Article Index

Class notes from April 20 - July, 2014

Seeding Future Lives
Q: Vedanta says that the waking state seeds the dream state.  But we also hear that the realm of the waking state is projected by the mind as it moves from the deep sleep state to the dream state.  This sounds like a chicken and egg situation.  Can you explain how we should understand these two seemingly contradictory statements?
Babaji:  When we say that the waking state seeds the dream state, this is stated from the standpoint of the individual, vyasti.  Basically, these two states, waking and dreaming, are the same, only one is gross and the other is subtle. What we experience in the waking state, we take back with us into the dream state, only we are then using subtle senses and subtle elements.  But seeding the dream state is one's own business.  No one else seeds our dream state.  People ask me how to make the dream state lucid.  That can only be done by making the waking state lucid.

Now, when we say that the waking state is projected from the deep sleep and dream states, this is stated from the standpoint of the collective, samasti.  Vaishvanara is Consciousness in the state of an individual.  Taijasa and Prajna are Consciousness as the collective and cosmic/causal.  The deep sleep state (i.e. causal) is a mass of indeterminate cognition, as the seers have described it.  It is eternally seeded — it is all seeds — seeds for creating karma, samskaras, for life, for love, for compassion.  You have to see and know these seeds.  At the dreaming level, called Taijasa, Consciousness at the collective level works together with these subtle seeds to project all the various realms down to the physical worlds we experience in the waking state.  So there is no contradiction here.

Deep sleep is like a bed of seeds you walk on in the spring, and you do not even know they are there.  There are enough seeds underfoot to generate generations of forests.  The deep sleep state gives rise to the dream state, and that gives rise to the waking state; then it all involves, carrying fresh seeds with it to deposit.  And if you get tired of being a constant gardener, there is a way out of rebirth as well.  That is termed, "Turiya."

As one enters the sabija (with seeds) state of mind, it is like walking on the forest ground full of seeds.  There, one must be careful to germinate the right seeds, the good samskaras.

The deep sleep state is like walking in a dense forest whose floor is covered in seeds.  That is the causal state – the worlds and all beings and all actions are there in seed form.  The masterful soul who is headed for embodiment picks and chooses only certain seeds to germinate.  This is called a "conscious birth," and it is followed by a conscious death, i.e., knowing when to burn these seeds in samadhi prior to the body's demise.

In deep sleep you taste nothing, see nothing, think nothing, and you feel great.  But deep sleep is like a forest of seeds.  Vibrating minds will eventually and generally germinate and sprout them.  Therefore, the seers advice that you move beyond deep sleep to Turiya, or Samadhi.


Prana
Spiritual Masters are not frozen in the physical body like ordinary souls.  They know the prana, and use it to move inward and outward in their consciousness.  Of course, the mind is responsible for the movement of the prana – its thoughts, its intelligence, its ego.  So the mind must be under control and in awareness of all knowledge.

The healers know a little about the prana in the body; the shamans know about it in accord with life-force; but the yogis know it fully and utilize it.  They use it to meditate, to enter samadhi, to leave the body at death, and to assist others in the quest for Enlightenment.

The pranas connect to the four fold mind in an inward direction and to the tanmatras in the outward trajectory.  Having full mastery over the prana then places one in a very advantageous position in spiritual life.

The yamas and niyamas are all about dealing with sensual appetites, i.e., acquiring, owning, coveting, and so forth.  The nadis, subtle nerves, have been clogged with pleasure and pain.  Remove the blockages with observances and practices and energy of all kinds — physical vigor, subtle life-force, and dynamic power — will flow again.

Souls are getting dammed up against the first three chakras.

One must get a hold of or find that channel (prana) that allows one to attend upon higher states of consciousness.  When you do, it is like having a divine destination to seek, an infallible inner map to guide you there, and your very own Garuda parked in the cosmic garage.

If you have no prana, no sense of it even, then you have no life-force to get you beyond birth, life, and death.  Once you secure your life-force under your control, then you can think properly, and discriminate.  Soon thereafter, you have to give up the thinking mind, and as soon as you give up thoughts, then you can meditate.  It is a razor's edged path, this way of embodiment.  First your parents tell you to put your thinking cap on and quit being lazy; then your meditation teacher comes along and tells you to take off your thinking cap and quit being crazy!

"Man does not live by bread alone" – this means he lives by prana.  Life-force must be controlled and mastered, and it should also be directed away from the desire for rebirth, and given towards the aspiration for spiritual realization.

