{"id":19515,"date":"2022-01-17T08:38:05","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T14:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/livinglibrarian.com\/new\/?p=19515"},"modified":"2022-01-17T08:38:05","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T14:38:05","slug":"illusion-or-reality-by-ishwar-puri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/livinglibrarian.com\/new\/illusion-or-reality-by-ishwar-puri\/","title":{"rendered":"Illusion or Reality – by Ishwar Puri"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Illusion or Reality<\/span><\/p>\n

Chicago \u2013 February 8, 2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Friends, welcome to this short-notice meeting. I know it is bad weather outside.<\/span><\/p>\n

You had to brave slippery roads and a lot of snow. I am glad you were able to<\/span><\/p>\n

make it here. When I drove in, I thought that at least the scenery was beautiful. It<\/span><\/p>\n

looked like picture postcards, winter wonderland. So I said there is some<\/span><\/p>\n

compensation when you have bad weather\u2014it can be beautiful bad weather also.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I saw this combination that how the good and the bad go together. Suddenly I<\/span><\/p>\n

thought of an email I received today, this morning, from New Zealand, from<\/span><\/p>\n

somebody who was initiated by a master many years ago and who was practicing<\/span><\/p>\n

his meditation with due diligence, got beautiful results in meditation, saw the<\/span><\/p>\n

radiant form of his master and was very happy and had other inner experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

After all that beautiful experience, he ran into another video and a book by Baba<\/span><\/p>\n

Fakir Chand. Now Baba Fakir Chand is one of the saints who claimed that he will<\/span><\/p>\n

do nothing. In fact, his biography published is called The Unknowing Saint, and he<\/span><\/p>\n

claimed that the masters know nothing. Everything you get is from within<\/span><\/p>\n

yourself, that the masters do not even project their radiant form in you. You<\/span><\/p>\n

project the radiant form yourself. And he gave an example\u2026Baba Fakir Chand<\/span><\/p>\n

gave an example of his own life when he was in the military, and so were some of<\/span><\/p>\n

his disciples. And there, one day, three of his disciples were suddenly surrounded<\/span><\/p>\n

by the enemy on all four sides, and they knew they were going to be killed, so<\/span><\/p>\n

they sat together and prayed: \u201cBaba Ji, this is the time when we are going to be<\/span><\/p>\n

killed by the enemy. As a last resort, we want to pray to you. Please take care of<\/span><\/p>\n

us and take us to Sach Khand as soon as we die. Please help us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

At that time Baba Ji appeared almost in a physical form standing right in front of<\/span><\/p>\n

them, and he said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry. You are not going to die today. Don\u2019t worry.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is behind this small tree a little bush. Under the bush there is a tunnel. If<\/span><\/p>\n

you go in the tunnel, you will go behind the enemy lines and just escape. Go and<\/span><\/p>\n

take the tunnel and come out, and I will see you,\u201d and then he disappeared.<\/span><\/p>\n

They marveled at the power of the master that he could do this. They looked<\/span><\/p>\n

behind, and under the bush there was a tunnel. They went through the tunnel<\/span><\/p>\n

and escaped, were not killed. They were so grateful to the master for sparing<\/span><\/p>\n

their lives. They ran to him and said, \u201cMaster, thank you very much for saving our<\/span><\/p>\n

lives.\u201d He said, \u201cWhat happened?\u201d They said, \u201cYou came and you told us about<\/span><\/p>\n

the tunnel, and we came.\u201d He said, \u201cI know nothing about it. I was not there. I<\/span><\/p>\n

was myself very frightened of being killed myself. What are you talking about?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

They said, \u201cMaster, you yourself came to us. We saw you. All three of us saw you!<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only we saw you, you directed us to a tunnel nobody could have known, and<\/span><\/p>\n

you saved our lives. Don\u2019t be so humble and pretend you don\u2019t know.\u201d He said,<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is I don\u2019t know. That masters know nothing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then he made general statements that masters really come as projections of the<\/span><\/p>\n

self, and the whole secret is in the self. Whatever you will find you will find within<\/span><\/p>\n

yourself. Even the radiant form of the master that you find is within yourself. And<\/span><\/p>\n

therefore, why masters appear outside is to generate the kind of faith that you<\/span><\/p>\n

can discover who you are and go within. Therefore, he said, \u201cI know nothing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Masters know nothing, and if a master says he is doing everything, he is no<\/span><\/p>\n

master.\u201d He made such dramatic statements which led to a lot of controversy. Do<\/span><\/p>\n

masters really have any power or are they mere shadows of the self and they just<\/span><\/p>\n

are projecting themselves to take you inside\u2014and the whole secret is inside?<\/span><\/p>\n

This question about Baba Fakir Chand, who people say was the only honest<\/span><\/p>\n

master because he confessed that he knew nothing. All others claimed that they<\/span><\/p>\n

have all the powers of a master. They say he is the honest master, but then they<\/span><\/p>\n

question, \u201cWhat about all the other perfect living masters who initiated people,<\/span><\/p>\n

and the people saw their radiant forms? And didn\u2019t they really see the radiant<\/span><\/p>\n

form of the master? Didn\u2019t the master have any hand in it?\u201d As it happens, I have<\/span><\/p>\n

met Baba Fakir Chand personally several times. He was our neighbor in<\/span><\/p>\n

Hoshiarpur. My father was teaching there. He was a good friend of my father, and<\/span><\/p>\n

we met him several times. And we even discussed this incident with Baba Fakir<\/span><\/p>\n

Chand personally, so I have some personal knowledge. And he explained why he<\/span><\/p>\n

said all those things. He said, \u201cThe reason I say this is because, when people begin<\/span><\/p>\n

to follow masters, they don\u2019t do any meditation. They think just following that<\/span><\/p>\n

person is good enough.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, he overemphasized the fact that the truth lies within yourself. Even<\/span><\/p>\n

the master lies within yourself. After all, all this creation that we see outside is a<\/span><\/p>\n

projection from inside. If the whole creation is a projection from inside, surely a<\/span><\/p>\n

physical master is also a projection from inside, which means the truth is that the<\/span><\/p>\n

perfect living master we talk about is inside us, not outside, but we cannot see<\/span><\/p>\n

him. If we close our eyes, we see darkness. Therefore, the projected master who<\/span><\/p>\n

appears outside functions exactly like the master inside. And yet at the same time<\/span><\/p>\n

he is just a shadow of the master inside. He is not only a shadow; he is a very<\/span><\/p>\n

active shadow because by listening to him, by following what he says, by getting<\/span><\/p>\n

initiated by him, we find the true master within ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, at all times the true master is within us. He emphasized this point that<\/span><\/p>\n

he knew nothing just to make a point that, \u201cDon\u2019t follow human beings just<\/span><\/p>\n

blindly. Listen to what they say. Follow what they are saying,\u201d and you will find<\/span><\/p>\n

the truth inside, including the true master, because the radiant form of the<\/span><\/p>\n

master is the master who takes you back home, and that radiant form of the<\/span><\/p>\n

master is inside us, not outside. But he resembles the one outside so much that<\/span><\/p>\n

we can have a link. Why does he resemble so much? Because he is outside. He is<\/span><\/p>\n

the projected form outside. Therefore, it\u2019s very difficult to say, \u201cWhich one should<\/span><\/p>\n

we follow\u2014the outside or the inside?\u201d The fact is we should follow the inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can we follow the inside without the outside? No way! Then it comes back to the<\/span><\/p>\n

same thing, that we have to follow a physical living master outside who can talk<\/span><\/p>\n

to us, who can teach us, who can answer our questions, who can guide us, who<\/span><\/p>\n

can tell us when we are wrong and when we are right on the path, who can tell us<\/span><\/p>\n

all the details of the journey we are going to have, who can encourage us to go<\/span><\/p>\n

within, who can time and again help us with the means to go within, but after he<\/span><\/p>\n

has done all that, we find that the master who will be with us for all time and is<\/span><\/p>\n

permanent is inside us. And that\u2019s the radiant form of the master we find within<\/span><\/p>\n

Ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

So there is a role for the master outside, and there is a role for the master inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

And because it\u2019s a projection, actually it is the same. In fact, one perfect living<\/span><\/p>\n

master has said, \u201c[quote in Punjabi],\u201d which translated means, \u201cThe inside and<\/span><\/p>\n

the outside are the same.\u201d That\u2019s what I learned from my master. Do not think<\/span><\/p>\n

that the outside is separate and you run away from it, and there is a created<\/span><\/p>\n

world outside sitting objectively and we have to run away from it and go<\/span><\/p>\n

somewhere else inside. The outside projected world is also being projected from<\/span><\/p>\n

inside and is an inside world that we see outside. But it looks so real outside. It<\/span><\/p>\n

has all the elements of external reality. It becomes physically real. Therefore, in<\/span><\/p>\n

the physical reality which our mind accepts, that the world outside is real, we<\/span><\/p>\n

have to search for something very abstract, something very unknown inside. Since<\/span><\/p>\n

we think like that, therefore the outside world becomes a reality for us, and we<\/span><\/p>\n

search for other realities inside without ever leaving the notion that the world<\/span><\/p>\n

outside and the physical body here is the only reality we know. And that is why,<\/span><\/p>\n

because we take the outside world as real, we have to take the outside master<\/span><\/p>\n

also as real, although the outside master is projected from inside and is working<\/span><\/p>\n

exactly as the inside master is doing. There is no difference between the two.<\/span><\/p>\n

So this is a very strange kind of enigma for people, that while we take this physical<\/span><\/p>\n

world to be real\u2014and we can\u2019t help it\u2014we have no other reality to compare it<\/span><\/p>\n

with. This is the only reality we know. Of course, when we go to sleep we create<\/span><\/p>\n

another temporary reality called a dream. A dreamland is also a reality while we<\/span><\/p>\n

are dreaming. It is no longer a reality when we wake up. This physical world,<\/span><\/p>\n

which we are taking as the only reality, is a reality while we are here. When we<\/span><\/p>\n

wake up, it is no longer reality, as unreal as a dream, and we discover it! When we<\/span><\/p>\n

awake to a higher reality, this physical world becomes completely unreal, and we<\/span><\/p>\n

know it was created in the same way as a dream while we are awake and go to<\/span><\/p>\n

Sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

So, therefore, it is important to remember that while we are here and this is our<\/span><\/p>\n

only reality, the only master who can teach us what to do is a master who is in a<\/span><\/p>\n

physical form in a physical body outside. And therefore he teaches us. But once<\/span><\/p>\n

he is able to help us to go within and discover his own true identity, his true<\/span><\/p>\n

reality inside, the inside master is with us for all times. The outside master will<\/span><\/p>\n

die. He is a physical body like ours. The law of physical existence is that nothing is<\/span><\/p>\n

permanent. Nobody is permanent here, none of us in our physical bodies, and no<\/span><\/p>\n

master has been permanent. So many perfect living masters have come and gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where are their bodies? They all went away. Nobody lives here forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, it is important that while we have a perfect living master in our life, we<\/span><\/p>\n

follow what he says, get instructions from him, understand what he is saying,<\/span><\/p>\n

follow his instructions to the point that we can manifest his real form inside us,<\/span><\/p>\n

because the real form inside us will not die, even when the physical form of the<\/span><\/p>\n

master dies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

My master, Great Master, used to tell me, \u201cThe most important thing a disciple<\/span><\/p>\n

should do while his master is alive is to find out the radiant form inside, to<\/span><\/p>\n

manifest the radiant form of the master inside before the master dies. In that<\/span><\/p>\n

case, when the master physically dies, he will never feel he has gone, because<\/span><\/p>\n

master will stand right in front of him and say, \u2018I am not dead. I am here.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Once you establish the radiant form of the master, he never goes away. He is with<\/span><\/p>\n

you all the time. He can be in different places. He can be sitting beside you, and<\/span><\/p>\n

you see him like you see the physical master. You drive your car, he is a passenger<\/span><\/p>\n

sitting there, and you see him. You can talk to him, and sometimes you feel like<\/span><\/p>\n

talking physically in the physical voice. Then you say, even if you think, he can<\/span><\/p>\n

understand and answer. It is a great friendship. It is a friendship that has no<\/span><\/p>\n

comparison with any other friendship that we have. And that radiant form of the<\/span><\/p>\n

master who can appear physically, he can not only appear physically beside you,<\/span><\/p>\n

he can overlap you. He can say, \u201cOkay, you are not different from me. Ultimately<\/span><\/p>\n

we are all one,\u201d and he can give you that experience while you are in a physical<\/span><\/p>\n

body. He is in his astral radiant body, and he can jump into you and merge and<\/span><\/p>\n

show you, and you won\u2019t know whether it is you or him or the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

