Each time I leave a meditation retreat, I'm struck by the level of speed and stress in our environment. I'm not just talking about Westerners. Ther first time I went to Tibet, life there was very simple, but when Ireturned three years later, cell phones were ringing and the distraction was visible, even while I was conducting ceremonies. Something else I've noticed lately is that we're bombarded with bad news. But the people I admire have always focused on the good news: that we have in our mind wisdom, compassion, and all the other elements of enlightenment. While living in stressful times does not ultimately affect our enlightened qualities, it does demand that we become more engaged in awakening them. To transform the environment, we must begin with our mind. We can't expect everyone else to change first. As my father, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was fond of saying, "It's easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather." The process of putting on a pair of shoes is the path of enlightenment.

On the ultimate level, enlightenment is already here, but on the relative level we need to engineer its causes and conditions. The mind is a neutral situation, like a cotton sheet that we can dye any color we want, but unless we take hold of it, karmic tendencies--whatever habits we've ingrained in the past--will just take over. The practice of the path is slowly orienting that white cloth and coloring it the way we want. The path consists of three elements: view, meditation, and activity.

View is our orientation, and how we orient our life is intimately connected with our motivation. Traditionally, the Buddhist teachings list three kinds of motivation: small, medium, and large. These levels of motivation describe how we evolve on the path of enlightenment. When we wake up in the morning, where is our mind taking us? Whatever it is, from motivation, everything else will arise.

If our motivation is small, we will use our day getting the "stuff" we think will make us happy--food, clothing, and friends. If it's a little bigger, we might add some yoga to make us feel better. We might even expand it further to think about the karmic consequences of our actions--but it's still all about "me". With a medium-level motivation, we're no longer so fixated on our own happiness; the basis of our actions is loving-kindness and compassion. We're maturing. With the largest motivation, we put the happiness of others before our own. This is the motivation of the Buddha. If we get up in the morning and the first thought that comes to mind is, "There are so many sentient beings; even if I amd the last person on earth, I will stay here to help them," that is a very big view. Motivation is just an attitude, and it's free. So why not have a big motivation?

Think about the life on this planet. Think about all the life in the universe that exists in lower realms of consciousness than human beings. Think about all the habitats and all the minerals to support those higher forms. Now. The next stage of evolution from animals who simply act out of unconscious drives and are not self-aware is in the mind. correct? We evolved a mind, and became different from the common beast. Now, Why did we evolve this mind? by accident? No, we evolved this mind so that we might understand and know and shape the universe to our will. We create our universe, if you study quantum physics the base kind of stuff that makes up our particles that form everything in existence is the same throughout your body and throughout creation. Those fundamental building blocks which form particles through our unconscious 1st dimensional mind are what makes up the universe. The first mind to have a thought was the source energy that we would call God, however we are one with and a part of that energy!!!

Why is view so important? View is how our mind is oriented, and the way our mind is oriented determines what we get. Our realization is based on the size of our view. The view of enlightenment is that we are taking charge of our own destiny. Unless we take the mind where we want it to go, the environment will take the mind where it wants it to go.

By setting our view every morning, we become very good at supporting ourselves in the second element of the path, meditation. Meditation is essentially a dualistic process in which we place our mind on an object. When we place our mind on something, the mind absorbs its qualities, because we're becoming familiar with it. This isn't particularly a spiritual truth; it's our everyday reality. For example, if the object is the anger you feel toward your spouse, you become more familiar with anger, soaking up its qualities like a sponge. In the end, that meditation leads to action. You yell at your spouse or stomp out of the room Meditation is a proactive approach to this reality of mind. We practice choosing the object rather than being led by whatever thoughts and emotions randomly beckon. We steep our mind in qualities that lead it forward. We begin with the stabilization technique called sharmtha, "peaceful abiding, " in which we focus on the breath. Through this practice our mind becomes settled and workable. Why is this important? We may have good intentions, but if we can't control our mind, we can never enact them. For example, we want to be compassionate but we get discursive, distracted by our mental ups and downs. Before we can cultivate compassion, we need to possess our mind. That's what we do in stabilizing meditation, where we calm down and experience the space of mind just being there. From that, our mind is much less speedy.

