2. U S 87 - 69 may find her very beautiful. It is because of the individualization of our personal thought patterns. Sometimes you would see a man and a woman going across the road and the man is very handsome and the woman is very plain she is very plain. There is no such word as ugly. And then people will think what does he see in her, or the other way around. Why? Because his or her mind has been formulated to perceive a certain beauty, because that beauty he or she wi ll see in him is because of perception. He might be able to see in her, this plain looking woman, far beyond the facial value and see something very beautiful inside her. So that perception now is not only a mental perception, although it is interpreted through the mind, of course the mind is an instrument, the individual mind is an instrument but he is seeing her through a deeper quality within himself. So perceptions also have gradations. And it is these gradations that form maya. The thing, the object, is the same, but the subject is different in his or her interpretations of what they are seemingly seeing. That is maya. So when they say this world is unreal, this whole universe is unreal and a product of thought forms, that is partly true. B ut then, are the thought forms also not only maya? So here maya is perceiving maya. So what is the reality of your thought forms when they are forever and ever changing, changing, changing, and the only thing which could be real is that which is changele ss and never changing. Because today you will see something like this, and tomorrow your thought forms will make you see the same object in a different light altogether. So it is the thought forms of man which are changing, but the object is not changin g. That is maya. And then of course you would find attachments to things, things that we are not attached to. Sujay is very much attached to his snooker table. And if the snooker table collapses tomorrow he will feel very hurt. Why would he feel hurt? Not because of the table but because of his attachment to the table, and that attachment is maya. Illusion. So we judge the illusory world with our mental illusion. That is the irony where illusion attaches itself to illusion. That is maya. So, what d o we do then? If that table collapses, Sujay will say to himself (as he would, I'm sure)," So what the hell, the table has collapsed. I can always rebuild the table or else get another one, even if it's at higher purchase." So when one gets away from att achment and become non attached to things, then we will lose the sense of maya and the sense of illusion. And the beauty of non attachment and to be rid of the sense of illusion is one. Then you become happy, you become more peaceful. And you develop th e idea after all, what is mine there in this world? What is mine? You can amass millions and millions of dollars, or whatever the case might be, and yet tomorrow you might have a heart attack. Are the millions going to come with you? No. So that very at tachment, too, is maya, the great illusion. I've talked about this subject many, many times and I'm putting it to you in a totally different angle today. So to repeat again, the illusory mind with its preconceptions are perceiving illusions. Illusion per ceives illusion. I love

3. U S 87 - 69 her very much. Ok. Fine. Tomorrow may it never be so she gets into a car accident and something happens to her. OK. So because of my attachment to her, that will hurt me, not because of my love for her that will hurt. It is the attachment, the illusion of attachment that hurts, not love. Because love, true love, knows of no attachment at all. It is unconditional. There are no conditions there. So many pine after loved ones (so called loved ones) that are dead. But t he pining is for themselves because of their own illusion. Because they could never bring that dead person back. And you go through that inner pain because of your attachment to the person, and not because of your love for that person. Your attachment al so has a built in need. And for what is that need? Your personal security. That is the greatest need. And why do you want that personal security which creates this need? You want personal security because inwardly you are insecure. And if you were sec ure within yourself, then you will have no need. What has happened has happened. That's the end of the story. Hm? So therefore, that inner need one has is because of insecurity brought about by one's inability to cope with reality because we, in the fi rst place, are unreal. That is maya. Do you see? So like that, everything (we are examining various aspects of this) in life comes about by the fear of loss. Everything. You fear losing your business, you fear losing your wife, you fear losing your chi ldren, you fear losing your home, plus, plus, plus, plus. Now, through our spiritual practices, if we find that inner security to repeat, through our spiritual practices, when we find that inner security, we will never fear any los s. Because the fear of loss is the greatest tragedy in a person's life. And that fear is illusory, unpredictable; and whichever is unpredictable is always an illusion. It is imaginings of the mind, projections of the mind, where you project yourself in a certain position, or in a certain condition, certain circumstances. And before you reach that destination you are fearing, "will I reach there or not." And what guarantee have you that you are going to reach there? But, still having no guarantee, you are fearing "will I reach there or not?" That's the great illusion, that is maya. Do you see? Now, what is the solution? We have discussed problems, what is the solution? The solution is to say to oneself, "Nothing belongs to me. I am not the doer. Some other greater force th an me is the real doer." Now when you say "I am the doer" that is illusion, when you are really not the doer. There is a higher force that does. You think you are breathing. You think your heart is doing its work pumping. Yet how much are you aware of your breathing or your heart pumping or your blood circulating? Are you making it do? Well, of course, psychologists and these medical people that know nothing they say the motor nerves does it, but what is the motor? What's the motor that generates, an d how many people are aware of that motor? You keep on breathing. I think its 180,000 breaths in 24 hours. And the heart pumps (I forget figures, it's no t important) the heart pumps so many times per day. Even while you are sleeping it is pumping. And you are not aware of it in your sleep, and more so you are not aware of it while you are awake. And you are not aware of it in the dream state either.

