1. U S 79 - 16 DOES THE AVATARA EXPERIENCE PAIN? GURURAJ: You know, tonight Doug was having his personal Communion, looking after the babies. So lovely of him. DOUG: It was fun! GURURAJ: There is one thing I have noti ced with a very few of you, that when you sit to meditate, please always join your hands. In whichever way you like, let the hands touch. You know, like that, like that, like that up to you entirely . The purpose of this is to preserve the spiritual e nergies that are created. By having the hands together, you are preserving the circuit and not breaking the circuit. Many people sit and meditate this way like that. Now that is not ri ght for people like us. It's okay for yogis where they meditate o nly for the purpose of sending forth energies. But one thing can be done: after you have finished your meditation and you want to send some healing energies to someone some friend or relative or whoever then if you picture the friend in your mind co vered with a blue haze and then you could sit in this pose and meditate so that those healing energies are flowing from your fingers to the person concerned. But if you're meditating on your own for yourself, always please do have your hands together. Al l right. So, after you finish your meditation, you spend another five minutes or so or ten minutes to send healing to someone, then you can do that. Okay. Remember that. Now, tonight there might have been some people during the communion practice that mi ght have experienced nothing. Now the reason is this, that everyone has been touched; everyone has had an experience, but some have not brought that inner experience some have not brought that inner experience to the conscious level whereby it could be verbalized. But in each and every one, with the divine forces that were present, each and every one's heart has been touched. A flame has been ignited. So meditate, do your spiritual practices, enhance that more by teaching, and let the flame become bi gger and bigger into a flagrant fire of love. Good. Now, we shall start with questions, if anyone has good. What is it? 9:39? 9:35. QUESTION: My beloved Paterji: I know now why I am here, and now I want to know more. As others have expressed, I, too, experienced a feeling of great effort when you were emerging from nirvikalpa samadhi, as though you had to condense the vastness of al l knowing into that dear little body for us to have had our experiences. Is it painful for the avatar to have to return?

2. U S 79 - 16 GURURAJ: Beautiful. In reality, there is no pain and no pleasure. Pain and pleasure is only produced by thought. Something could b e very painful to one person while it could be very pleasurable to another person. It depends how we think and how we interpret things. Now, the less the person is integrated, the more would the accentuation or the emphasis be on pain, for one thing is tr ue: that if you experience a high this week, be very sure to know that you will experience a low next week. Yes. So, these highs and lows are conditions of the mind. It is the mind, because of something nice that could happen a friend comes unexpecte dly and you love this friend so much, and just to see this friend gives you so much pleasure. You go to the movies and you see a nice picture, and it gives you pleasure. Then, there are the circumstances which might prove painful to you. And this alone proves that pain and pleasure are creations of the mind. Now, in the case of an incarnation, he suffers no pain at all, because he does not have any pleasure. He has although he is enmeshed in pain and pleasure in this world, he is not of this world. He has risen above pain and pleasure. So we cannot deny the existence of pain and pleasure. They are there, and they are great teachers for mankind to lead them to the area of joy, bliss, which is beyond pain and pleasure. Now, when Jesus was put on th e cross, for example, we would think when those nails were driven through his feet and his hands that he suffered pain. He did not suffer pain, because he was beyond pain and pleasure. Where a yogi and he was a great yogi could go into a state of pra tyahara that is the Sanskrit term where all his senses are withdrawn within himself so that he does not suffer anything at all. Because thought pain and pleasure is an expression of thought. That very thought is translated through the senses. So n ow, if you have risen beyond the levels of pain and pleasure, beyond the polarities that we spoke about, then thought becomes automatically controlled. And when thought is automatically controlled, then the senses are controlled, too. And every man has t hat mechanism in him, though perhaps it is not put to full use. In the backwoods of South Africa, they still have the toilet bucket system where twice or thrice a week, a lorry comes along and takes the one bucket away and replaces it with a clean bucket. I don't know if you have it in the backwoods here. Perhaps in Hillbilly Land you might have that. So one day, this lorry was ahead of me. I was driving. And I pulled up in front of him the driver and I waved him to stop. So the driver got down a nd says, "Yes sir. What you stopped me." I said, "Tell me, you're working with this from morning 'til night. How do you manage the smell?" So what he told me was very beautiful. He told me that "When I started this job, in the beginning, I could ge t the smell. But after that, I could smell nothing." So within the human mechanism there is something that switches off so this person could not get the smell anymore.

