by Gurani Anjali
Feel Your Life
Every action we take in life must be experienced, must be felt. We must feel it through our senses, and with the mind we must recognize the act we are performing. Every action is very vital. We rush into everything in life. But instead of rushing, feel the hands open wide and center the mind on the responsibility of life. Take in the whole world, the whole universe, all that is seen and all that is not seen. All above and all below, all living beings, they are all you. Feel the open hands spreading out from the center of the heart. The heart is a vital place, and in this place we rise to great perfection; we bring in the whole world, the entire universe.
Every time we move our bodies or take any position we are moving in akasa (space). Anything we do is vital. Anything we do, any act we can perform is an act of life: not only my life, not only your life, but life, the totality, the whole thing. So the yogi always bears this in mind and keeps centered wherever he or she goes: centered in the breath, the inhalation and the exhalation. The breath has not left us since the day we were born. The yogi must not be afraid of loss or gain. The yogi must rejoice in what is. The mind will ask the question: What is? What does is mean? It is a word that we try to communicate to each other– the is-ness of the word. Is is consciousness, is is existence, is is anandam (ecstasy or bliss). But when we reside in this breath, and when we acknowledge that we are all here together and have always been here and will always be here, then there is no death. To the yogi life is eternal. We are to take that responsibility for eternity. Take that responsibility for being eternal.
And how is that eternality made possible? The mind has to question: What does eternal mean? How can eternity be for this that is me? The answer comes back: in your actions and reactions life continues to be, rising in your breath, continuing the rta (the sacred order of life, the right structure of life). You must never tire of it. You must not look for endings. There is no ending or beginning. When we think of endings and beginnings that is when fear comes. But where there is no ending there is responsibility. There is continuation, continuity; and in that we hold ourselves high.
“Just stand up straight.” You were told this many times when you were young. It still goes today. Stand tall, but be humble. Don’t just feel good. Don’t just let everyone see the asmita (l-am-ness) coming out, if there still is asmita. But stand tall and realize that this is all me. Everything you see is your possibility. Everything is our possibility. But now you may ask the question: How? And that I will leave for you to find out. The journey is beautiful. This life is great when we acknowledge all that is.
Stand tall. These hands are for karma (action, doing). These hands must never get weak. These hands are never weak. It is the mind that holds every part of the body in prison. The mind must be purified.
The Fundamental Unity of Existence
Let us acknowledge akasa (space). Let us acknowledge agni (fire). Let us acknowledge jal (water). Let us acknowledge vayu (air). Let us acknowledge these elements. And above all let us acknowledge prthivi (earth): the foundation on which and through which we are. When we take a shower, when we take a glass of water– these are the gods. We cannot live without them. Therefore when you do drink water, you cannot help but bow your head to drink it. It is a silent way of worship which is born into us. The bending of the head comes naturally. But when you think that you are bowing to any of the elements and when you put attention to that, those waters become more than waters. It is taking in the divine god into your being to purify you. So it is with all the elements. We are to praise them and to worship them because we live through them. We have to watch them, to look at them and see how beautiful they are, these elements through which we are. When we can look at these elements, then we can really look at each other to see how all these elements are formed together to make me, to make you. I am beautiful because they are beautiful. Without them I am not here. It is a wonderful way to live each day, to worship.
Everything is so connected. It is only in the mind that we create separateness. There is a reason for that. Why the difference? Why the separateness? Why the aloneness? Why the bitter and the sweet? Why the tears and the laughter? Why the you and the me? There is a reason for all this. The reason is very important. The separateness, all these illusions, are very important. With the mind we must understand why there is the you and why there is the me. Why there is the day and the night. Why the lesser and the greater. The difference. Find out the reason. Look for it. Why so many brothers and sisters. Why are they all so different from one another? Born of the same parents, but they are so different. There is a reason for everything.
When we begin to look through the eyes of the yogi, confusion disappears. But when we look through the eyes of culture, fantasy and conditioned values, we feel torn apart. And we then begin to see brothers fighting against brothers, sisters against sisters, parents tearing apart from each other — the differences. There is a place for us to be. That is the place where the yogi resides. Looking through the eyes where the veils of maya (illusion) have been lifted you see another world, another dimension. You become peaceful. Then you go about your daily life exuding peace wherever you go. You begin to see that we are here, the one in the many and the many in the one. The veils of maya must be lifted.
