Summary: Explains that we lose opportunities to grow in devotion through slothful habits and that external structures are required until one develops insight into right action. Warns against slackness in one’s attitude. Teaches about Krishna and Rama and the dharma inherent in every moment.

Your meditation is your devotion and conversely your devotion is your meditation. Meditation without devotion is emptiness, dry emptiness. But how does one find devotion? It is in your attitude – attitude towards opportunities and situations that present themselves in your life. Devotion is your action, your work, your response to a situation. Your work, your action is an opportunity for the soul to develop in devotion.

The meditation of Buddha is not a dry meditation – so also the meditation of Mahavira, Bahubali and the other Tīrthankaras – for you have to remember they did not seek the results of their meditation for themselves alone. It was for the sake of the world, it was a devotion to want to know the Truth. Their very being, their very souls had developed in such a way through lifetimes of opportunities taken and responded to through their actions, and therefore the development of personality, their person, in such a way that devotion was the very core of their being.

It was not just some desire for some space, but their very soul longing not just for itself but for what is true and sacred, for what is noble, for what is right. So through every day, every moment that presents itself to you, through situations, you can grow in devotion through your duties, for otherwise it is so easy for oneself to drop away, fall away into forgetfulness and be totally unaware of the opportunity that has presented itself to you. Then the opportunity is lost and it becomes a force of habit to continue to ignore, to be unaware, to miss the boat, to miss the opportunities and miss therefore to grow into a deeper, more profound, and a higher level and therefore a more profound person.

Meditation is not just sitting in a room by oneself – meditation is your devotion, it is your action, it is the moment outside also and at times more so, which develops the core of your being through situations that present themselves to you. They are your duties, your responsibilities done consciously, done without reluctance and grudge, done with a knowing and a joy that it is for your well-being that this opportunity has presented itself. Otherwise one continues in the sloth of habitual personalities, blind to the opportunity that has presented itself at that moment. To be conscious to the opportunities, to the situations that present themselves and to respond consciously is devotion, is meditation – is what will develop the soul, the core of your being and therefore the growing in light, therefore the growing in enlightenment.

When one cannot respond knowingly, when one does not have so to speak, this kind of insight, this kind of perception to be able to respond to the opportunity that has presented itself in a given moment, then one has to go through the duties one is provided with and do them well – consciously, skilfully, with body, mind and soul. That is devotion and through that then one grows in insight. Then when opportunities come at random or without announcement, without regulation, you would be able to respond, you would be aware, you would be conscious as to the right action, as to the right response and that is devotion. Then your quality of sitting in meditation automatically raises itself. Otherwise all techniques of meditation are meaningless.

When it is not in one’s self – is not inside one to be able to see, then it has to be developed from the outside so that the inside can have it. You have to work from the outside and therefore the duties, the work, the responsibilities – and in that one must see one’s own growth and be delighted that it has been provided so, rather than react to them with reluctance and a grudge – for then one is very small, one does not grow in capacities, in powers so to speak. One is then a very small being, and one continues to remain at the same level – one does not deepen, there is no depth, one remains shallow. A deep lake has a profound feeling and the movement in a deep lake is very powerful but the movement in a shallow lake, there may be many on the surface, but they are very small with little power, hardly any. They get exhausted so quickly!

Your meditation is your action, your devotion. Your action, your devotion is your meditation. Sitting is not the whole of meditation. It is one of the activities that help you towards meditation. And therefore structures are required, organisations are required, institutions are required, ashrams are required, communes are required, the Teacher is required, the Guide is required. One needs to remember this otherwise one remains a tourist and not a true seeker. One has to constantly watch oneself, one’s propensities, one’s habitual personality, movements, one’s habitual line of thought, pattern of thoughts and behaviour.

To be conscious is to be able to see if a change is required and then to intervene and bring the change – this is being conscious, this is being responsive, this is being active, this is being devoted to change, this is meditation – dynamic. A seeker is constantly seeking, it is a continuous process. A tourist seeks one moment and then gives up; for example, a tourist visits a place, takes a holiday from the rest of the activities, and then goes back – visits only for a while. A seeker is continuously and constantly seeking, always alert, otherwise the opportunities pass and when they do, a true seeker is not happy. If it so happens that he feels the missed opportunity, that is the sign of devotion, that is the sign that the core of one’s being is developing in devotion and he does not justify, make excuses, or even worse, react in arrogance.

Lots of times what happens is when the opportunity is there, staring us in the face, we are elsewhere, physically, mentally, in the consciousness. We are standing right there but we miss the opportunity because we are elsewhere, our being is unaware completely, totally, is ignorant, so to speak. Sometimes even consciously one ignores it, which is worse. That is how one has developed through lives, and that is how the personality therefore behaves – the line of development is through ages, through lifetimes – that is how the tendencies and inclinations are formed, that is how the person is made through many lives.

