Babaji's Fall Classes, September – December, 2011

Babaji's Autumn visit to the West Coast centers was attended by a wonderful diversity of events and teachings.  With him, we studied the Svetashvataro Upanisad, Divine Mother teachings in accord with the auspicious Navaratri worship of Mother Durga celebrated in both San Francisco and Portland, and also the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility for women in Oregon.  Babaji's teaching visit culminated in the Raja Yoga Retreat at Hidden Lake, The Mental Sadhana of Yoga, Climbing the Eight-Limbed Path of Classic Patanjala Yoga.  Returning to Hawaii, classes were held on Karma Yoga.  Following are class notes culled from Babaji's teachings in San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, six Oregon prisons, the retreat, and Hawaii, arranged thematically.

Existence Is
Everything is; nothing is not.  All of this - all that we see - is Mother Wisdom.  With some basic information given we would say all this is Maya.  But if we understand the deeper truths of Christ, Buddha, Ramakrishna, we should see that all of what we perceive is a manifestation of thought, a manifestation of Mother Wisdom.  Later, with this deeper teaching in mind, we can then begin to approach the "All this is Brahman" level of insight.  From not seeing (worldliness), to seeing all as maya, to perceiving everything as a manifestation of intelligence, to seeing God in all - this is the inner path, the way of the Vedanta.

Sarvosmi – Everything is.  Existence is.  This is a supreme one-word mantra.

None else but Self; none other than Mother. [Babaji's personal motto]

Kevala asti: "I alone am."  In other words, not "woe is me; I'm all alone."  How puerile.  Rather, "I am all there is."

The children in our SRV classes make the Om symbol out of dominoes, then tip one and they all fall down – except the Shvara.  Siva has a great time destroying the worlds, but He cannot destroy the Shvara – that is His own Self.  Similarly, your Self, Atman, is indestructible.  Meditate upon That.

You can never be separate from your true nature.

"Reduce all, everything you see, into Brahman, which is a concentrated mass of blissful Awareness.  Rendering the internal and the external into one indivisible principle, meditate upon It, pass your time contentedly, and be free."  (Vivekachudamani, sloka 320)  To explain further, there is the external and the internal, but then there is the Eternal.  The Eternal is the Ultimate.  The external and internal are its parts through which it sports.  Focus ever on the Eternal and thereby move easily through birth, life, and death as the Eternal Principle.

If you believe in the Eternal Principle, then you must look into its ramifications.

You are an eternally changeless principle and what is outside is an eternally changing principle.

When Consciousness externalizes and identifies Itself with a bit of earth it "becomes" an ant, perchance; when It identifies Itself primarily with the sense of smell, It "becomes" a dog; when It identifies Itself with all the senses, then it is a brutish human being; identifying with the intellect, It "becomes" an intellectual; and identifying with the heart, It "becomes" a lover of God.  The animalistic human being is fully focused on the lower three chakras, which Sri Ramakrishna characterized as eating, drinking, and procreating.  When Consciousness identifies with the Sahashrara, It no more goes outward - It is identified with Its own absolute nature.

Cessation happens – each night, but few are aware of it.  So becoming aware of the awareness of cessation – this is what happens when the internal and external are made one and you meditate on that.

The real mindfulness lies not in just walking carefully, or taking tea with awareness, but exists in consciously making the yogic connections, i.e., earth to smell, water to taste, sight to fire, etc.  Existence is Brahman.  But we will have to develop/refine the mind and senses in order to see It shining through all.  Western seekers seem to think that these connections come easy, but what comes easy is forgetting to make them.

Knowledge and Meditation

Pranava is the energized Word.  As the seers and Rishis say, "If the three matras of AUM (A, U, & M – waking, dreaming, & deep sleep) remain disconnected, there is mortality.  But when connected to the prana they are rightly employed.  What is peaceful, undecaying, immortal, free from fear, the Seer attains by means of AUM."

Contemplation should end in a conclusion, a siddhanta.  Then, one is to meditate on that conclusion.  Otherwise, contemplation is about as beneficial as hazy dreaming.

Lex Hixon's favorite slogan for inspiring and encouraging others was: Intensification and clarification!

