by Gurani Anjali
We face the directions every day: north, south, east and west. We are always moving, always facing a direction. Going west, north, south and east. Facing, we are always facing, and yet we are to remain faceless.
To be a Yogi one has to have tremendous love, compassion and adoration. A Yogi is full of affection. A Yogi experiences timelessness and effortlessness. These are the fruits of the Yogi: to live with time and experience timelessness, effortlessness, to get everything done and feel like nothing was done, to experience the fullness of life and reside in the emptiness of life. The Yogi’s life is a wonderful experience. It is an experience that each individual can attain in this lifetime.
The Yogi experiences sinlessness, does not feel any more guilt, does not feel that sense of disgrace and suffering that occurs in the average mind. To walk around in this world feeling spotless, this is the joy of the Yogi. To be in a dimension that cannot be brought down by any obstacle in life. Ah, to be a Yogi! The life of a Yogi is a wonderful place and all of you must get into that place. It’s a place where you stand alone and yet you are never alone. You stand alone in that place and never feel lonely, never feel friendless, deprived of the joy of life. It’s a very special place. Once you enter that place, you will feel very confident in anything you do; no more doubts, no more fear of dying and no fear of living either. It’s a place where our true nature lies.
The living being has to change until he or she becomes a pure being, a divine being. All of you that do Yoga sadhana (practice), do it regularly every day. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself; do it as comfortably as you possibly can. Begin to love what you do: the exercises, the meditations, the breathing, the fasting, keeping silence, igniting the flame, offering flowers, fruits and incense. All this is part of the preparation for liberation. All the offering, giving, practicing to become free is very important. Never let a day go by when you don’t ignite the flame, agni. In the ignition of agni, there is acknowledgment, and in the acknowledgment there is the blossoming of your consciousness.
All these things are so vital to the truth seeker’s development. We don’t want merely to know the truth, but we want to become the truth – that One without a second. These activities are so important, but they must not be done rigidly. They must be done with affection. Feel your body. Feel your breath. Know that you are a living being as you offer from within yourself. Create within yourself the attention needed for purification.
A Yogi’s life begins one day at a time, one step at a time. Sunrise to sunset, keep the vigil. Constant vigil is the rule. Not constant vigil with tension, strife, anxiety and unrest, but vigil with attention and affection. Attention with affection. Prepare for illumination and the light will penetrate and darkness will be dispelled. When that light illumines, everything becomes clear so that you may see all that may be seen and ignorance will no longer prevail. Light the flame every morning and every evening. If you want to keep the flame burning all day, you can do that too. It’s such a small flame, but the more you look at it, the more it grows. That little flame is not small; it is very big. It brightens up everything. But you have to keep looking at it. The more you look at it, the more it shows you the way.
Darkness, ignorance – what is ignorance? When we take the unreal for the real, that is the height of darkness. When we are consumed by maya, the illusions of life, that is the height of darkness, that is the height of ignorance. What is ignorance? Who is ignorant? You may have great degrees in philosophy and education. You may know a lot, but if you don’t know the real, if you don’t know purusha (pure consciousness), if you haven’t become one with it, then ignorance prevails. Ignorance is taking the unreal for the real. Anything that is moving, anything that is changing, will continue to change. And because it has a continuous motion of change, you know you cannot bank on it. It’s like the stock market, it goes up and down. Anything that is subject to change will continue to change. That is the power of the divine play of life. That is maya. You cannot hold onto maya, but you can move with it, enjoying the beauty of the changes. Like a rose bud, it does not remain a bud. It opens up and it becomes full blown. And then what happens? It disappears. Just so, the bud shows us, the flower leads us into the formless. It disappears and when you look at the place where it was, the flower is not there anymore. In its place, there is voidness. What did the rose do? It took you to the unmanifest. Did you stay there? Did you go to the unmanifest? What did you find?
The importance of a flower: it blooms for a short time. But in its short time it leads us into the unmanifest. The fragrance of the flower, the form and color are so pretty, but then they disappear. Ignorance is when we remain with the flower and yearn after the continuation of the flower. When we cannot go beyond the flower, that is ignorance. So we ought to behold the flower, the thing that is moving and changing. We are to look and pay obeisance to that form, color, and fragrance, and we are to say quietly, within ourselves:
om ya devi sarvabhuteshu
shakti-rupena samsthitah
namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai
namo namah om
Mother, your power resides in all beings and all forms.
I am one with that.
I bow to you, I bow to you, I bow to you.
Silently, pray with affection. Whisper this mantra to the form, and it will lead you beyond the form, into the formless.
No matter where we go in this world, we are always facing someone. We are always looking into the face of someone. We cannot escape the face. Sometimes we forget the name of the face we saw two years ago or even ten minutes ago, nevertheless, the face is always imposing itself on the face. The face is so vital to the evolution of the seeker of truth. The face leaves lasting impressions. It is a very beautiful thing to look at. A dog’s face, a cat’s face, a bird’s face, the face of a human being, it doesn’t matter. We cannot get away from it. And when we don’t have a face to look at, we may go in front of the mirror to get an impression there.
