1. U S 82 - 50 SIOUX CITY: THE NATURE OF FREEDOM .... lovely people. Good. Now I never prepare a lecture. If I do that it will mean that I will be telling you what I want to tell you. I'd rather prefer a question from any of you. It would mean that I would be speaking about what you would want to know. Questions? The silence before the storm. You know, while you're thinking of questions it reminds me of a story. There were these two nuns traveling by car and they got stuck without petrol. There's no gas in the car and the nearest gas station was about a half a mi le away. But they needed a container to bring as to the car. So (you can hear me well there?) so the only container that they could find in the car was a chamber pot is that what you call it here? So they took this chamber pot to the garage and had i t filled with petrol and brought it back to the car. At that same moment there were a few GI's passing. So the one stood there watching this nun filling the tank. So he says, "Madam, I don't know if this is going to work, but I sure do admire your faith ." [Laughter] VOICE: What is the nature of personal freedom? GURURAJ: What is nature, and what is freedom? Good. You ask this question of freedom because you feel that you are bound. And if you feel that you are bound, by what are you bound? So ca n we put the question the other way? What is the nature of bondage so that freedom can be known? What are you bound by? Is it a process of your personal thoughts or the patternings of your own mind that makes you feel that you are bound? Or are you real ly in bondage? Do you think that you are bound? And if you think that you are bound, where does this form of thinking come from? Because your very nature is freedom. If Divinity is omnipresent, and if Divinity represents freedom, then because of the na ture of omnipresence, which is freedom itself, you should feel free. So now this bondage you find which shackles you, these handcuffs, this ball, this chain, that does not allow you to move as you want to move, where does that come from? Does it really ex ist? And if you do find any reality in it, is the reality of your mind, or is it an actuality? There's a difference between reality and actuality. Reality could be appearance while actuality is that which is. Now, you go and see a movie, or you go and see a magic show and you find the magician cutting a woman in half. And you know it is an illusion, and yet it is there. It seems real. But is it actual? For the woman will turn up a few minutes later more alive than ever.

2. U S 82 - 50 So what is bondage? Can bon dage be described as illusion. So are you living in illusion, or are you living as you really are? Teachers tell you be like Buddha, be like Krishna, be like Christ. But I tell you be yourself! And by being yourself you can get rid of the illusion of bo ndage. You that are boundless, you that are boundary less, why do you go through the suffering of the sense of bondage? Now, if you are going through the sense of bondage, where does bondage come from? Where does this illusion or superimposition upon you rself come from? It comes from it stems from your thinking. Think that you are bound and you are bound. Think that you are free and you are free. Keep on thinking "I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner, I'm a sinner," keep on thinking "I'm weak, I'm weak, I 'm weak" and you become weaker and weaker and weaker. So you do not have any control over yourself. And because of the patternings in your mind, because of the various experiences that you have gone through in this life or perhaps in ages past, who knows, has created patterns upon patterns within your subconscious mind and not the subconscious mind, not being able to contain all those patterns upon patterns upon patterns has to release them. And the only way it could release them would be to expel those p atternings through the conscious mind, through the analytical mind, through the thinking mind which in turn expresses itself through your five senses, like hearing, touching, smelling, feeling. So this originates in the subconscious level of the mind whi ch is non existent in substance. It is only a coming together or a bundle of impressions. Now these impressions come in two different ways. Good. They can be gathered from past experiences, and they can be gathered by your environment. Now if the envi ronment impresses you so much to leave those scars of patterns in the mind, what do you do not to be affected by the outer impressions? The way is to strengthen yourself. Now how do you strengthen yourself? How can you get rid of the patternings, and ho w can you stop yourself from the input that is thrust upon you through your teachers, through your parents, through your friends, through the environment at large? How can you stop yourself from being influenced by these influences? What tools have you? The only tool you have is the mind itself, where the conscious level of the mind, the analytical level that functions from the le ft hemisphere of the brain, that analytical level of the mind can be lead can be lead through the various patternings of the subconscious level of the mind. You do not need to destroy those patternings because there is nothing in the universe which is destructible. And even science today has proved that you could never even destroy a single atom. When even this body is d iscarded this body is not destroyed, but it will revert back to its original elements: water, will go to water, air to air, ether to ether, dust to dust. That is the idea. But man has the facility, an in built facility to reach further back with the h elp of the conscious mind and going beyond the subconscious mind to a level which I term the superconscious mind. The superconscious mind, although it is also relative, is at the subtlest point of relativity, and therefore it has maximum clarity.