Approaching a microphone, one will usually say, "testing, 1, 2, 3."  But Sankhya wants you to approach your mind and say "testing, 2, 3, 5":  "2" means recognize the dual nature of the universe; "3" means contemplate the triputis (sets of threes) because they lead one to a conclusion that transcends the dualities; "5" means understand, navigate, then dissolve, sublimate, or transcend the quintuplications in nature (i.e. the 5 elements, 5 senses, 5 tanmatras, 5 fold mind (including Mahat), 5 atmospheres/akashas, 5 pranas, etc).

Triputis are like atoms of knowledge.  They have to be penetrated until they implode and release the perennial wisdom existing within.  They are like portals enabling one to overcome fear, brooding on fear and doubt, which are the constituents of the curtain of nescience.

The adept seeker asks not why there is suffering and maya, but rather how to transform the poison of Maya into the Nectar of immortality.

In Tantra, Yoga, and other systems, one does not fixate on the object to know its surface meaning, but rather inspects the object with the illumined intelligence to get a clue to its Essence.

You cannot know an object, because it is insentient.  You, however, are Sentient, the Sentient Principle.  The Sentient and the insentient cannot mix, and that they do so temporarily is a matter of great confusion in the minds of men, and a cause for deep concern about their freedom.

The heart has its own Intelligence, and the mind has its own Love.  Together they form the two wings of the soul-bird which enables it to soar in rapt meditation.

With Her nondual sword in one hand, and the severed head She holds in another, Mother Kali represents Jnanam (spiritual Wisdom).

There is false knowledge, mixed knowledge, secular knowledge, intellectual knowledge, the knowledge of spiritual laws like scripture, and then there is Truth.  We go from lower truth to higher truth, and never, as Swami Vivekananda stated, from error to Truth.  Even false knowledge – like the reflection of the moon in a mud-puddle – carries some benefit for us.

If you keep Truth at the level of Aparinama and Ajativada (nontransformation and birthlessness), then you will understand everything from scriptural truth on down.

Get knowledge before you meditate.  Do a thorough sadhana around scriptural study.  Meditation will be an entirely enlightening experience for you after you know the teachings of your tradition.  People tend to get a screw loose when they meditate too long, like for eight hours at a time, with no foundation under them but some foggy notion of formlessness or void.  They also never develop the spirit of selfless service via this empty mode, and only become immature renunciates.  All the Yogas must be taken up and developed equally – study, service, devotion, and meditation.

What is imbalance of mind when speaking of sadhana?  It is too much of one form of practice to the exclusion of all the others.  As usual, balance is the key.

Deep sleep is very connected to the Ocean of Sorrowless Light.  Only, the veil of nescience persists.

Practice the mantra as you go to sleep and as soon as you wake up, and in this way push against the veil of nescience.  The veil of nescience, by the way, consists of doubt, fear, worry, and brooding over events of the past, present, and future.

Slow japa practice down to the point that it affords the most thorough and loving concentration.

Meditation

Meditation is the "Hour of God."  It is the eternal moment when you can spend some quality time with God.

Meditation is not sleep; it is an ever-awake state.

Get rid of darkness before sitting for meditation.  You say, "Oh, I cannot meditate," and that is because you have not mastered the yamas and the niyamas.  With these mastered, you eliminate the kleshas – ignorance, egotism, attachment, aversion, clinging to life.

Follow the Tradition.  Meditation is going to take you beyond the world, so you have to prepare in advance by renouncing the world in some way or form.  You should not meditate for objects, money, or health, which is a great delusion of our times.  They [the people of today] do not even meditate for spiritual health, but only physical well-being.  Meditation is communing with God.  Leave meditation where it belongs.  As Vivekananda has said, there are two tendencies in the mind: one, to drag Brahman down to our comfort zones; and two, to raise ourselves up to Brahman.  Unfortunately for the human race, most choose the former path......

Cessation happens, but you must be aware of it.  Meditate on the awareness of cessation. (i.e. Be the witness of the appearance and disappearance of the tattvas, the cosmic principles from Cosmic Mind all the way to the element earth.)

By jumping important steps in meditation, such as cessation of  thought, contemplating the teachings on AUM, and meditating on the Personal God, one might still get a kind of personal realization, but this will not make one a good teacher.  This is because one will not know what happened to the mind along the stages of realization.  One might arrive and say, "It happened by the grace of God," but the real Grace of God lies in self-effort.  The fruit of self-effort is knowledge.  Knowledge destroys ignorance.  This ignorance of the inner workings of silenced mind, AUM, and the Personal God within is present in most spiritual adepts.  And this is why there is a lack of truly effective spiritual teachers in the world at this time – this, and the fact that the seeker of the time does not persevere, cannot take what the really forceful teacher dishes out.

