Spiritual Diary - July

July 1

Individu

In a manner of speaking, the energy in cosmic consciousness condenses to form an individual - indivisible dual, indivisible from cosmic consciousness and only apparently dual.
The individual is nothing but cosmic consciousness.
However, with the formation of the individual, the energy-field around it becomes weaker, and there is an apparently low-density consciousness, which creates the notion of "ignorance" or darkness.
The individual within it is enclosed in a shell, as it were; and it assumes independence.
In the infinite consciousness there are infinite such individuals.
The movement of energy continues in the infinite consciousness and the individual is also involved in it.
Unable to realize this (on account of the surrounding low density consciousness), the individual assumes that such movement of energy, or the activity that is implied by it, emanates from itself.
The individual invents a motivation, too: "I do this" seems to be incomplete, and therefore he adds, "because I want that".
This feverish activity, with its selfish motivation, keeps the individual so intensely occupied that he has neither the time nor the energy nor the motivation to examine the whole position and ask, "Am I the real doer of these actions?"

July 2

Experience

The movement of energy into the shell of individuality also brings experiences with it.
Pure experiencing is pure consciousness.
But when the experience touches the individual who is busy with his selfish and goal-motivated activity, the individual classifies these experiences into desirable and undesirable.
Two more motivations are added to his busy-ness - the seeking of the desirable experiences and the avoidance of the undesirable.
He is unable to see that these experiences come and go in utter disregard of his wishes!
Harassed by all this, the individual, imprisoned in the shell, invents concepts of happiness and unhappiness, damnation and redemption, God and Satan, heaven and hell, and believes that all of them exist in truth.
They exist only within the shell and only for him!
Within the shell, this individual spends countless ages, apparently passing from one embodiment to another.

July 3

Essential Ingredients

None of this cancels the Omnipresence of God or cosmic consciousness.
All actions are movements of the energy inherent in it.
All experiencing is pure consciousness.
The realization of this truth breaks the shell of individuality, as it were, and the individual is delivered from self-imposed ignorance.
Karma yoga is that wise blending of right action and right spirit, which enables the individual to see the truth.
Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita extols yajna (sacrifice), dana (charity) and tapas (austerity) as the essential ingredients of right action.
A simple life avoids the extremes of self-denial and self-indulgence, and kindles the lamp of eternal vigilance, with which the subtle middle path is sought.
Charity destroys greed and reminds us that we have created nothing and own nothing.
Sacrifice turns the inner gaze on the real doer of actions, and thus drives selfishness away - all actions then become sacred, which is what sacrifice means.

July 4

Motivation

One continues to play the game of life - life goes on.
But if the heat of motivation has been turned off, there is a lot of time, energy and incentive to examine the nature of action.
In this self-examination one sees that automatic and mechanical action is blind and stupid.
An awareness arises.
It begins to spy on the hidden springs of action.
Action is motivated by thought and by emotions or feelings.
Motivated action brings reaction, which is mostly painful.
When such motivation is dismissed, there is enlightened action, the action of one's own being, which is cosmic.
It is right action, spontaneous action, creative action.
This is inherent in cosmic consciousness, and beyond the limitation of individuality.
Every action is regarded as an act of worship of the Omnipresent God.
Action is movement of energy, which arises in God, moves in God, and merges in God.
In such action there is neither sin nor sorrow.

July 5

Bhakti

The word "bhakti" means "division" as well as "devotion", and throughout the practice of Bhakti yoga one notices the inter-action of both division and devotion.
Bhakti does not create division, but is realistic enough to acknowledge that it exists.
Wisdom leads the division towards devotion, which eliminates division.
Duality or diversity is what we become aware of to begin with.
Who created all this and why - is not for the human intellect to question.
"God created the world."
Why? Only He can answer.
It is perhaps like a cruise: you commence the cruise from the homeport, travel around the world, and then return to the home-port!
No one seriously asks "Why".
Such power to create is inherent in God.
God's self-realization is the world!
This is seen by man as duality or diversity.
When a ship sails through the ocean, there is unity in the water ahead of the ship, there is division around it, churning in the wake, and then homogeneity again.
Division is churning.
Devotion restores the homogeneity.
Man's self-realization is God.

