Spiritual Teaching
The value of seeing spiritual manifestations of energy in the form of symbols is that it helps us understand the inner content of situations that we face. Recently, for example, a very charming and handsome young man arrived in my ashram in the country. We had just come to the area and it was nice to think we could have attracted someone so fine. He brought out a guitar and played and sang in a most delightful manner.
It soon became obvious that we were unprepared to handle the physical problems of a country estate. It turned out this talented artist was local contractor. He volunteered to bring over heavy equipment, which would speed our work enormously.
A few days later, I was standing near the road talking with someone. A truck pulled up and I could see it was this man. He opened the door and stepped out. To my amazement, he was wearing a harlequin’s costume. We spoke for two or three minutes, and as he jumped upon to the truck, I could see he was wearing very ordinary bluejeans. From this experience, I understood that he was not someone to depend upon. A harlequin is certainly not a responsible person. Only through having had this perception could I consciously allow him to be part of our group. This kind of experience is not and never should be held against somebody. It is really God trying to tell you what to expect, so that you can deal with the person properly. It is not an excuse, but a means of understanding the nature of someone else’s bondage.
One of the most common occurrences that happens for me with a new student-male or female-is that a spiritual person will walk out of them, a spiritual person will walk out of me, and both will unite very much in the posture of a Shiva-Shakti image. The marriage of energies that manifests looks like the gold gilt figures of the Nepalese or Tibetan culture. There is no sexuality involved in the experience. It is just the coming together of two bodies of energy, which look like the people they emerge from, until they meet. Then they turn into gilt statues.
It would be so easy to project upon this experience a past life meeting. I have found that it is safer not to analyze it. The need to hold on to such experiences makes them precious jewels, which we can’t surrender, and limits the energy that can emerge from them. They, more than anything else, must be surrendered; for they represent the richness of the spirit manifesting in the limitations of our vision.
One day after her first class, a mature woman came to see me, breathless with excitement. "I could see you were my brother in a past life," she said. I have heard such statements many times and no longer am thrilled by them. I told her this and then said, "Time will tell whether I was a brother who nourished you in your last life or tried to kill you." I explained to her that having a connection with people from another existence does not always mean that it was positive. It should not make us open without conscious reserve. Three weeks later, she ceased coming to class. The energy of her experience was not of sufficient depth to sustain her connection with me. Whatever I was as a brother previously must have been shallow, like a small lake that dried up as soon as the heat of the sun touched it. Without maturity and dedication, the quality of whatever is uncovered disappears. It is only through conscious effort that it grows and becomes deeper and more useful.
One day, while I was in my shop talking to several groups of people, I noticed a middle-aged black man looking at me, with tears rolling down his face. He stood there for an hour. I consciously paid as little attention to him as possible. He was having his own experience. I just tried to stay open to him, so that he could take from my energy whatever he needed. Finally, he shyly approached me and said that he had dreamt of me and felt I was a great teacher. I thanked him and said he could come back whenever he wished. He returned two days later and stayed for about half an hour. I didn’t see him again for six months, when he said he had several experiences of seeing my face during his meditation. I have not seen him since.
Such experiences may serve a person in depth; they may be transitory. The human contact is touching. But to speculate as to the needs of the person or my responsibility toward them is all imagination. A conscious effort can be made only if the person asks for help directly. But it has taken enormous effort over many years for me to become detached from this kind of emotional situation. It is easy to assume that when somebody reacts so strongly that you are essential for their growth. That is your will. God’s will is that you serve people who come and ask to be served; it is not to project all kinds of illusionary quantities which then create tensions for the other person. If I expect this man or that woman to need something from me, and then they do not come through as I anticipated, I have placed a responsibility on them that they may not wish to accept. We waste enormous amounts of energy on this kind of projection. The whole purpose of energy should be to nourish and free people. I am more than willing to give, without entering into an enormous illusionary relationship. Between milkings, a cow does not dream about the person who is going to milk it. It allows itself to be milked, because that is its function. All of our energy is given by God to feed and nourish us. The less thought and emotion with which we receive it, the more we can be filled. It is the tensions that we create through speculating, that dry us out. Doing what is wanted, and not what we think should be done, is the right way to give nourishment.
Every three or four months, I announce that I am available between the hours of ten and five in my shop for anybody who has any problems that they wish to discuss with me. In the course of the year it is very rare that a real situation is discussed. People bring illusions and very minor complaints. It is always necessary for me to dig into them to bring forth something that is really essential. I have had parents come to me about their children, and I was deeply concerned about what would provoke such a visit. The superficiality of the problems that were brought up has often been a shocking revelation. I remember treating a young man who still under the influence of drugs and emotionally very disturbed. I received a call from his parents. I could understand that they might feel that their child was being estranged from them because of his attachment to me. I made an appointment to see his mother. I deeply searched my soul to think of all the things that I could do to improve her relationship with her son.