Controlling the mind is the first duty of the practitioner.

Witness is the ego at its most refined level.

Meditating on the tattvas (Cosmic Principles of Nature) leads to unification with Nature – but unification here means not identification, but connection, or association.

What is the test of concentration?  Time stops.

Thought is father to the deed.  Therefore, if one stops thought, action also stops – what to speak of the world of matter.

Universalism

Universalism is not just ecumenism, but a supreme perspective based on making everyone brothers and sisters because all religions have the same Essence.  Religions are all different, and their followers will need to follow different regimens, methods, and rules to realize the Truth via their respective traditions.  Universalism is deep and profound, leading to one Essence.  By way of metaphor, it is as if you had a machine that translates the language of "aliens" – Venetians, Martians, etc., so that a kind of uni-speak is there, and everyone can understand each other – that is what Advaita is.  It makes all religions understandable.

Vedanta, Tantra, Yoga, Sankhya – each one of these take one deeply.  And that may be enough for you.  But if you take them all together, you will be able to answer anything for yourself, and for others, in any realm of the universe.

This great immortal frame of Indian philosophy operates efficiently on four great powerhouses: Sankhya is its body, Yoga is its divine energy, Tantra is its loving heart, and Vedanta is its vast and catholic mind.

Why can't we just look at everything as God?  What is wrong with this picture?  It is the natural conclusion of Advaita and Tantra, only arrived at via different trajectories.  And those denying the roles of Religion and Philosophy will never understand this.

Higher Dualities

People are under the press of the gross dualities, pleasure and pain, good and bad.  The way out of this is to contemplate higher dualities.

The noble dualities include: form and formlessness, bondage and liberation, transformation and nontransformation, Being and becoming, even birth and death.  These charge up the chitta, the thoughts of the mind.  Why spend all one's time brooding on dualities such as good and bad, pleasure and pain, virtue and vice, etc.?  This goes nowhere except into the cycles of maya.

The highest and best of dualities is to hold two high ideals at once.  Why allow fragmentation at the mental level?  If you do not want to bear the limitations of relativity, why not hold a higher twoness?  Why not focus the mind's attention on the Real and unreal, the Absolute and the relative?  Thus you will be able to "separate the wheat from the chaff" by contemplating these higher dualities.

Yoga

Yoga wants you to get control – not of others' resources, but of your own mind, energy, and body.  Practice asteya (noncoveting) and aparigraha (nonattachment to matter/gifts) for a change, and find the deeper meaning in life.

The yamas and niyamas of the Eight-Limbed Yoga of Patanjali are intimately connected to the problem of suffering.  Practicing these two rudimentary limbs, one learns to overcome suffering – or at least to forebear it.

[Notes on three of the niyamas:] The study of the scriptures (svadhyaya) is a remedy for nonretentive memory.  Surrender to Ishvara (Ishvara pranidana) leads to Samadhi.  Purity (saucha) courts communion with God, for impurity means how distant from Reality something is.  The five elements are about as far away from the Source as one can go, so one must be careful in the world of relativity.

"The Five Kleshas* cause affliction by turning internalized awareness outward so that it does not dwell on its own perfect nature.  Thus, they are a mutation of the mind field, and they swiftly become a field of abundant growth for a host of karmas and samskaras." - Vedavyas
* Five Kleshas: ignorance, egotism, attachment, aversion, clinging to life/fear of death

The six passions, eight fetters, five kleshas, and the nine viparayas come out of unmanifest Prakriti and merge back into Prakriti.  The yogi keeps them from rising, for then he is free from ever having to keep them from rising.

If karma has accrued, then you have to look into it, and at it, first at the relative level.  Later, once seeing it, and admitting it, you can neutralize it from a higher level.  Then you can experience an abiding peace, and become a servant of peace, shantidasi.  But many make the mistake of trying to pretend it away by rising above it as if it does not exist.  Later, they see its recurrence in the most unwanted forms and events.