July 6

Volition

In our own daily experience of sleep there is oneness, but without the experience of realization of oneness.
The desire to experience it awakens you.
When you wake up, the unity is veiled.
Sleep - as also peace and happiness that prevail in sleep - is non-volitional.
Volition veils.
On waking, you seek the experience of oneness, peace and happiness, where there is no veil.
The world seems to be "the obvious answer".
However, neither oneness nor real peace nor lasting happiness are available in the world.
You then return to the source (sleep) but this time with full awareness.
This is bhakti yoga.
Division and devotion prevail all the way in bhakti yoga.
At the very start, the devotee notices that the mind has cleverly divided the whole world into "what I like" and "what I dislike".
Devotion eliminates this, by making the mind no-mind, but pure love.
Hence, the devotee trains himself to like what the mind dislikes (spiritual practice) and to dislike what the mind likes (sensual pleasure).
As long as the mind functions creating divisions, the devotee avoids evil actions (which are found to be pleasure-seeking actions) and resorts to good actions (which aim at the realization of God or oneness).
His goal is to eliminate all such division and see God in all.

July 7

Devotion

God is in all, indeed. But, is this real to you now, or do you only think it is so?
To begin with, be devoted to, and worship what is really God to your mind, heart and entire being.
That which is egoless is divine.
Such are the "images" of God and the holy men.
Worship the Lord in them; this is devotion.
However, be aware of the material (in the images) and the human (in the holy men) aspects in all these; this is the division-aspect of the same bhakti.
Choose any object you like to worship and to meditate upon, but only for the sake of God, and not because you like it.
Devotion or love is said to be easy, because it is self-evident.
You love your friend, child, wife, Master, etc.
But, you should become aware of it as love; this awareness is division.
Then this love should be sublimated into devotion to the divine presence in all of them.
Thus, natural human love is elevated to the divine love.
You then love God as your friend, etc. and love all as the manifestations of God.

July 8

Primary Devotion

Primary devotion arises only by the Grace of God or the Holy Ones.
Devotion in which division is absent is not for the mind or the ego-sense to "achieve".
Primary devotion is also called supreme love, total self-surrender or total absorption.
Self-surrender is liberation, whoever or whatever one surrenders to. When the "self" is surrendered, what is, is God.

A word of caution with regard to spiritual experiences.
As with human love, so with God-love.
Rationalization kills it.
The moment you become aware of the exalted privilege, it is taken away.
The ego shall not be permitted to welcome God.
But even when you think that the experience has ceased, it has only been assimilated.
There is no loss, in the words of Krishna.

July 9

Incomparable

Once you begin to think of Gurudev Sivananda, remember Him, remind yourself of the way in which He laughed and lectured, the way in which He smiled and frowned, your whole being is flooded by reminiscences, which keep flowing as if a dam had burst.
Sometimes we are tempted to compare Gurudev with this or that holy man.
But truly He was incomparable.
In fact, he was indefinable and therefore unpredictable.
He had no stereotyped behavior, set responses or rigid routines.
In Him contradictions were reconciled into a complete wholeness, and the changes blended into an unchanging light that defied description.
There was no dogma in Him, and yet He was not necessarily opposed to dogma.
He was not opposed to anything - no, not even to opposition!
He was incarnate Love, but that Love was unlike anything that you and I have experienced.

July 10

Physical

Unlike many other holy men of India, Swami Sivananda did not neglect the body.
There is no such thing as physical health.
Physical health includes mental health and spiritual health.
Health is wholeness - let us not divide it into physical health or mental health or spiritual health.
No picture does Him full justice.
Though there are some excellent likenesses of the Master, I do not think that any picture can really bring out the radiance that He was.
Even physically He was extremely attractive, robust.
A figure which, if it had belonged to someone else, might have been ugly and uncouth, added to His charm, His majesty.
Even the skin was clear, clean, sparkling, and well maintained.
He did not neglect cleanliness of body or of clothes.
Even when he was not well there was a glow, a radiance about him.
One had to feel it.
When you looked at Him, went near to Him, you felt the glow - something which was not derived from any kind of tonic, but which came from within.
There was an abundance of energy that filled Him and flowed from Him constantly.

