Shraddheyji: The Eternal Energy “Beyond the Microwave World” - Helen Clapham (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📗

When a sportsman is competing, his mind shuts off the cheering around him and all that matters to him is his game. Any sportsman, any person, we all meditate on something or the other when we concentrate the mind on a single point. The problem is that, whenever we try to concentrate this mind on worldly things, there is a beginning and an end to it.
Swami Brahmanandji, who was a famous sage of India, wrote a very beautiful poem in which he basically said that everyone has a tradition of remembering God by His name. You have rosaries. In India we have rosaries which have 108 beads. It is supposed to be a sacred number. It is all related to the prana, in that during a day we inhale and exhale one cycle of prana, so in a day you have 10,800 cycles of prana. It is not scientifically proven of course. So when you remove the zeroes you get 108. So basically the significance of the number is that God has given us this cycle through which we remember Him. So the easiest way to do it is to chant his name 108 times, so the cycle of your chanting matches the cycle of your prana. You can do it any number of times. If you do it 10,800 times you are chanting his name with each and every cycle of your breath, that is constant meditation. That meditation will take you to a certain stage, but it is still dependent on an external factor, it is still dependent on the rosary. However, Swami Brahamanand said that you do not need the rosary to chant the name of God because there is an eternal rosary, which is happening inside you, and that is the cycle of the breath.
You see, wherever there is a religious text, where there is a master, it is all there as a guide to help us to realise our Self, but the moment you have realised your Self, there is a direct connection between you and your spirit and God, so then you do not need the rosary, you do not need texts, because you are free. Then the meditation happens with your breath, through the essence of the Knowledge. What Guru Maharaj Ji has been giving to everyone, what Mahatmaji talks about, what we all talk about is directly related to the breath.
Eventually when you are ready to take Knowledge and you ask for it and the kriyas (the techniques) are transferred to you, you will see that they have nothing to do with any external factor.
I was on a world tour about 2 1/2 years ago, during which I went to South Africa and we had a very good tour around Durban. We visited temples and people’s homes and we had some very good programs. A lot of Indians live in South Africa whose ancestors reached there 3 or 4 generations ago and they were taken there to till the land. Once they settled there they maintained their temples and their culture, but the one thing they have forgotten is how to speak Hindi! So all the texts are like in an ancient language for them, because if you cannot read and understand the texts you will be alienated from your own religion. So then they had to depend on a few people who could read those texts and they had to take their interpretation of it as truth. And this happened over generations. So when I went there it was a beautiful opportunity because I could talk to them in English and they were happy because they could finally ask their questions and get an answer which they could understand, not words which had no reference for them and were therefore useless. The main thing is the meaning behind those words which brings about change inside us.
Finally I went to Johannesburg from where I had to catch the flight to London. In Johannesburg a very old couple came and we were sitting and having satsang just like this. Afterwards I asked, “Do you have any questions?” They said, “Yes, we have one question. You talk about the Truth, but what Truth is or what Knowledge is, you didn’t mention in your satsang.”
I replied, “You are absolutely right!” So they continued, “Our doubts still remain, because you know how to get Knowledge but you’re not giving out the techniques.”
So I explained, “It is not my place to give you the techniques right now, because you won’t understand what Knowledge is all about. You have to build a base to understand Knowledge, to accept Knowledge in your heart. If there is a taint in your life it will taint the Knowledge you are bringing in your life and then the impact of that Knowledge is not 100%.” And I told them, “You’ve been living in a microwave world.”
They asked, “What do you mean by a ‘microwave world’?”
I replied, “See, you don’t even have patience to cook your own food! You put it in the microwave and in 2 minutes you want it to be hot and ready. My point is that in spirituality there’s no microwave world, you know. You say, ‘I’ve got Knowledge and in 2 minutes everything should be ready. I should be able to talk to God, I should be experiencing Him and love and compassion should just flow out of me!’ You live like that and that is why I cannot give you the Knowledge right now. You may accept it but you won’t understand it. Until you are aware of the understanding, it cannot affect you, it cannot bring about change in you. And when the change does not come you will be upset and then you will not walk the path”.