Bhakti (devotion) and dhyanam (meditation) pay homage to karma (action) in order that they become fully matured.  But karma pays deference to Jnana (discriminating wisdom), for one must learn to act in knowledge in order to avoid negative karmas and the samskaras (mental impressions) they form.  As Swami Vivekananda has said, all action is really for gaining knowledge.

All thoughts, acts, eating, and gifting are to be offered unto Me, states Sri Krishna.  I say that one must develop all this first before serving God in mankind.  Otherwise you may end up serving the personality, as many do in their work, rather than the Supreme.  As I have often said, if you serve humanity they will only remain human, but if you serve God in humanity they will realize their divine nature.  All of history bears this fact out so well.

If you remember that it is Brahman's maya, rather than maya as an independently existing principle, you will not fall prey to ignorance.  Your actions will be performed in knowledge.

Pratyahara represents a stumbling block, but dharana is an outright and freeing attainment.  If you master concentration, you are practically home free, on all levels.

Renunciation, Liberation & Enlightenment

This is probably India's main message to us: renunciation is fearless.  The point is, that you have been distracted by names and forms and sensations and thus you do not remember who you are.  Renounce, be free, and remember who you are.

Renunciation is not possible without mastering fear and aversion.  People will say "I'm a renunciate" -– but you cannot be one in truth without this mastery first.

The ability to attach and detach at will is the higher vairagya (renunciation).

Lex Hixon, referring to effective renunciation, said: "Search for all those things in your mind that bother you and then destroy them.  This is real sadhana leading to effective renunciation."

A fearful person never gets anything.  A fearless person gets everything.  Whatever a fearful person does get he is not satisfied with anyway, and he always wants more.

Christ said, “do not build your house on sand, but on bedrock.”  And what have the scientists found?  That the universe is made of shifting sands, i.e., atomic particles.  This knowledge should make one uneasy here, not proud or attached.  For real security, even against death, one needs the bedrock of formless Reality. "Everything here is fraught with fear.  Only renunciation is fearless."  And so, the real Christmas gift to give would be the message, "Birds have nests and foxes have holes, but the son of man hath no place here to lay his head."

We go into sadhana, spiritual practices, and do not know what we are looking for.  We want Enlightenment, but we do not yet have even a true desire for Liberation.  Until that happens it is all hearsay.  This true desire for Liberation, if it comes, will be the mainstay of your life; everything else rotates around it.  It cannot be something that comes and goes – something that you "flashed on" yesterday, but today is nowhere to be seen.  And it is not that this kind of renunciation only happens in monastic circles.  In the dharmic householder, this desire infiltrates life, family, and work.  It manifests as the sincere desire for one's children, spouse, family, and community to be Free.

One cannot get enlightenment without a true desire for liberation.  Most seekers have not had this desire last more than a minute.  Do not jump steps.  People want to meditate on Brahman, on Reality, but they have not even learned to concentrate.  Take the practical approach to Enlightenment – seek peace of mind.  Set yourself up for enlightenment by attaining peace of mind.

Who knows why people run after the ephemeral, when the Real gives fullness, bliss, and contentment.  Probably it is their penchant for dreaming rather than their longing for awakening.

I find it ironic that in Christiandom they believe in just one lifetime.  Well, I also believe in one lifetime – the enlightened lifetime.  In enlightenment, bodies rise and fall as of no consequence.  Devoid of enlightenment, reincarnation goes on interminably, unbeknownst to the soul who is projecting all these bodies in space and time.  For the enlightened one, the bodies are never "mine," the senses are never "mine”; the elements are never "mine”; the ego is never "mine."  So, what happens to rebirth and death when all forms and possessions are renounced?

The Inner Realms

Spend enough time in svadhyaya (concentrated study of the revealed scriptures) and you learn things that are not "in" the scriptures.  As regards the nervous system, in the nerves are 100 nadis, and in each of those are 100,000 more subtle nadis.  But what if you were to take all those out and show them somehow?  It would reveal a map of the Kingdoms of Heaven within where the prana is ever flowing.  We experience prana via physical nerves, but it also flows via the nadis.  Where does it go?  To the "Kingdoms of Heaven," to the "Chambers of the Lord's Mansion."  Follow it deep enough and one starts to get beyond provisional experiences and connect directly to ultimate Unity.  Remember, Consciousness does not move; It is all-pervasive, so It does not have to.