The day of the meeting came and a very emotional and taut woman came into the store. We sat and talked for a few minutes and then, in a burst of emotion, she expressed her heartfelt appeal to me, which was, "Why does my son have such long hair?" I was completely flabbergasted. I had opened for days, tearing myself apart, to meet this superficial and very stupid problem. That her child was on drugs, emotionally disturbed and deeply in need of help, was not what bothered her at all. It was what the neighbors would say. I have endlessly found this type of reaction on the part of parents. They are only concerned with the outer appearance of the situation. The rot and destruction taking place inside their children is completely ignored, as nothing in them is deep enough to even accept the existence of this form of death.
One of the most familiar Christian sayings is that "God is love." Yet, if there were any personal feeling between a minister and his congregation, the shock would destroy his chances for continuing in the service of God. Most people would rather die than have you touch them to remove whatever tensions are choking them to death. Love is the energy that frees tensions. The laying on of hands by Jesus was part of the beauty of Christianity. It allowed His grace to flow into the person, and through the flow of that love, the spirit of God removed the blockages. If this were attempted today, it would completely destroy the psychological security of the congregation. It is the age of plastic religion. The success of encounter groups and all types of radical psychological practices is due to the extent to which they help to free people from these tensions. The fear of this process is understandable, as people lack the consciousness to be responsible and limit the depth to which this freedom extends before it damages them.
One outstanding separation that has occurred for me in the last few years is seeing people, not as they would normally appear in the twentieth century, but as they really are in different time and space periods. In the course of one week, I have met people from the Iron Age, the twelfth century and the eighteenth century, all born within the last fifty years. In a similar vein, to see a particular ethnic group as a primitive tribe and watch them relate to each other for several hours is fascinating and frightening. The superficial cover of today falls off and reveals something of hundreds or thousands of years ago. It expresses the limitation of environment that is perpetuated by these people on their offspring. It is heartbreaking to see anyone coming from this background striving to adjust to a higher spiritual life. One must first teach them how to live in an ordinary way, to humanize their emotions so that they can draw energy in the proper manner. Eating a truffle on top of a frankfurter does not make you a gourmet, it just contradicts the brutality of existence. The endlessness of our potential growth lies in our ability to see these contradictions, not as something to laugh at, but in the sense of work needed to bring us to a higher level of development.
A man whom I had placed in charge of an ashram came to see me. He was very troubled, as he felt he wasn’t growing in the job. I referred to an incident in which some people from another of our ashrams had come to visit him and had felt abused. His reply was that they were not receptive to the hospitality that he was offering them. They kept themselves separate and he felt slighted by this. As he was speaking, I saw a picture of how he had related to them. I saw him look over his shoulder and contemptuously offer them the hospitality that he had mentioned. I could also see the look on the faces of the two people and their recognition of his disregard for them. I told this man exactly what I saw and it shocked him as he realized for the first time the truth of that moment. The mind always justifies its actions. We project what we think we said and how we feel we must have said it, instead of what we actually did. Many times it is because of the negative manner in which someone expresses themselves that we refuse an advantageous relationship. They wish to give, but their heart is closed, and the tensions that go with the gift are less desirable than the gift itself.
In my life, there have been many times when someone would say they could feel a connection with me in a past life or that they had a message for me. I have always tried to look upon such events with detachment. If they are real, they will become part of my life. If not, they will pass away. The only thing to worry about is imagination, as it allows things that are unreal to become part of us.
I have often found other people’s extrasensory perceptions are the forerunners of events to come. I have found it invaluable to listen to other people’s views of my present and future condition, as they have also found it valuable to listen to my sense of their life situation. After an event had been fulfilled, people would often say that I had predicted it. This was true, but not a complete truth, because it represented a growing awareness of an incomplete picture on my part. It is only through an openness to other people that we can begin to see the picture as it is.
Any person who attains development and creative stature lives among many other people, who represent the security that comes from sharing and having their belief reinforced and nourished. It is a situation that very few people have the humility to accept on face value, and so they extract from people that which would be given willingly. Why not share with those who wish to share with you? It is only the ego of someone who has the ability to take, but the inability to share, that necessitates the brutality of many people going without the satisfaction of giving back. It is much like a farmer squeezing the tits of a cow and not ever patting them lovingly and being grateful for that which is given by them. It is our lack of gratitude for what comes from others that in every way destroys the potential good of the relationship.