So first of all clear your mind of the doubts. This happens only through satsang. When we listen to satsang, when we listen to the Master speak, what is happening is our doubts are being removed. When our minds are completely free of doubt then we should ask for Knowledge because then we are ready. In India, we use the word ‘pakka’ to mean that you are ready to receive Knowledge. And if you receive it before you are ready, the effect will be a little slower in your life.
Eventually each soul is destined to be perfect. Eventually along the way we will reach our goal. But time is of the essence. Let’s put it this way: we are all climbing a mountain. For example, there are various sides to a mountain, and each path that a climber is taking is filled with its own set of challenges. One person will start the climb facing the cliff, obviously it is a more difficult climb for him. For another person the climb is much easier, he isn’t facing any cliff, it is a gentle slope, so obviously he will reach the peak much faster than the person climbing the cliff face, but eventually that person on the cliff face will overcome that hurdle, and then his path becomes easier for him. But the destination for all of us is one, there aren’t two peaks to a mountain. There can be many starting points around the mountain, there can be hundreds of them, millions of them. Each person will take his own path, but eventually the goal is one. It is very important for us to understand that, with right karmas, you can never go wrong. With correct knowledge you can never go wrong, but you have to be ready.
So this couple started telling their story. They told that they had gone to other places. At one place someone taught them, “Put a candle in front of you, keep on staring into the candle and you will realise God eventually.” That’s what they were told and they kept doing that and the candle finished, but they did not realise God! Because, you see, all these things are techniques to concentrate your mind. For sure it is a form of yoga. I mean, you can do yoga, you can do asanas, you can stand on one leg, you can keep your hands above your head. All those things. I suggest next time come to India during the Kumbha Mela. It is India’s biggest religious festival; it will be happening in 2010 in Hardwar. The whole festival will last for a month. It is the biggest congregation of spiritual people in any one gathering – it has gone beyond one religion. We will talk about Buddhism, about Hinduism and beyond, but when you see the varieties of ways people go to find God you will be amazed. There was one person at Kumbh Mela who hadn’t put his arms down in 14 years. It’s a form of yoga, but what do you get if, after 14 years you’ve been searching and your hand is still up! You could have found God in a much easier way, if you had concentrated all the power, all that shakti within you, within your spirit.
So if you were concentrating your mind on a candle, when your means are wrong, your goal can never be reached. God is internal, He is not externally present. Obviously He is present in the candle, but His manifestation is not present there. The closest manifestation of Him is you, because there is spirit inside of you and people do not realise that. It has even been said that ‘God made man from the dust of the ground, He breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul’. These few sentences speak volumes. What are we? We are made from the dust of the ground and what makes us human is the breath of life that God has put into us and we became living souls. It is only because God put a little of His image, a little of His power inside of us, a little of His connection inside us, that we are living, we are talking, we are walking, we have life. So the easiest way of finding Him is catching that connection and tracing that connection back to the source, that is the easiest way. But if the mind gets tainted by the world, then we look for that satisfaction, or we look for that connection in external things.
Then that couple said they went somewhere else where they had a poster, the poster had different circles of different colours which were going in and out that lead in to one point, which we call a bindu. They were told to keep focussing on that one point and the posters were given out to everyone who came to that class. They were told, “Take it home, put it on your wall, then every morning for 1 or 2 hours, whatever time you have, focus on that point.” See, again you are externalising God and His experience cannot happen like this, concentration of mind will develop, but until that concentration is focussed on your breath, real manifestation does not exist, you will have momentary bliss. For the 2 hours you are sitting and staring at the wall you might blank out the world and all your problems, but the moment you get up, everything comes flooding back in: your problems, your insecurities, your troubles, your suffering, everything comes back.
So this person said, “I thought the poster is a very good thing. I can keep it at home, we don’t need to go anywhere, but what if the poster gets stolen one day? What if someone robs my house