These are experiences which you cannot get by any other means that I know of.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, do not underestimate either the power of the physical form of the<\/span><\/p>\n

master or the immense experience you have with the radiant form, the astral<\/span><\/p>\n

form of the master. The astral form of the master, of course in meditation, he is<\/span><\/p>\n

your companion all the time. If you fly in your astral body, he flies with you. He<\/span><\/p>\n

chats with you, jokes with you. He does things he would never do in a physical<\/span><\/p>\n

form. Therefore, it is a great friendship. Once a perfect living master has initiated<\/span><\/p>\n

you, he will never leave you until you go back to your true home, Sach Khand. He<\/span><\/p>\n

will be there for all time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

If you like to spend some time on the way to your true home, and a lot of people<\/span><\/p>\n

like to because there are so many attractions on the way, even more attractions<\/span><\/p>\n

than you have in this world. We think this world has all the distractions and once<\/span><\/p>\n

we get away from these distractions we shoot off to our own home. It is not like<\/span><\/p>\n

that. In the very next stage of consciousness in the astral plane, where we have<\/span><\/p>\n

astral bodies, which are very similar to these bodies, which we get automatically<\/span><\/p>\n

when the physical body dies. It doesn\u2019t matter if you have a master or not. It<\/span><\/p>\n

doesn\u2019t matter if you are initiated or not. Everybody who dies, he dies in this body<\/span><\/p>\n

and finds that another body is right there. The astral body, our astral body, has a<\/span><\/p>\n

much longer life. The same astral body has been born in different forms in the<\/span><\/p>\n

physical bodies over a period of several thousand years, so therefore the astral<\/span><\/p>\n

body is more permanent and the astral life in an astral world has been going on<\/span><\/p>\n

much longer than the physical world. And you will find that there are more<\/span><\/p>\n

distractions there than even here. There are such wonderful distractions and<\/span><\/p>\n

attractions there that a lot of people would like to just spent all the time there. A<\/span><\/p>\n

lot of people when they reach that stage they think they have reached their true<\/span><\/p>\n

home. All the heavens are there. Some hells are there, too, but they think that<\/span><\/p>\n

that is a place which was the origin of everything. It looks like that. Therefore you<\/span><\/p>\n

get stuck there, and very often a perfect living master who wants to take you back<\/span><\/p>\n

home, who is with you and says, \u201cLet\u2019s go home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I was telling you\u2026there was a young girl, a very beautiful young girl, a British girl.<\/span><\/p>\n

She came to Great Master, and she was so pretty. I was very young. I was younger<\/span><\/p>\n

than her even. I was a teenager. She was so pretty I was attracted to her face. In<\/span><\/p>\n

the discourse, in the Satsang, Great Master was having, I was looking at her<\/span><\/p>\n

instead of the master. I was hoping\u2026you know, when you look at somebody they<\/span><\/p>\n

get a feeling somebody is looking and they turn around. So I was hoping that just<\/span><\/p>\n

by my look she would turn around. She was so beautiful, but she did not turn<\/span><\/p>\n

around at all. Her gaze was on the white bearded man sitting giving a discourse.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was looking at the Great Master with almost moist eyes, and the love that she<\/span><\/p>\n

was showing\u2026it overwhelmed me to see that a young person at that age\u2026she was<\/span><\/p>\n

only 18 years old\u2026could have that kind of a feeling for a master.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I had great respect for her after that event. And then she got initiated the very<\/span><\/p>\n

day she came. She came with a British colonel who was posted in India, and some<\/span><\/p>\n

way they had come to the dera. She did meditation in the dera and when she<\/span><\/p>\n

went back did meditation and wrote a letter to the master. The master gave that<\/span><\/p>\n

letter in English to a few people who used to answer letters for him in English.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the people who used to answer letters was my grandfather, and my<\/span><\/p>\n

grandfather was Bai Bishan Das Puri. He gave this letter to Bai Bishan Das: \u201cTake<\/span><\/p>\n

this letter, and I will give you an answer what to give.\u201dSo my grandfather, although I was so young, he said to me, \u201cIshwar, you read thisletter and keep a copy.\u201d I have no idea. He never gave me any other letter. Henever showed me another correspondence of Great Master, only one letter hegave me, and I read it. And that girl said that she had achieved great success inmeditation. She said, \u201cAs I told you before I left the dera, that I had alreadyreached your radiant form, and I know that you are taking me up home, but mymind was do distracted by the beautiful things I saw on the astral plane that I<\/span><\/p>\n

didn\u2019t want to go any more. It was more distracting that even here, and I am a<\/span><\/p>\n

very aesthetic person. I am touched by beauty, and the beauty of the astral plane<\/span><\/p>\n

was more than I could imagine. I didn\u2019t want to go. I know you allowed me to stay<\/span><\/p>\n

there for a while, but then you told me, \u2018You have to go.\u2019 You pulled me up, and I<\/span><\/p>\n

know you took me beyond all these distractions. I would have stayed there<\/span><\/p>\n

forever if you had not taken me up, and I know I am now near the great void and<\/span><\/p>\n

you will help me to cross it.\u201d Beautiful letter describing her inner experiences. I<\/span><\/p>\n

had respect for her.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

She returned to England, back, and I met her there, and she wrote a beautiful<\/span><\/p>\n

book also after that on her experiences with the master without writing anything<\/span><\/p>\n

about her inner experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

So there is so much distraction there that we might think that we have only<\/span><\/p>\n

distractions here. Once we pull our attention from here, get detached from here,<\/span><\/p>\n

we go shoot straight back to our true home\u2014that\u2019s not so.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even if we take thousands of years, thousands of physical years on the way,<\/span><\/p>\n

the same master whose radiant form appears and after which we never get a<\/span><\/p>\n

physical birth, the same master will stay with us for thousands of years. He never<\/span><\/p>\n

leaves us. He will stay with us until we reach back home and merge into only one<\/span><\/p>\n

with the master and you and the creator are all one. That is our true home. Our<\/span><\/p>\n

true home is where there is only one total consciousness. There is no division<\/span><\/p>\n

there. There is no separation. The idea of separation does not come until we get a<\/span><\/p>\n

mind. The mind separates us. We think we are all separate. We think we are even<\/span><\/p>\n

separated from God. We think we are separated from our inner self. All this<\/span><\/p>\n

separation is a creation of our own mind. If our mind is taken away, the<\/span><\/p>\n

separation will finish, and we will be all one.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It is amazing that one little instrument, installed in our consciousness, which we<\/span><\/p>\n

call the human mind, the thinking mind, can create this kind of strange situation<\/span><\/p>\n

to create the many out of one, to create a separation, and to make a separation<\/span><\/p>\n

the basis of all our experiences. Today what is our experience with the world? It is<\/span><\/p>\n

based upon separation. You want to love somebody because he\/she is separate.<\/span><\/p>\n

You love things because they are separate. You love this world because it is<\/span><\/p>\n

separate. You love God because it is separate. You worship God because it is<\/span><\/p>\n

separate. Nothing is separate! Yet the mind makes everything look separate. It is<\/span><\/p>\n

amazing that one little instrument\u2026I don\u2019t even call it anything else other than an<\/span><\/p>\n

instrument like a computer, a little computer installed in our own consciousness<\/span><\/p>\n

and getting all the power to function from our own self! The self is the soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consciousness itself is a unit of consciousness, our soul, and powers the mind,<\/span><\/p>\n

powers our senses, powers the astral body, powers the physical body, powers all<\/span><\/p>\n

experiences we are having. The soul is the power. It is life! It is the life force! This<\/span><\/p>\n

gives power to all these things, and yet the mind can create such a drama of<\/span><\/p>\n

Separation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The mind is the creator of time and space. Time separates us into past, present,<\/span><\/p>\n

and future, makes things happen earlier than later. Nothing is earlier than later in<\/span><\/p>\n

reality. It is all one, but the mind makes it look as separate. It creates space.<\/span><\/p>\n

Things are different. That is so far away. This is near. This kind of experience of<\/span><\/p>\n

space and time and then separation is running this whole universe. The truth is<\/span><\/p>\n

not that at all. The truth is there is only one. And who is that one? We are that<\/span><\/p>\n

one! We, all of us, are that one. Everything we know of is one. When you will<\/span><\/p>\n

realize by going to your true home, everything that you have ever experienced<\/span><\/p>\n

will be pulled back into the one, and you will see how it devolved from stage to<\/span><\/p>\n

stage, into different levels of creation, different levels of consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, you saw the separation occurring in the three worlds of the mind, and<\/span><\/p>\n

these three worlds are now being run as a permanent universe, unending<\/span><\/p>\n

universe, unending life for us. We are reborn again and again. How could you be<\/span><\/p>\n

reborn if there was no time? If there was no next life or previous life? The<\/span><\/p>\n

separation is creating rebirth. The separation is creating the need for karma,<\/span><\/p>\n

because when you have separation in time and space, you create events. You<\/span><\/p>\n

create something here and something there, something now and something then.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you do that, you create events. When you create events, you connect the<\/span><\/p>\n

events, and there you get cause and effect relationship, and you create the law of<\/span><\/p>\n

Karma.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Karma is totally unreal in our true home. It is only created by the mind. Karma is a<\/span><\/p>\n

mental projection that makes us go, but we take it real and get caught up in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our experience in this devolved world, in the world in which we have been<\/span><\/p>\n

separated, becomes almost a permanent one that we keep on moving in circles in<\/span><\/p>\n

the same place over and over again and forget that this is not our reality. If there<\/span><\/p>\n

was no cause and effect, if there were no events, we would be back home now.<\/span><\/p>\n

We are just trapped by this time\/space causation, which is the characteristic of<\/span><\/p>\n

the mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A philosopher, Immanuel Kant, said, \u201cMind is not something that is a separate<\/span><\/p>\n

substance. Mind is merely the experience of time, space, and causation.\u201d That is<\/span><\/p>\n

what he says. When you experience time, you experience space, you experience<\/span><\/p>\n

cause and effect, you are experiencing the mind. If you go above the mind, none<\/span><\/p>\n

of these three exist. So, therefore, if you go above the mind, karma doesn\u2019t exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you go above the mind, rebirth, you do not take this\u2014you go home.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, therefore, this experience which was created just for our entertainment,<\/span><\/p>\n

adventure\u2026we wanted to have a new kind of experience\u2014we are having it! But<\/span><\/p>\n

we never thought that experience should tie us down and should keep us here<\/span><\/p>\n

forever. We thought that experience is good, we would enjoy it, go back home.<\/span><\/p>\n

You want another experience? You can have another adventure, go back home.<\/span><\/p>\n

What happened? We got so tied up with experience here that we do not even<\/span><\/p>\n

know where our home is. We do not know how to go back home. Fortunately,<\/span><\/p>\n

some of us who were afraid\u2026not really afraid but just anxious not to be lost in the<\/span><\/p>\n

experience, not to be caught up in the experience forever, but we should come<\/span><\/p>\n

back\u2026made a little arrangement with ourselves. The arrangement was that if we<\/span><\/p>\n

get too engrossed in the experience and we don\u2019t know how to get out, we<\/span><\/p>\n

should have some key with us, and that key should be there to open the door<\/span><\/p>\n

inside. Today I can tell you the key is a perfect living master who comes into our<\/span><\/p>\n

life. That is the key we ourselves arranged before we left our true home. We<\/span><\/p>\n

brought the key so that we should not get lost forever. If we have to get back<\/span><\/p>\n

home and don\u2019t know how to do it, we should have a key to open it, and the key<\/span><\/p>\n

is the appearance in our life here, even in the very unreal\u2014but looking real\u2014life<\/span><\/p>\n

here, the key that should take us back home, and the key is a perfect living<\/span><\/p>\n

Master.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Now when I say perfect living master, people are asking me, \u201cWhy do you say<\/span><\/p>\n

living master? That is only perfect master. Why living master? What about the<\/span><\/p>\n

masters who are perfect and not here but their teachings are here? We can<\/span><\/p>\n

picture them. We can imagine them. We see their statues. We see their pictures,<\/span><\/p>\n

and we can imagine them and have faith in them. What is the difference? Why do<\/span><\/p>\n

you continue to say living master, and the force on living is not on living in spirit<\/span><\/p>\n

but living physically? What is the big deal about a living master and a non-living<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

perfect master?\u201d The answer is very simple. A living, physically living master is the<\/span><\/p>\n

one who can say, \u201cNo, that is your mind.\u201d The other master will go with what your<\/span><\/p>\n

mind says. It\u2019s that simple! If the mind is the one that is creating the separation, if<\/span><\/p>\n

mind is the one that is trapping us here, how can we follow a master that is<\/span><\/p>\n

speaking to us through our mind?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