We have all these physical nerves.  The Indian scriptures tell us that inside each one of them are 100,000 subtle nerves that cannot be seen by the eyes.  Prana flows through these.  When one goes to sleep, prana leaves the senses and takes consciousness to different realms within.  Not knowing about the prana, much less how to operate it, is like having a fine car parked in the driveway and not knowing how to drive it and get it onto 100,000 freeways.

We must make a distinction between mind and brain.  When one practices pranayama, breathing exercises, one is not only opening up channels of air for the lungs and brain, but is also opening up channels for prana to flow into the mind and soul.  This finer energy must be utilized to practice the four Yogas, for they will set you free.


States of Consciousness
We should validate our experiences at every level of our being.  Do not just leave your experiences with the Five Great elements in Bhur Loka; take them with you to the next level of consciousness.  You can "man" each station.  Just because we transcend one stage for another does not mean we dismiss the earlier stages.  We enforce them by extracting meaning from our experiences.  These are your experiences, so experience everything consciously.  Yogis and sages are present in the Eternal Moment with you.  They are extracting everything from their encounters with you.  You would be so benefitted by doing the same with them.

In waking and dream states you have two eyes, two ears, but in deep sleep you have one eye, and one ear.  That is the causal state.  This penultimate formless state is single-eyed, single-eared, but upon entering nondual samadhi, all senses — gross, subtle, and causal — disappear.  How Jesus expressed it, was, the Word was in the beginning, then was with God, then was God.  In the first two stages there were ears to listen.  But when it "was God," there was no ear left to hear it.

What do spiritual adepts mean when they say "the bell is struck?"  The Svacchanda Tantra says, "No one sounds AUM; It is ever unstruck, ever sounding."  So what does this mean?  Our consciousness "strikes" against AUM and begins to manifest everything.  And we do this at individual, collective, and cosmic levels of our consciousness.

Do not forget Lord Vasishtha's teaching of the Walkers of the Skies.  Are you alone here in the bhutakasha [physical realm]?  No, there are all these people here with you.  So when you enter another akasha, why shouldn't there be others there too?

In deep sleep the mind turns off and stops thinking.  Everything goes formless.  Therefore, everything is a projection of the mind.

It is marvelous how, by contemplating a higher duality like form and formlessness, one instantly transcends suffering.  We have the power to shift our consciousness.  If we do not develop this power, then we are at the mercy of Nature – the Gunas and Maya.

Anupalabdhi is a method of philosophical proof in India.  Something was there, and then it is not there. Its sudden absence is proof of its existence.  This is the answer behind the question, "What is the meaning of life?"  When people raise their consciousness to the intellectual level and begin to feel a great dissatisfaction, they begin to wonder, and to inquire: “Something is missing.”  But they would not feel that it is missing unless they had intuited its existence earlier.  Thus, deep down, everyone knows that God exists, and knows the eternal nature of Reality – even when It is invisible.

There is no spiritual life in Vedanta without viveka, discrimination between the real and the unreal, and this is the final separation.  When one realizes Brahman the unreal goes away.  All is Brahman.  Returning to consciousness of form, awareness of duality returns, no doubt, but such awareness is like a burnt rope that cannot bind one anymore.

The interspace is a junction between earth and heaven where the elementals live.  Its purpose, and the import of the beings that abide there, is to make the connections between earth-bound souls and higher realms of awareness so as to engender the possibility of freedom from matter and form.

All phenomena are in the mind.  The Soul goes nowhere – it is just dream life at all levels.  Gaudapada says we need to wake up – even from the waking state.

You say, "Life is a party!"  Well, heaven is just another party with your ancestors.  Sure, it has got more pleasure – you can eat and drink all you want and not get sick.  But the truth is that the seeker of freedom, of God, does not want to be limited to the three lower realms of eating, drinking, and procreation.  Do you want to know God, or do you want to enjoy heaven?  If the former, then leave off this eternal partying and take the teachings of the dharma....

DMS

By practicing dissolving the mindstream, you see everything you thought was you, dissolve — your body, thoughts, intellect, and ego — but You are still there.

Dissolving the mindstream is really about getting everything out of one's way.  People embroil themselves with the five elements.  All objects here are made of five elements.  The five elements are the soul's five desires.  Get all this "behind you" and discover smriti betu, your causal memory.  Smriti and smriti betu are very akin to Intelligence.  In that are found the memories of one's past lifetimes, and much more....

I did not see my mind move from dreaming to waking.  Ask yourself, how do I do this?  By slowing the mind's vibrations, i.e., its thoughts.  How?  Through deep meditation.  And before I can do that I have to control the mind via pratyahara.  And to control the mind, I have to be able to sit still (ekasana), breathe (connect the three phases of the breath to the three matras of AUM), and master the prana.  Yoga practice is of the mind.  All else, the "unreal," has to be dissolved back into it.