July 11

Energy

In 1953 the Parliament of Religions was convened in the ashram.
For three days the whole ashram was humming with activity.
Hundreds of visitors had come.
Swami Sivananda lengthened the last day's program, so that everyone who wanted to speak could be accommodated.
The program concluded just past midnight, and then Swamiji retired.
One of the visitors, the speaker of the Indian Parliament, wanted to leave very early the next morning, and asked to have Swamiji's Darshan just before he left at 5 a.m.
We could hardly keep our eyes open when he called on the Master.
I was watching - there was no trace of fatigue on Swamiji's face.
It was as though He had never missed an hour's sleep in all His life - yet he had only gone to bed two or three hours earlier.
That was an extraordinary feature; however hard He worked - and please remember that He was in His sixties and we were only in our twenties - He had more bubbling energy than we had.
Energy filled Him and overflowed, filling us all with enthusiasm.
You may call this awakened kundalini, self-realization or anything you like.

July 12

Swamiji

This physical energy, mental energy, stamina, enabled Swami Sivananda, at 67, to go round the whole of India, to undertake an intensive two-month tour.
This was a superhuman achievement.
All this was due to the regular practice of pranayama, the regular practice of asanas, and a well-regulated life.
This still may not solve some problems.
We maybe practicing all the yoga asanas, we may be eating excellent food, but look at our faces - something that was seen in Swamiji's face is missing.
The Master would gather a crowd around Him wherever He went.
We went to Dehra Dun, a town not far from the ashram.
As it was winter, Swamiji had a huge overcoat on, and all His other clothes were covered - you could not see that He was a Swami.
Yet, as He walked around the shopping center, quite a crowd gathered around him, for no reason.
They just wanted to talk to Him, to walk with Him.
That was all.

July 13

Radiance

Radiance and extraordinary attractiveness were there, however ill Swami Sivananda's body was.
I am speaking not only of the ordinary little influenza; I am talking of when he was at death's door with a bout of typhoid.
He had been confined to bed for about 20 days.
He was not used to that.
So, one day he told some of us, "Ah, I think I am all right now.
Take Me to the verandah so that I can see the Ganges and the Himalayas."
We literally had to lift Him off the bed; He could not walk.
We brought Him outside and He sat in His easy chair.
If you looked at His face then, it was as though there was nothing wrong with Him.
He was radiant, beautiful, laughing and joking with us all.
After an hour or so, He asked to go back to bed.
He planted both His Feet on the floor and said, "Wait, I will try to get up myself."
He lifted Himself off, then collapsed back into the chair.
Probably you and I would have had a heart attack.
"Oh, what has happened to me? Twenty years ago I was so strong."
Regret, remorse, despair, depression.
But there was no hint of that.
As He collapsed, He started laughing, "Oh, My legs have lost their strength."
It had nothing to do with Him; the legs had lost their strength.
That is an extraordinary feature, where even an aging body does not dampen the spirit.

July 14

God Manifestation

So the ringing voice is silent.
The majestic form has vanished.
We shall no more see the gigantic figure of Swami Sivananda, clad in orange, shod in canvas shoes, stride with measured long steps, bag in hand, ready to distribute fruit, wisdom and work to us, His beloved children.
That child-like giggling, with the tummy quaking with convulsions of joy, a laughter so wholesome that tears of joy bedimmed the sparkling eyes.
A laughter that radiated the bliss of God to all can be heard no more.
But the light of Sivananda is inextinguishable.
It shines in the heart of humanity today, without a lampshade, and so the brighter for it.
Gurudev is the manifestation of God; God is the supreme immutable reality.
He dwells in us.
The physical was His own Maya.
The impersonal reality is his own self.
The end is perhaps shocking.
But that is not the end.
It is a beginning.
The builder worked outside, He was on view.
He created an inside, and He has entered it.
Now He works inside, out of external view, but more truly and purposefully active therefore.
Gurudev has moulded us, given shape to shapeless masses, laid stone upon stone in us, and built a shrine, entered it and is now busy at work in there.
Look within, behold, Gurudev is within you!