3. U S 82 - 50 Now when you reach the superconscious level of the mind, through spiritual practices, through a scientific method which has nothing to do with religion, when you reach that area of the superconscious level, then the clarity that is felt there could be brought back down through the same hotline to the subconscious and then to the conscious which interprets itself in your daily actions. Good. If you can remove the veils of the subconscious mind, that totality of impressions that are gathered there, when you can remo ve those veils or pierce through it and reach the superconscious level, then that superconscious level, that finest point of relativity is connected to that which is Absolute, the absolute light. And that absolute light would shine through the tunnel that you have created and the patternings, the dirt in the subconscious mind and the conscious mind is banished. The darkness is banished. That is how you treat yourself holistically, where you draw upon this power, you draw upon this power of the Kingdom of Heaven within. You draw from there and allow that light to shine through this hotline, this channel, this tunnel so that you can become more and more integrated, you can be suffused and infused by this divine light which is within you. The entire univers e is contained within you. It is not somewhere where you have to go to find it. It is there within you and knowing yourself you will spontaneously know everything that is outside you. So what happens here, you reach a state which could be called unity consciousness. Where you, the little I John, Jean, Jack or James is in touch with the higher "I" within yourself, the universal I. So here the small I merges away into the big I. And living in the area of the Big I you find all the joy and the bli ss which is your essential nature. But when you talk of bondage you're talking of darkness. Why analyze darkness? Why analyze darkness? Switch on the light, and darkness is automatically banished. It is banished. It is not annihilated. Immediately y ou switch off the light the darkness is there. So within the relative level of existence you will always have the opposite poles. They exist there simultaneously. When there's day there must be night, where there's heat there must be cold. But why, why just think of the darkness of the night. Let the sun shine. See the sun. So here is a matter of attention. Where are you putting your maximum attention? Where are you leading your conscious mind by the vehicle of your very own consciousness. For rememb er, the conscious mind is limited. While the superconscious level of the mind is boundless, boundary less, and bondless. There is no bondage. And it is so easy. It is there within you, and these resources can be tapped, can be tapped in such a beautifu l way where day by day you feel that deep peace and calm, where you feel integrated. Suffering only comes from fragmentation. One side of the mind is pulling in one direction (we were just waiting for you, my love. Make yourself comfortable). We live i n fragmentation. And fragmentation with the mind pulling one side and then the other section of the mind pulling somewhere else, and that is suffering. But this suffering can be made into an offering. And what do you offer? You offer your mind and your body, your entirety that you know of, even how ever so limited to that which is

4. U S 82 - 50 limitless and which is not far to find. So so near. Every breath you take is an expression of that which is divine. Every time you move your hand you do it through the stre ngth of Divinity. Ah! So what do you do by reaching the superconscious level of yourself? You are doing nothing else but you are finding the kingdom that is within you. Seek ye first the Kingdom that is within and all else shall be added unto thee. Now, if you cannot find the kingdom which is within yourself, then that means that you are not functioning in totality. You are functioning fragmentedly. So with spiritual practices what happens is this, that we move away from fragmentation to integration. And what are we integrating? The mind, the body, and the spirit. For they are not things apart of each other. It is a wholeness, it is a continuum. There only by knowing the continuum would you know that peace that is your birthright, your inherent bir thright. Talking of peace it reminds me of a story. A great man was passing through a little town a man that has deep knowledge. That's very religious, like Uncle Mark sitting over there, Dr. Mark. So he was passing this town and every Sunday he wen t to church to listen to the sermon. And this pastor found out that Dr. Mark was in the audience. So after the sermon was over this pastor approaches Dr. Mark and says, "Did you like my sermon, sir?" So Dr. Mark says, "Oh, it was like peace and mercy." This pastor was very flattered, I mean this coming from such a highly cultured man, a very knowledgeable man. So he felt flattered. So he says, "Please explain me what you mean." He says, "Your sermon was like peace that passeth all understanding, and like God's mercy, I thought it would never end." [Laughter] Yes. So we are looking for the peace that is within our self. Dis ease is the opposite of peace. So why can we not get away from dis ease and be at ease within the peace that we really are. I t's so simple to lead the mind