If you want to be a living liberated soul, in or out of the body, you need to know how to dissolve the mindstream.  Why did it take the Buddha 49 days under the Bodhi tree to do it?  He had to show collective humanity how to get free of the ancestors.  He had to deal with the karma of the collective mind.  It is tremendously difficult to pierce through that "veil of nescience."

Dissolution means union, not void, not destruction.

The meaning of objects is that God exists.  Why?  Because you can dissolve them and be the sole remaining Witness.

What are some of the obstacles to realization that naturally get dissolved in the practice of dissolving the mindstream?  Desire to take on bodies, the eight passions, and the three gunas, to name a few.

In the mind-only schools, the body is an off shoot of the mind, and the mind can create as many bodies as it wants.

Beings are forever bringing God down to their comfort zones.  They are making that Reality into children, cars, money, pleasures, and so forth.  Try, instead, to draw yourself up and inwards to God.  Dissolve everything back into the Divine Source.  All the children and money you have ever had reside there in full.

The five elements have given us both life and death over our series of lifetimes.  Water has slaked our thirst and drowned us; earth has grown our food and buried us; fire has kept us warm and burned our bodies; etc.  So, if we dissolve them in meditation, and find the Indestructible within us, we get over fear.

Making connections is sadhana; dissolution is meditation.

As you sit in meditation you begin to dissolve knots in the mind. As a result of this you will find that you have lived other lives.  As one continues to trace origins, the soul separates from the ego and conforms to its formless Source.


“Can you say Pancha?”
[Pancha means five, in Sanskrit.  This is Babaji’s humorous summary of the teaching of Panchakarana, which is how, according to Indian cosmology, the worlds, from causal, to subtle, to physical, are projected/evolved from the Cosmic Mind via groupings of five: 5 aspects of mind (Cosmic Mind, Intellect, Ego, mind, and thought), to 5 subtle elements, 5 gross elements, 5 cognitive senses, and 5 active senses.  Significantly, all these can, and should, be involved as well. Evolution is for manifestation, and involution is for meditation back to one’s essential Being.]

What contemporary thinkers know about the elements has not been connected to the senses.  All is random and coincidental to them, external by nature, limited to matter.  This perspective changes, and life takes on new wonder and meaning, when earth and smell, water and taste, fire and sight, air and touch, and ether and hearing, all meet.  This is the auspicious reconvening of the little gods, the indriyas.  After all, they all started off as one.  Why should they not end up that way....?"

You formed your body.  Nature could not do it alone; it is insentient.  But you and nature, as collaborators, can produce countless worlds and a lot of mischief as well.  The five elements that are a part of this process are really the embodying soul's five primordial desires.  It wanted a solid place to stand, so it projected earth; it wanted liquids to drink, so it projected water, etc.  What the soul has forgotten, however, is that earth is the idea of Solidity in God's Mind, and water is the idea of Liquidity.  Thus, it all begins with a thought, but that Thought is a grand one, whereas human thought is infused with desires.

The translucent Light of Pure Awareness, the nirbija (seedless) state – People think this is a state one is reaching for, but this is actually one's true nature.  From that pristine condition, one descends, so to speak, through the Trinity, then proceeding by sets of fives until one arrives here in a physical body and starts asking why, when, what, where, etc.?  But one has now landed in maya, and such questions cannot be answered from inside of maya.  Therefore, one has to rise above and start asking, "Who, Who am I?"


Seeking origins/atma vichara
Why is the mind fragmented?  Because the soul, while living, never connected the elements and the senses, a practice called tracing origins.  Tracing origins means to meditate on what came before any particular object of concentration, and what appears prior to that, and so on.  This process fleshes out the twin process of evolution and involution.  If one only perceives evolution, then one will get stuck outside, in matter.

Give up the practice of meaninglessness and practice the meaningfulness of everything.  And do not look merely into rocks (the archeologist), plants (the botanist), and flowers (the new age meditator).  Look beyond forms for their source of origin.  Upon finding their deep origins, move further inward to comprehend the unoriginated nature of all beings, all things.  Now you are back to being a true human being again.....

What is the difference in perspective between seeking origins and the theory of evolution?  The position of seeking origins reveals that Consciousness precedes everything and is present prior to its manifestation, whereas the theory of evolution posits that there is only physical matter and prior to that there is an empty void, i.e., no God.  Does Nature come first, and then the soul appears?  It only looks that way from the outside (evolution).  Certainly the stage appears first, and then the play, but we must also account for a "backstage crew," i.e., the Divine Mother and Her Four primordial Shaktis — Wisdom, Will, Action, and the Power of Production.  Then, as well, a theory of involution — a cause to all effects — can be added.