Just a little longer bear with yourself. Try to tolerate yourself just a little longer. Try to have patience with yourself; no good thing comes quickly. So cultivate patience. And say “Be still my mind, let me not wander, let me be still.” So detach yourself from your mind, not from the divine mind, but from the cultivated mind. There is the divine mind and there is the cultivated mind. The cultivated mind has many schedules, many appointments, many compartments, many fenced-around areas, many closed-in situations. So the cultivated mind must separate itself. So for that the jiva (individual) who is journeying in this life must speak to the mind and say, “my mind, my cultivated mind, the mind of history, the mind of rights and wrongs, the mind of many, many prejudices, be still!” That mind must be put away and the divine mind must shine.
The differences are in life for us to see life. We must watch carefully and use all our senses to be accepting and receptive in the moment. It is always in the moment. Don’t think it is tomorrow or the day after; later never comes; tomorrow never comes. It is always in the moment.
The Two Minds
The divine mind is always clear. There is no fatigue in the divine mind. There is fatigue in the cultivated mind. In the divine mind there is no such thing as tiredness, loneliness, friendlessness, or anything negative, because it is very clear and shining. It glitters. And anything seen through the divine mind can be seen differently. That’s why we do meditation. So that we can get away from the cultivated mind. That’s when we begin to see the divine light, because the divine mind has taken over. For that you go into your breath. Constantly go into your breath and say “Oh mind, be still!” Speak to your cultivated mind and say, “Get out of the way, get out of the way, I’m so tired of you.” You are not tired of the people that you think you don’t like; you are tired of your own cultivated mind which has all
these burdens of life, the cultivated, historical life. Just speak to that mind, the mind which is cultivated. Just say, “Oh, get out, I’m going to meditate now. Sit there. Sit quietly and don’t bother me.” Tune out of it and settle in.
Don’t think that you only have the mind that you use constantly. That mind that you have been using all these years is decrepit. It is tired and it tells you that you’re tired, but you are not really tired. That cultivated mind will tell you, “You’re tired. You don’t have anybody. You’re lonely. Everything is gone. You have nothing.” Ah, put that cultivated mind away, give it a chair to sit on. Give it something. Say: “I’m going to meditate now.” You will find that after you meditate you will come out a new person. Do it periodically, whenever you feel tired in the mind, whenever you feel exhausted, whenever you feel that your heart is going to crack up into a thousand pieces. Sometimes you feel like that, that your heart is going to crack up into a thousand pieces. Sometimes you feel like you have no heart at all, like there is nothing left anymore. You’ve scattered the bits of your heart all over the world. Wherever you went you gave-some to that guy, some to that woman, to this one or that one. You tore your heart up a little at a time, giving a little here and a little there, and you find that you have no heart left. You feel empty inside. You feel it right in your solar plexus. Or you feel a pain in your heart, up in your chest. Sometimes you feel like your chest and all the ribs are being crushed. You’d like to die, sometimes. Where did all that come from?
Then when you go into meditation you say, “Oh how nice it is! I wish I could sit in meditation for hours and hours.” Why? Because you went into the divine mind. In the divine mind, there is no pain. There is just consciousness, existence, bliss. To be a yogi is the greatest thing an individual can do.
The Journey of Life is Purification
Silently the yogi sits. The yogi can only be silent, sit silently, when the cultivated mind is put aside. You must dip into that divine mind. That mind of perfection, the mind of peace, the mind of responsibility, the mind of sacrifice. The divine mind… know it. Try to find it. The cultivated mind is full of history, full of “This is mine and that is yours,” full of separatism, full of prejudices– full, very full. So therefore, the yogi sits still, going into the breath, removing the cultivated mind and saying, “Get out of my way a little. You, just go and sit there.” Meditate. Go into your breath. Then go into the mind that is nirodha (restriction, silence of mind). Once you go into that you see colors, you see forms — no mind, no thoughts. You go into an ocean. And you go and go and go. When you get in there, you don’t want to come back. This journey of life is for purification.
We are to be purified in this existence, through pain and through pleasure. We have the pain and we have the pleasure and they both don’t last. So the yogi has to walk the middle road, never becoming overwhelmed by pain or overwhelmed by pleasure because they are illusions. They just give you a glimpse of your existence. Without the pain, how will you laugh, how will you cry? And without the pleasure, how will you smile, how will you feel good? All to show you, you. It is to show you, you. The pain is there to show you that you exist. And the pleasure is there also to show that you are. Isn’t it beautiful?