to that area, that area, that Kingdom of Heaven within where that peace is, and draw it out so that it could be infused in all our daily actions , in our daily thoughts, in our way of life. You see. Good. Now, what do we do? That question will come up again and again and again. It should. What do we do to find that peace. We have to penetrate ourselves. And by going there, by using that direct hotline, we can find that peace. But the trouble is we do not want to dial the number, although the line is open. You see. So through a methodical way, individually prescribed spiritual practices, we reach that area, and then we start knowing ourselves in an integrated state instead of a fragmented state. And when you know yoursel f in the integrated state, we will be living that beautiful injunction in the scriptures which says in every religion, "man, know thyself." No religion says "man, know God." No. It says man, know thyself, and automatically you will know God. For is it n ot said, "I and my Father are one." Who said those words? Not Jesus. Not Jesus the man. He did not say those words. But Christ said those words. And what is Christ? That universal consciousness. That is within you too. He talked from the level of that consciousness. He did not talk of that little frame of a body which was named Jesus. Yes.

5. U S 82 - 50 So that consciousness is there all the time. Just waiting for you to lead you limitedness to that which is unlimited. Why b e like a fish swimming in the wate r and yet dying of thirst. That's what we're doing. Do you think you are alive? You are dead. You think you are awake. No, you are asleep. So what we do through spiritual practices is to find wakefulness. And by finding that awakening, that wakefulnes s, you will say that the conceptions I had of bondage was but a dream. I was dreaming. I've been free all the time. I was free al l the time and now I know that that bondage was but a dream which is not the nature of myself. I am by nature free. And no t by nature bound. So it would also mean that by feeling yourself to be in bondage means that you are not using your total potential. And that's why you are asleep. That is why you are dreaming, and not fully awake to the beauty of life. How many times do you walk through your beautiful parks here? Or the trees that are so lovely in your city? Huh? How many times do you pass there and notice and listen to the beautiful symphony of the wind blowing through it. How many times do you notice the blades of grass swaying ther e in a divine dance? How many times are you with your beloved and feel the very throbbing of her heart or his heart melting away into your heart and find the rhythm of oneness? You don't. Because of fragmentation. An integrated person would find that. For there is nothing ugly in this world. Everything is filled with beauty. Therefore we say, "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder." So we want to become the beholders of beauty and all ugliness and all bondages disappear. So awake, arise, as Viveka nanada would say, awake, arise, and stop not till the goal is reached. Oh, lead thou me on, kindly light. Even if it's one step at a time. But you have to start. You have to start. And if you are in Sioux City you can't start from Chicago. You start f rom Sioux City on that beautiful, joyous journey. And then when you go through this path and reach the goal, you will find that the path and the goal is but one. You have come from nowhere and you are going nowhere. And then you experience that which I e xperience, the isness of life. Eternity in an hour, Blake said something like that. I say eternity is now here, in this moment. It's just turning your attention. The search in modern technology and in the world's mind today is to go out, to find things outside themselves. It's to go outside themselves, the search is forever outside. You want to find some pleasure so you go to the movies, you go to the nightclub, you go to the dances, you go to whatever entertainment there is. Why? To find pleasure. In other words, you're trying to escape from yourself into some kind of pleasure. But know this for sure, that if you have pleasure today, tomorrow there will be pain. Because you are fluctuating within the law of opposites. If there is day there must be night. If there is heat there must be cold. But there's this other area which goes beyond the law of opposites, which goes beyond the pain and pleasure, and that area is joy, real joy. Indefinable by the left hemisphere of your brain which is analytical , but experiencable. So joy is in