July 15

Royal

Raja yoga, the royal road to self-knowledge is aptly termed "royal" because it is the most direct highway along which riding is smooth and swift.
In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, there is indeed a chapter, on psychic powers.
But there is also a warning that they distract our attention, and throw us into the old muddle again.
There is a word of caution, "Even if you have some power, do not exhibit it."
The whole text (and hence the whole yoga philosophy) is an inspiring declaration that "The suffering that has not yet reached oneself should be avoided".
Pushing sorrow away, however, does not do this; it is the pushing that makes it sorrow and undesirable.
What is sorrow?
Is it in the world, in the objects of the world, or is it in ourselves?
Surely, sorrow is experienced by us, within ourselves, by our own thinking.
The mind that thinks it is miserable, is miserable.
This is revealed by the fact that, when the mind is asleep and does not think, there is no sorrow.

July 16

Intelligence

The understanding of the unreality of division is meditation, the very heart of yoga.
When thought tries to grasp the experience, it creates the space, the division.
As a result, there is the "I" and the "experience", which then further subdivides the experience as pleasure and pain, etc.
But, what is the real content of any "experience" (be it pleasure or pain)?
Is it not the Intelligence inherent in the body and the mind?
This is reality - that that Intelligence which is indivisible alone exists.
However, this does not mean that the "I" and the "you" and the million other "things" are utterly nonexistent.
They are like the ripples and the waves on the surface of the ocean.
They are currents and cross currents in the ocean.
There is constant movement within itself.
Even so, in this cosmos there is constant movement of energy.
Since the movement of energy takes place in pure Intelligence (known as consciousness in mysticism) the manifestation of the energy becomes sentient.
One such manifestation is the thought "I am".

July 17

Bliss and Love

When the movement of cosmic energy passes through this thought "I am", as it were, the "I am" experiences it as an experience at the receiving end, and as an expression at the giving end.
This is very much like the broadcasting station relaying an overseas broadcast: the local station receives and transmits.
Having thus divided such movements of energy into experiences and expressions, the I-am thinks, "I am the experiencer" and "I am the doer of actions".
Soon, these two ramify into countless divisions and subdivisions of experiences and actions.
When in meditation it is directly realized that there is only one truth, and that that is movement of energy in cosmic intelligence, the false ego vanishes, and with it the division that it created.
There is pure experiencing alone, and that itself is pure and spontaneous action.
This is liberation.
The cosmic intelligence is liberated from the false ego-sense and its own creatures, which are pain, sorrow, suffering, etc.
The movement of energy in cosmic consciousness or God is both pure experiencing - which is bliss, and pure spontaneous action, which is love.

July 18

Discipline

Moral and psychological discipline is essential in every spiritual aspirant whatever path he chooses.
On the path of jnana or wisdom, it is indispensable.
There are no other guidelines, no guard against self-deception, and no preventative to perversion.
Hence, in ancient times, the truth was jealously guarded and imparted by an enlightened Guru to a qualified disciple.
The rest of the discipline in jnana yoga is a face-to-face dialogue, which is almost a confrontation.
The intensity of this dialogue is kept high by the intensity of the mutual affection between the Guru and the disciple, and their earnestness in the quest of truth.
The Guru is the omni-ever-present light of God, which is revealed to the disciplined disciple in response to the latter's longing for self-knowledge.
The Guru may appear in many forms, any form.