Some time ago, I had received a series of letters from a distant city inviting me to come and lecture. The letters were full of warmth, and guaranteed my stay to be a pleasant one. I finally decided to visit. When I arrived, I found a loose atmosphere and nothing which in any way substantiated the feeling in the letters. This was disturbing, yet there was a powerful underlying energy that kept intruding itself, making me quite uneasy. I began to see an image of someone who loved me and whom I loved, who had been missing from my life for a long time. After having given several classes and lectures, I went to sleep with the full expectancy of someone coming into my room during the night. I had no idea who this person was, but the sense of immediacy made me nervous and quite uncomfortable. Nothing happened. The next day, I awoke and again felt the unorganized atmosphere, with the sense of this unfulfilled relationship hanging in the air. Late in the day, I chanced to pause by the stairwell. Standing in a bathrobe at the top of the stairs was one of the people living in the house. Something leapt from me and connected with this young man. I realized that he was the person I had been expecting.
The depth of these experiences is enormous, but we are usually very existence of a past life connection. This person finally admitted to have written the letters.
I gave a long lecture that evening and left immediately for New York. I could not endure spending another night being torn apart by the erotic energy in the atmosphere. Two weeks later, this young man telephoned that he was arriving to spend a few days to study with me in New York. It was minutes after his arrival that he spoke about the feeling of having been married to me in a past life. It takes a great deal of adjustment in the mind of a human being to accept that, in a previous time, in a different body, there was such a relationship. It was a remarkable experience for me to be with the person and simultaneously see a moving picture of the past relationship. I could not rationally expect this young man to be able to enter into this kind of dramatic and psychologically extraordinary situation and deal with it in an easy way. I undertstood that. It took all of my years of training to allow me to function with some degree of intelligence. And even I found myself unable to cope with some of the factors that emerged as the days and weeks went by. It was a new experience and I learned a tremendous amount, but only by having forty previous years to support this mindtwisting drama. Eventually, the situation was more than this young man could consciously accept. It caused him many emotional conflicts and finally forced him to abandon the relationship. The ending of this connection brought me many other relationships in the same city. They were all rich and because of my detachment flourished, producing many wonderful students.
The need to encompass these past energies does not necessitate a personal relationship, but it can produce a consciousness of the previous incarnation and the ability to open to the energy and content of that life. The ability of a human being to go into a church and stand before an image and receive through that image the love and blessing that it signifies has only to do with the consciousness that a person has of the symbolism involved. The same image before a native of another country would only provoke curiosity and in no way be of benefit unless it were made by an artist who could transcend the limits of his own culture.
A student came from a distant ashram to train in New York. I welcomed him and told him that I hoped he would have a good visit. Before he could answer, I saw a large growth over his head with an enormous knot tied on the end. He replied that he did not know what he was doing here. I understood immediately that I must answer him in a way that would sever this knot from the cord. I shouted at him that if he didn’t know why he was here then he must pack and leave in fifteen minutes. The young man became terribly upset and I walked away to the other end of the room. Fifteen minutes later, while I was talking to some other people, he sat down next to me like a poor puppy who had been beaten and asked if he could go upstate and live in my country ashram, rather than go back home. It touched my heart deeply to see him working for an alternate situation. I very brusquely told him that he could do it, but he must not ever complain about his new situation.
It is very difficult to be so severe, but once a new person enters a situation and builds a negative wall around himself, it is impossible to nourish him. It is only by cutting through as I did with this young man, that we remove the block and free the person to live above his ordinary tensions. I feel that it is essential for the development of any teacher to see these abstract symbols manifesting the problems of the student. They are really God’s answers and our clues to the solution of another person’s situation. It has always been this direct guide that has allowed me to surrender myself and serve as I am shown. I do not believe that a person can help any one through their will, but only through God or a higher creative energy, showing what is needed.
Trying to be the same thing to everybody is one of the great limitations of this life. By treating a person in a way that is foreign to them, we are threatening their security. We would not give an untrustworthy person $10,000 cash to go out and buy a car. It is certainly not possible to trust an undeveloped person with dimensions of spirituality that are much above their capacity to understand. In dealing with people in these kinds of situations, it is necessary to be very kind and responsible. It is an instinctive part of man’s nature to close to difficulties. It is only by consciously opening that a situation has a chance to reveal its treasures to the participants.
The difference between myself and most of my students is that they don’t have sufficient energy to complete many of the projects that they undertake. My energy is so excessive that, once I start in a direction, nothing can stop me.
I had one student who was unable to keep on a steady path because of his erratic emotions. One day, after he had been studying with me for about two years, he came to see me. With tremendous exasperation, he admitted his defeat on a particular project. With great violence, he shouted at me, "If you had done it, it would have worked because you have the energy." I was not mature enough to completely sympathize with him, but I did begin to understand that the energy that I possessed was of a deep and rare character.