6. U S 82 - 50 the area of experiencing, that requires no analysis, that requires no analysis. For analysis is the root of all problems. Y ou analyze this to be good, and you analyze this to be bad. But by going beyond both, what coul d be left? No good or no bad is left, only joy of existence is left. I think it was Descartes that said, "I think, therefore I am." But I think he's wrong. I am, therefore I think. I am, Yahw eh. I am. And this knowledge can only come not from books because books and teachers and what have you can only bring you to the state of acquired knowledge. Like a donkey with a whole lot of books on its back. But let us proceed further from acquired knowledge to the area of wisdom. And wisdom comes from exp eriencing one within yourself; where you start knowing yourself; man, know thyself. And when you really know yourself you will start loving yourself. How many of us here can truly say, "I love myself." Truly say that. No. No one is satisfied with hims elf. And that is why you cannot love yourself. You can love yourself if you become more and more integrated. Hm? Then you can love yourself. And when you can love yourself then truly can you practice the greatest injunction given to man, "love thy neig hbors as thyself." And if you cannot love yourself, how can you love your neighbor. Do unto others as you would expect to be done unto you. You've read this over and over again, it's been preached over and over again. Do unto others as you expect to be do ne unto you, and you know this very well in what form? In wishful thinking. Because you don't want to have anything bad done unto you. Because it will hurt your pride, it will hurt your ego. But what are you doing? Are you increasing the beauty of the e nvironment? I always say it is the nature of a flower to be beautiful, but that is not the only thing a flower does. It also enhances the beautify of the garden. What greater service can you perform by being born as a human being than to increase the beau ty of your environment. And that is the service of God. By serving mankind. And you serve mankind by making yourself beautiful. Which has no motivation. It happens spontaneously. So you go and look after Auntie Malthilda who's ill. You go there for a couple of days until she's well. But then a month or so later there might be a little argument with Auntie Mathilda and then you say to yourself, "Gor blimey" or "aw shucks, she does not appreciate me. And look what I did for her. I spent three, four, five or six days nursing her and looking after her. And she does not appreciate me." So did you do good? No. You were just boasting your own ego. Adding on to that feeling that some little thing within you that "ah, I was of service." You were not of s ervice to Auntie Mathilda Aunt Mathilda, sorry. I don't know Americanese too well yet. I'm busy trying to learn it. Good. So you were just flattering yourself, flattering your own little ego. E Go. Go, go, go. But you say, "come, come, come." A nd yet this ego self is indestructible, it has to be there in order to maintain a human form. You still got to have ego. An d

7. U S 82 - 50 the most realized person, a person that has become one with God, that has realized and experienced that I and my Father are one, He still has to have a small percentage of ego. One or two percent of ego is necessary to exist in this body. Or otherwise you would lose all consciousness. You won't be able to eat, you won't be able to sleep. You won't be able to go to the toilet. Yo u see. Right. But what can be done is that opaqueness of the ego, like rubber, could be stretched and made transparent. And by making it transparent, you allow that inner light to shine through in its fullest glory. So the ego... many of these Easter t eachers that come here tell you to annihilate the ego, destroy the ego. Nothing is destructible. But you can make the ego transparent so that divine light within you can shine through in its fullest glory an d in turn translated in the actions of every da y living. And you feel that joy and that peace, that peace which passeth all understanding. You see. Don't let me make you think too hard. I've got a couple of jokes here. This priest was sending a parcel to one of his parishoners. So the clerk behind the counter at the post office asks, "Sir, is there anything breakable in this box?" It was a Bible he was posting away. He says, "No, only the Ten Commandments." [Laughter] Talking of sending a box, this fellow picks up the phone and he was trying to get through to the theater. And he says, "Could you reserve a box for two?" So the girl on the other end of the line says, "Sorry, sir, we don't have boxes for two." He says, "But is this not the Empire Theater?" So she replies, "No, this is the under takers." [Laughter] [END SIDE ONE] So you go alone in that one box. There's no boxes for two. And a guru can only guide you. He does not shine the light upon you. He shines the light upon the path. But you've got to walk with your own feet. You've g ot to walk with your own feet, and no one can do it for you. So when these gurus come around and promise you God and promise you self realization and divinity, and self realization and what all, don't believe it. You've got to do it yourself. You heard of Paderewski, the great musician. One day he was together in a restaurant with a polo player. And while sipping a cup of tea they were chatting. So Paderewski says that "You're a dear soul playing polo, and I'm a poor Pole playing solo." [Laughter] Yes. So it is solo. To find yourself you have to do it yourself. These gurus and spiritual masters can only show you the way, the life, and that is the truth. Do you see. Yea. So what we need most desperately in today's world by all humanity is integ ration and not fragmentation. With greater integration you will know what life is all about. You will awaken yourself to the beauty, the joy which is Divinity. For the nature of Divinity is joy, the nature of Divinity is beauty. And it is no t