Ignorant beings are driven by desire; the wise are driven by inquiry.  Both are having experiences, but the latter seeks to know the origin of experience and discovers the Experiencer.  In the same way that you might go on denying the existence of everything, but must finally acknowledge the existence of the one who is doing the denying, in the same way, You can go on having experiences without end, but eventually you will have to acknowledge the One who is having the experiences.  Thus, beyond the two word mantra, "I Am," there is still another teaching.  You neither "are" nor "are not."  You are just You, and that is Nondual Reality.

Your thoughts have an origin in the Cosmic Mind.  Thus, there is a major flaw in the Creation Theory.  One cannot get something out of nothing.  In the case of nature, it all comes out of unmanifested nature via the projecting power of the mind's thoughts.  In the case of Atman, the Soul, it is Unborn, Acreate.  And are you going to tell me that the Soul is created out of nothing?  Or dust?  Can anyone, including God, even create a Soul?  God is the Soul, "All is Brahman."  Everything is Unoriginated – Everything Is.  All problems begin, then, when we begin thinking of ourselves as other than God, as having a beginning, or of being a product of nature.  "Give these up" and realize your inherent and timeless Perfection.

You do not want to get stuck in Maya without knowing there is a Lord of Maya.  Better yet, the Mother of Maya – Mahamaya.  Propitiate Her and She will take you beyond Her Maya.


Ignorance, Lower Knowledge & Higher Knowledge
The vibration of ignorance leads to other vibrations, like doubt.  So, since ignorance is unreal, doubt is also unreal.  You can give it up now.....

If there is a word for something, it exists.  We do not have words in the English language for these truth-principles found in Sanskrit.  By learning these words, then, one opens up previously unseen realms within one's mind!  This is called expansive mind, and it leads to Universal Mind.

The aparavidya, lower knowledge, is okay; you make your living with it, for instance.  But the Paravidya, supreme knowledge, is what you live by.  Make this distinction securely.

When we take the dharma, we are getting jnanam, knowledge.  One has to convert this into vijnana via practice and inner experience.  Vijnana does not come without samadhi, either lower or higher.

Sri Ramakrishna's criticism of modern education:  "They are using Mother's Wisdom merely for storing up bananas."

[Babaji presented the chart, Para & Aparavidya, The Clarifying Teaching of Lower and Higher Knowledge, and the following notes concerning the state of ignorance, which precedes lower knowledge, are derived from his elucidation.]

Aspects of  Avidya, Ignorance:
Avidhi – This is a Sanskrit term that refers to the kind of rituals that people get into that do not have any divine content, which are mindless, secular, dogmatic, and pedantic.  Avidhi ushers people into avidya.  This leads to samskaras of avidya, i.e., the habit of engaging in avidhi.  All this describes why people erroneously come to state that life is meaningless; religion is meaningless.

Avidya Paricchina – This is a very problematic samskara that becomes a samskara skanda [collection of related samskaras] on the order of: "I am an individual being; I am finite. I will not even consider an alternative perspective. I live only once, then die forever. I did not come from anything or anywhere, and thus I was created out of nothing." All this describes root ignorance, mulavidya.

Ashuddha Maya – This describes those who mix lower sattva* with rajas and tamas, thereby getting stuck in lower pleasures and derailed by life.  These beings treat pleasure as the solution to suffering.  This is actually worse than staying in tamas until "God comes along to help."  *(Higher sattva is the study of scriptures, performing sadhana, etc.)

We should study maya the way we study a fog bank.  One has to get above it.  Otherwise, if one tries to study it from inside, there comes fear, confusion, and disorientation.  From outside, one sees how the sun of wisdom just dissolves it.  Upon the advent of such a vision, one can go in and show others how to dissolve it

Fear, ignorance, and doubt – these are the ingredients of the curtain of nescience.  It is further thickened by brooding – brooding on death, on fear, on lack of money, etc.  This brooding covers your Self.


Meditation
Meditation is a natural state to us.  That it has ceased to be so is a huge calamity for humanity.

Your intention should be to kill the ego every time you sit for meditation.  The Real Source of your Real Bliss will then become revealed to you.

How do you extract essence from experience?  By thinking upon the experience, of course.  Contemplate it and then store the meaning within.

