2. U S 82 - 7 shore. And there the waves subside on the shore. And yet, through spiritual practices, when your awareness grows more, you will observe the surface waves and dive deeper to perceive the calmness that lies beneath. You talk of wars, you talk of pollution, you talk of miseries, you talk of unhappinesses; who suffers this? Are you the sufferer? No, you are not. The mental formations and the patterns which you yourself have created over the ages or even in this lifetime, that is the one that suffers. Now who is that one that suffers? What is the basis of its reality? How real is the sufferer, and how real is the suffering? That is the question that we have to ask. As long as man dwells in the conscious mental spheres of life there wi ll always be this conflict. And without this conflict this world, as I've said during this week, can never function. There will always be contraction and expansion; there'll always be unification and diversification all the time throughout eternity. For that very motion created by contraction and expansion is the seed cause of this universe. But now in practical life where do you place yourself? Do you place yourself amidst the chaos that you observe around you? Or do you place yourself within the cente r of yourself where in spite of the chaos that your conscious mind observes, and yet within the very limitations of the observation you are beyond it all where the observer the real observer observes the small observer observing. There lies the secret of your own personal tranquility. This world will go on as it has gone on for ages and ages. Since primitive times, since primitive man, which I think I spoke about during this week, there has been chaos. And chaos is nothing but conflict: conflicting for ces, opposing forces; where there is day there will be night; when there is rain there will be sunshine. They are two sides of the same coin. But why just observe the sides of the coin instead of taking the coin as a whole! Split the coin and go and try to buy a loaf of bread. You can't. You can't take the heads alone and neither could you take the tails alone. You got to take both. So if the world is in chaos, does it mean that you have to be part and parcel of the chaos? This chaos will always be there. It is unending. That is the real maya, the play of this universe. And without it this universe could never exist. Th e law of opposites have to be there, and the only thing you can do is go beyond the law of opposites. And how does one do that? T hrough meditation and spiritual practices. Chaos you will feel when you are down here amidst the chaos. But when you rise above the chaos, there is no chaos. One of our meditatiors was telling me a story some while ago. She said that "Guruji, you and I ( in her meditation) were traveling through the Alps and the mountains loomed so large, the pass was so narrow and slippery. I [she] was driving and I was thinking, 'How are we going to get through the mountains?' And suddenly the view changed," she says, "and we were in an airplane high up." And then she asked, "Guruji, what are those little things down there?" "Those are the mountains and peaks that you were speaking about."

7. U S 82 - 7 all the samskaras and all the impressions and all the causes and all the effects that your conscious mind perceives and finds the world and yourself to be totally chaotic. You find chaos wh ere chaos does not really exist. There is no chaos. Your interpretation, your conscious mind, that is the chaos, and none else. So this is self created by your conscious and subconscious mind, by your conditioned mind, and this conditioning has been brou ght upon you by yourself. Until you were in the animal kingdom you were totally in compliance with the laws of nature. And you flowed with the laws of nature, you flowed in a system which was conducive to your evolution. But when you became man and start ed thinking, then all the trouble began. The mind, the cunning animal, that is where the trouble began. [Recording again becomes unintelligible.] [SIDE TWO] GURURAJ: And this trouble began because you begin to think. You started discriminating. You started calling things good and some things bad. Discrimination at a lower level. But then you do evolve where you could take that discrimination to its highest point. And when discrimination is taken to its highest point, all differentiations cease, an d all becomes one. Nothing is apart from each other. So good and bad which is determined by your own little mind then ceases to exist because it is an interpretation. What is bad? What is bad? That which is not conducive to you is bad. When you eat yo ur meal and you don't like the taste of it, you say this is bad. Meanwhile it could be so good to the people that like that kind of food. Do you see? So your discrimination is biased when you differentiate between good and bad. And that bias comes becau se of your inner patterning created by yourself. And created by yourself and made yourself conducive to the environment