All are One in the Self

Two directions - unbound by form or form-bound

One can subdue the mind through concentration. The process can be practised in either of two directions - A-rupa or Sa-rupa. A-rupa means 'unbound' by form. One feels that he is not the doer or enjoyer; he is only an agent of God, an instrument, and therefore one is unaffected, well or ill, when the act results in good or bad! One has no identity with the rupa (form or body). Sa-rupa meditation gets lost in dualities of pleasure and pain, profit and loss, for it considers the name and form, the body and its activities as valid. Similarly, man has the choice of two paths - the Pravritti Marga (the path of involvement) or the Nivritti Marga (the path of non-involvement). When involved, man is confronted with the six internal foes - lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride and hatred. When non-involved, man is helped by six internal friends - sense control, mind control, fortitude, contentment, faith and equanimity.

Here in this thought for the day Swami talks about concentration and how it can be practiced. A-rupa or Sa-rupa. And what is unbound?

If we focus on the self, we are all the same, there is no form, we are all the same, the self, and we merge in that focus, it is like with a mantra, it keeps us focused and we surf on the sound waves, all focused on the same divine truth and light only, and there can only be pure love, how can it not be pure if there is only one?

As well during singing of devotional song, if all sing and even if we are not singing, we are still one and singing, because we are one, we are the self, instruments and in that sense singing as well for the self.

We have to keep the oneness in focus and when we notice that we are in thoughts or somewhere else, we come back to the self. It is like meditation practice with a mantra, only the focus is the self and oneness. There is only one self. The self reflects in all of us the same way as pure white light. It is the reflection of the highest self, the Paramatma, the self we can experience as reflection of white light is the Atma and the self we project in the body is the ego, but it is always the self. The Paramatma is too big to be experienced. It is the entire universe.

Focus on oneness has to be an effortless process, like with meditation, we do not worry about thoughts, but when we realize that we are not in our focus on the self being one with the other singers, we come back to the self and we remember that we are one only.

He tells us that we can have two ways, but it makes us aware how different the outcome will be if we are focused on the divine form or on Brahman, pure consciousness, it is not bound by form.

When there is no form, the only identity is the self, it is our common identity, we are all the same self. And that is what Swami tells us next, when it is sarupa, there is duality awake and we get lost in pleasure and pain, profit and loss, as we consider the name and the form.

He makes us aware that we have a choice, it is Pravritti Marga, the path of involvement and the Nivritti Marga, the path of non-involvement.

Sa-rupa meditation gets lost in dualities of pleasure and pain, profit and loss, for it considers the name and form, the body and its activities as valid. Similarly, man has the choice of two paths - the Pravritti Marga (the path of involvement) or the Nivritti Marga (the path of non-involvement).

And he explains the problems when we are in the Pravritti Marga, we are confronted with the six internal foes – lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride and hatred.

And only when non-involved we get the help of the six internal friends – sense control, mind control, fortitude, contentment, faith and equanimity.

When involved, man is confronted with the six internal foes - lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride and hatred. When non-involved, man is helped by six internal friends - sense control, mind control, fortitude, contentment, faith and equanimity.

Therefore, we can ask ourselves, how we get to those non-involved friends? It is much easier if we have friends and not inner foes and enemies. If we are in duality we have to face the internal foes.

And he made us aware in focusing on the self, that is much easier than being involved with the six internal foes.

The focus has to be on oneness and that we are the same and everybody is the self, then we have the six internal friends and not the foes we have to face. Therefore, if we face enemies, it is because of duality and not because of oneness.

Now the question is, do we face friends or enemies?

And how do we get out of it? There is only one way, focus on oneness, we are the same, no difference only instruments, only that can make us experience the inner friends and strengths and not the enemies.

The thing is, as long as we are not aware of how to focus on the Nivritti Marga, we have no choice, we have only a choice, when we know how to do it. And when we listen to his words and think it over, he tells us how to do it and that makes it easy.

When I began with meditation, I went inside in direction of the higher self and everything seemed easy and right and then I had been in a relationship with the leader and I was in the meditation center and he in the headquarter. We met about every second weekend only and my family began as well with meditation, it seemed great, much better than ever before. One weekend I arrived at his place, he had always to come and pick me up, because I came by train and he was in the mountains and it was nearly impossible to get there by train it took that much time. I went to his place and there was my sister, she was on staff and we went for a drive and she sat in front of the car.

I didn't know what to do in that meditation environment about it, only focused on meditation and oneness.

I thought we had to be strong and that is how it went on. In the evening meditation when we began to relax, the tears began to flow, and we thought meditation would take care of it, but it didn't. It got worse only, and it was not anymore a question of oneness, but of the uncertainty with the sister and there was 'exposed' standing in the air.

At that time we didn't know yet that it means it cannot be not true, when it is standing in the air. I couldn't leave and I couldn't stay, the relationship was not anymore what it had been before. It is called Darshan when it stands in the air, the sight of truth.

That is how I got in touch with Sai Baba. There was a big black hole in the afternoon program during my meditation and the fear to lose the mind or to die of tiredness. I could turn it around as much as I wanted, there was no way out of it, it always felt uncertain and not safe anymore. And then I got a book of Sai Baba, and between the pages I even found a little vibuthi, and I took some of that vibuthi because it said that it has healing power and I was scared of my own meditation, because the experiences had become negative.