Another situation that helped me to understand my own energy involved my close association with my mother and a mutual friend, both of whom were quite similar. They were both extremely difficult for me to handle and, ironically enough, were very difficult for each other also. Watching my tensions with them individually, and then seeing their tensions together, revealed to me that the problems that were inflicted upon me in my relationship with these two people individually were their tensions more than mine. But my insecurity enabled me to be cut down by them and pulled under, and so I was defeated. It is usually an older person’s sophistication, more than their goodness, that allows them to prove themselves right. Over the years, I have learned how to enter a situation being 100 percent wrong and, because of my own development, emerge from it successfully, having made what was a misfortune into a victory. It is the weak person who begins by being justified, but who ends by having lost their victory during the battle of energies. It seems unfair, if we must look at life with a completely childlike attitude, but life is a battlefield and a single battle does not determine the outcome. Longevity, the ability to marshal one’s forces over and over again, is the determining factor of ultimate success.
During these years, I was destroyed endlessly through my vulnerability, my wishfulness, my imagination and my tremendous need. I had many friends with whom I found my crippled energy expressing limited relationships. It was shocking for me that, as I grew within myself, these people were not interested in what was happening. They responded to my need for help, more than my ability to grow. This has been a recurrent factor in my life, and one that I think exists for all people who are in need of nourishment but are immature in their growth. They must understand that when they are crippled in any way, they attract people who wish to help them because of their condition. These people do not want a complete relationship. For this reason, as you grow, you must very consciously watch and see that the people who supported you in your sickness do not try to mutilate your growth.
I am dependent on the people who come to me. I try in every way to use them well. It is through relating to the people around us that we discover God’s love. It is only when a human being has too much tension to accept God that he recoils from the change that is essential for growth. It is necessary during periods when psychic operations occur to have such love, for it provides the equivalent of blood plasma on the physical level.
I clearly remember one relationship that I had with a lady who acted very sympathetic to my growth. She catered to me at a time in my life when I had a tremendous need to receive any nourishment at all. The physical was the least part. It was the atmosphere of her home that was so dear to my heart. I was often so exhausted that I would fall asleep during dinner. But she accepted this without comment. Occasionally, however, she would, without any provocation, reach out and hit me in the head. It was as if she were trying to kill a fly that didn’t exist. I found it very difficult because she was rattling my brain, which was in a very delicate condition. It became a real problem. The nourishment on the physical level was wonderful, but the threat on the spiritual level was extreme. It became necessary for me to discuss the problem with her. I explained that I couldn’t have a relationship in which this type of attack occurred. A few days later, she again hit me on the head. Within myself I knew this was the last time I could afford to accept her friendship. Amazingly, I did not see her for several months after that, as she too understood that it was not a proper situation. I now realize that the threat of my growing brought out this instinctive attack from her, as she tried to keep me from moving away from the level of our relationship. This is one of the most difficult parts of evolving. We grow beyond those who cannot sustain our level of development. We threaten them not so much in their consciousness but their unconsciousness.
About ten years ago, I was spending an evening with an astrologer. She had done my chart and said that one of my recurrent patterns was that when something big ended, I always found something small with which to immediately replace it. I have found this to be very true. It seems that by not emotionally holding onto the loss which in a sense means pouring energy into a hole the energy not being used in the old situation will attract a new one. We are often a puzzle to ourselves, sensing that something is missing, but being unclear about its nature. If I am a certain person with so much position, creative energy, power, needs, etcetera, and am still unhappy, what am I lacking? I try to use this approach when I interview a student. If I cannot see them fitting into my school in New York, or in the country or at a party, then how can I fulfill them? It must be possible or I would not have attracted them. If I wish to take them on, then the potential of their growth must be in the parts of the puzzle I can supply from my own self.
A student of mine, who was also a close friend, became attracted to a teacher I knew for many years and wished to study with him. He was made to feel that I was no longer his teacher, though he wished to be my friend. When he faced me with his change of attachment, it was obvious that the damage was done. I will never fight for someone who gives me an ultimatum. It is not that I feel I am beyond change, but once somebody builds a wall or separates from me without my knowledge and consent, they have made a decision on their own. It is very difficult to rebuild these situations as they are not on a physical level. The properties of a human being are mostly in the unconscious. When there is a deep surface resistance, it is only the reflection of a deeper unconscious separation.