July 19

Gods

In the Kathopanishad, the Guru is "death".
When the spiritual aspirant faces death with unflinching courage, and remains undetected in his spiritual quest by either material or heavenly goals, death reveals the truth concerning the self.
The self or the truth (which is symbolized by Om) is beyond "this" and "that", beyond the concepts of the real and the unreal; but it is the very experiencer of all experiences.
It is only because the experiencer, in ignorance, looks outside that the ignorance is perpetuated; when the hero turns his gaze within, he is not deluded.
The need is to awake and to remain alert, and then to approach the Guru, for the truth is subtle, and is in the middle, between the notions "I am the experiencer" and "I am not the experiencer".
In the Kenopanishad, the Guru is the Goddess Uma, and the disciples are the Gods.
Even they are subject to the egotistic feeling "I am the doer".

July 20

Guru

The Guru maybe a deity (like Prajapati or the Creator in the Chandogya Upanishad), rarely one's own husband (like Yajnavalkya in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad) or father (as in the Chandogya Upanishad dialogues between Uddalaka and Svetaketu).
The story of Satyakama Jabala emphasizes that the Guru may even be "other than human agencies".
Satyakama was devoted to truth and had rendered great and devoted service to his Guru by tending to his cows.
He is later instructed by a cow, by fire, etc.
The instruction may also take many forms: the disciple may question and the Guru may answer, as in the case of the Kathopanishad.
The Guru may indicate the truth and then prod the disciple to meditate and discover the truth for himself, as in the Taittiriya Upanishad.
Though the usual form is one of dialogue or monological instruction, there are instances in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad where the truth is revealed in a debate form.

July 21

Shaktipata

It is often the inner tyrant (the self) that demands freedom from external authority, and determines what that freedom means.
True freedom is freedom from self, which is realized to be non-existent in the light of the inner reality, which is the Guru.
It is the awakened intelligence that realizes this inner reality.
This awakening of the inner intelligence, or chit-shakti is shaktipata.
The Guru brings about this awakening or, one who does this is known as the Guru.
It is easy for the Guru, for He is the light.
It is impossible for the self, for the self is the shadow of ignorance.
However, this Shaktipata does not take place unless there is self-surrender, until the disciple has come to the end of his own resources, and is able humbly to approach the Guru in total devotion (which is of the heart and not of the intellect), and to establish a channel of direct communication, by means of loving and devoted service to the Guru.

July 22

Heart

It is when the disciple learns to listen to the Guru "with the ears of his heart" that the Guru is able to transmit the highest truth direct to the very heart of the disciple.
The shaktipata happens then, the light of the Guru's Grace dispels the shadow of ignorance or the self and there is spontaneous enlightenment.
All this is discipline, which is the characteristic of the disciple.
The Guru is everywhere at all times, for He is the light of God, and His Grace is freely available to all at all times.
It is up to the disciple to study his own mind (which is what discipline means) and see for himself how it throws up doubts and distractions, to study the nature of craving for pleasure and prestige that thickens the veil of the self.
The light of such self-study is viveka or vigilance.
Such vigilance keeps the distractions away and the doubting intellect at bay, so that the heart may be open to the Guru.

July 23

Grace

That which dispels the shadow of the "me" is the light, is the Guru.
God, Guru, inner reality and atman are synonyms.
That inner light is nameless and formless.
It is the limitation of our own vision that sees that light as a form.
The form of the Guru is the manifestation of the Grace of God, the light of lights.
Only Grace can thus condescend to descend to our level and appear to us in a form that is easy of our comprehension.
In the very silent presence of the Guru, ignorance is dispelled.
Words are distracting, disturbing and unnecessary.
Yet, again, the Grace of the Guru supplements non-verbal communication with verbal communication, because we are deaf to the enlightening eloquence of silence.
The Guru is the light of God that has assumed a human form by the Grace of God, in answer to our own inner aspiration and prayer.
That light dispels the haunting shadow of ignorance, which is the "me".
Only that which is beyond the "me" (the Guru) can know how and when this has been achieved.
The "me" does not disappear so easily, therefore the Guru adopts suitable means for its eradication.
So, do not look at the merits or demerits of the Guru.
Obey implicitly.