8. U S 82 - 50 bound. S o your nature is boundary less, boundless, and never in bondage. You create bondage for yourself by your own thoughts which has no reality of its own. But thoughts produce the effect of impressions upon your mind, patternings after patternings after patt ernings. And as these patternings become more and more, you become more and more miserable. You are denying yourself of what you are, and by nature you are nothing else but joy. You are Divine. To repeat again, if God is omnipresent, then every cell of your body is Divine. There's no place for anything else. You go to a movie and you see things happening on the screen. And if it's a tear jerker is that what you call it here i f it's a tear jerker you'll find so many hankies being pulled out and qu ite a few sniffles. And yet you know within yourself that this is not real which I am seeing. It is a projection upon a pure white screen. You know that and yet you start cryin g. And that is what you are doing every day in your daily life. Now if you f ully realize that this is just a picture that's happening and there's nothing that I could do about it. Whatever is taking place on the screen is taking place. I could do nothing about it. Why must I cry? Why must I get involved? It's a story. Why do I not realize that the screen is pure white, pure white meaning purity. And yet you get so involved in that little story: the man slapping the poor woman or whatever, or the child, and you say, "Oh dear me...." So that is how we are living. And it's ab out damn time that we change our attitudes. By doing spiritual practices our awareness grows, our awareness expands. We look at life through a very small segment. And not in its wholeness. To me wholeness is holiness. Whole ness w h o l e ness. Hu h? Holiness, H O L I N E S S. Same. To be holy is to be whole. Good. Is that about an hour? Good. Now what is the program after this? We have tea and then we get together again and you can start firing questions on anything you like. OK. Fine. So we have a tea break.... [SATSANG ENDS. RAPID FIRE BEGINS] ...or how to make curry and rice. I don't mind anything. VOICE: Talking about curry and rice, do you think that a certain diet is essential for integration? GURURAJ: No. Your diet has nothing to do with your spiritual self. Because the spirit would remain totally unaffected. But as you progress on the path of spirituality, and as your body becomes more refined, as the mind becomes more

9. U S 82 - 50 refined, you will de finitely get away very spontaneously from grosser foods, and have more refined foods. And that does not mean refined sugar. [Laughter] VOICE: What about marriage. Is marriage just like a social obligation, or something beyond that? GURURAJ: When doe s a person really get married? When two hearts meet and find a certain oneness. After that going to the church or the registery office and getting a piece of paper, that is just a formality. That's all. And this formalit y is necessary for the protectio n of the fairer sex more so than the counterpart. Because the world has been up to now very unfair to my sisters and mothers. Look at what's happening all over the world. There's no equality. The woman has always been trodden down, even in pay, for exam ple, working in a job where the man and the woman would have the same qualifications yet the woman would get paid less than the man. Why? You pay on merit, not on sex. So therefore these legalities are a certain form of protection. But real marriage is when two hearts meet in a beautiful oneness. There's a lovely story I like which I've repeated many times. It's a Persian poem. Shall I do it in Persian? I'm sure everyone will understand. Look, I'll give you a loose rendition. John went to knock on the door of his beloved and she asked, "Who is it?" So she replies, "This is John." The door was not opened. The next night he went back again and he knocked on the door and she asked, "Who is it?" So he says, "This is John Doe from Sioux City." And t he door was not opened. And then on the third night when he went again and knocked on the door and she asked, "Who is it?" He replied, "I am thee, my beloved." The door was immediately opened. That is marriage. When two souls could unite so beautifull y in that oneness. Then she does not remain, he does not remain any more, only the oneness remains. That is marriage. Otherwise it's a miscarriage of marriage. Next. VOICE: I would like to know how your approach is different from Transcendental Medi tation. GURURAJ: I would not like to discuss other systems because I do not condone or condemn anyone. But let me rather tell you of my system. Most organizations that you have here in America are giving out generalized techniques. So if you're betwee n 20 and 25 you get a certain mantra; if you're 25 to 30 you get a different mantra; fine. What does that help you? What is mantra? There is the gist of your question. Mantra is nothing else but vibration. Now the entire universe is composed of vibrati ons. This chair, this table, this glass, you, I. We are all nothing but vibrations and we