People will come to me and say, \u201cYou know, we have masters, ascended masters<\/span><\/p>\n

sitting in the Himalayas.\u201d I have traveled the Himalayas a lot personally. I have<\/span><\/p>\n

met the saints and the yogis who are sitting there. I have not seen ascended<\/span><\/p>\n

masters sitting there guiding anybody in the United States. But they believe. If<\/span><\/p>\n

they believe, who are they believing? They are believing their own mind. If<\/span><\/p>\n

somebody says, \u201cA bird comes to me every morning, sits on the window and<\/span><\/p>\n

teaches me all the truth. I love that bird. The bird is my master, and the bird<\/span><\/p>\n

speaks.\u201d Do you know who speaks when a bird speaks? Who interprets what a<\/span><\/p>\n

bird is saying? The mind. Don\u2019t we realize that if we follow a bird, an animal, a<\/span><\/p>\n

picture, an imagination, a statue, an idea, it is all our own mind? So either we<\/span><\/p>\n

listen to our mind or we listen to somebody who is obviously definitely above the<\/span><\/p>\n

mind. There the choice comes in. Therefore, the emphasis is on a perfect living<\/span><\/p>\n

Master.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Who is actually a perfect living master? What are the characteristics of a perfect<\/span><\/p>\n

living master? He is just like us. There is no difference. Potentially we are all<\/span><\/p>\n

perfect living masters. Potentially we have everything that a perfect living master<\/span><\/p>\n

has. There is no difference whatsoever. Every human being has all the equipment,<\/span><\/p>\n

has all the experiences built into it which a perfect living master has. Only<\/span><\/p>\n

difference is he has seen it, experienced it, knows it, and we haven\u2019t. That is the<\/span><\/p>\n

only difference. Therefore, since he has had that experience, he has personally<\/span><\/p>\n

experienced a state of being above the mind, therefore, when he, even in a<\/span><\/p>\n

physical body, is in front of us and speaks to us, he is not speaking just like a<\/span><\/p>\n

person. He is speaking with experience beyond the mind. Therefore, he can guide<\/span><\/p>\n

us on how to go beyond the mind. He does not rely upon his mind nor on our<\/span><\/p>\n

mind. He goes direct to the source of power and consciousness which is our soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

He speaks to our soul. He does not speak to our mind. But our mind wants to<\/span><\/p>\n

listen to him. Therefore, sometimes he uses his mind to play with our mind. He<\/span><\/p>\n

teaches us methods which our mind likes. He says do meditation like this. The<\/span><\/p>\n

mind likes this. He says work hard. The mind loves to work hard to get anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t say, \u201cI\u2019m telling you a lie,\u201d because he is dealing with the obstacle in<\/span><\/p>\n

our life which is our mind, and he is telling us things to do. Eventually we find that<\/span><\/p>\n

the only thing that mattered was his coming into our life from beyond the mind<\/span><\/p>\n

and pulling us beyond our own minds and finding the reality. Because these three<\/span><\/p>\n

worlds of the mind are the only traps that are here. If the mind could be kept<\/span><\/p>\n

away from our path, we would all go home immediately. It is simple as that. There<\/span><\/p>\n

is no other obstruction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Nothing is coming in the way of our journey to our spiritual home except our own<\/span><\/p>\n

mind. Our own mind is creating thoughts. Our mind is creating images. Mind is<\/span><\/p>\n

creating desires. Mind is creating attachments. Mind is creating a continuous<\/span><\/p>\n

circulation of events because of these desires and attachments, and we are<\/span><\/p>\n

trapped here. It is all a function of the mind. And who is powering the mind to do<\/span><\/p>\n

all this? We! We are doing it. Our soul is doing it. So, therefore, it is a big catch 22<\/span><\/p>\n

that here a perfect living master comes in, and we want him to teach us according<\/span><\/p>\n

to our mind\u2019s aspirations and our mind\u2019s thinking. He says, \u201cOkay, I\u2019ll go along<\/span><\/p>\n

with the mind for a while until you discover that the mind is not what is to be<\/span><\/p>\n

taught. There is no teaching required. We just have to control the mind, keep it<\/span><\/p>\n

out of the way, keep it not coming in your way, you will be back home.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the whole principle of the spiritual journey, of the spiritual enlightenment, is<\/span><\/p>\n

really a journey of how to overcome the mind\u2019s obstacles in our way. The mind is<\/span><\/p>\n

the only obstacle, nothing else. Our own mind, nobody else\u2019s mind. Everybody<\/span><\/p>\n

else is functioning according to their own mental experiences, and that is how<\/span><\/p>\n

these events pile up. These events that have been created by the mind, they pile<\/span><\/p>\n

up, and we go through the consequences of our events because of the mind, and<\/span><\/p>\n

we think we are trapped forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Every time a person does something and says, \u201cOh, that was wrong,\u201d do you<\/span><\/p>\n

know what that means? If a person does something and says, \u201cThat was wrong. I<\/span><\/p>\n

should not have done it,\u201d first it creates guilt. What does the guilt do? The guilt<\/span><\/p>\n

perpetuates in the subconscious of that person that, \u201cI have done something<\/span><\/p>\n

wrong,\u201d and he does not want to face it, and he pushes it down, and in the<\/span><\/p>\n

subconscious it is held as guilt. Then he feels that, since he did something wrong,<\/span><\/p>\n

the law of punishment and reward must operate. We built it into our system, and<\/span><\/p>\n

then we wait for the punishment to come, and punishment comes. We anticipate<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We built it. And then we do something very nice. \u201cThat was a good thing I did.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Very nice. That deserved a reward.\u201d Built into us, and we wait for the reward to<\/span><\/p>\n

    come, and the reward comes. This system of carrying with us our own morality, a<\/span><\/p>\n

    system in which we are continuously judging good and bad for ourselves, a<\/span><\/p>\n

    continuous judgment on ourselves and on others, this is what is leading to<\/span><\/p>\n

    punishment and reward. And we are all creating our own morality. It is not that<\/span><\/p>\n

    there is a standard morality lying somewhere. What is good for one person is not<\/span><\/p>\n

    good for another. What was good for us one hundred years ago is not good for us<\/span><\/p>\n

    today. People change their moral codes all the time. There is no standard morality<\/span><\/p>\n

    ever laid out by anybody. It has been changing all the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    Therefore individually, of our own conscience, which is part of consciousness, our<\/span><\/p>\n

    own conscience builds the system of judgment, that we judge this is good, this is<\/span><\/p>\n

    bad. Once we judge it, we are embedding in ourselves the seeds of punishment<\/span><\/p>\n

    and reward. And this system is called the law of karma. Karma, nothing else.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Karma is our own actions that we embed in our subconscious and wait for the<\/span><\/p>\n

    consequence to come. Therefore, the cycle goes on. We do things which are<\/span><\/p>\n

    good, do things which are bad, and we keep on getting rewards and punishments.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We do good things and we get high and feel very good. Then we do bad things.<\/span><\/p>\n

    There is a saying in India, \u201c [quote in Punjabi],\u201d which means that when you do<\/span><\/p>\n

    good things, meditation included, tapa included, when you do that, the next time<\/span><\/p>\n

    you are rewarded for it and you become a king, you become rich, you become<\/span><\/p>\n

    powerful. And then when you are rich and powerful, you do all bad things, and<\/span><\/p>\n

    then you go to hell. In hell you say, \u201cOh, no, never again, never again.\u201d And you<\/span><\/p>\n

    again go back to tapa and do meditation. Then you get a reward and become king<\/span><\/p>\n

    or wealthy. This cycle of these three stages goes on forever, and we perpetuate<\/span><\/p>\n

    the law of karma.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n

    So this karma is entirely a creation of our own mind. But it traps us. It traps us<\/span><\/p>\n

    into an ongoing continuous experience over here from which we cannot get out.<\/span><\/p>\n

    And when we try to worship, when we try to worship without a living master, we<\/span><\/p>\n

    are worshiping our own mind. There is no way out of it. You can think hard about<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Whoever says, \u201cYou know, I had a conversation with God,\u201d I can prove to him<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      he has had conversation with his mind. The conversation was within his mind. All<\/span><\/p>\n

      conversations in the head are taking place with the mind. There is nobody else. It<\/span><\/p>\n

      is you and your mind. You are powering the mind. The mind is thinking, and the<\/span><\/p>\n

      mind can think anything. It can think prayers. It can think anything. It can get<\/span><\/p>\n

      rewarded for its prayers. It can be punished for bad thoughts. It all works like<\/span><\/p>\n

      that.But the person who is not you at this time in the physical world, who is separate<\/span><\/p>\n

      from you and is not speaking from his mind but is speaking from above it and is<\/span><\/p>\n

      not addressing it to your mind but addressing to your soul, we call that person a<\/span><\/p>\n

      perfect living master.<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n

      A perfect living master does not appear in your life just like any other ordinary<\/span><\/p>\n

      person. He shows some aspects of living which are quite different from all other<\/span><\/p>\n

      people that we know. What are those basic differences that you will notice? One<\/span><\/p>\n

      is that knowing that all judgments that you make are because of your own mind,<\/span><\/p>\n

      he will never judge. You will never see a human being who we call a perfect living<\/span><\/p>\n

      master who has obtained the state of being beyond the mind ever judging<\/span><\/p>\n

      anything, unless he is a judge. If his role is a judge, then he will pass judgment.<\/span><\/p>\n

      But if he is not a judge on a bench, then he will not judge anybody. He will not<\/span><\/p>\n

      judge any action. When he sees people and we tell them, \u201cThat person is bad,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

      how does he look at it? He says, \u201cSorry, that person is caught up in his own<\/span><\/p>\n

      conscience. He is caught up in bad and good, and I am sorry for him. I have<\/span><\/p>\n

      compassion for him. I have love for him.\u201d If you say, \u201cThat person is very good,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

      [he will say] \u201cI am glad that person has put himself, but there is a danger. Today<\/span><\/p>\n

      he is good; tomorrow he can be bad. It is a judgment call.\u201d He will never judge.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Now that is an exception which is very rare to find. All of us are liable to judge,<\/span><\/p>\n

      give judgment all the time. We have options all the time about people, even go on<\/span><\/p>\n

      gossiping. Where nothing will matter by what we say, we will still gossip negative<\/span><\/p>\n

      and positive about people. A perfect living master never does this.<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n

      The second characteristic, which is even more amazing, is that the perfect living<\/span><\/p>\n

      master is not looking at our body. He is not looking at our mind. He is not looking<\/span><\/p>\n

      at our karma. He is looking at our soul. Therefore, he has an innate, built-in love<\/span><\/p>\n

      for us. That love is so visible and so strong. That love cannot be compared with<\/span><\/p>\n

      any other love. How to compare it? It is unconditional. A perfect living master<\/span><\/p>\n

      never says, \u201cNow you better be a good boy; otherwise I will not love you.\u201d Never!<\/span><\/p>\n

      He will love you if you love him. He will love you if you don\u2019t love him. He will love<\/span><\/p>\n

      you if you hate him. He will love you if you kill him. He is a living being. He is a<\/span><\/p>\n

      human being like us, and yet his love is unconditional. Completely unconditional.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Why? Because he is not operating from the physical self. In the physical body, he<\/span><\/p>\n

      is operating from the spiritual self and is addressing your spiritual self. The feeling<\/span><\/p>\n

      we get when we get to know a perfect living master after a while is he is not really<\/span><\/p>\n

      talking to our body or to our self. He is talking deeper than that. He is touching<\/span><\/p>\n

      something in us which we have never felt. He is touching our soul, because that is<\/span><\/p>\n

      what is happening. So therefore, this unconditional love of a perfect living master<\/span><\/p>\n

      is a unique thing, and you cannot find normally in this world.<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n