The face is everywhere you go. And if you don’t see one, you try very hard to get a face in front of you. Yet every face is fading away—changing, constantly changing, the face is full of impressions. It shows so much and silently speaks to us. It silently tells us many things. “We stand face to face, neither I see me nor you see you.”
Within all these faces and all the faces we see throughout our life, we are looking for the faceless one. That’s why we keep looking, because we keep looking for the faceless one. Ah, where are you? We get tired of the faces that pass by. Sometimes the face is pleasant; sometimes the face is unpleasant. Sometimes it brings us pleasure; sometimes it brings us pain. But where is the face that is not going to change? The changeless face, the faceless face? Where is it? Where is it? Have you found it? Keep looking, you’ll find it.
Blessed is a place called meditation. That is what we’re doing here. Even though there is movement and language, meditation is taking place. It’s in the atmosphere here; it is felt in your body. There is a silence—an immense silence. Why do we meditate? Why do we want to do that? Why do we seek this place? Why? Sometimes we don’t think of meditating. We are brought to silence in all our activities, between conversations, between the movements and between thoughts. We are naturally brought to that place of meditation. Some know it and some don’t. Very interesting how it occurs. Meditation is part of our life. It is interwoven in every action and reaction, yet we fail to see it. In the heat of circumstances, we fail to see this very particular movement taking place, this meditation. It’s happening all the time. Because we do not see this interwoven meditation that is occurring all the time, we must bring ourselves to the understanding of meditation. We have to learn about meditation. We have to learn how to, when to, and why to do meditation.
If we didn’t have that silent aspect, that is interwoven all the time, we wouldn’t be able to move in this world. We wouldn’t be able to do anything. The divine sages of the past gave examples of how to meditate. They kept the sacred hours: sunrise, noon, sunset, and midnight. They gave illustrations and techniques, to help us meditate. We naturally desire to meditate. There is a movement already set in us to meditate. It is already interwoven in our entire life: in our breathing, in our walking, in our talking, in our going here and there, meditation is automatically happening. One day, after you practice meditation at these given junctions, you will realize that meditation is already the case. It has occurred throughout your life. But the mind gets bogged down with cultural fantasies and unnecessary trivial anxieties that leave us in a state of despair and fatigue. So we must purify the mind. In order to purify the mind, we must desire and cultivate understanding. Understanding will lead to discrimination and discrimination will lead to the purification of the mind. Then we can sit still and be unhindered by negative and unnecessary thoughts. Blessed is a place called meditation. “There’s a place called meditation, beyond the senses, beyond you and me.”
We have to appreciate the senses, and yet this place called meditation is beyond the senses. The senses lead us to meditation. The senses are divine. They are sacred. They are to be honored. They are to be appreciated. We experience our existence through the senses. They lead us to this sacred place called meditation.
This body knows pain. The body feels sensation; the mind clings. One of the afflictions is abhinivesha, clinging. We cling—because we cling. We don’t want to let go of the pleasure or the pain. And yet pain and pleasure are temporary. We don’t let go and because we don’t let go, the body suffers. Why does the body know pain? Because there’s clinging, there’s holding on. When something pleasurable happens to us, we hold on to that thought and we keep thinking about it, and we don’t let it go. Pleasure brings pain and pain reminds us that we have the pleasure. They follow each other, pain and pleasure. They keep following each other. The pleasure comes and stays for awhile and then pain knocks on the door and says “Okay, you’re out the door, I’m the next guest.” And they keep changing. It’s very interesting to see this. Yet neither of them can stay too long. But the mind holds on, and then we have the worries and the scheming.
Did you ever find yourself scheming? It’s a very nasty thing to do. You know, scheming, making plans, secretly thinking no one knows about it. But everyone is scheming all the time. Scheming to have the pleasure and get rid of the pain. What would you do if you never had pleasure or pain? What would life be like without pleasure and pain? What would you do? So let’s enjoy the pleasure and the pain. Treat them like guests. “Oh, you’re here now, okay. I’ll laugh now, then I’ll cry.” But the crying is so pleasurable, too when the heart pours out tears. You wipe them away with the handkerchief and then go on like nothing happened. The tears disappear and the pleasure disappears; everything disappears. And then it comes back again. This cycle of pleasure and pain brings us to the experience of vairagyam, a passionate, sacred indifference. This is indifference with tremendous responsibility. This is a very high state to be in. ‘To be in this world and not to be of it.”
“Ah, the bitter and the sweet, the sorrow and the joy, the pain and pleasure each and every day. It’s the way of life.”1 How else can we sit still and perform meditation? You see when we get slapped on the face by pleasure and pain, what happens? When you get slapped this way and that, you’ve got to stay in the middle. Stay in the middle. That’s why we have the pleasure and the pain, so you can get centered. It comes to you from this side and from that side and you have to say, “Okay, I’m straight, I’m so straight. I cannot go to this side, and I cannot go to that side. So I’ll walk the straight path and not be overwhelmed by pleasure or by pain.” Don’t be carried away by pleasure. Don’t be carried away by pain. Just stay in the middle. We have to get centered or else we’ll be overwhelmed and crushed, completely flattened.