The Ground of Pleasure and Pain
But we tend to cling to pain, like we cling to pleasure. The clinging is no good. Just take a little. It’s like eating a great big watermelon. You cannot eat the whole thing yourself. You just have to eat a slice or two slices. If you go after three slices, you’ll get sick. It’s the same thing with pleasure. You cannot have too much. With pain you bump your toe or you hurt your head and get a headache, that’s fine. But if you carry on getting a headache every week, what do you become? Neurotic. You’re sick. You had better see a doctor. Doctors are always going to tell you, “Try this, maybe this will work.” They cannot handle you either. So when you’re a yogi, you have to walk the middle road. Do not be overwhelmed by pain or pleasure because they cannot hold on to you for too long and you cannot hold onto them for too long. So take a little. Take a little pain. It will show you that you exist.
You know how many times you burned your finger with a match, a lighter or the kitchen stove. Do you know how many times that has happened already? Each time you say, “Oh, I got burnt, I got burnt.” You begin to recognize that you exist. A little pain shows you that you exist. But think if you left your hand on the stove, what would happen? You would lose a whole hand. It is not very easy to work with one hand. You have to have two.
Just think, everything is in twos– pain and pleasure have to come together. As soon as you have the pleasure finished, the pain will say “I’m coming next.” And pain is always trying to outdo or to outwit pleasure. They are always on each other’s case. When you get a little pain, pleasure will say, “Oh, I’ll cheer him or her up.” And you get a little stroke, a little feeling good and all of a sudden you feel alright. And they keep going one after the other; the pain goes and the pleasure comes. They keep following each other around. They just don’t stop, until you come to self-realization. Then pain will say to pleasure, “Hmm, I’ve given a lot of pain and it doesn’t affect this person, I’m going someplace else.” The same thing with pleasure. Pleasure will say, “There is nothing to change, he can take any pain, he doesn’t need pleasure anymore. He doesn’t want me, I can’t make him happy anymore. He’s happy all the time. He’s in anandam.” But then to be, to take on the responsibility of life and see the suffering in the world from yogic eyes, you have maha (great) pain and maha pleasure. And sometimes it cannot be contained, it is so much.
So the yogi does a lot of sitting. And in the sitting there is everything. But then the yogi has to get up and walk and talk. I can’t shut up, I can’t stop talking. For years I’ve been speaking on the same subject. But every time I say the same thing, it is not the same thing. It sounds different all the time. The only thing I talk about is consciousness. If you talk to the yogis in the ashram, that’s all they want to talk about. And those of you that are on the brink of self-realization– feel yourself, sit up straight. Feel that power which is within and without. Some of you are on the brink of it, on the verge of dipping into the divine waters of life. The divine waters are waters that are pure. They are not polluted. Now when the yogi views through clear vision, with pure heart and pure mind, even polluted waters become pure. If it was not so, why talk, why lecture, why read the Bhagavad Gita? Why sit in meditation? Because it is so.
Visions Left To Us
Sometime from now, one of you may be sitting up here. You may sit up here and talk and talk and talk and never stop talking. Talk about the flowers, the bees, the earth. Talk about the sun, the rain, the wind. The rishis (seers) of old did that. They did not have televisions or telephones. They were always together with each other and they talked about consciousness and the elements. At one point in time the population of the earth wasn’t as much as it is now. It was just a handful of people. Imagine! What a great picnic they could have had! They were overwhelmed by looking at the sunrise. They had no roof over their heads. They were amazed at the thunder. Imagine the thunderbolt when it hit! It must have been something for those who have gone before us. They have left us some valuable visions so that we may see what they saw. To make fire from two pieces of wood. Just keep rubbing those wooden sticks together. Oh great fire! Do you know what a magnificent thing it must have been? They just got up and they jumped and they ran. It gave them heat and it gave them warmth. They danced and they sang and sang. They sang all the hymns in the Vedas. There are so many hymns in the Vedas.
Sometime take the Veda and just read the hymns, those great lives that lived before us. They left beautiful words. You can chant them, you can sing them. And they did that, night and day. They sang and danced. They never had rights and wrongs. They just formed a way of how they could live with each other, always praising the elements. We have to learn to do that. We have to do that. We must begin at early, early morning. Until we go to sleep at night. And at sunset we must see that also. See the great, great sunset and the sunrise. When you live with that type of joy in your heart, there is no time to take a nap, there is no time to sleep. But you cannot just enjoy these great elements, these great gods by yourself; you have to speak about it, you have to tell someone. And you have to say, “Oh, I’m so happy, I feel so good. It is so wonderful that I can see this. I can see. I can hear. I can taste. I can touch. It is so great that I can do this!”