So if there are capacities in oneself, they have been built through lifetimes and if there are incapacities, there is no one else to blame but oneself through one’s lines of development – opportunities that may have been presented but missed. One can be sluggish, lethargic, tamasic, and therefore missing it, missing the opportunity again and again. Then that kind of environment is created – it becomes a collective phenomenon; it touches, it reaches the others around and because no one is free from the environment they too are influenced in the same way. That then becomes the collective culture. What is right in the given moment is to respond consciously and deeply to a situation, that is what is meant by right response, right action. Therefore the Buddha says, “Right action, the Eight-fold way, right speech” – it all comes from this, being able to respond to a situation rightly.

So the Teacher organises, creates an institution, a structure, and places the seekers in different positions, places them in different positions in different times so that they may develop a wider and a deeper being by creating situations and therefore opportunities for them to respond to, through their duties and responsibilities, through their positions, through being on-duty, through being in-charge, through being able to receive duties given, work given through the charge. They are not positions of authority, positions of arrogance, they are opportunities. Of one who knows to make them an opportunity for growth for oneself and for all around, one can say that he and she truly have the authority. Authority means capacity and capability, it is not arrogance. It is to be humbled at the altar of responsibility so that the work is transformed into devotion, into worship. When work becomes worship it is no more work, no more labour; it is the highest form of worship; it is the highest form of meditation, and therein you have transformed yourself through work into a sacred entity, you have brought about sacredness – you are touching the Divine.

Just sitting gets one nowhere – the stones and the rocks around here have been sitting for thousands of years. It is how you sit, how you present yourself inside and outside when the situations are staring you in your face that matters. A true seeker does not need to be told to respond in a certain way. They know the response even before the situation arises, they have foresight, they have developed their instincts, their intuitions – this is how one develops in capacities. But then why has one not developed these capacities through so many lives, through so many years even when being in an environment where these opportunities are provided? There is something lacking because one is not meeting these situations and turning them into opportunities, for one is not conscious, one is not alert. Therefore one does not intuit the situation and the moment of reverence is gone. Then it becomes a habit to continue to miss those moments.

And when one cannot respond adequately in a collective situation like a commune or an ashram, then cohesion does not happen amongst the people, fusion does not happen. We remain strangers to each other, we don’t connect in the core of our being – we do not connect in the consciousness. Therefore one is only a tourist, just helpless in being together, and just biding the time so to speak – it is not active, it is not devotional – it is purely utilitarian. There is no meshing… Yes, when one is new and just beginning, one could understand. Like a new machine, the parts being new may take a while to mesh and grind themselves into harmony, but after a while the machine works perfectly and smoothly without any sound. One has to watch why sometimes we seem to miss out on these opportunities. For a continuous development it has to be a continuous process, a continuous seeking, for every corner of our being and consciousness to develop.

Through the years, a seeker is more alert, more agile, more conscious, more responsive and therefore more responsible, more dynamic, more active and not the opposite… More slack, more lethargic, more unresponsive. If that is what is happening then one has to watch, inquire and pull up the slack. It is through situations missed that it is seen – situations that present themselves for the development of devotion, development of the heart, development of the core of your being, your soul, development of your depth, your profundity and it is through these opportunities that you grow in your profundities by being responsive. Your duties are not your mechanics; they are the dynamics of your devotion. They are not the mechanics of your hands and feet movement alone, they are the dynamics of the whole of your being and therefore one has to present oneself wholly and completely. To be completely present is to be committed, is to be total, it requires working with oneself at all times. It creates continuity within, in the core of your being, in the core of your consciousness and it is not just one moment or two but it is a whole process.

The whole of your being has to be taken up and prepared and worked with. It needs the whole of your life, all of your movements, all of your moments. Therefore it is a process; it is not an instant enlightenment business. That is only one space, one level that one may achieve, rather we are talking about a total integration, something tremendous and immense. Therefore it requires a commitment of a different kind to truly be a seeker and not a tourist. A seeker, a true seeker never wants to gain anything by chance for a true seeker has pride; a true seeker always wants to work for it. This pride is good, this pride comes from the depth of our being – it is a profundity. Let us be proud of ourselves in our seeking. There is a difference between pride and arrogance: arrogance is shallow – pride is of the deep lake, while arrogance is of shallow waters. In pride there is depth, in arrogance there is only shallowness. Most times it embarrasses oneself. Pride can be a tremendous motivating force to reach and find. So a seeker should be always alert, agile, in dharma – it is a beautiful word. Dharma is such a profound word, it means whatever is right to the moment, to the situation – it is dynamic. Every moment has a dharma, to be able to respond to the moment in dharma is to grow in enlightenment.

