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

live under its influence.
The moment you start performing the right action, it happens first in a physical way. We have to be polite to one another, we have to be respectful of other people, no matter whether they are elder to us or younger to us. These things help us to grow in love and compassion, which is the essence of a spiritual existence. If you do not have love, if you do not have compassion, then what do you have? You will have hate, you will have ill feelings, what we call durbhavna, bad feelings, negative feelings towards other people, and when we have that, do you think that we can progress spiritually? It can never happen, because the means and the end are not two different things; they are one and the same. So the physical manifestation has to be understood, that how we slowly, slowly change ourselves, in very normal ways, then we accept Knowledge into our hearts. Once we accept Knowledge, that makes us see things differently, it removes all boundaries that we have created. We all have lived very conditional lives, we have been taught ‘This is our religion, this is what you have to do, you have to cheer for your country, you can’t cheer for another country!’ All those things are taught to you, they have been taught to you from a very young age. You have to believe for these things to be true, we have to be proud of this, in all countries, in all religions, cultures, everything. But then, when we spiritually see, we see that there is no difference, because the outside shell has fallen off, and we see the person for who the person is.
When you went around Haridwar you may have seen saddhus come up to you and say, “Om namah shivaye” or “Om Vasudeva Namah”. Now, ‘Vasudeva’ is another name of Vishnu, the Preserver. The Hindu Trinity is comprised of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer. Three aspects, like body mind and spirit. But the three eventually lead to one. The three aspects are different but when you see the essence, the essence is one. So when you say “Om Namah Shivaye” or “Om Vasudeva Namah”, it is not just a salutation, what you are trying to convey is that the spirit of God which is within you is also within me. I recognise that spirit and I bow to it. But half the problem is that nobody wants to bow nowadays, everyone holds their head up and yet they say “I bow”. Everyone is headstrong and says, “Whatever I say must be done!” But when we start accepting each other, when we see each other differently, if we had such respect for everything, then we’d solve the world’s problems in an instant. If everyone realises that, sees that with heart, with true feeling, we’d solve all our problems. When we see each other as one, why is there a need to fight? Why is there a need to have wars?
Today people are talking about the world food crisis. Is there a crisis or is it man-made? People are hoarding food and profiting from it, that is why they are saying there is a world food shortage. Is there a need? So many people, if they truly want, can help other countries. Not only by giving aid but also by opening up their natural resources, by opening up their borders. We have a serious refugee problem worldwide, because a secluded few don’t want these people in their lands. If they kick them out where will they go? Where are their homes? But we are all God’s children. He gave us this world. When the world was created there were no borders – they are all man-made.
So all these things change. No matter what we are taught, we decondition ourselves. We empty ourselves. Your parents give you your physical birth but there is also something known as ‘dwitya janam’, which is your second birth. Spritual birth happens on the spiritual plane. When the light of God touches us and we change spiritually, then we see the world as one, not living in duality, not seeing ourselves as separate. Not that I am believing in a particular faith and the other person believes in a particular faith. We realise ourselves as children of God, as spiritual people. There is a very good saying that we should always remember: we are not human beings having a spiritual existence, but spiritual beings having a human experience. There’s a big difference.
So this transformation happens when you accept Knowledge into your hearts. Now, accepting Knowledge is the first step. It is the first step. We should not say, “Okay, now I have Knowledge and I’m freed from the world”. No! Then the real hard work and the spiritual journey starts. The spiritual journey also has its own difficulties that we have to face. The journey is long, the journey is strenuous and there is a lot we have to still focus and build on. We have been given the tools, now the mission starts, now we pave the way to God in our lives. Like I said, there are certain karmas which will trouble us in this lifetime which cannot be changed. They are called the ‘prarabdh’ karmas and when these karmas arise, the mind becomes unstable. But when you have the power to concentrate on a point through Knowledge, you do not worry about the problem and you can concentrate on your objective, on your goal, so you don’t get diverted. Slowly it happens.