where the one pointedness have been lost. There's a lovely little parable from Ramakrishna. There was this little bird that was perche d on this boat in the middle of the sea. And it wanted to reach the sea shore. So it flew to the west and got tired and could not come to the shore. So it flew back. Then it flew to the east, and the shore was so far away it got tired and came back and perched on the mast. And then to the south and the north. Until it realized that: rather let me stick to the ship, for the ship must reach the sh ore. So all this floundering, all this moving around, this chaotic moving ... And I have heard of chaotic meditation too. I don't what that means. Meditation cannot be chaotic. It is peaceful where the mind reaches a state of tranquility. Meditation does not mean you block off all your thoughts from your mind. You

8. U S 82 - 7 cannot do it. You cannot make your mind a vacuum. But you learn to observe the thoughts so that it does not take root, so that it does not create further karma to which you are bound. And being the observer, you find you are not the doer. You are not the thinker, but you are becoming disinvolv ed in the process of thinking. For what is the world or this universe composed of? Nothing but thought. And you find reaching that stage that thought has no reality because thought is forever changing upon the basis of the never changing. The sky is st ill, but the clouds move. The clouds move. The clouds of your mind are forever changing and moving. So through spiritual practices you disperse the clouds as rain. And you see you look up, and the sky is there. Non changing. Eternal. Without beginn ing or end. Without any boundary. But our attention is more centered on the moving clouds, and we forget the stillness and the non movement of the eternal sky. And that eternal sky is the brahman that is within you. And that is the place one has to re ach. And it is not difficult. It is not difficult at all. It is not difficult, for essentially you are divine. Essentially you are non changing. Essentially you are non changing, and yet all this change occurs all the time. Where is your attention? That is important. And how to train the attention upon the non changing, that is what spiritual practices are all about. You do not reject the changing. You accept that which changes. And yet becoming the observer of that which changes, you know that t his is just but temporary. You are just but passing by. The clouds just pass by. There was this very famous American author. And this author was very interested in the works of a Jewish rabbi who has written, who had written many philosophical works. A nd going to Israel, he was very near the village where this rabbi lived. So he thought, "Let me go and visit this rabbi." So he went there. And it is quite customary in the Eastern countrie s and the Middle East that when you visit a holy man, you take an offering as a mark of respect. It does not need to be anything great. Even just a petal of a flower. As an offering. So this American said not being used to those customs and only having heard of it afterwards said, "I was just passing by, and I ha ve no offering that I could have brought to you." And then while they were chatting, he observed the room. It was totally empty. And he asked the rabbi, "Why is your room so bare?" So he says, "Just like you. You are passing by, and I too am passing b y." So your mind, your conscious mind and your subconscious mind so cluttered with all the patternings that have been formed through so many lifetimes are also passing by. Lose no courage. Lose no hope. For you are divine. Children of God. You are the fragrance of that eternal flower. You are the manifestation of the Manifestor, and as the fragrance fades away in the desert air, so too will your little mind, your little self fade away but to merge and remain pure as that beautiful flower. Do you see how beautiful it is. But this requires one pointedness. You have to persevere. Vivekananda has said that the path, the spiritual path, are not for cowards. They are for heroes that are prepared to work upon themselves. And how do you work upon yours elf? You work for others for the sake of work, work for the sake of work and not expecting the fruits thereof. Because what clutters