4. U S 87 - 69 So in waking, dreaming, sleeping, you are not aware of things that are keeping you alive. You can only become aware of it when you reach the fourth stage, which in Sanskrit is called turiya. Then you become aware of every function. Billions of cells in your body are working in such harmony throughout you, to make the body work. But are you aware of it? Ha ve you ever seen a cell of your own body? You have not. Do you see? Now this very unawareness is the cause of the great illusion. So therefore we would say you live in an illusory, assumed existence. Underline the word assumed existence, because you a re not aware of it. So you eat, you sleep, you drink, you do this you do that, huh? Is that existence, really? You drive a motor car, you go and visit your boyfriend or girlfrie nd or whatever you do. You go to work, you come back, you eat and perhaps w atch T.V. or whatever else is done at night, I don't know. Next morning you wake up, you go to the bathroom, have some breakfast, go to work, come back home, have something to eat again and do all the same things. It's just a routine. In a circle. You are just circling, circling, circling, and yet not aware of the center of yourself. Now when one becomes aware of the center of oneself, then you get rid of the great illusion. Because life is you're living on the periphery and not in the center. And that center can only be found through spiritual practices. Where you become integrated. Where the entirety of yourself functions in an integrated manner, rather than a fragmented manner. In a wheel that has a rim, and the rim is supported by all the spok es of the wheel. But who supports the spokes? The center! Do you see. And that center is still while the periphery keeps on turning and turning and turning. The center is o n its axis, still there enjoying itself in its stillness. While the hard work is done by the rim of the wheel. That is the one that is running. But the cause of the rim (the periphery), the cause is that still center on the axis. So, what do we human beings do? They are more concerned about the periphery, the rim of the wheel, an d not thinking of the center, the hub there. Slowly moving in its axis, and I'm sure you know this the larger rim has to work so, so hard while the center just stays there slowly. And that's how life must be. We go through so much effort and so much th is and that like the rim of the wheel. But if we are centered within ourselves we become more quieter within ourselves. Because we are just there in that slow movement, while the outside is turning, turning so fast. So that is what we are doing, and that's the great illusion. We are involved more on the rim, the periphery rather than the center. So when we find the center through jnana yoga, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, whatever yoga, Gururaj yoga, whatever and fin d the stillness there, life could become so, so much more happier. And that real center within ourselves is the doer, not the periphery. But the periphery thinks, "Oh, I am running." Like a dog walking under the cart thinks he's pulling the cart; of cour se, he's not. And we are those dogs. We think we are pulling the cart. We're not. There is an old, ancient Sanskrit saying which I've given you a loose translation of. Do you see?

1. U S 87 - 69 MAYA NIRMALA: Not long ago I read something that got me stimulated into thinking about it and I wondered what you had to say about this world as an electronic apparition, that we don't really see anything, that there really is no gross object out there, not ev en our so called gross body exists except in our mind, it is our consciousness producing these electronic apparitions. And that all the world, subtle or gross, are the same. This struck me as rather odd, and I can't quite grasp i t, and I wondered what yo u have to say about it. GURURAJ: What you have really been saying, to put it in a nutshell, is that this world is maya. Now, what is the reason for there being maya. This entire universe is created by one's own mind. And the reason is this, that no pe ople could see this world in the same perspective. So that goes to prove that the world is a creation of our thought forces, our own minds. Now, why do our minds create this world that we observe around us? It is because of previous mental patternings a nd the conditionings and the impressions that we have gone through, or the impressions that the environment has created upon us. So we view this world entirely according to our own perceptions. Now where do these thought forms come from, and where do th ese perceptions come from? It is not only the environment, as I've said before, but also our impressions. But what are the mechanics of this phenomenon? The mechanics of the phenomena is this: that the entire world and this universe are made of thought forms. For nothing exists but just thought forms. For example, that table over there is covered in green, but if a person is color blind, he might see it to be blue. People go through traffic lights and not seeing the amber and seeing it for red (or fo r green for that matter, whichever way you want to put it). So these perceptions, because of the conditions, have to express themselves and every person finds his own form of expression. If we see a scene outside here which is beautiful to some, and to s ome it might not be beautiful. Yet there is a guiding force which makes us all see certain things similarly. What is that guiding force? Is it because of Jung's theory of the collective mind? There might be some truth in it but not the complete truth, for who says the mind is collective? For when you use the word collective, it means you are taking different pieces and collecting it together. And that was Jung's greatest error. There is only one mind, which is not formulated by various pieces to make it collective. It is not a collection of various factors. There is only one mind. And because of the one mind, we will all view that table as a table. Because there is only one mind force. And the problems begin when we individualize our minds and separ ate it somehow from the one mind, and individualization only comes because we, because of our experiences rather, we want to see things in a different way. There is a very beautiful woman, for example. But everyone won't see the beauty in her. Some won' t find her very beautiful while someone else

5. U S 87 - 69 So when we find the center of ourselves, then the illusory factors, o r maya, disappears. And then we find reality. And finding that central reality, then maya disappears in the sense that everything is real. Do you see the process? From illusion we come to reality; and when we reach reality, then the illusion disappears. That too becomes real. For who says that periphery is not real. So that is the process, it's a scientific process. So, until th en, until we have all the attachments... [Side 2 picks up with some missing] ....think that I am the doer, then you are li ving in a world of illusion. But when the realization dawns that I am not the doer, that center within myself we can call it God, we can call it divine energy that is the doer. And by realizing the center o f oneself, then everything becomes real, becau se everything becomes God. You see Divinity in everything. And so unreality disappears, illusion disappears, maya disappears, and everything just becomes divine. When you feel the heat from the furnace there, the heat is untangible. But until you see th e fire burning there, then you know the meaning of the heat. Then that very heat becomes tangible to you, just as the fire is tangible. OK. This is a very deep subject. I could go on for hours. **** END ****