Now, when you are performing the right karmas, the first thing that will develop in you is ‘iccha shakti’, which is self-confidence, the power of will which is in you. We all know that if we want to do something in this world, first of all we set our mind to it. Whether it is getting a good job or getting into a good college or having excellent grades, you set your will to it. If there is no will, what will you be able to do? Nothing. You will not be able to proceed even a step forward in life. This is called ‘iccha shakti’, which basically means that the will should be there to reach God, to know God. If you do not have that will, if you do not have that love, if you do not have that feeling towards Him, you will be stagnant. Now when your iccha shakti develops, what it does is use your ‘ahamkar shakti’, the shakti you were born with which separates you. Just as Purusha became separated from Prakriti. Prakriti became the manifested universe while Purusha remained in its original state, in the unmanifested state. That is why we say that God is nirguna, without any attributes. You cannot tie God down. If you give Him attributes you tie Him down. The moment you put Him in a painting, from being nirguna you are giving Him attributes. But that is not His true state. You have given Him the attributes. You are worshipping a statue, you are worshipping a painting, you are manifesting that spirit inside it. That is ‘bhavna’, that is feelings of love and devotion, unconditional. But even then you are changing the form of God according to your will.
There is sagun and there is nirgun – two ways you can worship God. You can worship God in its physical attributes and in its non-physical attributes. But why only a statue? Why only a painting? Why only a shrine when everything we see, even ourselves, is an attribute of God? It is Prakriti – Mother Nature – what we call ‘Ma Shakti’. It is in many manifestations. We are also manifestations. But this manifestation has not happened in the original state. The original state, the Purusha, the nirgun, the nirakar, has no form. This is what we call the omnipresent, omniscient aspect of God. If we fix an attribute of God how can He be omnipresent? Because we’ve given Him a place, we’ve given Him a positioning in time. But what is formless is still present and our ultimate goal is to reach it.
So what happens is, that this ahankar shakti is the basic force of our creation, like Prakriti became separate. Why did Prakriti become separate? People say that is the course of life and it had to happen, but it only happened so there would be proof that there is something more. If only the nirgun existed in its formless state, who would be the witness to it? So to have a witness and to know that there is nirguna, there is nirakar, there is the formless form of God, the true source of divinity, the true source of power, the true source of all things, if there is no one seeing it or experiencing it, then how do we know it is there? So our creation is there because we need to experience that one source. But to experience that we have to be separate from it. If we were already a part of it, if we were already formless and without attributes, then we would be part of Him, then there is no life, there is no need to be born, there is no death, there is no need for this world to exist. But the world exists so that it can be a witness to that one source.
So when we were born, the ahankar shakti separated the two. Now the formless is present there, like the father. We are prakriti, we are of Nature. The Father is in the formless state and the Mother has taken form for our benefit, to help us. Through its attributes (what we call the gunas) and with the power of the elements (what we call tattwas), Ma Shakti, or the female aspect or the mother aspect of that divinity or that One Source, has created this world, has created you, has created me. Now the objective of our creation is to realise God. So the Mother helps us through our lives to realise who the Father is, because it is only the mother who can introduce the child to the father. When we first open our eyes we don’t see our father standing there in front of us, do we? It is the mother who tells us who everyone is. That’s how we know who our father is. Otherwise we don’t know our father, do we?
In spirituality, too, it is the mother, Nature, who through its attributes, through the mind, through the tattwas, helps us know who our father is. Now the father is not worldly pleasure. We choose that. We choose to live in this world, tainted by the world, because we get instant gratification from worldly pleasures. But they are not permanent. That means they are false, that means our life is meant for something more. Now when we focus the ahamkar shakti – not externally in the world like we have been living our lives, but when we focus through spiritual eyes – and convert that ahankar shakti into iccha shakti and focus it within ourselves, that’s when the kundalini rises. Now there are many ways of explaining it, but the point is that these are tools to help us. There is no ‘snake’ crawling up our spine, it is just a representation of what that shakti is. We only believe when we touch something, right? That’s what instant belief is. If God was sitting in front of us it would be so easy to believe in Him, because we could see Him.
There is an old movie called “Oh God”. In the movie God comes to Earth and he is telling everyone, “I am God, tell me your problems.” and people take him to court! They put him in the courtroom