9. U S 82 - 7 your mind more and more and leads you into a chaotic state is the expectation. And as I told you before, expectation is the mother of disappointment. Work, work, work. Love, love, love. Analyze, analyze, analyze. And practice, practice, practice. Therein all your yogas are combined. Work, love, practice. Do you see how simple it is? I've always said this to you befor e. You have a job. You're working for a boss. Now every day of the week or every day, you're not thinking of your salary check. You're doing work. Fine. And by doing your work well for the month, end of the month your salary check will be there. So l ike that, you just keep on doing what you can do. And you offer the rewards to That. And That does not take it. It gives it back to you tenfold. That is the secret of life. That is how to get away fro m the chaos. For chaos will forever exist or this universe will collapse. And when this universe collapses, then there is no God. Then there is no God, for the relative must exist simultaneously with the Absolute. Here is some thought I want to put to you. Try and work it out. The universe is real. Oh, sorry. The universe is unreal. God is real. And God is the universe. Tell me tomorrow what you have worked out. OK. The universe is unreal. God is real. And God is the universe. So when you find the balance between unreality and reality, then you have the secret of life. For then everything is unreal and everything is real. Do you see? So those [mayavadins] that call all this an illusion, yes, it is an i llusion. But from where, from which viewpoint do you call it an illusion? Have you reached the absolute from where all this seems an illusion? And if you have not reached the Absolute, you have no right to hypnotize your mind by calling all this an illu sion. So while you are in the relative, all this is real. It is only when you reach the Absolute that you say, "Ahh, that was only but a dream." And yet while you were in the dream, the dream was real. You cannot deny the reality of the dream because you were the dreamer. But then when you pass the dream and wake up to the light, you say, "That was a dream." If you sit in a dark room, you say, "It is all darkness, darkness, darkness." But when you switch on the light, where is the darkness? And yet the darkness exists within the light. They are coexistent, but one superimposes itself upon the other. Light, we say, banishes darkness. It does not banish darkness. It only covers up darkness. Do you see? Where do you stand? That is the question. Wha t perspectives do you have? That is the question. Where am I now? That is the question. Not who am I. That comes later. Where am I? Where do I start? I start from wherever I am. And yet when you say, "I am," it's so beautiful. "I am that I am." An d I am that I am, Yahweh, is all pervading, for it is only that that exists and nothing else. And that which exists contains all the illusions and all the delusions and all the illumination at the sam e time. Light exists in darkness, and darkness exists in light. Good exists in the bad, and bad exists in the good in this relative existence.

1. U S 82 - 7 REACHING THE CENTER OF THE STORM CHELA: This is a satsang with Gururaj Ananda Yogi, U.S.A., 1982, number 7, recorded at U.C.L.A. CHELA: Beloved Guruji, at this point in time the whole world is astir. No matter where we live, no matter what our social position, racial, or ethnic background, no one is immune from a sense of revolution, evolution, mind and earth pollution, future sho ck, culture shock, and most importantly a forced awareness forced awareness that is drawing everyone into spiritual shock. We in America, the land of comfort and plenty, can no longer insulate ourselves from the upheavals that surround the globe. The first step in the oneness of humanity seems to have come in the form of man sharing in a universal uneasiness. Complacency is being replaced by a need to reach out for the answers that lie within. There is a prevailing sense of urgency as everything around u s is moving so fast. The problem lies in the fact that there is so much information available that when a new seeker begins this search, he is inundated with spiritual alternatives. Each one proclaims to be the one way, each one contradicting the other. So now the seeker's quest for solace complicates his life even further. How do we find inner peace when everything and everyone around us is in utter chaos, a teeming marketplace of spiritual wares all dressed up in so many colors and beads that the mind boggles? Guruji, please guide us tonight to the center of the spiritual storm and tell us how to find the stillness that awaits therein. GURURAJ: Start with chapter two. [Laughter.] You say the world is in chaos. Who says the world is in chaos? Who is the sayer of these words that the world is in chaos? You say it with your mind that the world is in chaos because it is your perception that tells you that the world is in chaos. With an altered perception through spiritual practices, you transcend th e chaos. You go beyond the chaos where no chaos remains and only peace remains. For essentially there is nothing else but Satchitananda all the time. Total existence. Total joy. Total knowledge. But your mind is the factor that distorts this knowledg e, and you find chaos because the mind is only capable of looking at the surface of things and not below it. You go to the seaside, and what do you observe? The waves going up and down and up and down. And yet within that chaos, if you look more closely, there is a system. The waves are flowing to the shore and not away from the shore. So even if the mind perceives chaos and the turbulence of the waves, why can the mind not be directed that even in chaos there is a system, a chaotic system. And when th ings function within this so called perception of yours you will find that in that system there still remains a tranquil factor, and that factor is the precision. But the mind being so confused that it does not see the ever onward flow of the waves, etern ally coming to the

