Bulletin: No: 2016.76 - Tuesday, 22 November 2016

Conversations with Daaji, Part 6, October 2016

New Jersey

Webinars with abhyasis

Daaji has been speaking to abhyasis across the globe via webinars. These webinars usually include a good mix of Q&A and some comments that Daaji shares. In this section, we share some nuggets of information. The recordings of all these webinars are available at https://goo.gl/XxYbzg.

Balance is a limited idea. Look to integrate

Q: I am trying to figure out the right way to balance the material and spiritual aspects of my life. Can you please comment on this?

Daaji: Thank you. It's a very nice question. Actually, it makes you wonder about our priorities in life. Whether I would like to merge my material life into spiritual life, or whether I would like my spiritual life to merge with the material life. When I have made my goal the spiritual life, then other activities are mere opportunities to support the spiritual endeavour. However, taking forward the spiritual life and letting it affect the material existence, will bring the higher into the lower life and try to elevate it.

So, while in my profession, I am not compromising anything by infusing it with my meditation practice. In fact, my professional life will become better and better. So, rather than making efforts to balance life - "Oh, I am going to balance material life with spiritual life" - because that is never going to happen, I must integrate them. I must infuse whatever I do with all the love in my heart. No doubt, the material existence and the spiritual existence are like two wings of a bird; but we must pay attention to the guiding tail of the bird, the rudder that gives it a direction.

What gives us such a direction in our life? It is the heart.

Do not misuse the system and the privileges

Q: There are two very similar questions. The first one is: are group meetings for meditation still valuable? Many are sitting alone at home nowadays. And the other is: whenever possible should meditators receive group meditation with a preceptor and remote group sittings be the exception and not the norm?

Daaji: This was my original fear. And I made it very clear also that remote individual sittings as well as remote group sittings are to be entertained as an exception.

We must try to attend group meditation as much as possible. If it is not possible, then not to worry, but we should not take unnecessary advantage of the freedom given to us. I have seen in Calcutta and Bombay and Delhi, where they have 30-storey buildings, on the 30th floor there is one abhyasi and on the 15th floor there is a preceptor, and they have remote sittings! This is taking undue advantage of the freedom given to us. You can imagine that the time would come when a husband gives a remote sitting to his wife in the next room. How far do you want to go with this?

I remember my earlier days of meditation when we used to walk 45 minutes from our hostel to our preceptor's place. There were times when I was alone and times when there were half-a-dozen of us walking together. But each time, I prepared myself with the idea that I now have to go to my preceptor. The moment I put my Mission badge on my shirt and said to myself, "Okay, now I am ready," my condition changed. And all through those 45-minute walks, I felt that I was connected with Pujya Shri Babuji.

When I sat in front of the preceptor with such a preparation, it was like a quantum leap into the next world, another world. It was difficult to come back because of those 45 minutes of preparation. When you say, "Okay, I am going to go for a sitting," from that very thought the work begins upon us. So, I think we will short-change ourselves if we don't take advantage of face-to-face sittings. They are very important. Sittings in person are, I would say, the most beneficial ones.

Remote sittings are only for those of you who do not have the chance of meeting a preceptor because you stay so far away. And they are also for those who are new and so don't have so much interest. So we compromise with them. It is like when your child is not eating anything; if for two days he doesn't eat properly, then you compromise and feed him French fries. He will love it, but it's junk food, isn't it? Because the child is adamant, you have no choice as parents. After two days of seeing your child hungry you give up and say, "Okay, have French fries." So it's like that, you see.

Here we share with you excerpts of e-mails sent by Daaji to abhyasis in various parts of the globe.

Context:

There was an e-mail from an abhyasi requesting guidance on spiritual conditions. In the email the abhyasi also covered some of the key Heartfulness activities in the region. Adding some banter to the note, the abhyasi made a reference to the Jedi and the Force.

Daaji's reply:

Dear brother,

The Jedi and His force pervades everywhere despite His being in the Brighter World.

I would have called you after reading your mail but was unable to do so because of the time difference. Well, there is so much to share with you. Attached please find an excellent work on the Gita by Shri Vinoba Bhave, which even a rickshaw puller can understand. I like his style. It is amazing to see how he recited this discourse in jail, while some of them were imprisoned due to their freedom-fighting activities.

I am sure Heartfulness will succeed wherever it is taken. But, we must be better prepared all the time to present our system and its core principles in our thoughts and actions. Regarding spiritual condition: after meditation, one must `enliven' the condition, then imbibe it and ensure that it is secured by merging.

How to enliven the condition that is bestowed upon us? The first step is to recognize that the condition is a gift to us. Do you feel the presence? When we observe it, it feels like a little trickle of water that emanates from the source. Or it is like a seed that awaits its germination and then later on becomes a full-blown plant or a tree in due course, that starts yielding flowers and fruits.

God was not a fool to create a tree when He could create the tiny seeds first. It is in this exercise of allowing the seed to germinate, to grow from a mere seedling to a sapling to a small plant that it can eventually become the giant Sequoia tree! For us also, germinating out of the hard case of the seed, destroying one's identity and assuming the next one, is a matter of courage. We have now been gifted moment to moment with higher levels of consciousness due to our joyous participation in spiritual pursuits.

This higher level of consciousness opens up many opportunities, or it can prevent us from moving forward. Consciousness must be utilized and invested in positive directions while avoiding the negative ones. Who is going to decide what is positive and what is negative? This is another subject in itself.

So, coming back to enlivening the condition - it is to give extra life to it, to make it livelier, to make it dynamic. If you were in a sad state, would you be able to give an extra push to this state? You yourself need to be enlivened, how are you going to enliven the condition? So, it is the joyous heart, accepting heart, the heart that is surrendered at the holy feet of the Lord that can easily enliven the condition out of gratitude. Being grateful for receiving it. Being grateful that such a treasure can now be shared with all. The hand that distributes also retains the fragrance of such a treasure. It is advised to imbibe the condition through every cell of our system. Now having the state, it is easier to get drowned in it! That is mergence. Once this is done, nothing in the world can shatter our condition, because we have now become the `condition' up to that extent.

Afterwards, there is another condition awaiting us. Craving to digest the previous one and awaiting with love whatever the Lord has to share with us, brings in its trail the next condition prevailing at the next level of consciousness.

About your mother: my prayers for her higher and higher levels of flight in still the higher worlds that await us. May she enjoy them during her lifetime.

With Prayers to Beloved Master for His love and blessings.

Kamlesh