3. U S 79 - 16 There was a time when I lived alongside a train line I, personally. The house was there and a road and then the train line. And when we moved in we stayed there very temporarily. The purpose was to start a certain kind of business in that area and I wanted to be near it. Those were business days. And for the first week, as the tra ins passed, it shook the house and at night when the trains passed, it woke you up. But afterwards, you got so used to it that if a train did not pass, then you woke up. You see. So like that, all our senses automatically can switch off; but the yogi can switch off his senses at will. So that is called "pratyahara," or withdrawal of the senses. So when Jesus was nailed on the cross, he suffered no pain at all. To the observers it was pain, for they could only measure Jesus according to their own standard s. They would feel that "Oh, if a nail is driven through my wrist, how painful wouldn't it be!" But to Jesus it was not painful at all. But the real pain lies in one factor: that from the vastne ss of joy, from the entire universe, that emanation of the universe which constitutes the personalized God I think we spoke about it on this course which constitutes the personalized god, has to take the entire emanation and compact it in such a way so that he could contain it in a little frame of a body. G ood. Now that is not really so painful, but the real pain lies in the fact that he could enjoy a infinite amount of freedom in the vastness of the universe, and now he has to enjoy that freedom within a limitation, so that his freedom now is in bondage, because he is embodied. And so the freedom is in bondage, and the bondage is in freedom. Now this he would suffer for a little while until he realizes who he is. When a child is born, the child is not conscious of what he is. A child might be born a gre at musician, a great poet, great painter, great scientist, but that little infant is not conscious of his abilities. It is only when the child grows and as h is awareness expands that he becomes conscious of his talents. Likewise, the avatara, too, being b orn in an embodied form, has to go through the same process because he is human. He has taken a human body, and he has to go through the process like every other human being. So that is why we find that avataras have only really started teaching, you know, from the age of 30 onwards. Take the life of Buddha or Jesus or Krishna or Mahavir, Zoroaster all of them. So what has happened in that period up to maturity? That he, coming through this vastness of this universe through all the debris of th is universe, into this little body he has to take this bath. He is karma free. He has no karma whatsoever. He's totally free. But, coming through this vast journey, through this desert, he is covered with all this dust and dirt, so he has to take th e bath; and that bath takes all this time for him to realize himself who he is in his purest form. That is the procedure how the avatara operates.

4. U S 79 - 16 Now, you'll find all the avataras that have come to Earth were not highly educated men in the particular fi eld. Krishna had very little education in teaching these eternal truths. His training had been as a king, in the art of war, in the art of ar chery, and all these various other things. Take Buddha: his parents did not want him to see any suffering in th e world and kept him in royal palaces. It is only one day when Buddha escaped from home he had all the pleasures that people normally regard to be pleasures and then as he went out, he saw an aged person, he saw a corpse going by, he saw a sick pers on. And things like that he saw and wanted to know why. And that happened when he was nearly 30 29, 30. And then he left all his palaces to find the meaning behind all this suffering and how to rid people from suffering. You see. And that happened in the case of Rama and in the case of every avatara who have never really taken education in the sense of a university professor studying philosophy to teach philosophy. Some, in modern times, have been to university. What have they taken up? Studies i n commerce and accountancy and these fields but never systematically studied these precepts. They are born with this wisdom, and, through this process of life, that wisdom when they really start knowing themselves this wisdom unfolds. And that w e call direct perception. That is why men of that caliber could discourse on any subject under the sun. Although they have not studied it; they just need to sit down and just they flow. You see. So there is no suffering for the avatara whatsoever. Th e only suffering after he has realized who he is the only suffering he has is this: the suffering of others. He says to himself that I find joy in everything. I am joy. I am love. And those that are not apart from me but a part of me why shou ld they suffer? Why should they suffer? Why should their minds function in such a manner whereby they experience the experiences that they go through? So these great masters bring to the world teachings which alleviates the suffering. They guide a person how to think. They change people's attitudes towards life. They teach people how the mental processes work. They teach people how to go beyond the conscious to the superconscious and even transcend that. They teach techniques whereby this can be achie ved. They teach people all the morals and ethics that are needed in a disciplined life. And when these things are done by seekers, true seekers that discipline their life to a certain extent, helped by the force and energy generated by their meditational and spiritual practices, then grace descends upon them. And everything that happens in their lives thereafter is because of this grace which they have attracted to themselves. And that is the great part the greatest part the avatara plays: is to b e the channel of the grace. He is that grace, being the emanation of the entirety of the universe, but, having taken a body, he makes that body into a channel. Because the emanation in the universe still has to remain in proportion to the universe, itsel f because if all the totality of the emanation comes down to a certain point in this universe, then the whole universe will fall flat. Then where would the emanations be? So the avatara takes the essence of the emanation and brings that essence down w ithin himself. And it is through this very essence that he comes to know

