are fasting for forty days, you are hungry for bread, you are thirsty for water, why don't you command your God, why don't you pray to your God, so that all these stones may turn to bread for you, and that you may eat the bread and live.” And Lord Christ replied, “Man does not live on bread alone, but he lives on the Word that God utters within him.” So within our breath, in all the life breaths we take, God is uttering a Word. And that is why in the Gospel of John it is written, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
I am speaking many words into the microphone. If you scientifically analyze them, you will find my vocal chords are vibrating, this vibration is being amplified by the amplifier, the molecules in the air are vibrating, the vibration is going to your eardrums and you listen to what I am saying. So the Word of God is that primordial vibration which made this entire universe. It is that vibration which made this entire material world. What is matter? It is a conversion of energy. What is steam? What is ice? Ice is the frozen form of water. What is steam? It is the vaporized form of water formed by the agitation of molecules. For example, we take a hydrogen atom, we add one more atom, and it becomes helium. If we add one more atom of hydrogen to helium, it becomes lithium. And in this way we build the entire Periodic Chart.
So it is all about vibration, because the difference between solid, liquid and gas is vibration. We take ice, it is solidified, we excite it, it becomes liquid water. Ice is the solid form; when it becomes water it becomes liquid, when we further excite it, it becomes gaseous. So too, the colors that we see are ultimately all vibrations. Science too says that. What is light? It is the vibration of photons. So we see everything in the entire universe vibrating. In the center of an atom is the nucleus containing the protons and neutrons and around the nucleus the electrons are revolving. So energy is making the entire universe vibrate and the ultimate energy is the Word of God.
That is why Saint John said, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The function of the Spiritual Master is to make you aware of that Word of God, it is to make you experience that Word of God within yourself. That is why Jesus Christ said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” When Moses went to the mountain, he prayed before God, he spoke to God, Jehovah, and he requested, “I want to see you, I want to perceive you.” God said, “You cannot see me with these eyes, these eyes are physical eyes, they only see physical things.” To see spiritual things, you need a spiritual eye. You must have seen pictures of Lord Shiva with a Third Eye in the center of his forehead, because to see spirituality you have to have the divine vision. So to have divine vision, you go to a Spiritual Teacher. As Moses was requesting God to let him see Him, he saw a burning bush, and there was light emanating from the bush, and Moses perceived God in the form of light. And that is why the scriptures say, “God is Light and in Him there is no darkness.” If you study any scripture in the world, they talk about the Light of God.
In the Gayatri Mantra, in the Vedas, the sage is requesting God, ‘Oh Light, I want to meditate on you.' That is why also in the Bible it is written, “If thine eye be single, thy body shall be full of Light.” It doesn't mean that you have to take one eye out and have only one eye. It doesn't say that. It means that when your total vision is united, and when your Third Eye opens up, you perceive light, you experience light. Because God is Light, and there is no nescience, there is no darkness. Darkness has no existence. What is darkness? It is absence of light. So, I want to request you to understand the spiritual Knowledge, because this body is the Temple of God . This body is the Church of God , and within ourselves, in our breath, every breath we take, we utter the Name of God, but we do not have Knowledge,
Because we don't have Knowledge we are just behaving like the person who had a huge forest of sandalwood, and he used to burn the sandalwood and turn it into coal and sell it. Once upon a time there was a person, a woodcutter, who lived in a big forest and his function was, his livelihood was, to chop the wood, burn it, turn it into charcoal and sell the charcoal. One day the king of that land lost his way in the forest. He came across the woodcutter and asked for shelter. The woodcutter gave him a place to stay, he gave him food and shelter. The king was very happy and said, “Now you are my friend. If you ever have any problems, come to me.”
After some time, the woodcutter had cut down the entire forest, there was no wood left there, there were no trees there, so he went to the king and reminded him, “You promised to help me if I was in trouble. So I have cut down the entire forest, I need a forest, because I have to sustain my family.” So, the king consulted his advisers, and said, “My friend has come. I want to give him the best forest.” He was advised to give the woodcutter a sandalwood forest. So he was given the sandalwood forest.