10. U S 82 - 50 perceive this chair and the table because those vibrations are congealed. That's why can perceive them with our senses. Get vibrations can exist in a far subtler form, like water vapor which is hardly visible. And then the same water vapor could become water, which is more grosser, and the water can be frozen into a block of ice which is still more grosser, yet the underlying principle of H2O remains the same. So this is very directly connected to all the religious beliefs in the world: first was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word is God. Right. What is the Word? Sound. What is sound? Vibrations. Now there are other organizations that give out a sound to you called mantra arbitrarily. In our system what we do is this, that a photograph with a form is posted off to me. And then using your photograph as a focal point I go into deep meditation, reaching the superconscious level, the level of the u niversal mind, and at that level I make contact directly with you. And in that contact I diagnose you. I am a spiritual physician, put it that way. I would see your status of evolution, I would see your emotional status, your mental status, your physica l state, and evaluating all that I would pick up your vibration. So when you get a mantra from me which is not always necessary, there are thousands of other practices so when you get your mantra and you start meditating on your mantra it means you are meditating on your own vibration. If there was some mechanical device by which you could be reduced to sound level that would be the mantra that you'd be receiving. Now this mantra being picked up at the subtlest has to be brought to its grosser level so it could become audible and speakable. So as you start doing your practices you go back from the grosser level of the mantra to the finer level where it was picked up. And when you reach the finer level, you have reached the inner core of yourself wh ich is divine. That's the system that we work with. Now in Sioux City we have Mary Beth Nash, would you please stand up. There she is sitting who is one of our teachers here, as we have teachers all over the world, and anybody interested could alway s take her phone number. Giver her a phone call and arrange a time which would be mutually acceptable, and she will start you off teaching you first the preparatory technique. Now the preparatory technique explains itself: to prepare you for the full te chnique. Meanwhile, while you are practicing the preparatory technique the form plus your photograph is posted off to me and sent back to the teacher almost immediately. Although from South Africa to America it takes about three to four weeks. The postin g, the mailing. And then she'll call you up and say, "I've got your full techniques for you now from Gururaj and when can you come in to be taught?" That is our procedure. And then from time to time you would call her or she would call you to check if yo u are doing it properly. In other words, my teachers are taught how to teach. They don't do the prescription. I do the techniques, I do the prescription, as the doctor, and they are the pharmacists dispensing it. Like that. VOICE: [Inaudible]

11. U S 82 - 50 GURURAJ : That you leave to me. If I see any changes are required then would be changed or additions are made. [VOICE: Inaudible] You don't do nothing. You take one step toward Divinity and Divinity takes 10 steps towards you. God helps those that helps them selves. You know, Hitler went to a fortune teller and he asked the fortune teller, "Give me the day when I'm going to die." So the fortune teller looks into the crystal ball or something and says to Hitler, "You'd die on a Jewish holiday." Because the da y you die it will definitely be a Jewish Holiday. [Laughter] You know, this other guy was an emigrant to America. Fine. And he went to the local priest and tells him, "Two years ago when my first child was born I asked you to baptize him Tom. But you na med him Thomas. Now the second child is born and I'm bringing him in for baptism and I want you to call him Jack. Please don't call him Jackass. [Laughter] Next question. VOICE: [Inaudible] GURURAJ: You don't need to look for signs. You find peace and tranquility dawning upon you. You'd find yourself more aware of things. You'd look at the flowers here ah, no flowers, huh your like at a flower now, and after a few weeks o f meditatio n you'd still see the same flower, but you will find it much more beautiful. Another way, you'll find people coming up to you your friends, your family they say, "You've really changed. What's happening to you?" So automatically you feel these thin gs. You feel the togetherness within yourself which is conducive to your joy and happiness. So when you are joyous, as I said before, you make your environment joyous too. Very simple. Effortless. I do not like to use the word "meditation" very much bec ause it has been so much abused. It has become what the Americans call a racket. When hundreds of dollars are charged just by handing out a piece of paper like this one organization they got 16 mantras and they hand them out on age basis. There's anoth er organization operating somewhere here that you got to first go and bow down to the guru prostrate yourself and he bops you with a bunch of feathers. And if you ask him for a mantra he has ready made printed cards and he gives you one. There's your mantra. That is not the way to spirituality. Only Jesus saves. Only Christ can save. Now what does that mean, only Christ can save. Of course he saves because he is the consciousness. But I show you how to reach that consciousness. That is our system. Next. Let me find another joke then.

