Summary: Explains that understanding can be at various levels and that a true understanding would lead to growth. Explains that the Ashram is an extension of ourselves and our sadhana. Further instructs that a seeker must never give in to his lower nature as constant repetition gets fixed as personality.

‘All the interrelations in life, all the interactions in life, they are the opportunities for you to grow in one thing or the other. Then you are always moving, always growing, there is never a moment when you are not growing.’ – Giridharji

(D., an Italian child who is a frequent visitor, is present)

What does growing mean?

D.: Growing in understanding.

Good, but understanding not in the usual superficial mental manner but in depth and also experiential; understanding in the totality and the fullness of our being. Rather it is a growing through experience and realisation, in the totality of our being, existence, self, soul and spirit. This would be complete growing, growing increasingly and progressively to the totality and fullness of perfection – body, mind and spirit – while growing in understanding and the knowing of life, and oneself, to the fullest.

Understanding can be at various levels: there is mere mental understanding and there is understanding in depth, there is emotional understanding and there is spiritual understanding. So do we grow in our understanding when we are interacting or when we are doing some work or the other, about the thing we are dealing with, and of ourselves – how we go about any task and how we relate? All this follows. Then there is growing. So you have to become more conscious, more aware. You have to become conscious about how you go about doing anything: if it is your work, how you are doing the work, what the motive and objective of doing that work is, how you approach the work, so that your understanding of the work increases, is better, and you do better each time; and through the work an understanding of oneself in a growing perfection within and without. Also why you do that particular work – preferences, likes and dislikes, the objective of work, where are you coming from, what is your motive, your attitude – all this is to grow in understanding. Also relating, not only with people but also with things: how we cook, how we deal with pots and pans, your treatment of them – everything. For a seeker, for somebody who wants to grow every moment, not only great things but even little things and even cleaning toilets is work divine and a means to the Divine. Work is divine, it does not matter what type of work it is. If it is offered to the Divine in this way and you grow from it divineward then it is divine. Every work is divine, that is what your understanding and living must grow into.

There are many things to understand about ourselves: when we relate with things, when we relate with people; that is how understanding about ourselves, about the other, deepens and widens. In which way are you relating, and why you relate in a certain way – are we relating intelligently, are we being objective in our relating, are we relating fairly, unfairly, are we envious, are we jealous, are we being possessive, reactive, egoistic? There are many things to understand. That is what I mean by being conscious. And then to do something about it: if it is negative, low, distorted, false, wrong to our conscience, perverse and niggardly then it has to be negated, even rejected again and again if need be, until it is done and dusted; while if it is positive and right, high and noble, it has to be affirmed and lived. Then it will lead you to right growth – this is growing into a deeper, higher and nobler being. You cannot grow in the low and negative, you have to grow in the high and positive, you have to grow into the Divine and not grow into the ignorant undivine and definitely not the demonical anti-divine. So one must generate higher values, higher feelings and higher and deeper emotions. If you enter into and indulge the lower and base feelings, emotions, and pettiness of thought, then that gets generated and you grow in that and that becomes your personality. Rather the lower consciousness has to be transformed in the nobler light of the Divine to be Its instrument.

So if you behave and interact in an envious manner or jealous manner, then you keep developing that, that becomes your personality, that becomes you. Then you identify with it as ‘this is me’ and it becomes a fixed blind personality, difficult to go beyond. Then you can feel hurt for unjustified reasons and that can condition and influence you to be unfair and unjust, blinded because of the jealousy which becomes a behaviour pattern and personality over time with its unpleasant consequences.

So these are all opportunities. When you are alone you are never put to the test, it is only life situations that put you to the test, people around you that put you to the test and that is when you face up to them – and it occupies you. If higher things, thoughts and life occupy you then you will grow into higher things; if lower things, thoughts and life occupy you then you develop only the lower things. So what is your requirement for your growth – this you must start understanding. This is what is meant by growing in understanding: to become conscious and to be able to make right decisions and therefore progressively to become a master of your life, higher life. Are they going to help you and are they going to help others also? How will they affect and effect the good or bad? What are the consequences of our actions? All this has to be viewed, observed, and then corrected where corrections are required, increased where increment is required, negated when negation is required. This is growing in life, growing of one’s life, otherwise one carries on only with what is comfortable to oneself and avoids all challenges, avoids all discomfort, even putting others to discomfort for one’s comfort. Most times one is unfair to the other and more than fair to oneself, one continues to perpetuate the usual and then it becomes a habit. You view the world and life in that way then, through that made-up personality, never through the true spirit of things.

Now we can move to ‘growing in construction’ as everybody seems to have understood about growth! We can grow in (laughing) houses, toilets also and about time, by taking to ‘uncomfortable’ physical labour since we need them to be ‘comfortable’!