The mind resting peacefully has incredible implications. If you're present for the moment, you're present for your life, and you can therefore observe what's going on. If you can observe what's going on, you can make judgements, deciding where you want to go. At this point--known as the present moment--you can change your karma. You can reorient your whole path, because in terms of the future, you're in the driver's seat. You are getting more enlightened. You are waking up.
We actively reorient ourselves in contemplation, the second kind of meditation, known as vipashyana, "clear seeing." Now we take a thought as the object of our meditation. For example, we can focus on our motivation, stated very simply: "I want to meditate,""I want to develop compassion," "I want to tread on the path of enlightenment," or "I want to become enlightened, no holds barred." At other times we might contemplate a quality--generosity, exertion, discipline, or patience--that could support our motivation.

This is a practice of fabricating our enlightened qualities so that our mind naturally turns in their direction. We know that we're innately compassionate, and we also know that we don't feel right now because there's a blockage. So we contrive our buddhanature in order to reveal it. We call this relative understanding. That understanding may be brief, but we should not be discouraged . By becoming familiar with the view, we are clarifying our future.

It's one thing to have the attitude of enlightenment and another thing to act in an enlightened way, which is conduct or activity, the third element of the path. If we have proper understanding of our motivation and are getting used to our enlightened qualities, chances are we can deal with speed and stress more effectively. First we can create space in our mind to see where we are. Then we can reorient ourselves by remembering what we're doing. That allows us to say, "Sure, I'm tired and in a hurry and my phone is ringing again. Yet I can stay on the path by sticking with the ten percent of my mind that really wants to do this." The more we develop the tools to move forward on the spot, the less influence the other ninety percent of our mind will have. Our karmic tendency to drift into agitation and discursiveness will incrementally decrease. View, meditation, and conduct give us a way to remember what we're doing and why we're doing it, and then enact our own enlightenment. As we do that, we are stepping on the path. We're making progress.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is the spiritual leader of Shambhala, an internation network of Buddhist meditation and retreat centers. He is the author of Turning the Mind into an Ally and Ruling Your World.



Once upon a time, a galactic council was called and a mythic call was sent out to countless light beings: the children of the Sun, the angelic winged ones, the Sun runners, the rainbow warriors, and other luminous ones from many star systems. This great circle of light beings gathered from far and wide. At the appointed nexus, the Love of the Spinning Galaxies, the Great Spirit, entered, gracing them all with celestial light and the following words. "You are invited to incarnate upon a world where a great transformation will take place, " began the Love of the Spinning Galaxies. "You who respond to this call will go to a place of planetary evolution where the illusions of fear and separation are strong teachers. I am calling those with the needed talents and gifts to act as my emissaries there, to lift and transform the frequencies of planet Earth, simply by embodying and anchoring love's presence there. In this myth, you will be the creators of a new reality, the reality of the golden octave. " The Love of the Spinning Galaxies continued: "On other journeys, each of you has proven to be a “feeling navigator,” able to awaken your consciousness and align your heart to the promptings of pure love and compassionate service. As Sun runners and torch bearers, you have already demonstrated that you will hold the light high. And so, I invite you to incarnate en masse among the tribes of Earth to assist Gaia and all her children in their transformation. "It is part of the plan that you will be veiled in forgetting," the Mystery of the Spinning Galaxies went on. "However, as you remember the feeling of childlike innocence and trust, you will become the harmonic leavening in this cycle of initiation for Earth. You will incarnate strategically, often in some of the most vibrationally dense areas on the planet. To some, this illusion of separation from love may create feelings of hopelessness, lack of support, and alienation. But by embracing your humanness, your love will transform the depths of duality, and your light will quicken the many.