Devotion takes you beyond your smaller self and brings you to your greater Self – each time you are greater. There is no end to our greatness, but it is ourselves, through our acts of tourism that we continue to remain small. Let us be inspired in dharma and when the inspiration is not there, let us wait for it but not without doing, rather through our doing let us wait for it, for that doing will bring the inspiration. It is working from the outside in: if one does not have it inside then let us bring it about from the outside by being present, by being conscious, by being appreciative of our duties, of our responsibilities given to us. Let us be proud and let us be open to learning. This is the right attitude.

Without attitude there is no meditation. There can be spaces because of the grace of the Guru, the Teacher, the Master but there must be an active participation to bring about any inner development – through our actions, through our duties, through the responsibilities given us – through our responses, through our devotions, through being able to intuit the situation – and if one cannot, seek and ask what situation is going to present itself next – volunteer; a seeker always volunteers but a tourist only when he feels like it. Tourism is temporary, that is why a tourist is a tourist – for the tourist it is a fad. The tourist moves from one place to another wherever the fad, the fancy takes him but the seeker is constantly digging into himself, getting into the core of his being, seeking for answers, seeking for profundities, seeking for the depth, seeking for the right response to the situation that has presented itself in the given moment.

One should be able to lift the world by oneself alone, let us develop our capacities in such a way or at least direct ourselves in this way, then in time you will see, you will gain powers, you will feel levels in your being that you never imagined exist. Otherwise existence remains mechanical and we remain very small, continuing in those same levels of consciousness. These are our devotions – the male has his own way of devotion and the woman has her own way of devotion. In the male’s way of devotion there is a masculinity, there is a maleness, handsomeness – while in the woman’s way there is femininity, gracefulness. It is all hidden within our being as potential, it needs to be uncovered, brought into manifestation, that is what is meant by developing and the external is required for that. In meditation you may see, but it is only in action it becomes realised. Knowledge is to know and see, wisdom is to act upon it and to realise – to live it. You know that fire has heat, to be able to cook and enjoy the food is wisdom – is to bring about that which you know into manifestation. It is to evolve a being in life that reaches increasingly to its own divinity that is waiting to be found, and the being passes through so much, through so many dark corners, through so much unawareness, through so many missed opportunities. But if one keeps oneself in seeking, one will continue to grow in alertness and awareness, one will become more and more conscious. This is evolution.

When one becomes aware of what is important at a given moment, this is dharma, this is why Rama is profound, otherwise Krishna cannot manifest in the way Krishna should manifest, it would not be Krishna. Rama knows the importance of each moment and the kind of response to each moment. This is enlightenment. This is enlightened life being lived. Then existence, the Reality, God will provide you with great works to do and you will grow in leaps and bounds. There is so much out there, you cannot imagine, but the core, the foundation has to be built otherwise it cannot come about, it needs your sacrifice, it needs your devotion and what does one sacrifice but the smaller self – our reluctances, our resistances, our grudges and that too it is only because one cannot see. But to see you must approach in the right way, you must be able to take those opportunities; you need to work with yourself constantly. Any moment can be an opportunity, nay, every moment is an opportunity. That is what is meant by being conscious.

For one who is in-charge, for one who is on-duty, this is an opportunity to be able to intuit, foresee the situation and what is required, and it does not absolve the others who are supposedly not placed in that position at that given moment and yet you are so at every moment. It is up to you how you approach your attitude towards life, for it is you who will benefit. These structures are created so that you may become aware, that is all; you would not require these structures when you can respond by yourself. These are your devotions but what happens is that we normally see them as labour. Of course it is felt as labour but honest labour will make you grow. Be proud and joyful that you labour honestly; it is a blessing and let your joy fill all the worlds. And I tell you, honest labour will never go unrewarded. Normally we have no trust, we don’t even remember about trust. If we had faith in our labour, we would know that it cannot go unrewarded because there is justice in Reality, in existence. A true seeker does not even seek a reward, he is so joyful, he is proud to be able to labour honestly, for the body can only thrive on labour – body consciousness grows through labour, it gets more and more refined. A labour that has turned into devotion makes the body a devotional body, what the Buddhists call dhamma kāyā, the body that is capable to manifest the Buddha. Every cell in your body starts to vibrate in that way, it transforms the body consciousness – such a body can live for a thousand years.

Our responsibilities make us greater. The greater the responsibility, the greater grow your capacities and your powers. You become vaster in your being, greater is your life. You become a greater instrument for manifesting a greater truth. So when one sits for meditation, it is for oneself to take up the slack, for oneself to see where the slack is and to tighten up, to gather oneself as it were, to remember, to remind oneself to gather one’s energies – to sharpen the skills, the wits, so to speak – to sharpen the tools so that one responds to the situations adequately, powerfully – so that one becomes surer of one’s commitments, responsibilities – one’s devotions. There is a tremendously beautiful life waiting out there for you but it requires your devotion, it requires your commitment, it requires you to see, intuit as to what is important at the given moment.