July 24

Discrimination

Every moment of your life, there must be discrimination, of the real from the unreal.
There must be vigilance, alertness, discrimination with will power, for yourself, and not because someone else says so.
In reality you are alone responsible for all your actions, no one else.
You may say I misled you, but how can I mislead you?
You can safely walk behind someone, provided only that you have a light in your hand.
We can all follow one another, provided we do not walk in each other's shadow.
If I hold a candle in my hand, I do not walk in his shadow, but by the light in my hand.
Only then can I walk behind him without danger.
Keep your eyes open, your discrimination alive, and choose your own path.
I followed Swami Sivananda implicitly, and am glad to have done so.
No doubt, he asked me to do things, and I did them because I knew it was right to do them; the responsibility was mine all the time.
I must know the alternatives.
I can do this, I cannot do that.
Every moment I must discriminate with open eyes.
Face the question.
What am I going to do, what is the right action for me?
If you do this, the religion is real; otherwise you get into muddle after muddle.

July 25

Ahimsa

The Guru, if He is ahimsa, has the most vital role to play in the life of the disciple.
Being the light (Guru), the light itself being ahimsa, the Guru can spotlight those dark corners of the disciple's being where himsa may be lurking.
The Guru cannot see for the disciple, the Guru cannot force the disciple to see, nor even persuade him to see, for all this is violence.
If the Guru is capable of such violence, obviously he cannot train the disciple in ahimsa.
Therefore the Guru does not spotlight the vision of the disciple but only the himsa, which lies hidden in the disciple's being.
If the disciple does not discover it for himself, it is not real, it is not valid.
The truth is worth repeating again and again, but the disciple can in no way be made to see.
The Guru's eagerness to demonstrate His ahimsa might completely mislead the disciple.
Any imposition, persuasion, however gentle and subtle, will only bring out himsa in the disciple, manifesting as immediate revolt, and possible long-term violent behavior.
The Guru's role in ahimsa training is precisely like the role the sun plays in the life of a human being on earth, to be and to illumine, without even intending to do so.

July 26

Temple

I wonder why the sides of the head are called "temples".
While we carry these temples all the time, why should we go to external temples?
During crises in our lives, it seems to be necessary for us to go to an external temple to remind ourselves that the real temple is with us, and within us as the intelligence beyond the "me".
Even this needs some amount of inner spiritual awakening!
If this awakening is not there, then a crisis in our life only succeeds in making us even more worldly and vicious.
When there is a slight inner awakening, we glimpse the truth concerning life.
Our dependence upon our relationships and our possessions weakens, for we realize that they are treacherous.
It is possible for some to go from there right into the inner temple; but for most people an external temple is needed.
When we go to the temple, we pray.
What do we pray for?
The immature man prays for worldly success, prosperity and happiness, without realizing that these and the pursuit of pleasure were the real causes of his unhappiness!
Only a hero has the wisdom to say: "Thy will be done."
Such self-surrender instantly illumines the inner intelligence.
Therefore, the famous Gayatri Mantra prays, "Lord, enlighten my intelligence."

July 27

Life's Joy

When we talk of looking within and seeing oneself for oneself, it is not a question of estimating oneself.
That is left to the psychologists who, for the sake of convenience, classify and pigeonhole.
They look at people and label them.
They have their own tests and measurements, and if I do not fit into their pattern, I am regarded as useless.
Christ told us to be like little children.
We must shed the qualifications taught us by psychologists, stop "examining" our emotions, looking for explanations (justifications) and blaming others or ourselves for our actions.
Thought obstructs spontaneous activity!
Uncluttered by regrets concerning the past which is gone, and hopes for the future not yet here, "being" is terribly alive now and acts spontaneously.
Freed from the inner vivisection and hence torture, its entire energy is available for the work of each moment.
When the mind is freed from the past and future, it instantly acts.
Life's burden of the instant is light, and life's joy of the instant is delight.