Right Orientation
One first attains one-pointedness, then one gets multifaceted.  Prior to one-pointedness, the mind indulges in varieties (vaichitra) and phenomena and pretentiously calls this preoccupation “multifaceted.”

Selfless service and altruism are both good, but not equally good.  Selfless service is much more beneficial.  If one has not attained self-abnegation — seeking God first — then he/she will not rise above altruism.  Altruism often runs the risk of corruption.  In selfless service, there is, or should not be, any self that will do the corrupting.

Disease is not in the body; that is just the effect. Disease is in the mind, which is why we cannot cure it. So long the mind, so long disease.

In the West we are taught that dreams are figments of our imagination.  In Vedanta we find that they are manifestations of our Consciousness.  If you follow imagination you get fantasies and cartoons.  If you follow your Consciousness, you follow your true Heart.

Success is overrated.  Failure is the proving ground of the yogi.  You see, in failure and defeat, my Self is still here.  This Wisdom will not go away.  Thus Sri Krishna exhorts us to "be the same in success and failure...."

Like an inchworm going from point to point, leaf to leaf, beings proceed from lifetime to lifetime via attachment and aversion.  But illumined souls are not operating this way.  They are ever in Brahman, and therefore always holding hands with everyone.

While floating in a disembodied state, you prayed for earth, water, light, air, and space, and this all came along as a natural course of your request.  Your prayer has been answered.  Do you like the result?  The result is abundant, without limit, so why do you allow anger, lust, greed, jealousy, pride, and delusion to spoil it?  Even children learn to share......


Sattva
The four yogas transcend the gunas; they are in pure sattva.  One first increases devotion to God by courting all four of the yogas, which leads to pure sattva, faith, and finally to mumukshutwam – the sincere longing for liberation.  And this all leads to steady wisdom, sthiti prajnasya.

Is sattva just pretending away the problems of the world, or is it the best way to deal with problems?  You see, sattva's advantage is mastery over rajas and tamas; also over worldly preoccupation.  Know the gunas and deal with all of them from pure sattva.


Clarification
Brahman is not a form, but it has the power of form; It is motionless, static, but then again, It sports or assumes movement.  That is Shakti/Maya.  A snake sits still for periods of time, then suddenly wriggles across the ground, but it is the same snake, nonetheless.

"Without taints, I am; being, knowing, loving I am; Self-shining, devoid of duality, I am; to these words conform." Sarasvati Rahasya Upanisad.

The Three Great Steps in successful spiritual life are: Cosmology, Philosophy, Spirituality.

Avoid the void, annihilate nihilism.  Stay away from such illogical concepts.  God is; You are; Nature is; everything is; and when it is not, it has only gone back into a seed state of subtle potential.

Teachings in Vedanta are called Dharma. Dharma teachings are meant to help you develop an inner life.  Due to the nature of paranoid governments, money and greed-based education, fundamentalist religion, and rank materialism, etc., we do not have a nondual philosophy in the West.  Further, there are barriers to our inner life that have nothing to do with politics, etc.  They are in the mind.  Contemplating the dharma teachings helps remove these.  Meditation and worship help destroy these barriers, especially if they are in the emotional body.  Service helps remove these via dealing with the dualities that are encountered in life, and transcended.

When the atomic particle explodes, energy goes outward.  But when the Wisdom Particle implodes via concentration and meditation, subtle energy moves inward.  This is called insight.  And foresight?  Hopefully, human beings will have enough of it to refrain from releasing destructive explosions.  For this, vow yourself to nonviolence.....

The first way to detect the presence of maya is to consider if something has a name and a form, since nama-rupa are part of maya.  If you feel the presence of time, then you know maya is present, because time is an illusion.  Everyone says, "I am," never "I am not."  We say, "I exist," never "I don't exist."  The point is, you are existence.  And in fact, you — the real You — has been the witness of all your births and deaths.  Take up permanent residence in that Reality, and be Free.

Nimitta, causation, in Vedanta, is not like in science, but refers to the cause and effect that happens, for instance, when one acts and gets good, bad or mixed results.  Further, all this change is not God's doing.  The soul has let itself in for this set of consequences.  So, be like a woman with a baby in a house on fire – get out immediately.


Pithy Points to Ponder
I live only on the inside, declare the yogis.  The "outside" is just a reflection of that.

God cannot be formed.  God is not a form.  God is here but is not restricted to a form.

The seers see everything as naturally unified at all times – sahaja tantra siddhanta.

You get great refection from formlessness – from being no-body instead of somebody.

If your brain is violent, your mind will not accept it.  The world is then a closed book to you, and you only trade in fear rather than in collective well-being.
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