12. U S 82 - 50 This chap came home a bit tipsy. So his wife asked him, "Where were you." He says, "Well, I went out with John to the Grand Hotel." So next day this lady meets John's wife and she asks, "I believe my husband was ou t with yours last night and they got drunk." But when this lady said, "Where were they to get tipsy, so drunk?" So this friend told her they went to the Trocadero Hotel. So when the husband got home the wife berated him. She says, "Why did you tell me a lie. Why did you say you went to the Grand Hotel when you actually went to the Trocadero?" So the husband replies, "I was in no condition to pronounce Trocadero." [Laughter] Next. VOICE: Has the level of human consciousness changed down through the a ges or [inaudible] GURURAJ: The level of human consciousness collectively has not changed. People are the same today as they were 5000 years ago during the time of Krishna 2 1/2 thousand years ago during the time of Buddha, and 2000 years ago during the time of Christ. Collectively there has been no progress. There was just as much lust and greed and avarice and covetousness as there is today. So collectively we do not expect an age of enlightenment, like some teachers are teaching. But individual ly you can uncover not raise but uncover the consciousness that that you are in its total purity. VOICE: [Inaudible] GURURAJ: How did I go about finding my teacher? At a very young age, when I was about four, four and a half, I ran away from hom e to find God. The yearning was so great in me that I had to go. Now this might sound unusual at the age of 4 to run away, but then remember, a person like Yehudi Menuhin and Beethoven at the age of four, so it is not really unusual. You're born with it . Right. And I went from temple to temple to temple trying to find God. But all those temples contained these various idols and I started speaking to them but they wouldn't answer me. But I did enjoy myself because at a temple you normally take fruit as an offering and I had a feast for myself. And that is how it went on and on. I was born, brought up in India, educated there, and then I was always searching, searching, searching. I went to many ashrams, monasteries, etc., met many many gurus, learned a bit here, learned a bit there until I met my guru and something just sparked off. For eight months he took no notice of me. He took no notice of me at all. He'd give me little menial tasks to do: why is that piece of paper lying there, or what is tha t there, or what is that there. And then after a period of eight months he said to me one day, "Come on, sit down and meditate with me." I say, "Oh, sure, fine." I sat down and meditated and two hours passed and it seemed like two minutes only to me afte rwards. And I burst out in a

13. U S 82 - 50 haze of gold and light and which still persists with me from moment to moment all the time. Even here it's all just shining in gold. I wanted to become a monk, but my guru told me none of that monkey business. "You go out i nto the world, get married, find a job, do whatever you want to do and get experience so that when you finally become a teacher, then you'll be talking from experience, and not as a monk who has not known worldly life." And that is how... then he told me g o to the West and I went to South Africa. Because it was easy for me to get there because my father had been there in South Africa so to get the residence to be domiciled it was easy for me to get there. And I went into business, I got married, three sons, one son is married, the other has just qualified as a pharmacist, and the baby boy, 15, is still at high school. And the search was on and on and on all the time. And finding every moment so beautiful, so blissful, so joyful. Whenever I speak to you or anywhere else I do not speak from book knowledge. I speak from personal experience. So we getting together tonight to me it's a sharing. I'm sharing with you my own experiences of the Father that has become one with me. VOICE: Is the nature of meditation to focus or [inaudible] GURURAJ: It's not focusing attention. When you focus your attention you are doing concentration where your attention is focused. Now that is concentration. Then you get contemplation, when you take a thought from A t o Z; to take a thought to its logical conclusion, like oil being poured from one vessel into another. That's contemplation. Meditation is going beyond the concentration and beyond the contemplation. That's the difference. And these things are personall y and individually taught to you. Because you go beyond the trouble spots of the mind and infuse it with that divine energy that is there all the time. Seek and thou shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened. It is there. But we are lazy beggars that don't do it. It's our fault. VOICE: [Inaudible] GURURAJ: What are the techniques? Oh, that is a very private matter between guru and student. If I talk of one technique, someone might just go and experiment with it which could be very harmful. So there are thousands of techniques and the one that would be given to you is the one which is suitable for you. It is not like one bottle of medicin e which is ok for every disease on earth. It is something very private, very individual, which you pract ice. And not only that, if you are given a mantra, for example, then that mantra will come to you from that superconscious level so it will carry with it that deep, great spiritual force. So I just set off the spark in you. You fan the flame. And I've said this over and

14. U S 82 - 50 over and over again, that the external guru is there to awaken the internal guru within you. Then you can discard the external guru. This teacher was giving a lesson to his class in science and he asks one child, "Tell me about the kett le. What happens? Boiling water, what about the steam? What purpose does the steam serve?" So the little boy answers, "Well, it helps my mother open my dads letters." [Laughter] Questions. VOICE: Is it possible for a person to tune into a consciousness that would allow them to like see in the future, like Jeanne Dixon and Nastradamus and some of the... GURURAJ: Why do you want to see in the future? That is the trouble with the world. They either live in the past or project themselves into the future and forget the present. The thoughts you have in your mind is nothing but a recollection and you think that you are thinking. In reality, you are only working with memory of the past. An d being influenced by the memory of the past, you project it into the future, forgetting the present. Where are you living now? You're living in the present, and the present itself is eternity. So why worry what's going to happen in the future? It's not necessary at all. Those abilities can be acquired. I can teach you in six months how to do it. But it would be a futile effort. There's a story of two students that studied under the same master. And they'd been apart and were away from each other for about 40 years. So this one fellow acquired the ability to walk on water. So they happened to be at the same place at the same time, and the one was going across the river on a fairy while the other was walking across the water. So the chap that was wal king across the water shouted to his old buddy that he had not seen for so many years, "Look what I can do. I can walk on water." So the friend in the ferry replies, "Oh what a waste of time spending 40 years to acquire this when I just spent 25 cents to take me across the river." You see. So what is the necessity of knowing the future. There was this one lecturer giving a lecture and he said, "The world is coming to an end in 20 million years time. So this poor little lady sitting right in the back st ands up and says, "Did you say 20 million years?" He says, No, no, what I meant was the world will come to an end in two million years time. So the lady gives a sigh of relief. She says, "Oh, thank God." VOICE: [Inaudible] certain abilities move deve loped. What is the [???] that makes them able to see certain things and do certain things that others can't?

15. U S 82 - 50 GURURAJ: Right. A true spiritual master will never advise you to develop siddhis, that's a Sanskrit word which means occult powers. They cou ld be a great obstacle to you in the path toward self realization or God realization. No true spiritual master would ever advise you to do this. Many people acquire certain abilities, and these can very easily be learned just by application. For example , you read books by Mary Roberts, the Seth books, and things like that, or you talk to mediums and they tell you they are in contact with the beyond. No. What they have done or are doing is going to the deeper layers of their own minds, the deeper layers of their own subconscious minds and from there pick up things which might have happened in a past lifetime. They might have been very wise in a past lifetime. And then when they write these books they would say that such and such an entity speaks through me. They interpret it that way. For example, myself, I am only dimly aware when I give a talk. I am only dimly aware of what I'm saying. It's only a day or two later when I listen to the tape then I would say, "Hey, did I say that?" You see. So it is something where you go within a minute in my case where you go to a certain level of the mind or to a certain stage of meditation when things just pour out from deep within you. You see. That is why I don't need to prepare any talk or anything what so ever. Any question can be asked. Doesn't matter. The answer just come [tape ends though satsang may have gone on] ****END****