"Your participation on this quest is purely voluntary; however, this transformational shift on Earth is very rare and precious. Should you choose to accept this mission, you will have the opportunity to catalyze and synthesize all that you have been during many incarnations, receiving a rarely offered quantum leap in consciousness. It is up to you to choose how you will dance with Terra Gaia and her children as she completes her ceremony of light." So spoke the Creator, the Light of the Spinning Galaxies. And so it was that the luminous beings who formed the countless alliances, federations, and councils of the faithful of the stars chose to incarnate on planet Earth to assist in this crucial event, the awakening of the planetary dream. There was even a fail-safe process built into the plan to awaken these beings from the illusion of separation and the veil of forgetfulness that is so rife upon Earth. The luminous ones who would journey to Gaia's assistance agreed to spark each other's remembrance. Thus, these starseeded ones were encoded in many ways with sounds, colors, lights, images, words, and symbols -- a vibrational resonance that would assist them in remembering their commitment to the light. It was agreed that these coded clues would appear everywhere: in visionary art and music, in penetrating looks, in speech and feelings -- all creating a deep yearning to awaken and become the embodiment of love. So it is that you, the children of the Sun, are now being bathed in the waters of remembrance, prepared as rainbow warriors to fulfill the promise of the new and ancient myth. By simply anchoring love's presence on Earth, you lovingly draw down the mantle of the gods, sending waves of healing and love throughout Gaia's eagerly receptive body. As you emerge in this time, your gifts awaken and empower others. Utilizing the tools of laughter, song, dance, humor, joy, trust, and love, you are creating the powerful surge of transformation that will transmute the limitations of the old myth of duality and separation, birthing the miracle of unity and peace on Earth. Utilize your gifts on behalf of Gaia. In a supernova of consciousness, Gaia and her children will ascend in robes of light, forming a luminous light body of love, to be reborn among the stars! The mythic call has been sounded. The great quest has begun. Awaken, rainbow warriors, Sun runners, luminous beings from the galactic alliances, federations, and councils! Ancient skywalkers, newly formed in this moment, stand in the beauty and power of your true identity as love's gift to Gaia. Set aside self-doubt. You are the divine child of the Sun! Go where your heart draws you to share your great gifts. Surrender to the magic and the light. The miracle will be manifested on Earth. Remember, we dance and sing here for the One Heart."

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." -- Albert Einstein

Does it literally refer to light entering your body and streaming through your being and the realization of this quality? Does it mean that I am, (as put by Michael Tsarion) en-lightened, in otherwords made to be lighter? And we've all had the lifting experience of a kundalini "rush" at this stage, or we will if we continue with our journey. Perhaps this is the true meaning of becoming an "enlightened one". We break free of the matrix of control that has been known since Plato's time and beyond. Plato says this of the "Simulacrum": "The simulacrum is more than just a useless image, it is a deviation and perversion of imitation itself - a false likeness" So when one is freed of simulacrum-thinking perhaps it is then that you are what we would call a 4th dimensional mind. Perhaps than this acknowledgement and acceptance of your next step is the path then to enlightenment. Once we have cleaned the blackboard, we are free to begin with new calculations. An enlightened mind knows no use for the ego as well. An entity on a path to enlightenment seeks to not let his ego get ahold of his self, or make any decisions what so ever in his new path, for it is a practice and a promugation of 3rd dimensional values. Always remember that an enlightened one is multidimensional, and it is easy to acknowledge those dimensions upon further study of them. Be at one with the dimensional plane that you seek to exist on, and all dimensional planes for that matter, for they are inside you and all around you in the NOW forever. We exist to walk on the current path, never have doubt in yourself, you need to accept of your path and unconditional love to reach your goal in life, the rest are making yourself aware to that path.

So you see, if you become aware of the fact that you are all of your own body, and that the beating of your heart is not just something that happens to you, but something you're doing, then you become aware also in the same moment and at the same time that you're not only beating your heart, but that you are shining the sun. Why? Because the process of your bodily existence and its rhythms is a process, an energy system which is continuous with the shining of the sun, just like the East River, here, is a continuous energy system, and all the waves in it are activities of the whole East River, and that's continuous with the Atlantic Ocean, and that's all one energy system and finally the Atlantic ocean gets around to being the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, etc., and so all the waters of the Earth are a continuous energy system. It isn't just that the East River is part of it. You can't draw any line and say 'Look, this is where the East River ends and the rest of it begins,' as if you can in the parts of an automobile, where you can say 'This is definitely part of the generator, here, and over here is a spark plug.' There's not that kind of isolation between the elements of nature. - Alan Watts

I AM THAT, I AM

Ponder that Moses did not know how to tell the Israelites who had given him the Ten Commandments.

