A talk given by Shiva Rudra Balayogi in Austin, USA on the 19th May 2019
“Any object you can cut into two pieces, this is yours, this is mine, but the space you cannot do that. That’s what the Bhagavad Gita says – ‘No weapon can slay the Self, no water can soak no fire can burn. It is beyond all concepts, beyond all names, beyond all attributions. That is the Oneness.”
‘You Cannot Divide the Oneness of Space’
Recorded: 19 May 2019, Austin USA
Start of Discourse
Though the truth is one, unchangeable, undivided, but in this world we need to follow the manners, protocols. That gives us respect. Just like my Master used to tell, a son would become a father to his son, but to his father he will always be a son. He won’t become a father to the father. The same way a disciple might become a Guru to the next generation, but to his Guru he would always be a disciple at His lotus feet. And it is said great people are made, they are not born. But in my opinion, often in many cases they are born with some inborn amazing qualities of observation, understanding capacities and their determination, hardworking, putting an effort, self-effort, and not giving up till the last breath of life, type. That was what my Master born in a small hamlet of southern part of India’s Andhra Pradesh state. When He got introduced to spirituality, it was like “believe it or not”. From a fruit, a monotonous Om sound came out and it got converted into a Shivalingam as He was watching. This was not ages before or time immemorial; probably sixty to seventy years before in 1949, on a fine afternoon of 7th August. And from that Shivalingam a Jangama sage appeared with matted hair, a beard. He just made Him to sit for lotus posture and touched Him in between eyebrows.
Every day when we initiate, we instruct, “Concentrate your mind and sight in between eyebrows and just keep watching there. Don’t repeat any mantra name and do not imagine”. That was how He was instructed.
Before that He did not have any spiritual training, but He had determination. He had this ‘do or die’ type of determination, hardworking, honesty. He was just trying to overcome the poverty of His family when His father had passed away in His very early childhood. He understood that it is not a thing to be ashamed if we are poor. We can overcome by hardworking and He did that one. But as if the Divine chose Him to do other tasks for the whole world, not just one family, “So many in the world are waiting for Your blessings to see You, to learn from You.” In a simple way He meditated; He did tapas for twelve long years. When you close the eyes and try to keep your mind quiet even for a moment, two moments, one minute, you would understand how difficult – it’s not easy because mind has become habitual to run away since time immemorial. But He kept it quiet, focused for more than eighteen to twenty hours in a stretch and continued it for twenty-four hours and twelve years; a long way, amazing experiences. And then finally He realized the truth of oneness, the truth of that Divinity, that Ultimate Truth, what is generally known as advaita, the non-duality. The truth is one and in that one truth so many diversities, just like space is one, but the object, matter are so many. That’s what “Yaa Devi Sarva Bhutayshu Matra Rupeynasamstita”. Bhutayshu means individual imagined self. “In that you reside as a mother, so I prostrate to thee, O Ma, Mother.” So that was the beautiful teachings Swamiji gave. He tried to bring the meditation to every doorstep. Just to meditate, don’t have to give any excuse in which posture that you can sit, whether you are rich or poor, you are educated or not educated, anything; you just want to know yourself. He didn’t even give any name to His philosophy because He said, “If you imagine, you will expect the same experience and when you name that truth, you would have simply imagined. Just meditate and know that truth.” He blessed us, He graced upon us to serve Him for twenty years. In that service… service means we were active physically – looking after the Ashram, doing accounts, office work, we learned music, we did the drumming, we played harmonium; everything that was useful to the Ashram, dusting, cleaning. There was no specific thing that we have to do this and not do this one, but at all times He trained us to keep our minds quiet, receded, at peace. That was how He trained to practice and merge with that oneness. We always saw one; there were no two, three, four or different. One thing was there. That was the truth, that was the peace, that was the Supreme Consciousness of existence, and finally He made us to do five years of tapas.
So, to do all these things, it could be awful if one tries to imagine, “Do we have to do all these tapas and what happens?” Not necessary, just do not bother. To learn, to begin just one step, fifteen minutes, half an hour and one hour is very good enough; it can have such an impact on your mind to know what it is, what the truth is. So that was how He taught. And He taught that “Do sadhana, self-efforts.” He believed in that one, always He taught that one.
