Summary: This talk refers to a beautiful trek in the mountains, in the rain. Explains that the deeper perception of God in all things melts the heart and that special places of beauty like the Himalaya bring one to meditation. Further that unless people deal with the earth from a higher and deeper level of consciousness, and not just from greed, it will be destroyed.

There is no fear of the rain, the water – it never does you any harm. When I lived here alone I would spend the whole night sometimes out in the rain, just sitting. And then your body and the rain – there is no difference left. It can never do you harm. It wets your body, but does not make it ill. In fact you feel its bliss, as if it is bringing bliss with it. You start to connect – for there is this one God in all things. It is a soaring, this whole ecstasy that comes. In the earth, the plants, the rain…

And the rain, you do not see it only as water, you see it as Being. You come back then to the Vedic Ṛishis and their perception where they have the rain-God – they see it as a face of God; they have the wind-God – they see it as a face of God. You feel God in them, and then you feel this total solidarity, and the energy that you feel is so powerful, so tremendous. And you get lifted; then you do not feel you are walking – you float. You connect to a whole different energy. You feel paradise – it is real paradise. And then the tears come, but they are the tears of ecstasy, the tears of love, the tears of oneness – the heart is totally melted. And everything, even the rocks, to you is really so – Being of God. There is this level of meditation which is Being – it is your being. Then everything takes on a shine, everything. All is light – light, love, and energy all together, bliss. And then from your being it touches everything around. Then even the environment is privileged to have you there.

S.: It is a love affair in that moment.

It is. It is the greatest – it is the most sacred moment because it is godly, it is divine. You are touching divinity; you are touching divinity in yourself – being divine. And you are touching divinity around you. And to you then the environment also starts to manifest the divinity: even as plant, even as stone, even as wind, even as rain, even as the insect, the animal – everything – the trees, the waterfalls, the streams… When you yourself actually see, experience it like this – then you understand those Vedic Ṛishis. Otherwise it may seem nature worship, animism, and all kinds of things. This is why originally when western scholars read through the Vedas they called them the most primitive form of religion. But really they reveal a very profound experience. Then you offer worship to the plant, you offer worship to the stone, you offer worship to a lizard. Not just offer worship, you want to embrace! You raise each life form to the Highest. And because of that those life forms are also touched in the same way. What they subjectively may not be experiencing – which you perceive and see – through you, through the contact with you, through your presence, they are touched. That is why when such a realised soul is around it is a privilege for the environment, for subjectively, essentially the environment is also That. That is why they are touched. In their own way then they respond.

Even a pebble you hold in your hand with such care and tenderness.

So when people like that, a race like that, could be on the earth, the earth would be different. There could never be exploitation. There would be sacredness and receiving from the abundance. It is a state of abundance and you receive therefore in abundance. And you feel so abundant. Therefore the bliss, harmony, love. Love is abundance. It is a state of total abandonment to what is your self, to what is everywhere. That is why we are still remembering that place of our walk. It has left such a lasting impression.

When you are having this state of experience all the time then every place is like this, of course with its own unique subjective quality, energy. And because these places are still wild they have this quality of vibrancy so close to the surface also. They lose it when they get exposed to the so-called civilised societal modernity. The Himalaya has this vibrancy – these mountains have had it from the beginning. This is the place where meditation was found. That is why they are called Devâtmâ Himalaya – Divine-souled Himalaya.

M.: Only humans have darkness; only they can contaminate.

Well, darkness is present in the universe as such. What happens with man is perversity; this is because of the mind. In the animal you will not see it, although they are also in a way in darkness. But with the mind of man exploitation becomes possible. On one level the human has the capacity to arrive at the experience of divinity consciously; at another the same human because of that same mind can decline to perverse levels. The animals have no such choice. Therefore you can say God created a place like this so man would seek or would arrive and then find his meditation here – the way of meditation. Consequentially it would then spread to the whole creation, the human world, the appreciation of it. For example the discovery of electricity. Today everybody uses it. Of course the discovery of meditation is so much more, for everything is within it. And therefore I am drawn to these places. This happens with me; it is a spontaneous movement, there is a flow in me – it just goes. There was no premeditated plan for me to go out there, but rather felt and was drawn and just started to walk. This energy, moving spontaneously, just flowing. Throughout my travels I have always found places in such a way.

S.: The day of the walk I felt it would be nice to sometime do an intensive: a day or two or three, in silence. But also, how do you know? Maybe I make a three day intensive and I stay three days in the mind. And just one day we go there by chance and it is such a beautiful experience.