Why continue the relationship, when the depth of my own chemistry has caused a withdrawal by the other person? It is best for them to find another connection. Nevertheless, these separations are without reason. If any two people want to live with less than full flowing chemistry and energy, it is only that they wish to stay apart and do not wish to grow. I do not want less than everything with anybody, and particularly with God.
The statement that this student wished to stay with me and study with someone else caused a strange reaction in me. I became very mad and simultaneously felt an enormous relief. I recognized that the relief was an indication that the relationship was wrong for me. My fury was produced by my feeling deserted without warning. I can accept someone’s need to change, even though I have a tendency to be possessive when it touches people I love. I have surrendered much that I could have had as mine, because I felt it would be better for the person to move away from me.
There is a great trap in fighting for something that is being taken away from us. We hate to lose our investment. In the stock market, they say cut your losses and sell. In life, I feel nothing that changes is a loss. It is only a fool who pours energy into a cut connection. Therefore, I absorbed my anger when told of the change in my relationship with this person. I brought a sense of gratitude to the place in me that felt relief. This allowed the gratitude to absorb the energy of the anger. I felt as if God had freed me from some karma that would have gone on for many years.
When a door closes, another door opens. It is the maturity of a person and his detachment that allow him to see this. There is never a change that does not come through the conscious wish of the person involved. We do not take responsibility for what is taking place, but try to project upon somebody else the responsibility for the breaking down of the situation or relationship. We stand like innocents trying to look the other way. It is like digging under the mountain, so that the situation can fall into the mountain instead of simply destroying what is on the surface. It is in the nature of people to have something eat away at them over a long period of time that can be resolved with a few words and a little bit of courage. We inflict upon ourselves these slow and torturous patterns while pretending that we don’t want to hurt somebody else. It is really that we do not have the guts to face reality and take responsibility.
Each major act in a person’s life is programmed before and often after the event, if their life is part of a growing creative flow. The ability to reach deeply into the past of one’s life for information helps us to understand what we are experiencing, and creates elasticity in reaching from the present into the future. But the ability of a human being to pick up assorted psychic information from the past and the future is, in many ways, a mixed blessing. There are situations in which we indulge ourselves because they have imprinted themselves upon our psyche as connections from the past or intimations of the future. When we meet them in the present, they fold into a void that has been etched into our psyche by the continual attraction of energy to that particular point within us.
I remember having had a vision in which I saw myself walking up a very luscious green hill. This particular vision occurred three or four times. I watched myself reach the peak of the hill and approach a modern glass house. Sitting inside was someone who represented a past relationship. It was very exciting to think that the person in the house might come into my life some time in the future. Several years went by until one day the exact individual came into my shop. I became very emotional, remembering my vision and realizing that here was a past karmic connection appearing in the present.
It soon became obvious that this person was extremely erratic, and that it was totally impossible for me to deal with him in any rational terms. I began to get feedback from people that I knew that he was very destructive. I was warned against him at least five or six times by people whom I had every reason to trust.
As I thought about the situation, I realized that it was costing me enormous amounts of physical energy. But I was amazed to find that I was able to raise within myself the force that was needed. It made me work deeper so that I would not be caught off guard by the enormous impact of the situation. That I personally felt like I had been beaten by a rubber hose at the end of each day was secondary. It was the ability to be completely used that was the reward within myself. I was supporting two worlds, instead of just the one for which I had been previously responsible.
As time passed, I began to prepare myself for a trip to India. I understood that the trip would require a great additional physical capacity on my part. I also saw how the situation with this man was allowing me to use him to increase my physical stamina and my psychic capacity simultaneously. I was not in any way going to be caught by his tensions and brought down from the spiritual direction that I had undertaken with myself. There was no question in my mind that when I left for India I must leave by myself, as I could not support the kind of situation that he represented on one side, while I was being very strongly tested on the other. It would be the ability to use the energy that I was feeding into the situation with this man that would allow me to sail above the test that I would undergo psychically in India.
About two weeks before the trip, I consciously brought the situation to a climax. It was the first time in my life that I ever did such a thing. The timing was essential because I needed the two weeks to get myself together and prepare for the trip. I also wanted to take the additional force that I was producing and integrate it in my system, so that these two lines of energy became one. On a day that I cannot possibly forget, I asked him to leave. It became a marathon of energies. The violence within this person at being rejected made my words seem like trying to sail paper airplanes into an oncoming hurricane. There was nothing rational in the nature of this confused and totally unrealistic human being, who was trying to stay within the situation that was providing his balance for the moment. It was more than I could afford, and I could in no way be concerned about the outcome. I have found that people who are strongly disturbed are perfectly capable of attracting the energy that they need. It is weak people who serve, and strong people who take. This was a taking that I was absolutely fighting in my effort to unhook the tenacious connection.