You see the space is one; it is simply all pervaded. Though we divide it, “This is my space, “This is my space,” but you cannot actually divide the oneness of that space. You travel, you travel, as much as you can you travel – you will see it is simply one, there is no cut. Earth also you can cut into two pieces maybe if you have the power. Any object you can cut into two pieces, “This is yours, this is mine”, but the space you cannot do that one. You try to cut, you take a knife, you take any object, you place it. That is what Bhagavad Gita talks, “No weapon can slay the Self, no water can soak, no fire can burn.” It is beyond all concepts, beyond all names, beyond all attributions, that is the oneness. To experience this, you have to silence your mind. That understanding needs to be there in whatever way that is possible for you that you can keep quiet. Like if you consider somebody as your commander with all the reverence, then whatever that person says you will do it. That is what we did. We consider our Master – He was Lord, He was mother, He was father, He was Guru, everything. Guru means, for us we were taught, even greater than the Divinity, God. As Saint Kabira tells, “If Guru and God both come in front of me, to whom shall I prostrate?” Then the confusion is over, “Let me prostrate to my Master, my Guru, because my Master, it is You who told me about God, what is Divinity, so You are greater than anything.” So, we just accepted whatever He wanted us to do as a command and went on doing. So, when we did it, it became meditation because mind became quiet; it stopped all imaginations, visualizations, so the dualities in the mind gradually receded. So, unknown to us we experienced that oneness of that consciousness of existence. That was there all the time. It was an amazing experience. We were dusting, an amazing experience, quietly we did it. When we were singing, we were simply singing, there was no imagination, “I am singing, or I am singing this, I am singing that,” simply the singing was there and the mind receded, it became quiet in that silence, that amazing experience of peace, quietness and that oneness, how this is only one. When it imagines, two, three, hundred, thousand, million, everything appears, but when it does not imagine, only One, that is the truth. Because this One does not disappear, whatever you do. All you have to do to make the things in the mind disappear, evaporate is not to do anything. Simply allow it to happen, you don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to take a stick and try to hit that and there is no button to switch it off; you have imagined and stop that imagination means you become quiet, just watch, allow it to happen, then it will disappear. Means, allow it to happen means, how? Don’t try to react for anything that happens in the mind for a while. There is a thin edge of difference when the thought appears and you try to react to that thought, then they both merge and become one and you are unable to make out that thought is there because you are reacting, you are analyzing, you are trying to know what it is; that is not the way to know what it is. When you become totally quiet in that consciousness, what is there is the truth and that truth is the consciousness of existence. So, when you focus on that, you are trying to do that one precisely in meditation when we ask you to just watch in between eyebrows. And you will see that One remains always, that’s how you proceed eventually to the awareness of the Self and that is One. That is One, which does not disappear. You keep quiet, it does not disappear, you jump, you do anything, you try to talk, it won’t disappear, it is always there. That’s how you determine that Self is immortal, that is eternal, that is One. That is not this physical body, the attention always goes on to That when you achieve the silence of the mind, so when the consciousness is silent, that’s what we did.
So, like that every day, every moment you can achieve this. When you need to think you can think, think, plan and then get into the job, don’t simply keep thinking because when you get into the job also, you allow your mind to keep worrying, becoming anxious, “This happens, what if it doesn’t happen, what will happen tomorrow.” That need not be. Just you have to plan and go on doing. When that happens, you just do it, that’s it. I was not worrying since morning what I have to talk, what I am going to present, I just remained quiet, just we sat and they all sang. Once the song was over, we started and it is coming automatically. So, that is a plan – you just work and then go on talking. Even now I don’t have to be thinking in the mind. That is the practice of sadhana, in such an amazing way our Master trained us. Having faith in the Master and having faith in what we do, means mindfulness. Different Masters, different people have used terminologies, different languages in different ways. If one has asked “Observe from where the ‘I’ is coming,” another has asked “Just watch”, it is all the same. When you observe also, you are not thinking, you are simply observing. Observe what I have to say means, just listen to me, you don’t think, you don’t bother anything, pay your attention here. That’s what having an insight into the truth, having attention to the internal truth. So, by this practice of dhyana, meditation, by observing, by watching, then you can experience that oneness; it is one. Yesterday as I explained, from a small home, from that small street you will realize one day you belong to the space that is oneness. So, all of us are in that oneness, all of us are one, one family or one, whatever you want to consider, not different. There is no difference, though it appears two, three, hundred, so many things, it is all the one. One screen is there. In that one screen, so many visions, so many characters, so many stories. When it disappears, what remains is one screen. In the same way our mind also works like a screen. Within itself, it creates and so many characters appear, so many stories appear, it all keeps coming.