“And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”(Exodus 3:13-14).

This is curious. Why not tell the Israelites Yahweh (Jehovah) had sent him? All of the Israelites knew that name. Moses was experiencing God in a way he knew they would not easily understand. He was experiencing God as the one Self of all beings; as pure awareness, the basis of all existence, the ground of all being - the I AM. The I AM is within us all. The I AM that is in you is the same I AM that is in me and everyone else. At the center of our being we are all connected. This is why Jesus tells us the kingdom of God is within us: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21). Some have attempted to dilute this scripture by saying that Jesus meant he himself was among them. However, this is easily dismissed because he also says the kingdom of God does not come with observation and Jesus was certainly observable. Also, the Master says the kingdom is not “here” or “there” and Jesus could be regarded as being either here or there. The I AM is not observable because it is not a “thing” rather it is pure awareness. It is not “here” or “there” because it is all-pervading and that includes “within us.” The concept of looking within to find God also tallies with Buddhist and Hindu scriptures. If the Old Testament says God is I AM, what does the New Testament say? “God is love.” (1 John 4:8, 4:16 ). Like the I AM, love also comes from within us. Love is another name for I AM. We can only experience love for God or our neighbor as something that comes from within us. Thus, the kingdom of God is within us. And what are Jesus’ two commandments? “One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:35-40).

CHRIST-CONSCIOUSNESS

By SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA
But the Christ never came to rule the world of Caesar, as he put it. "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's." Don't mix up the two elements. The Christ has nothing to do with Caesar's. The Caesar is a quantitative measurement like that of silver and gold, of give and take, of commerce and trade, of the quantitative mathematics of the feeble mind caught up in the network of space and time. The Christ-Consciousness stands far above this common way of give-and-take thinking. It is from this superior and sublime point of view that we have to understand what it is to empty oneself and to be filled by the Spirit. When He says 'empty thyself and I shall file thee', it is not that the Christ as Jesus, the personality, is going to sit on your head. He cannot fill you, as a person. How can one person fill another person? It is unthinkable and meaningless. It was the consciousness that was intended, as capable of filling the emptied vessel of human personality. How can Spirit fill you? The Spirit is not a content. Because the very idea of a content is again quantitative, and the Spirit is not a quantitative measure. It is not like water or any other liquid that can fill a vessel. It has no weight. It has no length and breadth. It is not here or there. It is the quintessential value that is immanently present as the very constitutive stuff, the very fibre, pith and being of anything that can be or anything that ever is. The Spirit cannot be thought of, because the Spirit is the very pre-supposition of thought. Even before you start thinking, the Spirit is there behind it impelling your thought. So there is no such thing as thinking the Spirit, and, therefore, there is no such thing also as measuring the Spirit with the yard-stick of human thought. How can the Spirit fill you, unless you have the capacity to receive It or contain It! Where is the container for the Spirit! This wonderful gospel 'Empty thyself and I shall fill thee' is complemented by another equally wonder-statement of His, 'The kingdom of heaven is within you'. How can the heaven be within you? You are such a small frail personality, a little body, occupying one or two feet of width of the earth. How can the kingdom of heaven be contained inside you? All His statements seem to be marvellously conspicuous and significant of something what the human mind has not been habituated to think or understand. Have you ever seen a kingdom being contained within the personality of a human being? Yet, it is said by the Christ. It is something like saying that the ocean is in a drop, which is unthinkable. All these inscrutable statements of the Christ appear to be inscrutable, because we cannot understand what the Spirit is, from the point of view of which he spoke always.

The very stand point was quite different. You know today people say that we have a kind of arithmetic where two and two need not necessarily make four. Because, it is Euclidean way of thinking in geometry and arithmetic. Plane geometry is different from spherical geometry, for example. Ordinary geometry of the triangle is different from trignometry. The values, the measuring and the calculating rules of geometry on a surface do not apply to a geometry in a sphere. It is on account of this that they say that under certain given conditions of the physical bodies of the cosmos, the three angles of a triangle need not necessarily make two right angles, though usually this is the rule, according to Euclid.