It is when we come to such psychodramas that one must completely abandon good manners or sympathy of any kind; for it is only a fight between energies. There is no reason except for the need of one energy to contain the other, and I was not about to be contained. It is like trying to put a genie in a jar. You can only put a force back into the container of itself. It was the lack of reality in him that brought about his enormous ego, which felt it could willfully control the situation. It was only possible to capture that ego with an illusion. It was the first time in my life that I ever consciously used a promise which I had no intention of fulfilling-to capture an energy (which in this case was the person), so that I could dispose of it. It is always possible to make restitution to the living and I first had to remove the situation so that I could see what was the right thing to do. My objective was my spiritual development, and this situation represented a major danger for my own growth. So I said whatever was necessary to end the situation, and prepared for the test in India that was to come.
In my life, I have often seen the destruction of people who considered somebody in a higher manner than they deserved. It is not the conscious mind, but the depth of the unconscious in such people, that will do anything to create the tension that keeps us operating below their creative level. It is a brutal way of living and necessitates endless fighting, so that the stronger will eats the energy of the opposing force until it is reduced to a lower level in itself. We are not dealing with a person or situation, but only with an energy that will take any form in order to gain its objective. It is very, very difficult for an ordinary human being to fight a great energy, as the mind of a rational person is always trying to find excuses for the irrational nature of a psychically immature or disturbed person. It is not different from trying to talk to a burglar as he comes through the window. The only reality is that, if the man is a dangerous criminal, he will come in and kill you. There are no statistics for these situations. I am sorry to think that most of the people who were in them no longer exist. They were destroyed by an energy that did not wait for good manners to express itself but completely annihilated anything that either opposed or opened to it. It is only by keeping our force totally together that we can meet any powerful onrushing power by either absorbing or transcending it. To save an old lady who is being beaten to death by a twenty-year-old man is possible, but only by tearing the man away from her. Discussing his hidden resentment of his mother will certainly not deter the madness of the energy that is out of control.
An irrational human being will talk on and on endlessly to anyone who will listen, as all his ego is being satisfied. Trying to dismiss such a person will provoke an enormous storm, as the energy must be pressed back into him or else it must be taken out in such a way as not to provoke this resistance.
It is only when we make the conscious effort to enter the depth within ourselves that we exercise our human capacities. Then we do not become the victim of our tensions and limitations, but sink into ourselves with our conscious mind and tap the limitless energies that we have to overcome all situations. There is nothing in the world greater than a human being. It is only when he is asking from his limited self that he is vulnerable.
A human being in a developed sense, is God, as he has within himself that capacity for endless development. It is only his inability to rise above situations that reduces him to the lying and self-deceiving animal that he becomes. We need never allow anyone to press us to a lower level, but can fight and fight until we draw within ourselves the energy to rise above all obstacles. It is the psychodrama of the meeting of our energies that is the test of life. We either open and take in energy, or close and reject ourselves and others. What could be simpler? And what could be more worthwhile than to slowly eat away through the levels of tensions that imprison us in the darkness of our own ignorance.
When an army of red ants marches forward eating everything in its way, burning them or trampling on them only stops those who are destroyed. All the other ants keep moving toward their objective, which is to obtain the nourishment they need to sustain their life. The army does not scatter, nor show the hysteria that a human being expresses under attack.
Similarly, during a fire, all animals and insects run away from the direction of the smoke. If the same tragedy occurred in a city, there would be lots of human beings moving toward the catastrophe to look at and appraise the situation. It is shocking to see people running toward disasters, continually trying to understand and analyze something that has nothing but the obvious situation to present. It seems that the mind of a person cannot acknowledge reality, but tries to project onto the obvious all kinds of mystery to keep from consciously accepting the truth as it is. It has always been amazing for me to look at someone who is truly evil and to notice how my mind and emotions try to find excuses for what is so obvious. It is not different from looking at a rattlesnake, hearing its rattle, and then trying to look beyond it, to see if some child were shaking a toy. It is necessary to accept reality before spirituality can be attained.
I spend eight hours a day, six days a week when I am in New York, sitting in my shop. I have done this for twenty years. There are many thousands of people who are aware that I teach and who have passed through my store during this period of time. It is a remarkable event when somebody presents a situation that exposes their real need. It is rare when even half the truth is given. Usually a situation is distorted beyond recognition. It is as if somebody is saying to me that if I can dig out the real situation, maybe they will allow me to help them. When a situation occasionally is presented in all its nakedness, it is only because the person is defenseless at a particular moment. As soon as they have one stitch to put on their back, they again retreat into themselves, distorting what they said and what they think you said. The ability to hear and see is rare in this world. It only exists in somebody who truly wishes to grow. This has not, unfortunately, been the attitude of most seekers. So few succeed in reaching their goal that it is safe to assume that there are few who honestly pursue a spiritual life, and even then, very few teachers who cater to anything that brings the realism that allows for enlightenment.