      Of course, there may be people who are highly advanced spiritual beings. They<\/span><\/p>\n

      also have the same characteristics. In fact, there may be people who have the<\/span><\/p>\n

      same level of experiences as the perfect living master, but their role is not to be a<\/span><\/p>\n

      master, but they have the experience. So there are people like that. They will<\/span><\/p>\n

      show the same characteristics also, but we call them gurumukhs. That means<\/span><\/p>\n

      those who follow their master and have reached that stage of identification. The<\/span><\/p>\n

      others we call manmukhs, those who follow their mind. Most of us are<\/span><\/p>\n

      manmukhs. We follow our mind. There are some who live their entire life<\/span><\/p>\n

      following the master. They are the gurumukhs. So there are people whose role<\/span><\/p>\n

      may not to be a master. And therefore they have that highest awareness and<\/span><\/p>\n

      highest consciousness, but they are not come to teach or to take anybody. They<\/span><\/p>\n

      will have the same characteristics of not being judgmental and having pure love.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Also there are some little vicious things we do which we are calling vices, but I<\/span><\/p>\n

      don\u2019t know if you can judge, even put judgment on that. Like anger. We all get<\/span><\/p>\n

      angry. We get angry. We get attached. We get greedy. These kinds of negative<\/span><\/p>\n

      features that we have, which are also born from the mind and are practiced by us<\/span><\/p>\n

      every day, and we sometimes don\u2019t seem to have control over them. These<\/span><\/p>\n

      negative things\u2014lust, anger, greed, attachment, ego\u2014these five so-called vices,<\/span><\/p>\n

      which we all have, which are indeed very necessary\u2014in order to do what? To pay<\/span><\/p>\n

      off our karma, which we created with our mind. We use the negative things in us<\/span><\/p>\n

      to pay off a karma which we created. It is amazing that negative things are<\/span><\/p>\n

      needed to continue to survive in the law of cause and effect and the law of karma.<\/span><\/p>\n

      That is what we are doing. Yet you will find that if you went above the mind, none<\/span><\/p>\n

      of these things bother you at all. None of these will bother you. You will not have<\/span><\/p>\n

      the lust. You will not have the anger. You will not have the greed. You don\u2019t have<\/span><\/p>\n

      the attachments, and you don\u2019t have the ego. Your humility is genuine. That\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

      another sign. In a perfect living master, who is an ordinary human being like us,<\/span><\/p>\n

      you see these qualities and you feel there is something different about a person.<\/span><\/p>\n

      So the characteristic that you can see in a perfect living master, even in a physical<\/span><\/p>\n

      body, in a physical being, are so unique and so different from everybody that it<\/span><\/p>\n

      tells us that he has reached some stage which is not governed by the mind, and<\/span><\/p>\n

      that is exactly what it is. He is not operating from the mind. He uses the mind as<\/span><\/p>\n

      needed. He can use the mind to develop language and talk to us. He can use the<\/span><\/p>\n

      mind to give us an argument or an explanation. He can use the mind for<\/span><\/p>\n

      communication with us. But he is not used by the mind. The mind doesn\u2019t tell him<\/span><\/p>\n

      what to do. He tells the mind what to do, which we are all supposed to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

      The mind was not given to us to tell us what to do. The mind was given to us so<\/span><\/p>\n

      we could instruct the mind what to think, what to do. It has become the opposite.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Today the mind is guiding us what to do. Not only that, we have reached a point<\/span><\/p>\n

      where we are being guided to continuously by the mind\u2014we think we are the<\/span><\/p>\n

      mind. People say, \u201cI am thinking. That\u2019s me, thinking.\u201d We don\u2019t think. We make<\/span><\/p>\n

      our minds think. But we don\u2019t separate ourselves. We don\u2019t realize we are<\/span><\/p>\n

      consciousness per se, the ability to be aware, and we are using a machine<\/span><\/p>\n

      installed in our consciousness called the mind, which thinks. We don\u2019t realize that<\/span><\/p>\n

      our consciousness makes the mind think. Therefore, we should use the mind to<\/span><\/p>\n

      think what we want it to think and not go by what it wants to think on its own and<\/span><\/p>\n

      we follow it. That is what has gone wrong. We put the cart before the horse. We<\/span><\/p>\n

      should have put our self as the director, as the pusher to tell the mind what to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n

      Not that the mind keeps on thinking and telling us what to do, and we keep on<\/span><\/p>\n

      blindly following, not doing enough what the mind is saying. The mind has<\/span><\/p>\n

      inadequate information on its hands. Most of it has sunk into the subconscious of<\/span><\/p>\n

      the mind, and the mind puts up some little pieces, has little information and gives<\/span><\/p>\n

      us direction, do this, and we start doing it. The mind comes and says, \u201cOh, I didn\u2019t<\/span><\/p>\n

      know that,\u201d and we say, \u201cSorry, we made a mistake.\u201d Another karma.<\/span><\/p>\n

      What kind of life is that? A life led by our mind is not the life that was intended for<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. We didn\u2019t come into this world for that. We came in this world equipped with<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        the best equipment to have a great time. We had the equipment of a thinking<\/span><\/p>\n

        mind which could communicate, which could reason, which could make sense of<\/span><\/p>\n

        things any way we want. We came equipped with a mind that could create sense<\/span><\/p>\n

        perceptions, and we could then divide our perception into seeing, touching,<\/span><\/p>\n

        tasting, smelling. We came into this world equipped with a physical body in which<\/span><\/p>\n

        those senses could be embedded, and they would operate as if they belong to<\/span><\/p>\n

        this body. What else did we need to have an adventure? What else did we need<\/span><\/p>\n

        to have any kind of experience? Any show could be held with these means we<\/span><\/p>\n

        were given, these tools we were given. What did we do? Instead of having an<\/span><\/p>\n

        adventure with these, we began to misidentify ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n

        First, we thought the mind was our self. The mind thinks, and we say, \u201cI think so.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

        I and mind became one. Terrible mistake! Then we said, \u201cThese senses are mine. I<\/span><\/p>\n

        am seeing. These are my eyes to see.\u201d Terrible mistake! And equipment glasses<\/span><\/p>\n

        given us to operate, we call even them our self. Then on top of it, a temporary<\/span><\/p>\n

        cover, a temporary cover of a physical body given to us just to have a physical<\/span><\/p>\n

        experience in a materially created physical experience of the world, we said, \u201cThis<\/span><\/p>\n

        is me. This is my only me, my physical body.\u201d We made three big blunders! The<\/span><\/p>\n

        blunders of misidentification with covers upon ourselves which were designed to<\/span><\/p>\n

        give an experience, we began to think they are our self. And our self sitting inside<\/span><\/p>\n

        giving power to all these three, the life force, the consciousness, the soul, the<\/span><\/p>\n

        spirit which was inside, which created and ran these three things, is lost inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

        We don\u2019t even know who we are, and we think these covers are our self. Even<\/span><\/p>\n

        when we lose these covers, the internal cover becomes our real self. How do we<\/span><\/p>\n

        get out of it? If there was no perfect living master to tell us these are all covers<\/span><\/p>\n

        upon our self, if there was no perfect living master, we could never get out from<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. I can\u2019t imagine any way that our thinking could have ever taken us out. Because<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          thinking would have kept us within the domain of the mind, and all these three<\/span><\/p>\n

          levels of experience are being created by the mind. Therefore, we were in bad<\/span><\/p>\n

          trouble, but we got the key. Thank God some of us brought a key! Those we<\/span><\/p>\n

          brought the key, that we don\u2019t want to get trapped in case there is a trap there,<\/span><\/p>\n

          and there was a trap. And we said, \u201cWe have the key.\u201d The key was the<\/span><\/p>\n

          appearance during this experience in the physical world of a perfect living master<\/span><\/p>\n

          in our life. That was the key.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          The perfect living master came, developed love, and we were pulled by his love<\/span><\/p>\n

          more than by his teaching. We first thought it was the teaching because the<\/span><\/p>\n

          teaching was addressed to our mind. All teachings are addressed to the mind. We<\/span><\/p>\n

          thought the teaching was good, very perfect, looks good. The mind was drawn<\/span><\/p>\n

          towards it. Therefore, the mind was partially taken away from the distractions of<\/span><\/p>\n

          the world towards the teachings, and then there was a feeling that there was<\/span><\/p>\n

          something more going on behind these teachings. And then gradually, gradually<\/span><\/p>\n

          we discovered it was not the teaching that was pulling us\u2014it was love, an<\/span><\/p>\n

          unconditional pure spiritual love of a master pulling us, and there was nothing like<\/span><\/p>\n

          it we had experienced before. That love alone pulled us back. Now how can love<\/span><\/p>\n

          pull us back above the mind? I want to tell you this. The mind has its own functions, and the soul can perform some functions entirely on its own without using the mind and without using anything else. The functions that the mind uses are sensing, which means picking up the sense perceptions of the seeing, touching, tasting, smelling\u2014these sense perceptions. It picks up and then it makes sense of them, because if it doesn\u2019t make sense\u2026if you saw this yellow color here, they don\u2019t become flowers unless the mind makes them flowers as a perception. As a visual perception, these flowers sitting on the table are merely blobs of yellow color in certain shapes. How do they become flowers?<\/span><\/p>\n

          The mind makes them flowers, so there is one function, a very important<\/span><\/p>\n

          function. It gives meaning to our visual and other perceptions, all the sense<\/span><\/p>\n

          perceptions. It converts them into meaningful things, and they becomemeaningful things for our thoughts. Then we can think about all these things which the mind senses.<\/span><\/p>\n

          There is a second thing it does, which it does continuously, is thinking. It can think<\/span><\/p>\n

          in words. Mostly it thinks in words, and sometimes it thinks in images. But it<\/span><\/p>\n

          thinks all the time. The thinking of the mind is so important it is like the heartbeat<\/span><\/p>\n

          of the physical body. If the heartbeat stops, the physical body stops functioning.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Similarly, if the thinking stops in the mind, the mind stops and then everything<\/span><\/p>\n

          falls below it. So therefore, the mind will think continuously, and what does it<\/span><\/p>\n

          think about? It thinks about the perceptions it has picked up and made sense of.<\/span><\/p>\n

          The third function of the mind is to draw conclusions logically. The logic is the<\/span><\/p>\n

          third function. \u201cBecause of this and this, now this is the result.\u201d It does deductive<\/span><\/p>\n

          logic and inductive logic. Deductive logic is, he says, \u201cOh, this is one yellow flower.<\/span><\/p>\n

          The other one behind must be a yellow flower, so it yellow. I see all of them are<\/span><\/p>\n

          yellow. This one is also yellow.\u201d That is deductive logic. That means I see<\/span><\/p>\n

          something big, and I know the part is also like that. That is the definition of<\/span><\/p>\n

          deductive logic.<\/span><\/p>\n

          It also does inductive logic. That wall is white, and I can\u2019t see that far, but it must<\/span><\/p>\n

          be white. That is inductive logic. Inductive logic has uncertainty in it. You can<\/span><\/p>\n

          never be certain. Deductive logic gives us no new information, so we are working<\/span><\/p>\n

          with the same information over and over again, and that is a function of the mind<\/span><\/p>\n

          and the mind keeps us very busy in that.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          These three functions all take place in time and space. You cannot think even a<\/span><\/p>\n

          single thought, even the smallest thought, without time. You cannot have any<\/span><\/p>\n

          image without time and space. You cannot have any deductions except from the<\/span><\/p>\n

          senses, which are in time and space. The total functioning of the mind is confined<\/span><\/p>\n

          to time, space, and cause and effect. It doesn\u2019t go beyond that.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          Now there is something that happens beyond these three, and that happens<\/span><\/p>\n

          straight in our soul and our spirit. One is love. Love doesn\u2019t come by thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Love comes from the soul directly. It comes all the time. It comes automatically.<\/span><\/p>\n

          The mind throws it back, kills it! The mind kills the love, doesn\u2019t create it. You can<\/span><\/p>\n

          think and say, \u201cOh, is it real, is it unreal, this feeling I have?\u201d But the feeling of<\/span><\/p>\n

          love is not coming from the mind at all. It is coming directly from the soul. Beauty.<\/span><\/p>\n

          We can see these are flowers. The mind can say these are flowers, but the mind<\/span><\/p>\n

          cannot say they are beautiful flowers unless the soul says they are beautiful<\/span><\/p>\n

          flowers. There are some functions which are purely\u2026and to be able to see beauty,<\/span><\/p>\n

          you do not need time and space. Beauty by itself is a spiritual function. Love is a<\/span><\/p>\n

          spiritual function. When you feel love for somebody, you don\u2019t say, \u201cIt took me<\/span><\/p>\n

          three minutes or three seconds to feel the love.\u201d Love is instantaneous. It doesn\u2019t<\/span><\/p>\n

          need time and space. Beauty doesn\u2019t take time and space. Intuition, a gut feeling,<\/span><\/p>\n

          intuitive knowledge does not take time and space. It is not a mental function. It is<\/span><\/p>\n

          a spiritual function. So just like the mind has three functions, the soul has its own<\/span><\/p>\n

          three functions, and they are separate.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          When I came to this country people used to just mix up mind and soul as if it\u2019s the<\/span><\/p>\n

          same thing. They said, \u201cYou know, whatever this conscious thing, the mind\/soul,<\/span><\/p>\n

          whatever you call it\u2026\u201d They would talk to me like that. [I would say], \u201cHow can<\/span><\/p>\n

          you mix up the mind and the soul\u2014they are so different. One operates in time;<\/span><\/p>\n

          the other does not. One operates within certain big limitations; the other is free.<\/span><\/p>\n