5. U S 79 - 16 who he is, and the entire energy, the emanation of the universe, flows through him to his beloveds. That's how it works. Those are the mechanics. Now, for this there are many rul es that the incarnation has to follow. He, too, has to live within a certain norm, although he is a law unto himself for nothing affects him. Whatever he does, he could have no karmic ties. No samskaras could touch him, because he is samskara free. And yet, to be able to impart to another human, he has to be very human, for it is only through the human that the other human could feel that impulse. And that is why the avatara is necessary in the human form. It is his touch, just a glance, that could transform the entire lives of millions of people. But there has to be a readiness on the part of the devotee as well. Now, the analogy which we commonly use is this, that the ground has to be well ploughed, for if the ground is barren, the strongest seed will not generate, will not grow. So that is our part, is to till our fields, plough them to make it receptive for that seed to grow. In Hindu mythology, this is described as Shiva and Shakti the yoni and the lingum the planting of the seed within the heart of man. You see. So the seed has to be powerful and the ground has to be well tilled, well ploughed, so that the plant can grow. Now, whose field is well tilled? The one who seeks. The seeker, he will till his field to receive that seed, that germ, that will make him grow to heavenly heights and become one with the teacher. I was giving a talk. I was invited to give a talk at Satchitananda's ashram in East Coast? Connecticut. I don't know wh y they don't pronounce the "C". I always call it "Connect" and "cut." So I was Swami Satchitananda gave us a wonderful reception there and prepared a lovely dinner for us. And he asked me to talk to his chelas that were there might have been 100 150 I don't know how many. And I told them because they asked me to talk on the guru chela relationship and I told them, I says, "Look, if you can't become one with your guru, how are you going to become one with the universe of which you know nothing?" Right. At least your guru is tangible , while the universe, itself, is intangible in your present perception. So all the practices we do and all the disciplines that we undergo is like the groom preparing the home for the bride to come the bride of grace. How beautiful! Or perhaps the o ther way around. Depends on the culture, depends on the culture. In some cultures the bride is brought home to the groom's place, and in some cultures, the other way around, where the groom goes to the bride's place. But one of them does the preparing f or the groom to come home or for the bride to come home. The house is clean, decked with flowers, huh? You see. So this preparation is necessary. That is why I insist, and insist, and insist: meditate! Meditate! And that is the preparation to attract that grace to you, for it is only grace of Divinity that could bring you what you need and take you on.

6. U S 79 - 16 That is the light. "Lead thou me on, kindly light, one step at a time." That's enough for me. I am not gong to be greedy. One step at a time is en ough for me. But we have to be prepared for that. We have to be prepared. It is all there. And, as the Gita says, that when great imbalances occur in this world, or any part in this universe Krishna says this that " I take birth from age to age." Now, if in this present world such an incarnation exists, if such an incarnation exists, then we are all very, very well blessed. We are at the time when he is here. Ah! You see how beautiful it is! But what are we doing about it? What are we doing a bout it? So by teaching, we are definitely doing something. We are spreading the word of love. And therefore Christ, Jesus said, "Go out in pairs" that time they needed the pairs to go out, because long distances had to be covered by foot, through des erts and what have you "and teach the word, the word of love." The word is God and that God is love. So, with our practices and disciplines within ourselves, we are preparing the way for grace to descend upon us. And grace is a beautiful girl! Good. Next question? It's past ten, is it? It's past ten. I am a bit exhausted tonight. Unless you want a short one? Hm? VOICE: They're never short. GURURAJ: Okay, then shall we have uh? Good. Good. Right. Now what we are gonna do tomorrow have your questions ready written down. We're gonna have this rapid fire thing on teaching matters or anything else or any guidelines for the trustees which I might be able to give. I don't know. They know better, because they are here on the spot, and they should know how to run the affairs of AMS. But whatever little contribution I could make, perhaps unless a guideline I'd just be too happy for that. And teachers might have some questions in methods of teaching or any other problems that t hey might encounter. We do that tomorrow, and if we can't finish in one session, we can always have another session in the afternoon. And tomorrow evening, of course, I am on holiday because they've organized a concert. Yes, so I'm gonna sit there and ju st relax. I know Harold has been practicing whole day on the piano. VOICE: Sujay. GURURAJ: Oh, Sujay has been. I only spoke for half an hour!

7. U S 79 - 16 ****END****