Absolute Freedom

by Daaji, March 10, 2019, Kanha, Hyderabad

Namaste ji.

Often we wonder about happiness. What is happiness? For a child, having different toys, it is not happy with one toy. It likes to see different coloured cars, and different coloured Barbie dolls. They are happy with these varieties. Coming to the teenage period of our life, happiness means something else. For a drug addict, happiness is something else too. All these are fulfilled. Happiness of various types at different ages is fulfilled through external sources. Everything is outside. Enjoying food is from outside. Enjoying music is from outside. Everything is displayed or played out in the external world.

So when we talk about meditation as a source of happiness, we are still looking at it from a very limited point, limited perspective. I once shared this idea of meditation with a group of people. I shared that you cannot be happy when there is so much turmoil and stress in the family. When a situation at home is so stressful, how can you have enjoyment, how can you appreciate the happiness? It is difficult. You need some level of harmony, some level of understanding. But imagine a person who has to keep repeating themselves again and again, again and again, again and again. The mother would lose her temper; the father would also lose his temper.

So harmony is a pre-requisite to having the full extent of happiness. It is not just mere adjustment. No, it goes beyond that.

And harmony is not possible without peace, or peace is not possible without harmony. They work together.

And how does this arise without contemplation? It is in the womb of a contemplative mind that harmony is born. So a contemplative mind is a must.

And how do we arrive at a contemplative mind? Through focused thinking.

Now the question arises: how can we have a focused mind to have focused thinking? It is only through meditation.

But, as I said, connecting these dots – meditation and happiness – is still a very limited understanding of why we should meditate.

As we go beyond various chakras, from the Pind Pradesh to Brahmand Mandal or the Cosmic Region, and the Para-Cosmic Region, and arrive at Sahasra Dal Kamal, there is tremendous anandam as they call it, which is bliss, which is unlike happiness. Happiness depends on external things; bliss does not depend upon anything. It oozes. Its spring is within. But again, making Reality very clear, Babuji Maharaj says that this blissful state, what people call satchidanand, is also a limited step in the field evolution of our consciousness.

Consciousness means total freedom. Evolution of consciousness means we are proceeding towards total freedom. If you are trapped in enjoyment, even of bliss, you are still trapped. There is no freedom in this entrapment. Someone asked him: “What is this Satchidanand?”

Babuji very laughingly and very jokingly told him, “It is like a worm relishing cow dung.”

Just as this cow dung is delicious for a worm, yogis are intoxicated with this bliss. There is no difference. Both are intoxicated, one with cow dung and another with consciousness. There, too, there is a limitation. We have to surpass all this.

Dependency must go, whether it is from outside or whether it is from inside. Transcend both and depend on God, the Source of our existence. There we cannot say it is blissful or not so blissful. It is what it is. And in the Upanishads they say “Neti, Neti, Neti” in a very negative way. Not that there is anything wrong with the Upanishads, but there is no better way to explain it. Throughout these Upanishads in the Vedas, they have positive connotations for everything, but when it comes to the culmination of describing the highest, they take the negative approach. “Neti, Neti, Neti” means “Not this, not this, not this.” What does it mean? It only means whatever is there in this world – not this, not this, not this. Nothing can be compared with the Ultimate.

If you say, “I have the privilege or I have the blessings to have God Realization,” how will you describe this God Realization? I will have to say it is like him [pointing at someone], or it’s like this fan, but it is not like him. I would say then, it is not like him, or it is not like the Himalayas, it is not like Manasarovar, it is not like Kailash. These are physical things. Spiritual realms go beyond the physical world, the physical dimensions. God cannot be trapped with physical realities. Physical realities have limitations. When we say God is infinite, limitless, how can we trap Him with the things with which we are ourselves trapped? So we have to reorient ourselves and try to cherish the ideas which take us beyond ‘this and that’, beyond into that nothingness from which everything came into existence.

Yesterday I had the opportunity of discussing this aspect with one gentleman. Imagine this world, imagine this universe, this Brahmand, when there was no creation, what was there? When there was no Earth, no Suns and no Galaxies, what was there? No stars means no light. What is the situation without light? Only darkness. So the original nature of this Shrishti is total darkness veiled within darkness. There was nothing at all, and from which everything came. Everything was manifested from this nothingness. So if we have to arrive at a state people praise so highly, Samadhi (Samadhi means Sam-adhi, akin to the original state that was before the creation), arriving at total nothingness within ourselves, we ask for nothing, we want nothing. There is absolute freedom in that nothingness.

This topic is a bit difficult to understand if you use your head. Try to let your heart indulge with this understanding. You will get more, you will receive more, and you’ll become wiser in the process. Try to feel it. More and more meditation will help. As more and more of the veils of ignorance are removed, we will be deriving more knowledge and greater understanding.

So that’s all for now, thank you.