The three angles of a triangle always make two right angles, but this is not true always. There are conditions of existence even in the physical world, in the macrocosmos for example, or in the microcosmos, the sub-atomic layer as they call it, where this geometry will not hold good. Two and two need not make four. It can be less or it can be more. You think the man has gone crazy, because he blabbers something which makes no sense. But, these people say that those who hold on to the prejudice that two and two make four only and not more or not less, are crazy, and not they. The world is wider than we can think of. If even humanly conceivable arithmetic and mathematics can elude the grasp of ordinary understanding, as pointed out by these discoveries of modern days, what to talk of the Spirit! The Spirit is non- mathematical and non-measurable, because of its being non-material. And our minds are used to think only in terms of measurements and calculations. Therefore, a kingdom cannot be conceived to be contained within a person. The Kingdom of heaven cannot be contained by you. A vast realm or a huge empire cannot be inside the personality of a human being. Yet, this is possible, under certain other given conditions. The part can contain the whole. Is it possible? Have you ever seen a part containing the whole? You have heard of the whole including the part. How can a part include the whole? It is impossible, because the whole is superior to the part quantitatively, again. We again think only in terms of quantity. Because many parts make the whole, the whole cannot be any one part. This is our quantitative way of thinking. But the whole need not necessarily be a quantitative totality. There are wholes, which are not necessarily totals of the parts in a material sense. I shall give you one small example of this kind of peculiar totality, which is not merely the sum of the parts of which it is constituted. The wholeness of the personality of your own body is an example. You have a sense of wholeness of your being. You have ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes and several other limbs of the body. And you have a sense of togetherness and wholeness, compactness and totality in your being. You never think that you are made up of members. You do not go on thinking, 'I have ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes'. Who thinks like that! You never think of the limbs of your body and never for a moment calculate in terms of the discrete parts of which your body is formed. But you always imagine yourself to be a total—'I', 'I am here', 'I have come', 'look at me'. When you talk of 'I' or 'My' or 'Me', you do not refer to any limb of the body, nor do you also refer to a totality of the limbs of your body. You refer to another significant wholeness that is present in each and every part of the body, which gives you the confidence of your being a single indivisible something. This indivisibility that you are, which is not a mathematical or a physical totality of the limbs of your body, is wholly present in each one of the parts.

This is a very difficult idea to imagine. Every part of your body is a wholeness as far as it is concerned. On account of this mystery of living organisms, the great philosophical thinker called General Smutts evolved a philosophy called 'Wholism' which means that everything in the world is a whole. According to him, every cell of the body is a whole and every atom is a whole, by itself It has a completeness of structure. There is no part in this world; everything is a whole. Every protoplasmic cell in the leaf of a tree is a whole by itself struggling to maintain its individuality and harmony with other cells of the leaf of the tree. Every cell of our body,—the living organism of which we are constituted,—is a whole by itself, and it struggles to live by itself, and wants to maintain and sustain itself, because it is a whole by itself. The wholeness that is significantly present in an organic completeness of structure is different from the totality of the rupee coins or dollar coins or stone heaps, brick heaps, etc. That totality which we are thinking in our minds is different from the totality that we have to conceive spiritually, or at least non-materially. It is from this stand point that the kingdom of heaven can be within you. Just as the wholeness of your personality is immanent or present in each cell of your body, the entire kingdom of heaven is within you. The Kingdom of heaven is not a country. It is not a physical empire. It is a significance, a meaning, a connotation and a value. We call it the Spirit, and the Spirit can be contained everywhere. It does not require space to exist. Therefore, it can be wholly present even in the smallest of atoms. Thus, is the kingdom of heaven within you. All this is not philosophically expounded in the Bible. Great spiritual masters—the Christ, Krishna or the Buddha—do not go on commenting on their statements. They make suggestive statements which have to be expounded by lesser minds later on, for the sake of understanding by ordinary minds. So, from this point of view of the capacity of the Spirit to be contained even within a cell of the body, what would it be to empty oneself and to be filled by It. The accretions, as I have already mentioned, that have grown upon consciousness have to be gradually shed and wiped out. They have, to be scrubbed off. The objective accumulations over the Spirit have to be cast asunder in order that the Spirit may blossom forth in its full sublimity and loftiness of stature. 'To empty oneself', therefore, cannot mean anything else. It means to stand by the Spirit and not to swear by any material value. If you give something, you will lose that thing. This is our mathematics. The more you give, the more you lose. It is very clear. But, 'Give and it shall be given',—says the Christ. How can it be possible? Have you ever seen somebody giving you merely because you give. He takes away everything you give and goes away. But, what the Christ says is that you will not merely be given back what you give, but overflowing, pressed and shaken will it be given back to you. If you give one, you will get back hundreds, thousands and millions, says the Christ. This, again, is a non-mathematical calculation.