          How can you mix them up?\u201d But they had no idea. Even we have no idea. We<\/span><\/p>\n

          have our self thinking we are the mind. We have forgotten we are the soul, and<\/span><\/p>\n

          the soul is functioning. It is functioning all the time. It doesn\u2019t function when you<\/span><\/p>\n

          go to a higher plane of consciousness. It is functioning now. It is functioning in the<\/span><\/p>\n

          physical body. You have experience of love, you have experience of intuition, you<\/span><\/p>\n

          have experience of beauty right here every day. And yet you also experience<\/span><\/p>\n

          rationalizing, thinking, making sense every day. You are doing these things<\/span><\/p>\n

          through these machines which are installed in our consciousness every day. But<\/span><\/p>\n

          when you function from the soul, love is one of those things which comes directly<\/span><\/p>\n

          from there.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          A perfect living master operates from the soul. His main method of taking us back<\/span><\/p>\n

          home is not the teaching. His method is love. He will draw you with his love.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Eventually you will find that what pulls us beyond your mind is the love that he is<\/span><\/p>\n

          extending to you which you never experienced before, because it is pure,<\/span><\/p>\n

          spiritual, and very powerful. That is what it is. But while we are still busy<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          understanding him, using mental powers to grasp what he is saying, he\u2019ll give you<\/span><\/p>\n

          the teaching. He\u2019ll give you not only the teaching, he\u2019ll give you that to struggle<\/span><\/p>\n

          with. Why? Because we have been taught over centuries that you get nothing<\/span><\/p>\n

          without struggling for it, without working for it. We have been trained. Our mind<\/span><\/p>\n

          has been trained. You don\u2019t get anything without working for it. We have to<\/span><\/p>\n

          struggle for it. All right, struggle. Do more meditation. Work hard at it. Do all this.<\/span><\/p>\n

          And we do it until we get tired, and then we find that was not the way. What<\/span><\/p>\n

          were we doing? But until we got our own experience, we still believe that we<\/span><\/p>\n

          have to work hard to get anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          There was a very beautiful disciple of Great Master, and he was a judge in one of<\/span><\/p>\n

          the states in India. He was a finance minister of that state, and he was also a very<\/span><\/p>\n

          beautiful man. He retired, and after getting initiated he retired and came to Great<\/span><\/p>\n

          Master. He said, \u201cMaster, give me any service. I will do it for you. He said, \u201cOh,<\/span><\/p>\n

          you\u2019ve been a judge. You\u2019ve been an advocate. You have been this. You do can<\/span><\/p>\n

          many things.\u201d He said, \u201cNo, if you don\u2019t mind, can I ask for a special job?\u201d He<\/span><\/p>\n

          said, \u201cOkay, what do you want?\u201d \u201cI want to be your doorman.\u201d Master was as<\/span><\/p>\n

          surprised as everybody. Great Master said, \u201cOkay, be my doorman,\u201d and he was a<\/span><\/p>\n

          doorman all his life. After that he was a doorman for Great Master, just standing<\/span><\/p>\n

          outside his door letting people come in or go out. He enjoyed that. He wrote<\/span><\/p>\n

          some books. One was called \u201cHeaven Upon Earth,\u201d and so on. He wrote a number<\/span><\/p>\n

          of books. Now that man enjoyed his stay there. He appreciated the love of the<\/span><\/p>\n

          white bearded man so much. He said, \u201cThis is the greatest thing I could ever get.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          Yet one day a thought came to him. \u201cI have been so happy here serving this<\/span><\/p>\n

          master, and I enjoy it, but I did never my meditation. I missed out on something<\/span><\/p>\n

          so important. How will I go to my true home? How will I go to Sach Khand? I am<\/span><\/p>\n

          just having my good time over here.\u201d So he knew that the master goes to a hill<\/span><\/p>\n

          station every year during the summer. It was very hot there in India, and in the<\/span><\/p>\n

          summer the Great Master would go to a hill station. One year the master decided<\/span><\/p>\n

          not to go, so he came to the master, and he said, \u201cMaster, I understand you are<\/span><\/p>\n

          not going to your holiday resort in the hills.\u201d Master said, \u201cNo, this year I am not<\/span><\/p>\n

          going.\u201d He said, \u201cCan you give me the keys of your house, so I will go and I will go<\/span><\/p>\n

          and meditate there. Three months I will do nothing but meditate. I\u2019ll catch up<\/span><\/p>\n

          with all that I missed. I missed meditation in my life. I have enjoyed life with you,<\/span><\/p>\n

          but I don\u2019t want to miss out on meditation.\u201d So Great Master said, \u201cHere are the<\/span><\/p>\n

          keys. Go!\u201d He wanted to let him have the experience, so he went to the hill<\/span><\/p>\n

          station called Dalhousie in India and opened the door of the Great Master\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

          house. He sat and said, \u201cWhat a beautiful ambience here! Great Master\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

          vibrations are here. He comes and stays. This will be the best meditation of my<\/span><\/p>\n

          life, and I\u2019ll catch up with all the lost time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          As soon as he started to sit for meditation, somebody knocked on the door. \u201cOh,<\/span><\/p>\n

          I\u2019m glad somebody is here. I\u2019m the plumber. I\u2019ve been waiting for somebody to<\/span><\/p>\n

          come and repair this.\u201d So repair started. The next day another person came. He<\/span><\/p>\n

          found there were more distractions during those three months than even<\/span><\/p>\n

          elsewhere in his life. He could not meditate at all. He felt so bad. He came back to<\/span><\/p>\n

          Great Master, returned the keys, and he said, \u201cMaster, I failed. I am sorry. I tried<\/span><\/p>\n

          but I failed.\u201d Great Master said, \u201cNo, you didn\u2019t fail. You succeeded!\u201d He said,<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u201cHow can you say that? I could not meditate.\u201d He said, \u201cThat is exactly how you<\/span><\/p>\n

          succeeded. That meditation would have given you nothing. What takes you to<\/span><\/p>\n

          the highest regions is love and devotion. Meditation is only for the mind. The<\/span><\/p>\n

          mind wants to work. You tried. If you had not gone and failed, you wouldn\u2019t have<\/span><\/p>\n

          known this. Therefore you succeeded, you passed.\u201d He was shocked that this was<\/span><\/p>\n

          the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          This is the truth! That the power of the soul rests with beauty, intuition, love.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Those are natural functions of the soul that we have, that is inside us, that has<\/span><\/p>\n

          given us life, and those functions do not belong to the mind. The master pulls you<\/span><\/p>\n

          with those functions. He gives you intuitive knowledge, not always rational<\/span><\/p>\n

          knowledge. He says, \u201cRead the books, and then throw the books away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          One man came from another country, not the United States, another country to<\/span><\/p>\n

          Great Master. He said, \u201cMaster, I have understood what your path is, and I want<\/span><\/p>\n

          to really practice it.\u201d Great Master said, \u201cYou have to read a lot more books. Go to<\/span><\/p>\n

          the library and read. This is a very difficult path, and you have to read more<\/span><\/p>\n

          books.\u201d He went and spent months reading those books, and then he came back,<\/span><\/p>\n

          and Master said, \u201cOkay, I will initiate you. You have read enough.\u201d Another man<\/span><\/p>\n

          came, and he said, \u201cMaster, I read all the books, and I want to read more. I<\/span><\/p>\n

          believe you have many in the library.\u201d He said, \u201cFirst, go and throw away all those<\/span><\/p>\n

          books into the river. Then you come and get initiation.\u201d He knew exactly where<\/span><\/p>\n

          we stand. This thing\u2026I\u2019ll tell you my own family experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          My father was the first one to get initiated in the whole family, and then<\/span><\/p>\n

          everybody got initiated one after the other but my father\u2019s mother-in-law, my<\/span><\/p>\n

          maternal grandmother\u2014she was a worshipper of these little idols. \u201cThis is<\/span><\/p>\n

          Brahma, this is Vishnu, this is Shiva, this is goddess Parvati, this is goddess Durga.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          She had all those little images made of wood or made of stone or something, and<\/span><\/p>\n

          she had a temple in her house. She used to worship that temple, worship all the<\/span><\/p>\n

          gods and goddesses and used to use a lot of nice incense. They burned the<\/span><\/p>\n

          incense, and she would burn the incense and had a bell which she rang when she<\/span><\/p>\n

          did the worship. It was a great atmosphere she created during the morning<\/span><\/p>\n

          prayers to the gods and goddesses. She loved her gods and goddesses. She said,<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u201cEverything I get from my gods and goddesses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          So my dad, after getting initiated from Great Master and finding out that the truth<\/span><\/p>\n

          is inside us and not in these gods and goddesses, they are just pieces of stone and<\/span><\/p>\n

          wood, went to argue with her. He said, \u201cMother-in-law, what you are doing is not<\/span><\/p>\n

          the right thing. You should come and meet my master. He will tell you right where<\/span><\/p>\n

          to go within. You can get initiated, take Naam from him. Go inside. You will find<\/span><\/p>\n

          the truth is inside, not in these little toys that you are playing with.\u201d She said,<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u201cShut up. You have no idea. These are real gods and goddesses. They hear my<\/span><\/p>\n

          prayers. I have tried all my life, and they do hear my prayers. What I want, they<\/span><\/p>\n

          give me, and I like to worship them. They give me happiness and joy. What does<\/span><\/p>\n

          your master give you? You are as angry as you ever were. I never saw a worse<\/span><\/p>\n

          son-in-law than you! What are you talking about? You go to your master. I am<\/span><\/p>\n

          happy with my gods and goddesses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          Eventually my dad said, \u201cThis is a very tough nut to crack. What should I do?\u201d He<\/span><\/p>\n

          told his master, Great Master, \u201cI want my mother-in-law also to follow your<\/span><\/p>\n

          teachings, but she is worshipping these gods and goddesses like most Hindus are<\/span><\/p>\n

          doing in India. They go to temples and worship these. She is also caught up in the<\/span><\/p>\n

          same racket, and I want her to get off from there and go and really worship the<\/span><\/p>\n

          real god inside.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          He said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, Lekh Raj\u201d\u2014that was his name, my dad\u2019s name\u2014\u201cdon\u2019t<\/span><\/p>\n

          worry, Lekh Raj. I\u2019ll come and meet her.\u201d He was very happy that master will<\/span><\/p>\n

          himself come, so he told his mother-in-law. \u201cGreat Master is coming to see you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u201cOh, welcome.\u201d So Great Master went to her house, and she said, \u201cMaster, this<\/span><\/p>\n

          son-in-law of mine is giving me wrong ideas, and I am glad you have come. You<\/span><\/p>\n

          will understand me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          He said, \u201cYes, ma\u2019am, what can I do for you?\u201d She said, \u201cI have a beautiful<\/span><\/p>\n

          temple.\u201d \u201cOh, really? You have a temple in your house?\u201d \u201cYes.\u201d He took off his<\/span><\/p>\n

          shoes. \u201cLet\u2019s go to your temple,\u201d and he sat down along with Granny. He rang the<\/span><\/p>\n

          bell, and he worshipped those gods. She was so happy. This man knew that these<\/span><\/p>\n

          were real gods and goddesses. The son-in-law knew nothing! So the Great Master<\/span><\/p>\n

          made her so happy. She said, \u201cI knew the Master is right. You never follow your<\/span><\/p>\n

          master. If you had followed your master, you would be worshipping the same<\/span><\/p>\n

          gods and goddesses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          My dad was puzzled. \u201cWhat is this master doing? I thought he would go and tell<\/span><\/p>\n

          her this is not right, and he himself started worshipping these little toys.\u201d So the<\/span><\/p>\n