The term enlightenment in itself is deceiving. It is so abstract that people who attain any sort of insight feel that this makes them enlightened. It is as if a Catholic priest were to understand one five minute chant in Latin, and would therefore consider himself qualified to serve people in the ritual of Catholicism. Such training takes twelve to fifteen years, and then there may be only one out of the hundreds of priests who finish and practice, that has any real spiritual gift. It should be for the seeker to try to feel within himself that which truly wishes to grow, and then to take energy from others, and in no way allow their minds to limit the growth process. Growing itself brings the enlightenment, as each level opens to reveal itself.
Spirit is the manifestation of energy from level to level. Truth is revealed as we add a higher level-the truth being the energy that is taken by the person as the revelation occurs. The revelation itself is merely the shell protecting the content. The shell limits the amount of nourishment that is absorbed by the person having the experience. In all teachings, the temptations that appear during the revelation period are those things we identify with, that take away the energy or content from the experience. It is the courage to put the bottom on the void, so that the incoming energy is not lost during any experience, that is required. This enables a person to grow endlessly, by surrendering content as fast as it manifests itself.
It is finally this consciousness that allows a human being to feel God as the constant energy that is absorbed by all of the chakras, filling him with sweetness and joy. Not feeling happy is only the result of not being in tune with this force and not having the consciousness to contain it. For whatever reason we fail in holding on to energy, we must look to ourselves. We cannot blame anybody or anything. It is only our lack of capacity to hold that which is given.
On my recent trip to India, I spent some time with a young couple whom I care for deeply. They are physically very beautiful, and have a child who expresses the love that exists between them. Having seen them a few months earlier, I was appalled at the grayness that I found when I met them this time. I told them that I was shocked and asked what had happened. They said there was nothing wrong except for a lack of communication between themselves. We talked and it seemed to relieve a tension, which they claimed had been building for several months. I spoke the next day with the man and he assured me that the flow between them would get better.
There were several friends traveling with me, one of whom had also become close to this family. By chance, he heard from a mutual acquaintance that the man suspected he had a fatal disease. I couldn’t find within myself anything that substantiated this conclusion. A few hours later, when I saw this couple, I asked to speak to the man privately. He was very upset and said that nobody knew about his suspicion, but that at a weak moment he had talked to a business associate. He had been living with the idea in his mind that he was going to die of cancer. He felt that in order to spare his wife the shock of his death, he should begin to withdraw from her. It was really not consideration for her, but his inability to be open with himself. His condition was purely imaginary, but if kept under the pressure he was creating, it could very easily develop into a cancer. We have the capacity in our minds to create that which we are most afraid of. In the same way that we bury some ignorance like a grain of sand inside the shell of an oyster and build around it until we come up with the end product, which in this case is not a pearl.
Spiritual work is the training of the mind so that it can reach within and beyond our chemistry to bring about the situation that we want. We attract from the atmosphere, from within ourselves, and change our body chemistry so that it produces what will allow this extraordinary process to take place. It can be called the greatest level of self hypnosis or the greatest level of faith, depending upon the point of view of the person viewing the situation. The endless limitation that people accept is really within their own mind. There have been numerous instances of a young and beautiful child being brought up by cruel and vicious people. The purity of the child is its own protection. There is no magic, no force on the earth that is capable of doing anything to anybody that is not a reflection of something that already exists within the being of the person. Anyone who is complete within himself, need not open to any outside force. It is only curiosity, or the wish to be seduced, that allows somebody to relate to a condition that they claim was inflicted upon them. Just as a child within a mother takes exactly what it needs for its chemistry, regardless of what diet a mother eats, we within the womb of the earth can draw exactly that nourishment that is required for our growth. It is our mind and our wishes that allow us to project exactly that which we feel is our right. Everyone is equal under God, for we all come with the same potential. It is only the drama or outer manifestation that is different. The end result is the product of the amount of work and ability to persevere against all outer manifestation.
Endlessly in my spiritual search, I have reached a place where I could not endure the pressure being inflicted on me. At that point, I very quietly opened to accept that which I felt awaited me. It was amazingly without drama. There was always one feeble breath left, when another door would open, and by reaching toward it, I was able to leave behind a death and begin a rebirth.
I remember very clearly the Shankaracharya of Puri saying that the difficulties that we feel are only the tensions that stop the flowing between us and other people. We must understand that as we grow, these tensions will be released, but not without our consciousness. Unless we grow and continually surrender, we will grow with tension instead of without it. If we grow with tension, we can never attain maturity, which brings sweetness to all beings.