How can you get hundreds and thousands, if you give only one? 'Give and it shall be given', is what the Christ says. And He adds one adjective to it which is stunning, astonishing, awe-inspiring. It shall be given back to you, not merely in the measure that you have given, but overflowing and pressed. In a measure, the contents are pressed so that it may contain more and more, and then when it is overflowing abundantly, in that abundant form will it be given back to you. So, do not be afraid that you will lose by giving. Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj was a standing monumental example of this spiritual philosophy of giving. I have never seen a person like that, nor do I hope to see another, perhaps. We believe that by giving we lose. But, the Spirit says that by giving we gain. So, everywhere you find that the law of the Spirit is different from the law of matter. The law of the Christ is different from the law of Caesar. The law of God is different from the law of man. This is wonderful! Now, to empty oneself, therefore, would be the tendency to stand by the Spirit, and this tendency to stand by the Spirit is to recognise the character of the Spirit in the world of matter. We have lost consciousness of the Spirit itself. We are conscious only of matter. To be aware of the Spirit is to be aware of its characteristics simultaneously. You cannot think of fire without thinking of light and heat. The idea of fire is automatically associated with the idea of heat and light. Likewise, the idea of the Spirit is automatically associated with Omnipresence and a capacity to permeate and penetrate through everything. To include and transcend all things is another characteristic of the Spirit. What does it mean by the phrase to include and transcend? This again can be explained by an analogy. All this cannot be explained logically. The consciousness of your waking state includes and transcends all the contents of your dream. In dream, you saw wealth, you became a big officer, you drew a large salary, you had a sumptuous meal or you were an emperor. But when you wake up, you have lost everything! Have you really lost anything? The very consciousness of having woken up is transcendent to the consciousness of all the wealth and other things that you appeared to possess in dream. Do you want to be a king in dream; or an ordinary man in waking? You would like to be an ordinary person in the waking state rather than be a king in dream, because the value of the king in dream is inferior to the value of the ordinary man in waking. It is the difference in the consciousness that matters and not the beggarhood or the kinghood.

The difference lies in the state of consciousness, and not in what one is conscious of. Even as the contents of dream are subsumed, included and transcended in the waking consciousness, all the values of the world are included and transcended in the consciousness of the Spirit Supreme. We are not going to lose the world when we gain the Spirit. Many people are afraid of going to the Spirit or God, because they think that they may lose the world. There are many who think: "What about our friends? What will happen to them, if I go to God? O, my dear children are all here suffering; I do not want to go to God." This is foolish way of thinking. Because this is again a material way of thinking, mathematically construed and commercially understood. We are still business men. We cannot go beyond this idea. My dear friends, when you go to God, your friends will be seen there. Why are you crying about the friends? You will see them in a better way, with a better eye, than you are able to see now. And if you are intending to help them, well, you will be able to help them in a better way than now. Your strength will be much more and your capacity to help will get enhanced. All that is in the world is included in that realm of God and nothing is excluded. We are not going from the world to God. Again, we have an idea of quantitative running. Look at this prejudice! We are not moving from the world to, God, as if going from one planet to another in a rocket. It is not a spatial movement. It is a transfiguration of consciousness, like that which happens on waking up from dream. When you wake up from dream do you lose anything? Have you lost your dream friends, kingdom and the wealth? You are only happy that the devil has gone. 'What a nightmare I had in dream! It has gone and I am happy now.' This is your feeling when you wake up. Do you say, 'O my kingdom has gone, I was a king, I have lost everything?' Do you go on beating your breast? Similarly, nothing untoward will happen to you when you reach God. The Spirit includes all things that are valuable in the material world. It is because of this fact that the Christ was not understood by the people. How can matter understand the Spirit! And so He was crucified. We are crucifying God everyday in our life, in some form or the other. We are killing Him by our affirmation of the ego, the assertion of material values and an adamant adherence to this quantitative way of thinking that 'by giving we lose', 'by going to God we have to lose the world,' and so on and so forth.