We have eyes. We must see. We must look, and we must see. We have ears. We must listen, and we must also hear. Sometimes we are hearing but not listening. Sometimes we are listening but not hearing. We must do both. Sometimes we touch, but we are not touching. When we touch we must touch, and with the mind we must know that we are touching. The sensation from the touch must run through our entire body. When you touch, touch; don’t go like a butterfly. You know that sometimes people give you a hug and they go like this with their fingers (she moves her hands and fingers in a hesitant gesture). They want to give you a hug but they are going like this. At that point you must reach out and say, “Come on, what’s the matter with you. Are you scared or something?”
The Great Display!
All to show you, you. Everything is just to show you that you exist. Just to show me that I exist. The pain, the pleasure. We cannot be overwhelmed by pain or by pleasure because they are there for us to be. If you didn’t cry, how would you know what tears are? If you didn’t laugh, how would you know what laughter is? So much for us, so much, yet we go around in this world feeling hungry. You know that hungered look. You know when you’re looking at someone, and they have the hungry look, and no matter how much you feed them, they are not satisfied. We love children because they don’t give us that hungry look. They are full of exuberance, full of energy. We love children. There are so many little children in orphanages and in other places where they are not supposed to be. They’re locked in some place.
So we have so much in this life, so much to live for. To live for and to live with. So much. So when you have the pain and when you have the pleasure, don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t go under. Don’t say, “Ugh, this problem!” Work it out. You have intelligence. Work out your problem if it arises. Everything around you is showing you, you. All to show me, me. All to make you and me know that we are. We have gone through so much pain in life already. And you still stand up there and say , “I’ll take it one more time, one more time.” But you don’t say it bravely; you say it with a little fear. “Oh, I don’t want that to happen again.” But while you’re saying that, you are waiting fearfully for it. You are waiting for the next bout of pain to come and hit you in the face.
But if you lived like a yogi, you would wait with no fear. The fear makes the pain difficult to bear. But pain is pain no matter how big or how small it is. Pain is just pain. There is nothing too great about it or nothing too bad about it either. It is just what it is. With the cultivated mind, we blow this pain out of proportion.
You know how it is when you get an eyelash in your eye. You go to pieces. It is driving you crazy. Your eyes are tearing and everything around you disappears. Nothing exists except for the eyelash in your eye. And you’re pouring water on it. You’re finished, dead with it. You’re gone! You can’t bear that slight thing. But it’s just one little eyelash in your eye. Or you know when you get a splinter in your finger. Oh, any pain and the jiva (principle of life, individual soul) goes right to it… like a monkey. They pick at it just like monkeys do. A little bit of a splinter and everything has to stop. You can’t deal with anything. Same thing with a splinter in your foot. Everything goes. The jiva goes right to it. Why? Because now the jiva has meaning. I am, I am. Look at this, look at my toe. The jiva really gets into it. The asmita (I am-ness) comes up. “Hey I am. Hey, take this splinter out. Can you take this splinter out for me, please? I can’t see!” The same thing with pleasure.
So we dance, yes we dance, all for purusa (pure awareness, silent witness). The pain and the pleasure, all for the mahapurusa. So I dance this dance for you alone. The dance of pain and pleasure, you can’t get away from it. Since you cannot get away from the pain or pleasure, just keep playing ping-pong with it. Jump this way and jump that way. It’s just a little game there. Just keep going back and forth. It doesn’t last too long.
The Clinging Must Be Avoided
The clinging is the thing you have to avoid. Where do you cling? The pleasure or the pain can move away, but with the mind we hold on to it. “Oh, it felt so good. It was so nice. It’s so great. I had so much fun. I felt so good. Oh, I wish it could happen again.” And you look forward to that pleasure. And we do the same exact thing with pain, except you go down. With pleasure you go up, but with the pain you go down. “Oh, no! This pain!” It’s like the musical scale: do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti do. It goes up with pleasure and then it goes do, ti, la, so, fa, me, re, do– all the way down with pain. You go up and then you come down. It is a play, a dance. You go down and you go up; you go down and you go up. Don’t cling. If you don’t cling, you’re not going to have that feeling of anxiety. I don’t care how great your pain is, don’t cling, because it too will pass. It is not going to last. It will only become a figment of your imagination after a while. You will keep on imagining it like it’s coming after you, like it’s going to attack you any minute. But if you are riding with it, it’s gone. If it comes again, say, “Hello! Hi! How are you? You’re back again? I can’t give you anything more. But I’ll give it anyway. Here, take it.” The sooner you deal with your pain and get rid of it, the better. But you cling to it in your mind. You begin to think, “Oh, why is he like that? Why is she like that? Why can’t you just talk nicely to me? What’s wrong with me? ” Right away there is asmita (I am-ness). Nothing is wrong with you. You just don’t know how to stay in the center, in the middle. You have to follow the yellow brick road. Be in the middle and don’t go to this side or don’t go that side. Don’t get overwhelmed.