There was a very charming feeling going downwards in the heart and it seemed to intensify and I noticed it was love and when it reached the heart, there was a small dark blue form of God. That was an amazing experience, and it took the burden away, it felt okay again.

But in that moment was as well clear, that I would go to the master who had been able in such a way to take that burden away I had carried in the meantime in that meditation movement.

He is giving us the answer here. It was due to the sister being involved it was not possible anymore to stay non-involved. It was the same family and we had in the meantime for people meditating in the family, and that made out of a non-involved path the opposite, it got involved. And that is how we got aware of the six internal foes. But it felt very different and it didn't make any sense.

And it was not surprising that it didn't end well. There had been a problem with a neighbor I had known as 'friend' when we were teenagers. Later he got married with a girl from the same village, and he didn't move away. He lived always nearby and at the end he was basically in front of the door, the parent's house, just opposite the road, and it seemed he was beleaguering it and mother, she couldn't handle it and it was in the insight as pride, there was a precipice in the air and Swami makes us aware that it is not standing in the air when it is not true. It was pride that made her ask, 'what do you have, there is nothing?' After he died, he was coming back in the insight as light body, what felt kind of strange, we had never considered something like that possible. But he did, and that showed probably the real reason why he lived in front of the door.

At the ashram in Darshan it said that he was responsible, and when it said in the dream that he had understood, a few months later he was dead, and in the insight it said, 'he who digs a pit to others, fall in himself.' How did we know that it was him, Swami mentioned his name.

I tried in vain to address the mother and ask her about it, she was not reachable separated by a precipice, there was no bridge that went over that precipice, and therefore, I wrote it down, because she didn't react and she didn't respond, and I got finally a reaction from her side, she called, she was on the phone and still avoiding it, she at least said that she understands that I needed an answer, but nothing more and with no word she went into it, but she had told the younger brother, and from that side only problems were coming back. It said that he did the worst he could do and that is how we got aware of a wave of hatred, and it was about inner foes and no more non-Involvement.

I went on a meditation course hoping that it would help and normalize, but it didn't, it got worse and not better. The air broke in pieces, and it didn't make any sense, it took a very long time to get aware that only pieces left means that truth and right action have been separated and how we could get aware of it, that was in listening to Swami's words.

He tells us in his words what it means, when only pieces are left. When I read about pieces in his thought for the day, at night in the dream three horns were blowing making me aware that we had to think it over. He explained that pieces left means that truth and right action had been separated and it was no more yoga, no more the Nivritti path, but worldly matters and worldly focus, it was as he told us here all about Sa-rupa meditation and it got lost in dualities of pleasure and pain, profit and loss as it considered the name and the form, and now the body and its activities were valid, and we didn't know we had the choice of two paths, but it was clear that the path had turned into something else, it was not the same anymore, but it still didn't make any sense.

The path had turned from Nivritti Marga to Pravritti Marga, it began with yoga and the path of none-involvment and due to the sister the path turned into involvement and it was not possible to be in the path of non-involvement anymore. It was about family and that means it was involved. There were puppets on a string and the hand was not there who should have been there holding them. It shows that what had been before in the Nivritti Marga and that it got destroyed, and that we would have afterwards to start new again.

And then all turned into enemies, and that was the meaning of having to face the internals foes, before it had been strength, internal friends - sense control, mind control, fortitude, contentment, faith and equanimity, it was yoga and he tells us that yogis are our friends. If they are our friends, it has to be the Nivritti Marga. It seemed at that time much easier to go the path of non-Involvement, and not that other path and we didn't even know that it was a path as well.

And therefore, it was involved, and we had to face the six internal foes - lust, anger, greed, attachment, pride and hatred. It felt like a different world.
Nothing seemed to make sense anymore, but it was all about family. With the father there had been anger, because they didn't see it the way it had been in the neighborhood, and Swami was present in the dream and said that I had been let down by the family. The mother I had in Darshan already as precipice, it was pride. With other words, she was not ready looking at it, whatever that was and had been, it didn't exist for her, and after she died, there was an avalanche coming down, Swami tells us avalanche means attachment.
Pride is a precipice, it was standing in the air after the neighbor died, and it means there was no bridge, we couldn't reach her that is the precipice, there was no bridge over it. And there was a volcano, he tells us that is the ego, the air was black, there was nothing but ashes in the air and on the floor, only two hot streams of lava were flowing downwards and my daughter and I had to run for our life. That was the ego, and the experience of it in the inner view.
There was a whirlpool, it was a deadly trap, when caught in it, we cannot get out of it anymore in time. It takes time to get at the surface again and that keeps a human long enough under water, it is deathly. Whirlpool is greed, and there was a wave of hatred. That is how we got aware of the inner foes. Those insights can only be understood with Swami's words, he is telling us what is means. He is the answer, we have to think it over and over again until it does make sense.
If we do not listen to him, the experience with the pieces would today still not make any sense, he explains it as truth and right action being separated.
Insights are not in the mind, they are beyond the mind, and the mind cannot understand it. He said in the dream as well that he is the insight and he is the following step, the picture were two Swamis in the dream, one was the insight and the other the following step.
And that is what we talk here about it, it is the path that involves the form and when we do not face the friends, but the inner foes in our meditations.