So you do not know where it will strike you from! That is why you have to keep yourself with it.

S.: In the bazaar, in the room, in the car. But it helps to believe in miracles.

That is why there have to be more people with this kind of state, then the earth can be taken care of in the right way. Otherwise if it is left to ordinary humans they would turn this earth into something else. This is what happens to many places. They are not appreciated for themselves but rather exploited, and their wildness and natural beauty destroyed for temporary monetary gains out of greed. Basically not just this place but the whole of earth – from what level of consciousness is it dealt with? Then only that gets manifested and therefore established.

If a businessman comes, he will see it to exploit: a resort maybe, so then only that kind of thing is established in the societal consciousness as preferred and idolised behaviour to be emulated across the board, full stop. For those who have a higher and a deeper manifestation, experience, consciousness, realisation, their approach to things would be according to that, sacredly holistic and thus different from the exploiters and profiteers. The need for the earth and therefore the responsibility of the people on it is to manifest this more, and to bring it into action. Otherwise, ‘gatè gatè’¹. You have the realisation and then you disappear! So then – what and who remains here? Those with the lower levels of consciousness and lower perception of things, who would finally destroy everything because of their shortsightedness and greed, or those who are to be the recipients and guardians of an increasingly greater and truer life – life divine? At least it must be present as a beacon for the people, the general humanity, to know that something like this is there. Otherwise there is a greater possibility today of the earth being destroyed completely more than anything else.

If there are people who are seeking meditation or anything from meditation, they are only in pockets of minority. But those who rule, those who have total control over this planet, they are in the majority and directing it to total destruction through total exploitation. Look at what happened to Manali. Manali used to have a very beautiful atmosphere at one time. Now it is totally finished – dead. All gone. So should material development be allowed to reach a point where it is at the expense of the sublime, the beautiful, and the profound? That place is dead now. You only get a very slight feel of what it was at one time for those who have seen and felt it before, but it is almost gone, very little is left, almost nothing. And it was for just that atmosphere that people came there in the first place, but they did not maintain it. Because those who ruled, administered, turned it into a farce; they wanted to make money out of it. Then you see: nothing left. So instead of receiving from the atmosphere and being nourished, they only took and exploited the place – leave alone giving anything in return, they did not even maintain it. That is why whenever there is this understanding that everybody is equal and should be given everything and equally – no way, I say! First, qualification. Just because somebody feels that he must be given, it does not mean he is ready to receive and to be given it.

S.: The only thing we can do is to grow ourselves in consciousness.

Maturity means to be able to understand one’s readiness to receive something. These things are very subtle; somebody who is mature understands this very easily. Like for example all that money that comes here to the villagers for development – they are abusing it, they cannot use it properly. So should they be pampered in this way? Should they be given this? It is causing great corruption; no work is ever done, as also corrupting the temperament. Some people of course may be thinking in terms of doing some good. But then is it really doing good? They are not readying the people for it. So it is ending up in corruption, cheating, deception, embezzlement. And then that trend gets established – and deeply. Then to change that is so difficult.

This is what is meant by making of nature, making of personality. There can be individual making of personality, and a collective thing which gets established in the consciousness of the place, the environment, the system. That is why now when we talk to the people, the villagers, the officials, about this abuse of funds and therefore themselves, they say it is old-fashioned to think in this way. “Corruption is part of life,” they say. “Where are you coming from? You should also join up with this trend!” This is the consciousness; in the consciousness this has become a trend in the way of thinking, it has gotten so deeply rooted. “This is the modern way of living – new,” they claim, and that our attitude is old and outdated.

Therefore meditation is such a gift, because it can open your inner eye – open you to the kind of experiences and realisations that make you see. Then you start to see things differently. Otherwise life itself will be destroyed. The human because of his mind can destroy the creation. And the human is such because he sees things in separation, he does not realise that his existence is connected with everything around. He believes he will continue to live and grow through all this corruption and exploitation. Even if he does, what kind of life will it be? Then arguments are put forward: ‘Oh, life will somehow manage to survive even if it be on tablets and pills,’ and speculations that there will be little bio-gardens with domes of bonsai-like plants where people will take their children – like animals in the zoo – to show how the earth once was. They accept this, the fools, not realising that this is such a delinquent idea and a farce. How will they survive without this whole life-nourishing process where, for one thing, the trees do all this cleaning and purification of the environment for oxygen and air and so also the bringing of rain – life-giving waters without which no life can exist?

Arya Vihar

3 Aug 1999