Some time later the king thought, ‘My friend must be very, very rich now, because I have given him the sandalwood forest and sandalwood is the most expensive wood in the world.' So he goes to the woodcutter, and he finds out that the woodcutter is still a pauper, a poor man. The king said, “My friend, I have given you this most expensive forest, and you still are a poor man. How come?” And the woodcutter replied, “I take this sandalwood, I cut it, I burn it, I turn it into coal, and I sell it. How do you think I could be rich?” The king smiled and thought, ‘This woodcutter does not know the value of sandalwood.'
So he took a piece of sandalwood and told his friend, “Please take this piece of wood and sell it in the market”. The woodcutter said, “I can't sell a bag of its charcoal, so how can I sell this piece of wood?” The king assured him, “Don't worry. Have faith in me. Take this piece of wood and try it.” So the woodcutter takes the piece of wood, the sandalwood, and he goes into the market, and the entire market gets filled with the fragrance of the sandalwood. The merchants started saying, “Somebody has sandalwood, we want to buy it.” Somebody said, “We'll give $100 pesos for it.” Somebody said, “I'll give $200 pesos for it.” Somebody said, “You're tricking this woodcutter; it is worth more than that.” Then this piece of sandalwood was going for thousands and thousands, the woodcutter was completely astonished, because he did not have any idea about sandalwood. He was treating the sandalwood as ordinary wood, chopping that wood, burning it and turning it into charcoal.
This story might be a little bit amusing for you, but this is the story of everybody. God the Father is the king, and he has given us sandalwood. The breath we breathe in, the breath we expel, is like that sandalwood; if we do not know the importance of the sandalwood, we lose the opportunity. It is so important, this élan-vital, this breath of life is so important, that without it, we are dead. The difference between a living man and a dead man is this life breath. Without the life breath we are dead. Our friends, our relatives, will take our body to the graveyard and then begins the process of ‘from the dust you have come, to the dust you shall return'. So, the importance of this human life is to know God.
I will give you an example of a Chinese philosopher whose name was Cheng. One day he felt very sad. His pupils came to him and asked, “Master, why are you sad?” He said, “I had a dream and in my dream I became a butterfly.” So the disciples said, “The dream is over, now you are back to reality. So, in your dream if you became a butterfly, that is over, there is nothing to be sad about. Be happy now.” That philosopher said, “My problem is not over, my problem has just started. If I can have a dream, and in my dream I can be a butterfly, then a butterfly can also have a dream. And if the butterfly dreams that it has become Cheng the philosopher then my problem is whether I am really Cheng or just the dream of a butterfly!” What is truth? This is the question.
Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?” We are also asking, “What is truth?” And the reality is, the Spirit. That is why in every generation, in every civilization, people believed spirit to be immortal. Because energy can neither be created nor destroyed. We are sons of energy. We are sons of Light. We are daughters of Light. We are sons of God. We are daughters of God. And the spiritual part of us is eternal and immortal, it cannot be destroyed by fire, it cannot be destroyed by water. That is why in every civilization they believe spirit to be immortal.
You know, for example, that when a tree has a lot of fruit, what happens to the tree? It bows down. We go to a Spiritual Teacher, we humbly bow before him, and we seek Knowledge. That is why it has been said, ‘Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you.' So, what we have to do is find and ask.
If you want to fill a bucket of water, you have to place the bucket under a tap. You don't put the bucket on the tap, you put it under the tap. Because it is a scientific law that water flows from a higher level to a lower level. Why do we put our water tanks on the roof? Because that is the highest point, and from there the water goes to every room. In the same way, the Knowledge also flows from a higher spiritual level downwards, and that higher level is a teacher. There was never an age when the teachers were not there. God has sent his teachers to every land, to every generation. There was never a time when the world was without the Spiritual Teacher. But we have to stand, open our eyes, and see. Our Spiritual Teachers say that now you should search, and the journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your foot. So the search must start from within ourselves.
Once what happened, there was an old lady, she took a torch and was looking for something on the street. Somebody asked her, “Mother, what are you doing?” She said, “Sonny, I've lost a needle, and I'm searching for it in the street.” He asked, “Where did you lose the needle?” She said, “In my house.” So, if she lost the needle in the house and was searching on the street, how could she ever find the needle? That is why we say, we have lost ourselves and we have to find ourselves within ourselves.