Prana and the Tanmatras (subtle matter/particles) are the missing links in the western thinking consciousness.  Void of the wisdom of subtle energy and subtle elements, who would ever believe in the worlds unseen lying within consciousness itself?  Thus, we see before us the world of the materialist, the sensualist, both leading to worlds like that of the hedonist, the fatalist, and the atheist.

Cause and effect is not just something for the physicists to study.  Cause and effect begins in the mind.  Thus the yogi contemplates karma.

Ether, space/akasha, is an element that is a turning point toward the inner realms. Knowledge of subtle space, beyond physical space, turns a blind man into a seer.

These worlds have the string of pure Consciousness as their underlying substratum.  The West does not know anything about prana and the tanmatras, and therefore has lost the way to the inner worlds.  Taking them up again is like tracing the proverbial trail of bread crumbs back to one's true home.

Physicists, if they had the learning and the yearning, could look everywhere for the pranic particle leading to access to the realms within, but they could never find it because it is within, seen by the mind in meditation.

One of the soul's powers is sankalpa, mental projection/dreaming.  With the attainment of viveka, discrimination between the Eternal and noneternal, the soul can access higher dreams and, eventually, awake from all dreams – even the tendency for dreaming.

Smriti, retentive memory, leads to divine recognition.

Svatantrya means inherent Freedom.  When one attains svatantrya, one is free to traverse the internal worlds in full knowledge of the immovable Self.

Everything is within you, even your idea of "aliens" on other planets.  Aliens on other planets are not real, simply because name and form are not ultimately real.

One should stand back and identify the worlds, but one should never identify with them.

There is no need to be afraid of Maya – it is insentient.  It has come out of you.

The gods went to Lord Brahma, the Creator, and petitioned Him for a body with which to enjoy.  At first He gave them a cow body.  They were not happy with the cow body.  Next, they were given a horse body, but this too was not satisfactory.  Then Lord Brahma offered the human body and the gods all acclaimed, "Well done, well done!"  You see, Lord Brahma expanded His capacity and created a form with all these mouths and limbs that is capable of enjoying throughout the three worlds.  Therefore, we even take this human form, the idea of it, with us when we attend the subtle lokas.  In that way, even the form is eternal – "Everything Is."

Other Teachings

Spiritual life, in this day and age, comes to us as a sword against ignorance, a way to keep awake in order to save our spiritual life.  Actually, spiritual life should be a matter of celebration, but, alas!  Such is the predicament we have gotten ourselves into in this age.

The true individual Self is the Purusha.  Is it the Atman?  Or is there an intermediary station?  Coming down from Samadhi, the luminary needs a station.  It cannot take up the unripe ego.  So we call it the Purusha – the real individual Self.  Thus, Ahamkara (ego), Purusha, and Atman are the same, only appearing at different levels of our consciousness.

Even great souls, from Krishna to Sri Ramakrishna, are powerful imaginations of mass collective mental dreaming.  The masses have put their highest aspirations into these Forms.  In other words, you get to the Father through the Son.

The Personal God, Ishvara, is real as long as your individuality seems real.  When you merge in nondual Reality, where are forms?  But in the meantime, and as is often said, "It helps to have Friends in high places."

With regard to Saviors, one should use them as doorways, not doormats.

QUESTION:  The mind is the problem and the problem-solver.  How does it come about?
BABAJI: Mind (manas) comes out of cosmic Ego (Ahamkara) and Intelligence.  The ego is like a balloon blown up in a house.  It keeps everything out, but the room is empty.  The ego keeps out the Light of indivisibility.
QUESTION: So the mind comes out of ego?
BABAJI: Yes, if you are speaking about the human mind, or ordinary mind.  With the Cosmic Mind it is a different case.  For this, study the teachings on the fourfold mind, the Antahkarana, which includes manas (dual mind), buddhi (intellect), ahamkara (individual ego), and chitta (thoughts of the mind).

The recent Japan tsunami, with its aftereffects full of the flotsam and jetsam of our material civilization, reminds one of what is ultimately going to happen to all of us who are attached to matter, objects, and Nature.

Fire, in Vedic terms, refers to knowledge, intelligence, revelation.  It reveals things, burns away all the overlays, superimpositions, and reveals the Truth.  In this connection, the Upanisads reveal at least six kinds of "fire," each leading to the next – like the fire of suffering, fire of aspiration, fire of worship, fire of transformation, fire of yoga, and the fire of Shakti.