          Great Master made her very happy, and he said, \u201cMa\u2019am, it is very nice to see<\/span><\/p>\n

          your temple. I have had a great time. I feel very happy, and I am glad to see you.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Come and see me some time in the dera.\u201d She said, \u201cSure I will come!\u201d She would<\/span><\/p>\n

          never have gone but for that experience, and she went there, enjoyed one<\/span><\/p>\n

          discourse, two discourses, three discourses. She said, \u201cYou know, I understand<\/span><\/p>\n

          what he is saying is right. The truth is inside. I was worshipping something<\/span><\/p>\n

          outside. I think I had better ask him for initiation.\u201d She asked him for initiation.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u201cCertainly!\u201d He gave her the initiation. She began to do meditation, and after a<\/span><\/p>\n

          month she went back to Great Master and said, \u201cMaster, I have a little problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          He said, \u201cWhat\u2019s your problem, ma\u2019am?\u201d She said, \u201cYou know, you saw all those<\/span><\/p>\n

          gods and goddesses. They are still sitting in my temple, and I don\u2019t need them. I<\/span><\/p>\n

          don\u2019t know what to do with them.\u201d He said, \u201cOh, do you buy wheat in a big bag?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u201cOh, yes, in big gunny bags, brown bags, I buy my wheat.\u201d He said, \u201cWhen you<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          have an empty bag, go and put all those gods and goddesses in the bag, tie it up<\/span><\/p>\n

          and throw it in the river,\u201d and she did exactly that.<\/span><\/p>\n

          We can never know how these masters perform their functions. They come to our<\/span><\/p>\n

          level. They know where we are. They don\u2019t say, \u201cWe\u2019re going to teach you from a<\/span><\/p>\n

          pulpit from somewhere high up, from a pedestal.\u201d They come to our level. They<\/span><\/p>\n

          develop love and friendship. They pull us with their love more than anything else,<\/span><\/p>\n

          and we discover that they can do these things.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          I\u2019m telling you another story of Great Master. He went to another place called<\/span><\/p>\n

          Rawalpindi, which is now called Islamabad in Pakistan. There was a big Sikh<\/span><\/p>\n

          temple there. The Sikhs believe that their holy book is the master. They had ten<\/span><\/p>\n

          masters, whose names they list. The tenth master, they say, said there would be<\/span><\/p>\n

          no more masters, and therefore the book should be taken as master. They claim<\/span><\/p>\n

          that he said this, although I have studied and find he never said it, but that is a<\/span><\/p>\n

          different matter. Somebody else said this, but they claim the gurus have said that<\/span><\/p>\n

          the book is now going to be the master forever. So they treat the book like a<\/span><\/p>\n

          master. Not only that, they feed the book, they put some food into the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

          They carry the book on their heads, and while they are doing their prayers, they<\/span><\/p>\n

          make sure the book does not have any flies on it, so they wave a little flier on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

          They do all the things like it is a human being, because all the ten masters whose<\/span><\/p>\n

          teachings are in the book say you have to have a human being as a master. They<\/span><\/p>\n

          all say that, and yet, therefore, they have to treat it like a master, a human<\/span><\/p>\n

          master. They are treating the book like a human master.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          Great Master visited that city and was going to give a discourse very close to<\/span><\/p>\n

          where the temple was. Those Sikhs said, \u201cHow can a man claim to be a master?<\/span><\/p>\n

          We must kill him.\u201d Because they could be violent, too, if it comes to religion, like<\/span><\/p>\n

          most religions. Religions can\u2026they teach you peace, and people sometimes<\/span><\/p>\n

          practice violence. It is very amazing contradiction in religion. Religion says love<\/span><\/p>\n

          everybody. All are created by the same God. Every religion says that and<\/span><\/p>\n

          propagates the theory of love for everybody, and yet so many people have been<\/span><\/p>\n

          killed in history in the name of religion, in the name of the same God. It is very<\/span><\/p>\n

          amazing how this could have happened. It does happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          So when Great Master visited there, these people said, \u201cHow dare he claim to be<\/span><\/p>\n

          a guru. Only the ten gurus were gurus, and now the book is the guru. If he comes<\/span><\/p>\n

          out to pretend to be a guru, we will kill him. We have our swords to kill him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          They all carry swords. Here when they travel they carry little swords, but there<\/span><\/p>\n

          they carry big ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          So the next day was the Great Master\u2019s discourse. People found out that there<\/span><\/p>\n

          was a plan to kill him, and they advised him. There was a meeting at night. By the<\/span><\/p>\n

          way, I was there, too. I was young, but I was still there in that group. I remember<\/span><\/p>\n

          all this hush-hush meeting and discussion. \u201cMaster, cancel your tour.\u201d \u201cMaster, it<\/span><\/p>\n

          is too dangerous.\u201d \u201cThey are going to kill you tomorrow.\u201d \u201cWe can\u2019t afford to lose<\/span><\/p>\n

          you.\u201d \u201cLet\u2019s go back tonight before they can do it.\u201d Master said, \u201cNo, satsang will<\/span><\/p>\n

          take place tomorrow. The meeting will take place tomorrow. Don\u2019t worry. Don\u2019t<\/span><\/p>\n

          worry. Leave it to the master. Leave it to my master, to Baba Jaimal Singh.\u201d He<\/span><\/p>\n

          claimed his master was powerful and he wasn\u2019t. He never claimed to be a master,<\/span><\/p>\n

          and he gave all the credit to his own master. He said, \u201cNo, Baba Ji is there taking<\/span><\/p>\n

          care of me. Don\u2019t worry.\u201d They were all frightened.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          The next day Great Master said, \u201cBefore I go to give my discourse, I want to go to<\/span><\/p>\n

          the temple, the Sikh temple.\u201d So instead of going to his discourse place, he went<\/span><\/p>\n

          to the Sikh temple. All those people were waiting with swords, drawn swords. I<\/span><\/p>\n

          actually remember. He went to the temple, followed by some of his people, like<\/span><\/p>\n

          us, and we were waiting to see a massacre or something. There he goes in, and he<\/span><\/p>\n

          bows to the book and gives five rupees, their currency, five rupees to the book<\/span><\/p>\n

          and says, \u201cThank you,\u201d and sits down in front of the book. They all say, \u201cWe had<\/span><\/p>\n

          the wrong information about this man. He worships our book,\u201d so they put their<\/span><\/p>\n

          swords back. And then he asked his own chanter who had come from the dera,<\/span><\/p>\n

          Bon Singh, his name was Bon Singh. He said, \u201cPoti Bon Singh, come and chant the<\/span><\/p>\n

          fifth guru\u2019s verse so and so,\u201d so he was also dressed up in proper Sikh attire with a<\/span><\/p>\n

          turban and all. The man who was sitting on the book who was reading, this man<\/span><\/p>\n

          went and pushed him aside and took over the book. The man went, and he<\/span><\/p>\n

          opened that page and began to read. \u201cUnless you can see the face of a master,<\/span><\/p>\n

          you get nothing from a master. Unless the master can hold your hand and give<\/span><\/p>\n

          you something, you get nothing.\u201d This is all in the book!<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          So he read that book powerfully, and Master was just sitting like this. Everybody<\/span><\/p>\n

          was wondering what has happened. They said, \u201cOh, this master worships our<\/span><\/p>\n

          guru, but he is just a follower of the same teachings. He is teaching from our<\/span><\/p>\n

          book.\u201d So Master got up, went to give his discourse and said, \u201cGive the discourse<\/span><\/p>\n

          from the same book,\u201d and all these people with swords came there to hear it. He<\/span><\/p>\n

          gave a discourse what the book was saying. He interpreted that without a living<\/span><\/p>\n

          person, a person who can\u2026the fifth guru\u2019s teachings, which are very explicit. That<\/span><\/p>\n

          is why I like that song which sometimes Tiki sings. It says, Jo mange thakur apne<\/span><\/p>\n

          te, soi soi deve. That says, Kanth lae avguna sab mete \u2013if he gives you a hug, he<\/span><\/p>\n

          removes so much of your vices and your karma. Now they should know the book<\/span><\/p>\n

          cannot give you a hug. Only a human being can do it. The book is saying all these<\/span><\/p>\n

          things! So that is why when the Master gave that discourse, they couldn\u2019t do<\/span><\/p>\n

          anything. He was giving a discourse from their book. To cut a long story short,<\/span><\/p>\n

          most of them became his disciples, those who had come to kill him.<\/span><\/p>\n

          So we never know how a master operates, how he can do things. He can come to<\/span><\/p>\n

          our level and do things which create, not a feeling of a student-teacher<\/span><\/p>\n

          relationship\u2014it is not that feeling with a master\u2014it is a feeling of a true<\/span><\/p>\n

          friendship, feeling of somebody when you have experienced real love which has<\/span><\/p>\n

          no condition attached to it. It is a very great feeling.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          That is why I say it is nice to know the spiritual path, but don\u2019t forget the spiritual<\/span><\/p>\n

          path is not what looks on the face of it. The spiritual path is a path of love and<\/span><\/p>\n

          devotion eventually.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          I wish all of you great spiritual adventures inside. Like you came for the physical<\/span><\/p>\n

          adventures here, have greater spiritual adventures. Use all your methods to reach<\/span><\/p>\n

          there, but don\u2019t forget eventually only the pull of the unconditional love from a<\/span><\/p>\n

          Perfect living master will take you beyond your mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Thank you. We will have a break, and I believe I saw some pizzas coming. I know<\/span><\/p>\n

          pizza is a weakness of mine. I was attracted when I came to this country by Ye<\/span><\/p>\n

          Olde Shakey\u2019s Pizza, and I thought that I might have lost my spiritual power<\/span><\/p>\n

          because when I tried to meditate, I said, \u201cYe Olde Shakey\u2019s, Ye Olde Shakey\u2019s.\u201d So<\/span><\/p>\n

          you see, I said I am getting distracted by pizza only. No, if you have a master\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

          radiant form, a master inside, nothing will distract you. Don\u2019t worry. Thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Well, we have a little time for a few questions and answers. Does anybody have<\/span><\/p>\n

          any question to ask? I think they have asked the questions already in their<\/span><\/p>\n

          interviews, but he didn\u2019t have an interview, so he can ask a question.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          Q: (Inaudible)<\/span><\/p>\n

          A: <\/span>Very good question. Thank you for asking it. He is asking this basic question,<\/b><\/p>\n

          \u201cWhy has this world been created when we were so happy and blissful in our true<\/b><\/p>\n

          home to start with? Why did we have to come into the three worlds of the mind<\/b><\/p>\n

          with all negativity when we were living happily?<\/b>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          It appears from the records we see that the bulk of souls that were created,<\/span><\/p>\n

          almost 90 percent of those souls, never left. They are still having a good time<\/span><\/p>\n

          there. And who are we\u201410 percent\u2014sitting here and elsewhere in these three<\/span><\/p>\n

          worlds? What was the big purpose of coming here? Now that is a good question.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Why did we come here? What is the purpose of creation?<\/span><\/p>\n

          The reason is that our reality is consciousness. Our true home is a sea, ocean of<\/span><\/p>\n

          consciousness, and the building blocks for all experiences at every level is<\/span><\/p>\n

          consciousness. Consciousness is a power by which you can be conscious of<\/span><\/p>\n

          anything that you are conscious of. So it is an innate power. That means that if<\/span><\/p>\n

          you want to have an experience of anything, consciousness can be conscious,<\/span><\/p>\n

          which would create that experience, it becomes real, and then you have the<\/span><\/p>\n

          experience. The vast large number, an uncountable number of souls that were<\/span><\/p>\n

          created in our true home itself was itself an activity within the totality of<\/span><\/p>\n

          consciousness, to have multiple units so that the experience of the many and the<\/span><\/p>\n

          one could be taking place at once. It is still happening in our own world, in our<\/span><\/p>\n

          own true world where there is no pain, there is no suffering, there is nothing at<\/span><\/p>\n

          all. So now we are describing what the nature of our true home is, from where we<\/span><\/p>\n

          need not have come here, and most have not come here. What was the purpose<\/span><\/p>\n

          of creating other worlds, lower down here, these lower creations, especially the<\/span><\/p>\n

          creations of the three worlds of the mind? The purpose was that consciousness<\/span><\/p>\n

          operates on the basis of being able to experience what is and what can be.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Otherwise there would be no creation. If consciousness says, \u201cI can be conscious<\/span><\/p>\n

          of something\u201d and is conscious of nothing, it is no longer consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Consciousness is an experience. The consciousness subsists on something to be<\/span><\/p>\n

          conscious of. Therefore, the creative power of consciousness is always at play. It<\/span><\/p>\n

          can create the experience of the many within the one. That is the first experience,<\/span><\/p>\n

          and that is happening in our true home right now. But then it finds that when you<\/span><\/p>\n

          have these opposite experiences, the one and the many are opposite experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