3. U S 82 - 7 So we have to rise above chaos and not be entangled in the web of chaos. So you will have these factors forever existing as far as relative life is concerned. For relativity, the manifestation of the Manifestor, creates this motion, and without motion nothing could ever exist in the sense of what we regard to be existence. For here everything is real to you a toothache is real, a toe ache is real, pleasures are real, pains are real to you on the relative plane. But once you go beyond the gunas which we spoke about which control this chaos, that is part and parcel of the imbalance t hat is created through the non tranquility of the gunas, this will forever be there. Many reformers have come: Mahavir, Krishna, Buddha, Christ. And yet, in spite of their teachings there is still chaos. There was chaos during those times and today ther e is still chaos, perhaps in a different form. There was lust and greed, avarice, covetousness, it was there and it is still here today. So when people talk of getting rid of this chaos that is in this world, it is not possible on a collective scale. But it is possible on the individual level, where you through your meditations and spiritual practices reach the finer levels within yourself. It is the conscious mind that observes the chaos, empowered by the conditioned subconscious mind. And the pattern ings of the subconscious mind dominate and regulate your conscious mind and your perception in that confusion can only see chaos. But the man of peace, the man that has found peace within himself, [coughs loudly.] ... the man that has gone beyond the cons cious mind and the subconscious mind and reached the highest relative, the superconscious mind where the stillness is to be found. And viewing life and the world around us from that level, you will see everything is as it should be. Reformers have come a nd gone, and nothing has been reformed. There has always been de formation and never any re formation. So what do we do? Perspectives have to be changed. Do not try to change the world. Change yourself. Find your true self that resides within you. And that true self at the superconscious level, being so clear, uncluttered by samskaras that reside in the subconscious mind, uncluttered by it, the true reflection is felt of that which is Absolute. So do not even th ink of the Absolute. It is a neutral energy. It is attributeless. It has no qualities. There's neither good, and there's neither bad. All is the same. Therefore, theologies say that God has no favorites. He looks upon saints and so called sinners in the same light. Therefore, He is calle d merciful, compassionate, kind. But that is not the Absolute that I am talking about because to be merciful and to be kind and compassionate and forgiving are qualities, and they do not belong to the Absolute. The Absolute is a neutral energy which the superconscious mind reflects at its finest relative level. And when the light comes through it is discolored by what is in your subconscious mind, what is in your samskaras, what is in your thought patterns created over millenniums. So this light, this pu re light shining from the Absolute through the clear glass of the superconscious level, becomes discolored by your patternings, by your desires, by your perception. And yet this energy is forever permeating all these,

4. U S 82 - 7 for even the gunas cannot exist witho ut this energy, a neutral energy to be used in a stove for heat or in a refrigerator for coldness. It is beyond control. It is beyond description because it is attributeless. So when you call God that is kind, compassionate, and just, you are referring not to that impersonal quality, but you are referring to that conditioned somewhat conditioned quality of the superconscious level at its finest form. And there resides your personal god. And even reaching that superconscious level, you still have to go beyond it. Beyond into the Absolute which is nothing and yet everything. So where do we start? How do we start in not being affected by the chaos around us? There is a lovely poem by Rudyard Kipling, "If." And most of you have read it. I don't know t he exact words, but the gist is this: that the world can turn topsy turvy, and if you can keep your head in tranquility, then you're a man. Now this can be done also by mental conditioning. You can go through like many teachers teach all kinds of auto suggestion which puts the mind asleep, puts the conscious and the subconscious mind asleep. And hammering it with certain kinds of thoughts, you reach a state of self delusion where everything seems to be well. But you are asleep. You must find this tra nquility while you are awake. How is this done? Now remember that