July 28

Co-operation

Co-operation is not you and I getting together to destroy a third person.
It is you and I getting together and working for our mutual benefit.
The words "you" and "I" here stand for human beings and animals, or animals and plants, plants and earth, in all the various combinations.
There is a reciprocal relationship between animals and plants, plants and earth - what one gives the other takes.
For example, plants draw their nourishment from earth; later they themselves replenish the earth.
From an unknown devil man has learnt the art of exploiting the earth's resources.
He whips the soil to yield tenfold or hundredfold. Poor earth.
Robbed of her life-force she struggles on.
Before modern civilization invented a highly involved drainage system, man's excretions were returned direct to the earth.
But now human excretion is pumped into the sea, polluting it!
The life-cycle is broken, but clever man thinks he knows what the earth needs, giving earth lovely chemical fertilizers, unfit for his consumption.
Hundreds of farmers all over the world have returned to "organic" farming.
They do not use chemical fertilizers or sprays; they treat plants as living things.
They have learnt the basic lesson of life, that nature demands co-operation, and will foil any attempt to conquer her.

July 29

Fragrance

In the ashram in Mauritius we have a little garden.
I like to go there, talk to the flowers, commune with them.
There are many different colored roses, and I study them.
They do not want to change color.
They do not want to become marigolds.
Wild flowers are also beautiful, and I ask them, "Would you like to be a rose?" and they answer, "No. Leave me to be what I am."
That is the greatest teaching I have ever heard.
Many people wear scent, perhaps sprinkle rose water on themselves - they are not usually so fragrant otherwise.
Again, I go to the roses and ask, "Do you sprinkle yourself with rose water?"
"Nonsense, it comes from me."
I try again, "How did you get this scent?"
The answer comes, "Because I am a rose."
Is this not marvelous?
If I am a rose, I have the fragrance of a rose, I give out the fragrance of a rose, I do not have to do anything more.
Asking myself what I must do leads me nowhere, but asking myself what I am leads me somewhere.
The moment I discover what I am, action is spontaneous.
There is no effort, no problem.
Problems only arise when someone wants to imitate someone else.
I want to imitate you, only because I have not discovered what I am.

July 30

Goodness

Deep within each one of us there is a natural quality, a natural goodness.
It shows up in the lives of even the most vicious amongst us at odd moments.
It is God, love, divinity.
This has to be discovered, seen for what it is, otherwise we live in a world created by our own thoughts, by our calculating mentality, being good to those that favour us, and not so good to those who do not favour us.
The discovery of this inner, innate and essential nature cannot be made by our mind, for our mind is cluttered by a million ideas we have gathered from each other.
The mind can only function in terms of these ideas; it is an obstruction to the full realization of this inner, innate nature.
The mind acts as a dam.
Yet even the worst enemy of civilization has someone or some group whom he loves.
He does not have any love for others; it is all directed towards this one group.
When one discovers one's inherent inner nature, it becomes natural for one to become good.
It needs no persuasion, no imposition, and no enforcement from outside.
When it is discovered, then the "dam", created by the mind and its ideas, disintegrates, and natural goodness flows in all directions, towards all, spontaneously and invariably.

July 31

Spontaneity

True action is always spontaneous.
Look at the present; look at each thing as it is.
Learn to look at each event, each happening as it is.
In a movie film each frame records a complete and independent scene.
Yet, because of the speed of the camera, it seems to move while in fact there is no motion.
So, in life too, there is possibly no continuity of action, each action being a completely separate and independent unit.
This may be termed "living in the present", not to be confused with the doctrine, "live in the present" which often means utilizing past experience logically in order to achieve a future goal.
It is not possible, because before you utter the word present it is gone.
What is needed is a complete, total attention to the action that is taking place now.
Because the mind relates a present action to a future result, it is shocked, surprised by an unexpected turn of events.
Nothing turned, you turned, you were standing crooked, and when time straightened you out, you felt the crookedness.