          The one is real; the many is not. But the many makes the one more real. You<\/span><\/p>\n

          distinguish between the many and the one. The distinction between what is<\/span><\/p>\n

          created and what the creator is, makes for the experience of consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Therefore, the more you can create situations in which there are more opposites<\/span><\/p>\n

          created, the more valuable the experience for the one. Now to put it in a more<\/span><\/p>\n

          physical terminology, because this is not physical terminology I am talking about,<\/span><\/p>\n

          to talk of the power of consciousness to be one and many and thereby having an<\/span><\/p>\n

          experience of consciousness, it does not make sense to us here. Here we say we<\/span><\/p>\n

          have so many of us, okay, we are many. Our reality is our soul, but we have many<\/span><\/p>\n

          souls. We are a select number of souls who chose to come here. The experience<\/span><\/p>\n

          here is completely opposite of the experience in our true home. We have come<\/span><\/p>\n

          into a negative experience. How will that experience become positive if there is<\/span><\/p>\n

          no negative experience at all? You would not have any experience of positivity if<\/span><\/p>\n

          there is nothing opposite to that.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          Therefore, the whole principle of creation right up to here is based upon pairs of<\/span><\/p>\n

          opposites. So this principle of pairs of opposites, which is called duality, the<\/span><\/p>\n

          principle of duality prevails throughout creation, and nothing can be experienced<\/span><\/p>\n

          unless there is an opposite of it. Look at the experience right here in this world.<\/span><\/p>\n

          We see light. Supposing there was no darkness, would we see it? Nobody would<\/span><\/p>\n

          ever see it. Imagine light would become invisible if there was no darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Supposing there was a certain amount of light which, whether you close your eyes<\/span><\/p>\n

          or you open your eyes, it is always there. You would never see it. The whole<\/span><\/p>\n

          principle of experience is based upon having an experience of the opposite.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          Supposing there was no hatred in this world. Would you know what love is?<\/span><\/p>\n

          Supposing there was no unhappiness in this world. Would you know what<\/span><\/p>\n

          happiness is? If you have no opposite of anything, you would not have the<\/span><\/p>\n

          experience of the opposite. This goes down to the very molecular level of creation<\/span><\/p>\n

          where you find that if the positive and negative of an atom were not there, it<\/span><\/p>\n

          does not exist. If both are negative, they disappear. If both are positive, they<\/span><\/p>\n

          disappear. It is the negative electron running to create matter around a positive<\/span><\/p>\n

          positron or a neutron. This principle goes down to every level of every type of<\/span><\/p>\n

          creation at all levels of creation right up to our true home. The pairs of opposites<\/span><\/p>\n

          is the greatest principle. The question is that in the world of the three minds, it is<\/span><\/p>\n

          a world of pairs of opposites, it is all a world of duality. But our true home is not a<\/span><\/p>\n

          world of duality, because there is no time and space to separate it. Then how do<\/span><\/p>\n

          you experience there when there is no duality? How do you get the experience<\/span><\/p>\n

          there? By the creation of a world of duality here, that becomes the opposite of a<\/span><\/p>\n

          world of no duality. The principle of opposite even applies there now.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          So the purpose of creation of the three worlds of the mind, the lower creation, is<\/span><\/p>\n

          really to enhance the experience of our own true home. You cannot have that<\/span><\/p>\n

          experience unless you have had the experience opposite to that. That is why in<\/span><\/p>\n

          Anurag Sagar, Ocean of Love by Kabir, they explain that the souls that have come<\/span><\/p>\n

          down we call them hans, and souls that never came down we call them bans.<\/span><\/p>\n

          When we go back to our true home, it is such a great delight to have that<\/span><\/p>\n

          experience. They are all singing and dancing, taking it natural. All the bans souls<\/span><\/p>\n

          are singing and dancing, and when we arrive there, we are so ecstatic. They say,<\/span><\/p>\n

          \u201cWhat is so special about you that you are dancing better than us? What is so<\/span><\/p>\n

          special?\u201d We tell them, \u201cYou don\u2019t know what you are missing, because you have<\/span><\/p>\n

          had no chance to see the opposite, so we have seen the opposite and we<\/span><\/p>\n

          appreciate what is there more than those who are always there.\u201d Therefore, this<\/span><\/p>\n

          is a great principle on which this whole creation has been based so that we can<\/span><\/p>\n

          have these experiences of this kind here and go back home and intensify and<\/span><\/p>\n

          greatly enhance the experience of where you always were. That is the real reason.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Any other question?<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          Q:<\/span> (Inaudible) _____ for darkness and what the experience was like, but why<\/b><\/p>\n

          would totality of consciousness allow for that?<\/b><\/p>\n

          A: The more intense the negative experience, the more intense the positive<\/span><\/p>\n

          experience. The more intense, then why should we take the trouble of creating a<\/span><\/p>\n

          real terrible torture situation if we are going to just use that terrible experience<\/span><\/p>\n

          just to intensify the positive? The reason is the positive is real always. This is<\/span><\/p>\n

          created illusion. For example, you go to sleep, have a terrible nightmare, very bad<\/span><\/p>\n

          dream. You are tortured in the dream, you feel bad, and then you wake up. You<\/span><\/p>\n

          say, \u201cThank God, it was just a dream!\u201d That is exactly what we say when we go<\/span><\/p>\n

          back home. \u201cThank God, the whole thing was dream-like!\u201d It was just created to<\/span><\/p>\n

          make the experience of wakefulness more intense. This is so wonderfully<\/span><\/p>\n

          Arranged.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          We like to have a real experience. We don\u2019t want shadows. We can see a shadow.<\/span><\/p>\n

          A shadow is never like us. How can somebody talk to a shadow and have a feeling<\/span><\/p>\n

          of love and devotion and all that? How can a shadow do anything for us? A<\/span><\/p>\n

          shadow cannot unless we make the shadow alive, make it like ourselves. If a<\/span><\/p>\n

          shadow becomes like us, we fall in love, and then when we put up and say, that<\/span><\/p>\n

          was just a shadow? Why did we do that? So that we have a more intense<\/span><\/p>\n

          experience where there is no shadow. It is a remarkable way\u2026People say this<\/span><\/p>\n

          creation is illusion, dream-like, and I say this creation is a creation of reality for us.<\/span><\/p>\n

          It is a process of illusion being used, the process of dream being used to create a<\/span><\/p>\n

          reality. We don\u2019t feel it\u2019s a dream. We feel it is real. Not only do we feel it is real,<\/span><\/p>\n

          we feel it is the only reality. Now to be able to create only reality, it is a great<\/span><\/p>\n

          marvel of consciousness that you can go into a dream state and make a dream<\/span><\/p>\n

          real, which happens every time you go to dream. While you are dreaming, it is<\/span><\/p>\n

          real. So long as the dream lasts, we are not aware of where our body is sleeping.<\/span><\/p>\n

          We are moving around in a different body called a dream body. The real body, the<\/span><\/p>\n

          physical body, is sleeping on a bed. We are moving in the dream. The dream is<\/span><\/p>\n

          real. Even if you say in the dream, \u201cThis is a dream, this is a dream,\u201d and<\/span><\/p>\n

          sometimes we do that, we are still taking that to be real and we are telling<\/span><\/p>\n

          people, \u201cCome, I tell you it is a dream.\u201d If you knew that person doesn\u2019t exist,<\/span><\/p>\n

          when you wake up, we never tell anybody to go back to tell them it was dream<\/span><\/p>\n

          because we create the reality. The principle by which you can shift a level of<\/span><\/p>\n

          consciousness to a different level and make it real, that is the most beautiful<\/span><\/p>\n

          miracle that could ever happen, and we are doing it all the time. That we can shift<\/span><\/p>\n

          our consciousness from a wakeful state into a dream-like state and make it look<\/span><\/p>\n

          absolutely wakeful, and we can go to sleep again in the dream, have a dream<\/span><\/p>\n

          within a dream, and still make it like it is real and wakeful. That is a wonderful<\/span><\/p>\n

          Thing!<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          Consciousness has that power and is doing it all the time. That is how we are<\/span><\/p>\n

          here. Even if I knew you are all dream creatures, why am I talking to you? Because<\/span><\/p>\n

          I am taking you to be real. If I am enlightened and I know this is all a dream, I<\/span><\/p>\n

          wouldn\u2019t be speaking to you. Yet I speak to you in your dream and my dream.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Why am I speaking to you in my dream? An answer was given by a famous swami<\/span><\/p>\n

          of India. His name was Vivekananda. He came more than 100 years ago to<\/span><\/p>\n

          Chicago, and he addressed the World Congress of Religions in Chicago. He was<\/span><\/p>\n

          picked up by a lady who was just sitting somewhere, and they did not know that<\/span><\/p>\n

          he was able to speak English, but when he spoke, for two days he spoke in that<\/span><\/p>\n

          conference. On the third day he said to the audience, \u201cI have been telling you all<\/span><\/p>\n

          these three days that this world is illusion, is maya, mithya, unreal, destructible. It<\/span><\/p>\n

          will go away. When you die, it will disappear with you. I have been saying it is<\/span><\/p>\n

          unreal. If this world is unreal, so am I unreal! If I am unreal, why am I talking to<\/span><\/p>\n

          you? What am I telling you about?\u201d He says, \u201cThere is a difference. The rest of the<\/span><\/p>\n

          dream, the rest of the world, which is maya, is keeping you here. This part of the<\/span><\/p>\n

          dream which I am, am pulling you back into reality and making you wake up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

          So there is a little difference in the element of the dream also. In the dream we<\/span><\/p>\n

          can have elements that wake you up and the elements that keep you sleeping<\/span><\/p>\n

          more. So what is the role of a master? A Perfect living master comes into our life.<\/span><\/p>\n

          He is that part of a dream, of our own dream. We create him. We create him to<\/span><\/p>\n

          wake us up quickly. He is working somewhere else too, from where he is making<\/span><\/p>\n

          us up. It is just like a man who is sleeping. In his dream he thinks he is carrying his<\/span><\/p>\n

          horses, sees a farmer with horses. He is taking his horses back into the barn,<\/span><\/p>\n

          carrying the horses. That is a dream. He is lying on a bed while he is having a<\/span><\/p>\n

          dream. His friend wants to wake him up. The friend is awake. This guy is sleeping.<\/span><\/p>\n

          The friend comes in and gives him a nudge. \u201cGet up, get up!\u201d Now he can feel the<\/span><\/p>\n

          nudge in the dream, and he can hear his friend\u2019s voice in the dream. He says, \u201cGet<\/span><\/p>\n

          up, get up.\u201d He says, \u201cWho will take my horses?\u201d Can you imagine? The friend\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

          nudge is real, and the horses are real also at the same time. He says, \u201cWho will<\/span><\/p>\n

          take care of my horses?\u201d The man who is nudging him says, \u201cDon\u2019t worry. Wake<\/span><\/p>\n

          up! I\u2019ll take care of your horses,\u201d and he wakes up. He never says, \u201cWere you a<\/span><\/p>\n

          liar? Where have you taken care of my horses? You know there were no horses,<\/span><\/p>\n

          and yet the horses were real while he was dreaming. It is the same situation here.<\/span><\/p>\n

          At every level of consciousness we have the same experience, that we take this<\/span><\/p>\n

          as reality and somebody awake, more awake, appearing in our dream in our state<\/span><\/p>\n

          is nudging us from there. Wake up! And we say, \u201cWhat about the problems here.<\/span><\/p>\n

          Will you take care of them?\u201d Oh, yes, I\u2019ll take care of these problems too.\u201d You<\/span><\/p>\n

          wake up and find there were no problems. It is such a remarkable way this is all<\/span><\/p>\n

          set up.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          I once thought when I was very young, \u201cMaybe if I am given a chance to redesign<\/span><\/p>\n

          creation, I\u2019ll do a little here and there and make it better. I would remove these<\/span><\/p>\n

          tortuous things and do something better than this. I would remove some of the<\/span><\/p>\n

          negative things. When I saw the grand picture, the whole thing, I could do<\/span><\/p>\n

          nothing. I saw perfection. Only when you see the entire creation and the creator<\/span><\/p>\n

          together, you find perfection. You don\u2019t find perfection less than that, otherwise<\/span><\/p>\n

          imperfect. If you see part, it is always imperfect. So it is remarkable the way it is<\/span><\/p>\n

          set up. Then what is the beauty of it? What I am telling you is achievable to us in<\/span><\/p>\n

          this dream, while we are in the physical body, without leaving the physical body,<\/span><\/p>\n

          without leaving the physical universe. Within this physical body, we have points in<\/span><\/p>\n

          the body which can throw us out of the body and give us experience outside of<\/span><\/p>\n

          the body.<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n

          It doesn\u2019t mean a person who has had out of body experience has left the body.<\/span><\/p>\n