the conscious, subconscious and the superconscious are not separated from each other. They are a continuum from the grosser level reaching to the subtlest level, the clearest level possi ble. And it is by contacting this... And in theologies we would say reaching the Kingdom of Heaven within. And all theologies say that. All theologies say that. In Sanskrit we would say Brahmasmi. I am Brahman, that indefinable something. And I have to become that. And to become that you have to reach that Kingdom of Heaven within. So there are many steps, many ways to reach this. Whoever teaches the way to reach that is a true way. Therefore, I have nothing against any theologians, any philosopher s, any movement, because whatever movement you are in might be conducive to your stage of development. As long as it is not selfishly motivated. As long as it is for the purpose of unfolding man, not uplifting man. For you are forever unfolded, you are f orever divine. You are nothing but divinity itself. And who says that divinity, the personal aspect of the Absolute, does not contain chaos? That too is chaotic. So why worry of this small grain of sand which we call the planet Earth when there are mil lions and millions of planets in this universe that are millions and millions of times larger. And yet on this grain of sand four thousand million people exist. And not knowing that they exist. For if they should know that they exist, then there would b e no chaos. It is this nescience, this lack of knowledge of existence, that brings about this chaos. Now you will ask, where does this greed, this lust, this avarice, covetousness, this possessiveness, where does it come from? To find ourselves amidst th is conditions that prevail? Where do they come from? Do they really exist? They come from nowhere; they are there. They have been there, are there, and will forever be there.

5. U S 82 - 7 So what do we do? We get off the bus. We get off the wheel. And observe the wheel turning and turning and turning. Yes. What is the reality of all the chaos you perceive around you? What is its reality? The reality lies within your mind and your perception. To me I could see a person who would be regarded to be the greatest s inner and I could see that person to be a great saint. I could see the holiness and the purity in each and all; for if Divinity is omnipresent, then th at Divinity is present within every cell of your body. So how do we look at things. And to be able to look at things in its proper perspective, to be able to see Divinity all around you, you need that clarity of mind. And spiritual practices are practices that clarifies the mind, that pushes aside, that diss ipates the conditionings that are already there in your mind. Self created by the mind, self conditioned by the mind, so the tool you use is also the mind to uncondition the conditioning. So spiritual practices in many organizations deal solely with the m ind. Good. But then there is one danger. You might be shifting energies from one sector of the mind to another sector of the same mind. But have you dissipated them? You cannot annihilate them. You can throw them off. And yet, if you are still amids t this chaos, the law of cause and effect will definitely be in force. But there is a way where you can go beyond cause and effect and all these practices we do, widening our awareness, are methods that would remove the cause and the effect and reach the state of causelessness. And when the cause is gone, the effect cannot be there. You see the great hope the human has. I don't know how many humans we have here, but I assume there are some. Ninety nine point nine percent of people are ruled by the anima l instincts from which they have just passed through. Like children in form 6 will always be influenced by the teachings they have found in form 5. But this all has to be discarded, and not discarded violently for the more you try and discard the more su ppression takes place. Inhibitions take place and they multiply forever and forever. People say, like many institutions in America, that you've got to live through this all. You have created certain causes and you are subjected to the effects thereof. V ery true on the relative level. But you can rise above that. And by rising above that to the superconscious level you burn all the seeds of karma. All the seeds of karma can be burned up instantaneously. So the law of cause and effect is also a law of o pposites. And once one goes beyond the law of opposites, once one transcends the 3 gunas, and then perform action, and that action is non binding. Chapter 2 of the Gita, verse 42. So what are we going to dwell on? That is the question. Are we going to think of the chaos in the world all the time? Are we going to wallow in self pity of the chaos within us? For thinking of chaos, chaos, chaos, you bring unto yourself all the forces of the universe which are chaotic. You become a magnet of chaos drawin g to you all the chaotic filings, iron filings, of the chaos that is in the world.