Rama is tremendous – you know this culture has withstood for such a long period of time, it is because of this dharma, to have this insight of dharma. It has this devotion to dharma that is why so many enlightened people keep coming; it has a ground for them to be born on. Without dharma nothing – for one who knows dharma it comes by itself.

That is why Krishna says to Arjuna, “Even though I do not need to work, I work Arjuna. You need to work and do your dharma and yet you abstain from it – I do not need to, I have done all things, all that needs to be done but I still continue to do, for if I do not, then all that is good will stop.” You would grow in your capacities to do right things, then automatically in Existence, in the Reality, in God, in the Teacher comes the love and the affection and flowing out of the grace. It is an automatic process in existence; you become an instrument and recipient of grace. These are subtle things, very subtle things.

To vibrate together one has to be instinctively, intuitively awake to the moment, to each other, and you learn from the Teacher. So it is not in the carrying of the bags (referring to an earlier incident where a sadhak did not assist in carrying luggage), it is in doing the right thing at any given moment. It is in being present; it is in the core of our attitudes, our being. All our outer activities are to awaken this within our being, how we present ourselves. Otherwise even the external activities can be just pure mechanics. Then we are just a machine, not consciousness. That is why I have always wanted to read to you the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, so you can have insights, get in touch with these things. They just don’t belong to India; they belong to the whole of humanity if it wants to get in touch with its divinity. They are not just the private domain of one particular culture. That culture belongs to the whole of humanity.

Therefore it then becomes the requirement to arrange duties so one starts to know externally first what needs to be done on an occasion because you do not know it by yourself. Finally it becomes your devotion if you are conscious. That is why duties have their place in this whole ritual of cleaning up, cooking, the serving and everything, otherwise there would be chaos, nothing would function. We have had that. That is why one requires structure, institutions, organisations. That is why Rama is the foundation for the spontaneity that is Krishna. Rama never misses an opportunity and neither does Krishna in his spontaneity – while you in your spontaneity seem to miss all the opportunities. For in your spontaneity you lack insight, intuition, instinctive knowing and your devotions. Through how you present yourselves you can raise the situation or lower the situation. To become aware of these things is to enter into the subtle levels of your being, subtle and deeper levels of your consciousness; it is to open yourselves to profounder states of being, is to become authentic in a deeper way, more profound.

It is being true to your deeper Self, or at least approaching it so that you can come in contact with those realms of your being that you are yet unaware of. Otherwise they are missed opportunities. These are doors, gates, windows to a greater act and a greater existence. So this is not a criticism, it is a pointer, see if it makes sense. And in that way you make yourself, that Self which develops through life – your person – through interaction, the environment, through the outside, through others. That is why I talk so much about this country, because it has such a culture which has withstood for thousands of years; it is the oldest and it has given to every nook and corner of the world. Every old culture has received from here, even so the Chinese, the Arabs etc., because the foundation is here. So if you learn to make the foundation, then you can build a life of grace. Now meditation is a quick-fix job, enlightenment quick-fixed, then we can set up a shop, it’s like this. That is why the very first time when I came to Bombay I said, I am not part of this supermarket; I do not want to open up a shop.

Since we are here, so that all is done with much awareness, we should know our priorities. It’s not that one does not know the priorities, but here the priority becomes just one’s small self and not what the situation is asking, and that truly is really what is good for one’s self, but we miss the opportunity. We lose out. In modern societies the devotional part does not get manifested; that kind of devotion that you find in the East, that kind of sacredness and reverence. Therefore in the realm of the spirit and life, the East has to lead always; therefore the West is seeking the East now. I specifically point out things, but it is not for you to become mechanical – think over it, let it enter into your being, digest it, and see. Then it will be authentic.

Meditation is your devotion. And your devotion is your actions, your responses – opportunities taken and lived. Without that meditation is empty, without significance. Whatever you do, do so joyfully, for it needs to be done – in that is your growth, remember that. Watch how you present yourself, how you go about doing anything. Watch your reluctance, your grudges – do they have any basis? Do they have any right to be there? If they have, express it. If they do not have a right to be, eliminate them. Maybe you feel there is a right in your reluctance and in your resistance. Express and inquire to understand, to learn whether there is something more that you need to understand and haven’t understood, whether the ‘right’ is understood, and is truly so – that is opening yourself to learning. In that you will grow – you will grow in your understanding. Your devotion is your meditation, and your devotions are your responses, your actions at any given moment. Then you come in contact with Dharma, which is eternally existent in the Reality and that will bring you in touch with divinity.

Arya Vihar

15 Oct 2000