You get overwhelmed and you’re finished. You’re done. You feel the pain and you feel the pleasure. You hope and hope that you’ll get better, that things will change someday. Someday is today. The now never ends. It never, never ends. Now if you can show me it ends, you’ll be something else. This time never ends. The now is always. So you should all be very happy. You should all be yogis. You have problems at home, deal with them. The problems you have at home are your possibility – your possibility to know that you are. Everything gives you your existence. Everything tells you you are alive. Everything tells you you are consciousness, existence, bliss. Om shanti.
An Exercise
Stand up please and look out of the window, up at the sky. Now look at the earth. Now look at your feet. Now look at the ceiling. Now look up at the sky. Look at the trees. Look at the earth. Close your eyes and it all disappears. Open your eyes. Look at each other and find purusa. Look for purusa. Everywhere we go we are to look for purusa. Looking for purusa. What am I doing in this world? I am looking for purusa. Purusa that is bound from within. I’m looking for purusa. Look at the earth. Look at akasa (space). Find akasa. Look up. Now look at your feet. Now look at your hands. Now put them to your face. Say namaste and come back to your places.
Practice Every Day
Try to make it a practice to do some meditation every day. Find the time that is perfect for you. Any time is the perfect time. Find the time that is perfect for you. And make that time a regular time every day. Same place, same time every day. Give yourself an hour to do that. Preparing the place where you are to meditate is very important. Create a sacred place for yourself, a place where you can go to, a place where you can be. Create that place.
All that you use in that place to make it sacred, must be purified daily with water. All the implements must be washed with water. Fresh flowers are to be used every day. Incense has to be used every day also. You may use a candle, but here there is an oil lamp and clarified butter is used. Because agni (fire) is so great, agni is fed clarified butter. The incense once lit, must never be put out. It must just burn itself out. When you go to your place of worship at home, stand in front of that place that you have made for the Self. Make it dear to you. When there is no one in your life to turn to, that place becomes everything to you. It becomes your guru, your mother, your father, your whatever. That place is very holy, very pure, very divine. Make sure your feet and hands are clean before you touch this place of worship. The hands and feet must be rinsed with water so that the negative impressions are not brought to the place of worship. So the hands and feet must always be purified with water before this place is touched. First light agni, then the incense, then bring the flowers there and offer them up. Put them in the vase. Then you go all the way down and you bow down. Then your hands go to your heart center to show this is where it is. It is at your heart center. Every action we perform is very symbolic. Bring your hands to your chest and then go down. Acknowledging that it is at your heart center, the sacredness of life, and acknowledging purusa. When you can sit there, do some breathing. Do some exercises, if you want. If it is early morning do surya namaskar (salutation to the sun) as an offering of your life in this day. If it is at sunset, lie in the savasana (corpse pose), then get up, do some breathing and then read some sacred verses or speak. Bring out your sacred words from within you.
All sacred verses and all sacred books have been brought out through individuals who have brought out the sacredness through them. So we can do that too. Write your own sacred verses and make a special light for yourself every day. Then take care of the responsibilities of your life. Respecting your elders is very important. Respecting children is very important. Respecting the adult is very important. Respect, reverence and devotion are the hallmarks of the seeker after truth. You must never stop doing that no matter how self-realized you may get. Continue in respect and reverence and devotion.
Take a deep breath. Hold it in your heart center. Make the breath come up high in your chest. Now make your breath come up closer to your neck. Now exhale. And now inhale. Bring your breath up, up. Hold. Now exhale. Again breathe in. Hold. Relax your solar plexus. Relax your stomach and slowly exhale. Again slowly inhale. Hold. Bring your breath up close to the hollow of your neck, the visuddha (throat). Bring it up. Expand your lungs. Expand your chest. Make your heart feel again. Open up your heart. Pull it up. Bring the breath up to the cavity in the neck. Release your stomach, push it out. Okay, exhale. Again, repeat. Bring it up and hold it there. Pull up your chest. And exhale. Again inhale. Pull it up. Keep breathing. Pull the air in. Pull your breath in. Exhale. You must strengthen your heart. Om shanti.