          He is still alive and kicking! He can get experience. These lower chakras have<\/span><\/p>\n

          given people\u2026the heart chakra has given people out-of-body experience, yet they<\/span><\/p>\n

          were alive in the body. They never left the body. The experience was they left the<\/span><\/p>\n

          body and gone out. It is possible just like the experience of out-of-body<\/span><\/p>\n

          experience, attached with kind of a cord, silver cord that can pull you back into<\/span><\/p>\n

          the body. Many people have had that experience. Similarly, within the head<\/span><\/p>\n

          behind the eyes, right behind the eyes to the middle of the head and then<\/span><\/p>\n

          upwards, there are points just like those points. These are energy centers below<\/span><\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Those are centers of awareness. When you touch your attention there, they<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            open up something that exists not in this state at all. It exists in the wakeful state.<\/span><\/p>\n

            That is an amazing miracle by itself, that within a physical body in the physical<\/span><\/p>\n

            world that you have these points within the head that, when you put your<\/span><\/p>\n

            attention there, you are awake to another world without dying here, without<\/span><\/p>\n

            leaving the physical body. What a great miracle! How could you improve this? I<\/span><\/p>\n

            can\u2019t understand how we could improve the system they set up. System enabling<\/span><\/p>\n

            us to wake up to the highest level to the totality of consciousness, sitting right<\/span><\/p>\n

            here in our physical body. How can I not praise the physical body? And this is only<\/span><\/p>\n

            in the physical body you have this. Because in order to put the attention on those<\/span><\/p>\n

            points, you need an experience which does not exist, the experience of your own<\/span><\/p>\n

            individual self having a free will. Since the whole design has taken place in totality,<\/span><\/p>\n

            free will has been built into totality. All the things that have to happen have<\/span><\/p>\n

            happened without time and space and then spread out into time and space, so<\/span><\/p>\n

            when we say that this is something that is touching us there, how do we go there<\/span><\/p>\n

            in this experience? We seek, we meditate, we use our free will. We say, \u201cYes, it is<\/span><\/p>\n

            my choice to be there,\u201d and when we go there, a new world opens up which is<\/span><\/p>\n

            more real than this. There we go farther up, another world opens up and we see<\/span><\/p>\n

            all that we were doing was already recorded there, including our seeking,<\/span><\/p>\n

            including our free will. But unless we feel we have real free will here, we can\u2019t<\/span><\/p>\n

            have the experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

            \n

            That\u2019s another strange contradiction, that you should have no real free will<\/span><\/p>\n

            because the whole thing is known to totality of consciousness, and yet you<\/span><\/p>\n

            experience complete free will when you are here, not only feel complete free will,<\/span><\/p>\n

            have to use the free will to find that you have no free will. You can\u2019t even find it<\/span><\/p>\n

            without employing what looks like real free will here. It is such a beautiful mixture<\/span><\/p>\n

            of opposite design. It is an opposite that you should feel you have real choice, real<\/span><\/p>\n

            free will, and necessary free will even for spiritual seeking, and then find out it<\/span><\/p>\n

            was all prerecorded, that there really no free will. It\u2019s exactly an opposite of each<\/span><\/p>\n

            other. The whole principle of opposites applies throughout in every kind of<\/span><\/p>\n

            experience, a physical experience, a mental experience, the experience of<\/span><\/p>\n

            seeking, experience of thinking, experience of choice making, in everything the<\/span><\/p>\n

            principle of opposites is operating. That is a great principle on which we intensify<\/span><\/p>\n

            our experience everywhere. What would happen\u2026now this is going in reverse,<\/span><\/p>\n

            that we have the negative experiences here and we go back home and will<\/span><\/p>\n

            intensify our positive experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

            \n

            What about the other way around? Supposing now we are sitting here, and we<\/span><\/p>\n

            go there, have a dip through the points inside the head and see our true home<\/span><\/p>\n

            and then come back because we have not left the body. Then what happens<\/span><\/p>\n

            here? We intensify our experience here again, even though it is not real and yet<\/span><\/p>\n

            we are enjoying it. Both ways it intensifies. You come here, you go back, you have<\/span><\/p>\n

            a bigger experience of joy, bliss, and whatever they call it. They use so many<\/span><\/p>\n

            languages to experience the bliss of that place. The great joy, upheaval of an<\/span><\/p>\n

            experience in consciousness. When you come down, if you are coming down with<\/span><\/p>\n

            knowledge, you have the same experience here. That is why these enlightened<\/span><\/p>\n

            people have the joy inside and the joy outside all the time. They are intoxicated<\/span><\/p>\n

            inside when they go there, intoxicated outside, and we call them mastanas,<\/span><\/p>\n

            intoxicated ones. So this is such a\u2026the total layout, the total way of constructing<\/span><\/p>\n

            these experiences of the world is remarkable. I can\u2019t praise it enough! The only<\/span><\/p>\n

            thing we say is, \u201cThank God it was a dream!\u201d When we look at all the negative<\/span><\/p>\n

            things and wake up, \u201cThank God, it was just a dream.\u201d It looked so real, so real, it<\/span><\/p>\n

            affected us. It affects us! It is supposed to affect us. If it doesn\u2019t affect us, how<\/span><\/p>\n

            would we have the opposite experience? It is supposed to affect us as if it were<\/span><\/p>\n

            real. If it is not a real experience, then there would be no effect. It is again a<\/span><\/p>\n

            shadow then. A shadow doesn\u2019t affect us; only real things affect us. So we create<\/span><\/p>\n

            successive layers of reality, and yet they are successive layers of illusion, but<\/span><\/p>\n

            illusion, the word illusion is very misleading.<\/span><\/p>\n

            There was a famous dancer in India, Sarabhai. Her name was Sarabhai, a very<\/span><\/p>\n

            famous dancer. She had a dance school. Once she invited me to\u2026I was in an<\/span><\/p>\n

            official position to visit her and to see the dance school. She was also a spiritual<\/span><\/p>\n

            seeker. She invited me after the dance for dinner, and she asked a very<\/span><\/p>\n

            interesting question. She said, \u201cI want to understand how enlightened people<\/span><\/p>\n

            who come to know that this is all illusion, this is maya. They say it is maya, mithya,<\/span><\/p>\n

            maya, destructible, unreal, illusion. How do they live here? How can they have a<\/span><\/p>\n

            good time if they know these are shadows?\u201d And I explained to her that\u2019s not a<\/span><\/p>\n

            correct definition. The maya does not mean only illusion. It means much more<\/span><\/p>\n

            that. What does it mean? It means that here is a cup of water, and I am going to<\/span><\/p>\n

            drink this water. Tasted good! Now when I go to the higher stage, the cup has<\/span><\/p>\n

            disappeared, water has disappeared, the taste is still with me. How come? I had<\/span><\/p>\n

            the taste of the water; that has not gone. It is still in my memory, but the glass<\/span><\/p>\n

            has disappeared and the water disappeared. The taste of drinking water, the<\/span><\/p>\n

            experience of drinking water is still there with me.<\/span><\/p>\n

            \n

            In a dream you have a very pleasant dream and enjoy it, then you wake up. There<\/span><\/p>\n

            is nobody there. The pleasure is still there. The joy is still there. How come? How<\/span><\/p>\n

            come? There is a remnant of something that stays with you even when the rest<\/span><\/p>\n

            disappears. Maya does not mean that this glass is unreal. Maya means what you<\/span><\/p>\n

            see as a glass is unreal. The experience of the glass is not unreal; it is real and will<\/span><\/p>\n

            stay with you even after the glass disappears. It is a very tough definition of the<\/span><\/p>\n

            word maya. It is not pure illusion. It is an illusion that we have things, material<\/span><\/p>\n

            things with us, and they are giving us the experience. They are material people<\/span><\/p>\n

            with us. They are giving us an experience, and when we wake up, they are not<\/span><\/p>\n

            there but the experience is still there. The experience still stays and the things<\/span><\/p>\n

            disappear.<\/span><\/p>\n

            On the other hand, we think while the reality of a particular level of consciousness<\/span><\/p>\n

            is there that things are real giving us experience. We find out the experience is<\/span><\/p>\n

            not connected with those things. If we go still higher into deeper levels of<\/span><\/p>\n

            consciousness, we find it was experience of drinking water that made the glass<\/span><\/p>\n

            and made the water. It is the opposite exactly of what we thought. We thought<\/span><\/p>\n

            that the things here, people here, they give us all the experience of the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

            When you go to the top and see, the experience was built in first, and to have the<\/span><\/p>\n

            experience, people were made and things were made. The cause and effect is in<\/span><\/p>\n

            the exact opposite way. But we can\u2019t see it here, but we can see if we go and<\/span><\/p>\n

            touch the right spots in your head through concentration of attention there. It is<\/span><\/p>\n

            remarkable. What else can you ask for? I say for a spiritual seeker who wants to<\/span><\/p>\n

            find the truth, what else can he ask for? That somebody can tell him there are<\/span><\/p>\n

            spots in the head and you put your attention there, withdraw the attention from<\/span><\/p>\n

            everything else, put it there, and it will open up those doors. It will open those<\/span><\/p>\n

            perceptions and open up reality for you, open up a higher reality for you. That<\/span><\/p>\n

            exists in all of us. There are no special people who have this; we all have it.<\/span><\/p>\n

            Everybody has the potential to be a perfect living master and have all the<\/span><\/p>\n

            experiences in this lifetime to go to the top.<\/span><\/p>\n

            \n

            Why doesn\u2019t everybody go? We tied ourselves. Just because things had to look<\/span><\/p>\n

            real for us to enjoy them as reality, we took them as real and just got drowned in<\/span><\/p>\n

            them. We don\u2019t even think that there could be anything else. The world is our<\/span><\/p>\n

            only reality. Only place to find love, only place to find pleasure, only place to<\/span><\/p>\n

            attach ourselves, only place to have desires for, and we attach ourselves and<\/span><\/p>\n

            never find out that there is something inside our own body which can open up the<\/span><\/p>\n

            doors. Therefore, it is very lucky that somebody can come in our life called a<\/span><\/p>\n

            perfect living master who is speaking to us from direct experience and not from<\/span><\/p>\n

            reading what he read in books. We can read the books, too. The difference<\/span><\/p>\n

            between a perfect living master talking to us and anybody learned person talking<\/span><\/p>\n

            to us is that a learned person has learned from books, from teaching some other<\/span><\/p>\n

            things which he relates to us without knowing what he is teaching, whereas a<\/span><\/p>\n

            perfect living master is talking directly from the experience he wants us to have.<\/span><\/p>\n

            He is not cutting it off. He is not shutting off those experiences in order to come<\/span><\/p>\n

            and be like us and talk to us. A perfect living master is aware of all these levels at<\/span><\/p>\n

            all times. He speaks from all levels. Not only that, he speaks to several people,<\/span><\/p>\n

            several souls who are at different levels at that time. He does not only speak to<\/span><\/p>\n

            us; he is doing his work on many levels. So different! A perfect living master looks<\/span><\/p>\n

            like an ordinary person, but I tell you, don\u2019t be mistaken. He is not that ordinary.<\/span><\/p>\n

            Looks ordinary, functions ordinary, does everything ordinary like us. In<\/span><\/p>\n

            consciousness, in awareness, totally different. He is constantly aware of the whole<\/span><\/p>\n

            show. He sees the whole grand picture at all times. So his work is very different<\/span><\/p>\n

            from the work of a teacher. I keep on telling people that he is not a teacher. A<\/span><\/p>\n

            Perfect living master is not a teacher. Then who is he? How will I define him? I<\/span><\/p>\n

            will define him as the best true friend, as the best beloved and lover that you can<\/span><\/p>\n

            ever find, the best person where you can experience pure true love that takes you<\/span><\/p>\n

            right back to your home. This is a different kind of person altogether. Very lucky<\/span><\/p>\n

            that we find perfect living masters still in this state of the world. The world is not<\/span><\/p>\n

            in a great state; it is in a very negative state. To be able to find reality through this<\/span><\/p>\n

            process of a perfect living master, enabling us to use our so-called free will to seek<\/span><\/p>\n

            and find, what else can you ask for? I congratulate all of you as seekers of the<\/span><\/p>\n

            truth. I know you\u2019ll find it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

            Thank you very much.<\/span><\/p>\n