6. U S 82 - 7 So awake, arise, and stop not till the goal is reached. And so this has been said by Vivekananda. So what is the solution? What is the solution to get out of this whirlp ool of the chaos that you are so enmeshed in? Like the silk worm weaving, weaving, weaving, and getting entangled in the very silk it has woven. You do not need to go through lifetimes upon lifetimes to reap what you have sown. You do not need to go thr ough lifetimes to suffer the effects of the causes. But once you find the secret through spiritual practices of going beyond cause and effect, by going beyond cause and effect you are going beyond time and space, for cause and effect has validity only in time and space. But when you enter, through spiritual practices, the realms of timelessness, then cause and effect vanishes. But as long as you are enmeshed in the chaos the questioner asked about, then cause and effect would be a reality to you and you would have to suffer the consequences. But why not make that suffering into an offering. For there lies the secret that you offer yourself totally. To what? To w ho do you offer yourself? Forget the god. None of you know who God is. It is beyond all a nalysis. You can only talk about it. But you do not know it. And how can you offer that to something or someone that you do not know everything about. So let the offering be to yourself. Offer the suffering to yourself meaning that you are accepting i t. During this week I said there is no suffering at this very moment. No one is suffering now. You are using the instances and incidences of the past which is gone, and it is the memory you have of the pains and pleasures that give you pains and pleasur es now. Or otherwise it is the projection of the past into the future, filled with all kinds of expectations, that make you suffer. And yet at this very moment, children of God, children of Divinity, you are not suffering at all. You are suffering memor ies, memories make you suffer. So in the stillness of meditation and spiritual practice you are in the present, not in the past, and not in the past projecting itself into the future. So this can be done through developing awareness. What is awareness? What is awareness? You are aware, only very limitedly, because what you have activated is only the conscious level of the mind which is only 5 percent of your mind. Twenty five percent is the repository of all the samskaras, all the impressions you have gained, and 70 percent is the area of the superconscious level of the mind. Like the iceberg, nine tenths of it are below the water, but you only see the little bit above the water. And that is where we dwell. So by meditation and spiritual practices you drive deeper within. You bypass the conditioning of the conscious mind; you bypass the memory box or the repository of the events of the entire universe since beginless time. You bypass that and reach the area where there is neither good nor bad. At the finest relative, the superconscious level which I've said before, the personal god, which, being so clear, which being so near the Absoluteness of existence, makes itself an instrument to reflect that energy without attributes [Sanskrit]. And it refl ects through the clarity of the superconscious level to overcome

10. U S 82 - 7 There is only one way out. It is to transcend and go beyond existence. And yet enjoy existence, for life is joy. Life is bliss. So what we need is to de hypnotize ourselves. We take so many things for granted. We take pleasures for granted. We take pains for granted. We take everything for granted. And how qualified are we to take everything for granted? Rather instead of taking things for granted, accept wha t there is. And that does not mean that you are taking things for granted. So with acceptance, you develop a greater understanding of what life is all about. With acceptance you develop that humility, for humility and acceptance are blood brothers. They cannot exist without each other. And as the scriptures would say, "Be ye as a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." And the Hindu scriptures say that too. And so does Islam and Buddhism. They all say that. To find that simplicity that is within you. To find that innocence. For without innocence you could never be accepting of life. So it is up to us to find that innocence within ourselves through meditation and spiritual practices. And then you will see order in all the chaos that is around you . For in reality there is no chaos. Everything is as it should be, for everything is empowered by divine grace. Now accept that idea that all is right all is right and then you are all right. Do you see? Have I gone on for too long? You're having a tea break? I've been told after a tea break of about fifteen minutes, then we will have a rapid fire question and answer session. Then you can ask me whatever you want, would like to ask me. Anything you like. And brief questions; brief answers. To t he point. So shall we adjourn for tea? Good. ***END***