A Little Gem of Conversation with a Master
Trip Start
Oct 09, 2007
1
26
45
Trip End
Mar 10, 2008
Kolkata (Calcutta),
West Bengal,
India
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
In the car riding to the temple today, I asked Baba if he had brought the recorder. He hadn't. I told him he must bring it in the future. So much comes out of him that I cannot remember all of the details, all of the richness of it. Only a smattering comes back to me when I sit down to write about it. I gave him the example of the other day, when he was talking about God being the unchangeable, non-physical, and how, at the time, I was so moved, but now I can retrieve almost nothing but the most minimal essence of what he said. "I think it was in reference to the boy that asked you, "Why doesn't God keep me from doing wrong?" You talked about how the non-physical has to flow into the physical, into manifestation, but we don't have space for that in our overfull heads.
Then he was off and running. Below is the closest I can recall to what he said, but it doesn't begin to convey the ease and beauty and freshness, or the range, of the examples and points he made:
To flow into the physical, into manifestation, the non-physical has to have an opening. There is no opening in us. Our minds are so full. We are so involved with externalities in the world today. How is the subtler, non-physical going to influence us, how is it going to be seen and felt and heard when we don't spend any time being present to it? We have to look inward. The world will never change until we do. We all whine and complain about the world today, many of us are very busy trying to change the world, but if we do not take the time to develop an inner life, it will do absolutely no good.
We don't need more religion, we don't need more God. We need to discover the inner world. We have had too much of God. Look at the wars and the endless, horrible things done in the name of God! Your God and my God are different. From the time you were little, your teacher teaches you to face East. From the time I was a child, mine teaches me to face West. With your black God, you do not like my white God. With your cross, you do not like my idols. Our rituals, our traditions, our ideas of God are so different; how can we possibly come to an understanding? No, we have had enough of God, for all the good it has done us. Today we need to go inward. We need consciousness. We need awareness, pure awareness.
We are all robots. Everything we do, we do unconsciously. We work, work, work. A robot works. It doesn't know what it is doing. Neither do we. We move unconsciously. A robot moves. We develop ailments and have to go to the doctor. A robot breaks down and has to be fixed by a mechanic. How are we different from a robot? Without inner awareness, there is no difference.
Our focus is completely external. We go to school, we study. We get this degree and that degree. We consider ourselves educated with our Masters and PhD degrees. But every bit of the knowledge we have, all of the knowledge we pursue, is focused on externalities. What institutions explore the inner dimension as part of their curricula?
We are not educated. We think we are educated. We haven't explored the inner realm, which is the greater, the essential, the most creative aspect of our existence. The external is only half of reality. It is important, but it is the lesser half. Until we become conscious of the role the inner plays, we will continue to be robots and the world will only spin more and more out of control. Human suffering will only continue to deepen.
When we turn inward, we discover the infinite beauty of life. We tap into the wellsprings of goodness. We are in-formed by the non-physical, by the pure intelligence, and the interconnectedness, that permeates and orders the universe, and that is embedded in us. The non-physical has to have an opening in which to flow into our lives. When it does, life's creativity flows through us to accomplish things that are far, far beyond anything we can even conceive of, much less do or arrange on our own. We are so small, so powerless and ineffective without access to the vast resources of the . Without those resources being given their place in the scheme of things, human beings are impoverished. Every one of us will remain robots.
We have to still our mind. We have to open our heart. Our institutions of learning need to shift, to begin including the study of the inner dimension, but not an academic study. It will be a challenge. The inner cannot be studied as an external reality, it cannot be graded or quantified, but it must be studied, and seriously, nonetheless.
Even science is reaching its outer limits, because it focuses on the external, the object. What is wholeness but to have both the inner and the outer in balance? That doesn't mean withdrawing completely from the world. We don't have to avoid money or the need for money. We don't need to avoid relationships or the need for relationships.
We merely give our awareness space in which to grow. We give it an opening. We give it energy and attention, so that we can bring the outer into balance. The life lived as a manifestation of the inner draws on the infinite harmonies within our own body and mind, on the primary intelligence at the source of creation.
The world we will create when we give space and time for the inner will be an entirely different world. Because when we give as much energy and attention to our inner lives as we do to the external, we discover there is an innate, subtle intelligence that is available to us. We attune to finer and finer sensibilities, to higher and higher values, to our deepest intentions, to more generous and compassionate impulses. We develop a finer, more spontaneous awareness, keener powers of discrimination. We discriminate between what gives temporary satisfaction and what has enduring value. 'Should I speak harshly to this person?' we ask ourselves. 'No. No. There is no need. Speaking harshly rarely accomplishes anything. Better to send him positive, energy, even if it is from a distance.'