In the process of understanding my own tension, I have met good psychics and bad psychics, but I have never met one who did not show me many significant and valuable insights into myself. I try to keep my connection with these people minimal because too many different opinions can only bring you to a point where you lose your perspective. Just as we use salt and spices sparingly to add flavor to our food, a little psychic aid goes a long way.
When I was twenty-six, I became involved in a Western philosophy that used many Oriental principles. I was very innocent in many ways and the victim of my emotions. External conformity to the teaching was required, but nobody tried to pry too deeply into your life. In my case, someone had come before I had entered the school and informed them all about me, which I felt was an advantage as I didn’t have to hide anything then. In later life, as I studied with other people, I made sure they knew exactly who I was, so that they could not take any skeletons out of my closet at a convenient time. It is the mind which thinks that something that is not on the surface is safely hidden, while on another level, it lives in dread of exposure. Unfortunately, it is the nature of man to only attack what is held from his view, so that the whole effort of concealment is wasted in the end.
At the time, I found tremendous hostility on the part of one teacher toward me in the spiritual work I had started. It was, in his eyes, impossible for me to hope to attain the spiritual state to which I aspired. I did not know that other people had no such aspirations. It was my innocence that allowed me to have my spiritual dream, never understanding that most people who pursue a so called spiritual life, are only looking for sustenance in the moment, not enlightenment, freedom, and happiness. I sat for six years under the will of this man and found myself continually challenged. When simple exercises were given, most people would forget to do them or would discuss them in a crippled way, while I would find them an adventure in the cosmos producing thousands of experiences, which I did not understand as being unusual. I spoke of them in classes with great enthusiasm and received solemn and sarcastic replies. The effort was always to cut me down to a more conservative type of person. I am sure in the consciousness of my teachers, there was no intent to harm me, but I felt very threatened by their lack of understanding, and particularly by the lack of love. I saw many people dry up and become completely without hope. On many occasions, when I would question the answers that were given, I was told that it was of no consequence to me as I would not live to be more than thirty-one. I never questioned this particular answer, luckily, as I felt deeply within myself that at the age of thirty- one I would have a rebirth. It is like trying to take away a toy from a child. If the child doesn’t fight, it only means that he has found another toy to replace the one that the parent has successfully taken away. I later learned that there is a line in my palm which broke at thirty-one, indicating a death. I find it wonderful to have risen above it. The focusing on the moment of negativity makes it the only reality. The ability to surrender allows these inevitable situations to become a vehicle for the grateful realization that the flow of creation and time resolves all difficulties.
As I passed my thirty-first year, I left behind the form of work I had been studying. As part of my business and inner development I went to India, having been given an introduction to a lady interested in spiritual work. When I went to see her, she had left for London for an indefinite period, with no forwarding address. The only other person I knew was a business associate. I told him my situation. He was quite unprepared for dealing with the emotional and spiritual needs of an American whom he had only known through business correspondence. But since he was earning money through our relationship, he acted sympathetic and began to take me around to see other dealers and collectors in Bombay. On the second day, we went to a beautiful house that had many magnificent objects, We were let in by the servants, but it became apparent that the master of the house was not there. I saw a large Chinese head that I liked and was told by my business associate that it would be available for a very nominal price. We returned the next day. Once more the master was away. But there was great preparation going on. I asked my friend what was happening. He said that the Guru of the master of the house was coming for a visit in two days. I became very excited and felt that this would be the beginning of the connection that I had come to India to establish. I expressed this to my business associate and he became very upset, telling me not to expect the coincidence to be the answer to my problem. We returned in two days, and sitting with the master of the house was the teacher with whom I had been studying in America, who was on a world tour and staying with this man during his visit to India.
This type of sensing I have called spiritual groping. It is reaching into the unknown, feeling for a light extrasensory energy, and allowing this energy to stay in its simple form, much like a pig smelling out truffles. This extrasensory energy must be approached with great consciousness so that it is not destroyed, but frees us to be led to the next objective.
By meeting my teacher in a foreign land, I realized that my danger was over. I had gotten beyond the time I was supposed to die. Perhaps he realized it too. But I had learned, even at that stage, not to need a dramatic incident to proclaim an important event, so I didn’t ask him. It is by avoiding a calamity that we can sustain our life. Only a fool must have a drama to achieve an effect. It is by reaching and growing that we receive the energy of God, and it is our capacity to surrender in ever deepening ways that allows our inner tensions to disappear, revealing the deep creative capacity instilled within our creation-the gift of life.