Lord Kabir gives a beautiful analogy about the musk deer. Up in the Himalayas , above 10,000 feet, lives the musk deer. The deer contains very precious musk. The musk is in the kidney. He eats a lot of herbs, the herbs turn into musk, and the fragrance is very, very powerful. He smells the fragrance and he thinks maybe the musk is in a tree, or in a stone, or in the valley. So he jumps around but never finds the musk, because he doesn't know that he himself is the source of the musk. So, our Spiritual Teachers tell us that we ourselves are the source.
I have heard a story about a disciple here who saw apparitions of Mother Mary and Mother Mary requested him to build a church. He goes to a bishop, and the bishop refuses. Again and again he requests. Finally the bishop demands a miracle, and that poor man, ignorant man, opens up his robes and a lot of roses were there, even though that was not the season for roses. This story makes us believe that, if we are innocent, if we are the blessed peacemakers, then we shall inherit the earth. If we are innocent, pure in our hearts, then we shall see God.
In order to see, our spectacles must be very, very clear. If the glasses are dirty, the vision becomes blurred. Just before I started satsang, a small girl came and stood here. She was holding a camera but she was putting her finger right on the lens. So, if her finger is on the lens, how could she take a picture? In the same way, if our mind is in the maya, if our mind is in the material world, how can we take a picture of God? In order to take God's picture, first of all the camera has to be stationary, the mind has to be stationary. If the mind is vacillating, if the mind is vibrating, you will have a blurred picture. Only if the mind is stationary can you hit the target. Because the meaning of the word ‘yoga' comes from the root ‘yug', which means union. For example, when sugar and water unite, we get sweet water. When our mind and God unite, that is liberation.
What happens is that we are sitting in this hall, suddenly the mind thinks, ‘Oh, we have to go someplace and eat tacos!' or ‘I have to make a mobile call.' It's fantastic that nobody has a mobile phone ringing here, otherwise it would distract the mind. And in this technological world we have no peace of mind, not even from the mobile phone. So what we are talking about is that the mind must be stationary, otherwise it is vacillating in the world, moving in the world. So we invite everybody to know more about the Knowledge.
Christ gave the example of a farmer who goes to sows seeds. Some seeds fall onto the rocks, they do not get soil, they do not germinate, they get no water, they do not blossom. Some seeds are picked up and eaten by birds. But some seeds fall in the earth, they get water, they get sunlight and they blossom. So, in the same way, when our heart is like the soil, when we have the water of love, when we have the water of devotion, then the seed of Knowledge will germinate.
So, I am very, very thankful to all of you and I welcome everybody to participate in this, to understand this, because Christ said, “I shall give you the understanding to understand scriptures.” The rabbis too were reading the scriptures, but they did not have the understanding to understand scriptures. So when you receive Knowledge, you get the understanding to understand scriptures. The hidden meaning of the scriptures will come before you.
We have the word ‘GOD'. There is the letter ‘G', there is the letter ‘O', and there is the letter ‘D'. ‘G' stands for ‘generator', the power that generates, that power that has created everything. ‘O' stands for ‘operator', the power that operates, and ‘D' stands for ‘destroyer'. Just like we have the anabolic, catabolic, and metabolic process. And that energy which is sustaining, operating and destroying everything is that supreme energy that we call God. So, what God requires is love. If we take one step towards Him, He takes ten steps towards us.
One day a man was walking along the beach and he noticed that two footprints were there. So, he spoke to God and said, “God, whenever I was in misery, whenever I was sad, whenever I was unhappy, it was like walking on the beach and I was all alone. All I saw on the beach were my footprints.” God said, “No, those footprints belong to me, they are my footprints, because I picked you up. When you were unhappy, when you were in misery, I lifted you up. Those footprints belong to me; you didn't even know that I was carrying you.”
So, the spiritual hand of God is within you, it is sustaining you, it is inviting you, it is calling you. It is providing you with this beautiful spiritual opportunity to know Him. So, what I am requesting you to do is to participate in satsang, spiritual discussion, and the more we listen to satsang, the more we listen to spiritual discourses, the more our heart opens up. When a farmer plants his seeds, there are other unwanted plants that grow there, he has to dig out the weeds, so that the real crops can grow. In the same way as the farmer prepares the field, the heart of a disciple is prepared by spiritual discourses, so that he receives Knowledge. So, I invite you again and again to listen to satsang. We have some literature available for you and some cassettes also and some magazines, so that you may expand your knowledge. And, when you are ready, then you will receive the Knowledge. So, I thank you very much. Muchas gracias.
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