All these are false assumptions, contrary to Truth. So, once again I say that to empty oneself is to empty oneself of the materialised accretions that have apparently grown over the universality of the Spirit. And then, you are filled with a flood of the oceanic abundance of God-consciousness. When you rise to the level of God, you are filled with an ocean, as it were, inundating you from all sides with a nectarine taste, beauty, grandeur and magnificence. When God comes, He does not come like a man coming from one direction. He comes from all directions, because He is everywhere. He does not come only from the East or the, West. He is not a human being. He is the universal Spirit that enters your personality. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to say that God entering man is like a mad elephant entering a thatched hut. Another mystic said that it is like an ocean entering a drop or flooding the rivers. All these are only images to give an idea as to what the supreme magnificence of Spirit is. They all think alike, because they stand on the same pedestal of realisation. The more we succeed in thinking along these lines, the more are we spiritual, the more are we Yogins. Yoga is not becoming something in the social sense. It is not also doing something with your hands and feet. It is a transformation of your inner stuff of thinking and feeling, willing and understanding in a completeness that surpasses your present physical personality. That is where the Christ is born. We say that Christ and Krishna were born at midnight. They are never born when the sun is bright, which means to say, when it is day light to the senses. "Ya nisa sarvabhutanam tasyam jagarti samyami, yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh"—says the Bhagavad Gita. What you see, the sages do not see; and what the sages see, you cannot see. What is day to you, is night to them; and what is day to them, is night to you. For you, God-consciousness is like darkness, a night of ignorance, and God does not exist at all. Therefore, many people go to the extent of even denying God. They cannot see Him. Whereas the sages see only God and nothing else. They do not see the world as the world. A person who has been cured of his cataract in the eyes does not see two moons. He does not say: 'There were two moons and now one moon is lost.' There were no two moons, and there was only one moon. This is the truth. Likewise when the spiritual medicine is administered to the sick soul of the human being, it assumes the spiritual health which enables one to think in a new reoriented manner altogether, and man becomes a superman. A man who thinks in this way is a superman. He is not an ordinary man. He cannot be called a man at all. A superman is a temple enshrining the superhuman Spirit. When God thinks through man, we call him a superman. Such was Christ, Buddha and Krishna. But all the great wonderful masters of mankind were thoroughly misunderstood; their teachings were never understood, but misrepresented, misapplied and abused to the doom of man, towards which we seem to be heading today, unfortunately. But God is great, and everything shall be well in the realm of God whose Omniscient eyes see everything. The recognition of the Spirit is, therefore, the recognition of God's omnipresent existence. And to be filled with God, is the same as to be filled with the Spirit. For that, we have to empty ourselves of all the externalised prejudice of objective thinking. We should not hang on objects, for our sustenance. Man does not live on bread alone, which means to say you do not live merely by the quantitative stuff of the world. You have something in you which is more than quantitative, which is superior to even the entire quantity of the cosmos. The Spirit is larger than the universe itself. The universe is after all a quantity. And Spirit is larger than that. 'Atyatishtad-dasan-gulam—the Spirit is above the universe,' says the Purusha Sukta. With this background of spiritual refreshment of our thoughts we have to contemplate daily the mystery of creation, the majesty of God, the greatness of spiritual life, the stupendousness of Yoga and the glorious consummation that is ahead of us which is supreme Liberation, Christ-Consciousness or God-realisation.