Through divine structure, the world with all its pleasure and its pain is each one of us; we are the world, you see. In each individual is the universe. This universe, that is you, is so beautifully designed that you are made to remain in the middle. It’s a beautiful organization, beautifully structured, and we are drawn to the center, the center of perfection. Even when you say “Oh well, I’ll take a little leave, I won’t do any meditation. I won’t do any purification. I won’t do anything. I’ll do nothing.” But, there is no such thing as nothing. You can’t do nothing. Because, when you say you’re doing nothing, you are still doing something.
This organization of the living being, which is the universe, is so beautifully constructed and organized. In spite of our lofty thoughts or our heavy-minded indifferences, regardless of all that, we are pushed to the center. We are made to be perfect, in spite of what we do and what we say. If we do not have knowledge and if we don’t experience wisdom, we remain unproductive and dissatisfied. Therefore, we are to pay attention to this individual mind with all its workings, so that we may feel productive.
What is Yoga? You hear people say, “Well, you’re doing Yoga. What are you doing? What is Yoga?” You begin to say, “Well, Yoga is the yamas (restraints), the niyamas (observances), asanas (postures) and you give them the whole lesson plan. But Yoga is not a lesson plan. It is termed “Yoga,” the philosophy, but what is Yoga? Yoga is a point in time where a sacred secret occurs. And the individual is filled with an ecstasy that stops all language. Languages just cannot express this point in time. After the experience has moved away, the individual will have an offering. That offering is an offering of a point in time, which occurred at a very special moment in the movement of the living being. An offering always manifests the life that experienced this point in time called Yoga. Where the unmanifest and the manifest join together and maithuna (a divine unity) is experienced, a divine ecstasy occurs, a divine unity, a togetherness where purusha (consciousness) and prakriti (being) are entwined in eternal bliss. That’s called Yoga. Everyone wants that sacred secret experience. And everyone experiences it from time to time. And when you do experience it in that moment, you are left speechless, no words. But afterwards, an offering becomes very necessary. Very necessary. And one offers very naturally. Naturally, an offering takes place, an effortlessness is felt. And the offering is shared, given to everyone. It is shared. It moves and everyone takes a sip of that sacred nectar. Yet the joy and the experience that happens in a special moment in time cannot be given to another. The expression is shared, the impression is eternal. The Totality is experienced. The Universal Vision is lived in.
All religions, all seekers of truth all over the world desire this vision. Many religious people make pilgrimages to various places. Some go to Mecca, some go to Jerusalem, some go to Benares. People are going everywhere, doing a lot of penance, prayer, chanting, doing japam (repetition of mantras) on the mantra beads, on the rosaries. People are going all over the world, seeking the place called Yoga. A glimpse into this place called Yoga is a moment in time. And it only occurs to the seeker of truth. It doesn’t occur to greedy people. It doesn’t occur to individuals who are full of vanity and spite and klesha (afflicted) lifestyles. It occurs in the moment, when the individual, the seeker of truth, is removed from all vanity and is in a special place, where there is non-duality. The individual is centered on one-pointedness, and is shown the divine interplay, the eternal maithuna, the eternal embrace of the seen and the unseen, purusha and prakriti in an eternal embrace, a point in time. And this point in time occurs over and over again, it is constantly happening. Only to the seeker of truth will the veils of maya be removed and a glimpse be shown. After that an offering occurs. The guru looks for that offering, to see if the sadhaki (accomplished one) and sadharnis (practitioners) are offering, and when the offering becomes very natural, then the guru says, “Well done!” The disciple doesn’t even know that. And the guru watches. It may take a year. It may take two years. It may take three years. But the Guru will watch the development of the seeker of truth.
There are so many levels of changes that are constantly occurring. When it will open up for you is something of a mystery, so we watch and wait to see the divine play of life. And in the meantime, every human being in the world has to continue living, living for society, living for family, living for relationships, living to pay the bills. Every living being all over the world has to do that. We live in this world. We also have to pay our dues; we have to pay our taxes; we have to take up all the responsibilities. Some we didn’t ask for, but we have to anyway. It was handed down from generation to generation, so you have to see it through.
You must be brave; you must be strong; you must be proud. You must be respectful of your existence, and continue this life. It is not hard. It is not hard at all. Just do it one day at a time. And before you know it, you’ll feel like you did nothing. Just one day at a time. Don’t think about how many years have gone by or how many years are left. The Yogi doesn’t live like that. The Yogi lives one day at a time. Look onto this day, for this day holds all your tomorrows. What was, was. What will be, will be. But what is, is the best. Look at what you have. Look at everything you have, today. Today, everyday, today. Tomorrow when you wake up, it will be today – again. There is only one day. And that’s our entire life. This one day, well lived, makes all our tomorrows. This day is eternity. It is forever. Tomorrow when you wake up, it will be today. It is today, today, today. It is always today. Never tomorrow. Always today. So today, do everything you can do and feel your life. Om shanti.
1. Excerpt from song “Ah The Bitter And The Sweet” by Gurani Anjali