So, that five years tapas became so easy for us when we practiced to keep quiet for twenty years, because we loved the Master. So, when we love somebody, we will adjust for everything in this life. “O, we have to dust, no problem, we will dust and clean it. Do we need to cook? No problem, we can cook.” There is no resistance, no brooding, no such thing happens. Then five years when He made to sit and then asked just to watch in between eyebrows, further tests came that which would have had been in the deep subconscious state. “All you do is do not react,” the Master taught, consistently taught, “Even if any manifestation happens, even if God comes, even if a demon comes, do not react. That is all your own creation. You keep quiet, everything quietens, everything recedes.” Only one thing that does not recede or go away is that Ultimate One Truth.
The space appears void because we have thought it to be so. When the space is holding the entire universe, so beautifully everything is happening. The scriptures also talk, “When the Divine wanted to create, there was no other raw material other than the Divinity.” I am talking of Divinity because do not imagine the Divine to be any personality. At the most try to visualize it as a space that is all pervading, if this space is the Supreme Consciousness of existence. So, the Divine created within itself. When your mind wants to create, there is no other raw material available for the mind. The mind cannot touch anything else, so it creates within itself and so many characters appear. The day when you withdraw all these by remaining quiet and achieve that silence, you will see only one mind remains and that is no more mind, that is simply consciousness. Why we tell about this consciousness – consciousness of existence ‘I exist,’ that is always there. Then the ‘I’ disappears, then simply an awareness. That is how you have to practice and achieve eventually. Why this is recommended? One thing is that is the truth, truth of existence. When it is the truth, nobody can help it, you cannot change it. “I do not like the truth, I want to change,” means it does not happen. That is the truth. You experience and then see if you can change the truth to anything. See if you can cut the space into pieces, if you do not like its oneness. It is One. That is the truth, and this truth gives you Supreme Peace because that is the nature. Why it is supremely peaceful? It does not need anything else and that is you, yourself. As long as you need something, you are likely to become anxious, you are likely to have a fear, you are likely to be discontented, brooding, all this happens. When you do not need anything… Like my Master used to tell, “People become poor by desires. When they have contentment, they are like emperors. That is all we need to learn,” He used to say. So, that is what the truth is and that is how you practice and achieve. And He said for this, “You experience about yourself and it is such an awesome thing.” That is why the ancient sages, they simply named it as ‘That’. When they addressed, they all used to sit down and talk about their experiences, what happens in that silence, what happens in that quietness, what is that consciousness, what is that awareness. They said, “It is That, it is That”. That is how they spoke and they did not name, because when you try to name, it is an imagination; they understood that. Simply that is why they went on talking ‘That’, “That is like this, That is such awesome, That is supremely peaceful, and That is the real Self.” That is simply One because that is the Truth and it cannot be two. That is how it appears also. Only it can experience itself. Just like if you want to know what space is, you have to become space. Other than that nothing else can know what space is; it is such vast and boundless. Even if you want to measure the space also, you have to become space. By being anything else, you cannot measure the space and this space is supreme conscious awareness of itself. It is not simply a void place. Because we have imagined, somebody would have imagined and that person went on talking, “This is a void place, this is a void place,” and everybody went on believing it, and that became a habit. That is how things get imagined in this world. Somebody claims he is a genius and he tells, “This is it.” He names it, and the rest accept. “This is microphone” and everybody starts calling that as microphone. And somebody comes, “Hey why you call this microphone? You have imagined. It is not microphone, it is the Divine, it is the Ultimate Truth.” Then because they are in majority, they try to make fun of the other. That is how when different parts of the world, some great people came and experienced the truth. When they spoke about it they were called mad people because all others were mad about this world. Rarely, very few became mad about that Ultimate Truth, like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramana Maharishi or Adi Shankara, or Shivabalayogi. And this Truth you can believe only when you experience. It is an individual experience; it cannot be demonstrated; it is you yourself. You have to see yourself. For that only we try to teach meditation, give clues, help people to practice. And see when your mind is peaceful, means you have to become peaceful, then you have peace. When your mind is silent, then you are at peace; when you are settled and composed you are at peace. Knowingly or unknowingly that peace is the thing you are looking for, even much beyond the bliss. Peace is the settled and composed. That is what the elders have said, “When mind abandons all cravings, means all imaginations, then it gets absorbed into the Self effortlessly.” When it stops imagining, effortlessly it goes; you do not have to push by taking any other object. That simply goes and settles and remains there contented. Contentment is another elusive thing for anybody to achieve. If you are contented, nobody can threaten you; you are totally secure.
End of Discourse