Cl.: Is it connected to our growth?

Yes, everything is connected. The Ashram and our work is an extension of ourself and our sadhana. The outside is the extension of ourself and a mirror to ourself and of ourself, so the outside work will reflect us and therefore is a means to our perfection within and without. That is how it is and it should be – otherwise what is the point of constructing a place like this in the manner we do? It too is sadhana as work, a worship and offering unto the Divine and a means for improvement and growth, for perfection within and without, divineward. Otherwise you see people making places – do you see how they make them? There is no connection. They even do them badly, which is a reflection of themselves. And that is why you will meet with opposition from the outside. There are forces that do not want things to change for they want to continue in the usual way either because it is comfortable or because of some vested interest; and even so from within us because of incapacities and limitations of the physical and in the understanding. Besides, there are forces within us that can act as hurdles to our own growth and to a greater vision. So you must understand, you must step aside and see because you get identified with every feeling, every emotion, every desire and preformed narrow mindsets thinking, ‘It is me’: it is not, it is prakṛiti, it is nature individualised! You may have developed a personality crust and cult and then it becomes even more difficult, because you identify with your personality in finality and totality – you do not know that personality can be altered and changed: it is like I said earlier, made-up. But because it has been developed over a long time and you have identified with it completely all the while without much thought, you continue to believe it is fixed, and it is unconsciously done. Being conscious means knowing that it is not you but only your personality and that it can be altered if need be to help you to grow in sadhana, to bring you to higher and deeper levels of consciousness and towards the Divine.

Or would you want to continue because it is convenient, comfortable, the usual, and because you are lazy to do something about it even though you see the need for change? So this has to be consciously observed, recognised, accepted and met, for that is from where the resistance and the difficulties come and then it is reflected in your outer behaviour with its consequences. From within, in your case, it may not be so much – say for construction – but from the outside world it will come because they may not have the understanding, vision and objective that we have here and are constantly discussing and being reminded of. The forces of Light and the forces of darkness always oppose each other; forces of conscience and Truth and forces of greed, avarice and falsehood always oppose each other, and even within there are the forces of Light and forces of darkness, forces of the lower level that pull you down opposing the forces of higher regions – they are always in conflict. Ordinarily you are always being pulled down because that is the ordinary common consciousness, and if you try to break free they resist and try to hold you down even more strongly. You cannot transform the lower unless you have access to the higher because then you do not have the vision. When you are entrapped in the lower you get completely involved in it and that is why in meditation one needs to practice to step back, stand back, separate and be a witness to anything and everything that comes up: ‘This is not me,’ rather you are something that is behind, beyond, so much more. Then you become and act from an inner freedom and a greater understanding of things, besides constantly seeking and reaching the Divine.

You must practice this, time and time again, in and as meditation even while you work and interact. Otherwise each time the identification becomes more and more solid. That is why it requires lifetimes of sadhana, work. Transformation is lifetimes of work! To bring about the Divine manifestation, to bring about the supreme light in your life and to be able to live it is not window shopping, taking a pill, some magic or instant enlightenment. There can be nothing more foolish than that! It is a journey of self-discovery which requires a lot of patience and a lot of work. But if you have understood it can be very easy, for then you accept and you know, ‘This is it’ and therefore, ‘This is what I want,’ and that if change is required then, ‘Yes, I must accept this and I must change,’ and that time and effort is required on one’s part. Then the way is easy because there is no doubt anymore, no resistance.

So this requires acceptance, this requires increment, and this requires denial of all that gets in the way of achievement – then it becomes easy. If you keep switching on and off then it is difficult, it becomes like a yo-yo – now this, now that. If you want to reach to knowledge you cannot continue to perpetuate ignorance. If you want to reach to light obviously you cannot continue with and perpetuate darkness, for you cannot have both. If you want to develop divine love of the world you cannot have feelings like jealousy, envy, egoism, arrogance – you cannot, because where they exist you cannot have greater and nobler feelings of compassion, self-giving, self-offering and love. If you want freedom you cannot be possessive because that which you are possessive of binds and possesses you also. If you objectively see this you understand, but when you are at the lower levels you cannot see it – it is all that exists over there, lowliness and niggardliness.

(D. joins in the conversation and mentions the fruits he has collected today)

How is it I am not getting any of these fruits? I suppose it is kaliyuga and that is what is meant by ‘self-giving’ in kaliyuga. (Laughter) In kaliyuga people are very smart: self-offering to them means offering to self, oneself, themselves; self-giving means giving to self, oneself, themselves! This understanding can be very significant… (Laughing) It is not giving of oneself, rather ‘self-giving’ – otherwise they claim, ‘You said, so I am giving to myself!’

Arya Vihar

8 Jul 2012