Imperience of void- The path to freedom from bondages

Salutations to the great Master for enabling us to meet again. This time we are gathering to celebrate his 105th birthday. My salutations to all co-travelers in the path of grace. It is sixty years since the Special Personality emerged and His task of transforming human nature and adjusting many elements in Nature is in full swing. It is 21 years after his physical veiling and His presence is now felt more vividly and experienced more intensely than ever before, making many of his statements to this effect true. This is no surprise for those who have faith in the Master, Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj of Shahjahanpur, U.P India as a supra temporal being, working out, as the Eternal Master, our spiritual destinies with the super consciousness of the highest variety native to the Central Region.

We are clear in our understanding that the Special Personality is special mainly because there is no Persona or Mask for him as we all have. This point we have had occasions to note earlier many times in our books and meetings. We are clear that we are not subscribing to any personality cult and make one man/woman as the focal point and a point of adoration and consequent flattery. We are doubly sure, what with the ready response from the source, that there is a Divine Consciousness which is ever ready to answer our call and that is expressing itself as the Consciousness of Sri Ramchandra, a consciousness that includes all and excludes none, that which is all love and grace and ever willing to modify and transform our consciousness by its association we have during our meditations and otherwise through the influx of Pranahuti. For others the Real Teacher of all, "Time" will give its lessons. All shall have the message sooner or later.

It is a matter of practical experience of many aspirants in the path of the Master, which we call PAM in order to stress the importance of the process of Pranahuti, rather than any person, from where it is confusedly identified to be emanating from, to feel and get absorbed in the transcendent calmness and quiet that is uniquely divine. We experience very vividly the 'Centre that is yawning towards the circumference' even as the Master asserted. Calmness or quiet by itself is good but when it is tinged with the quality of the Divine, it is only the imperience that can explain to our hearts the intensity of the attraction of the Centre and no words can clarify any point in this regard. We have tried to explain the nature and process of Pranahuti in our article published in the journal Imperience.

When we do get absorbed in meditation due to the effect of Pranahuti, and when we contemplate over our condition we find that we were face to face with the profound and over whelming primordial ground of Reality itself. That is when we find, no where our little self, and we are not even aware of the borders of vast space that is experienced, nor awareness of the time, that is the real ground of all experience. This is the place and time, if it is permitted to use those words, where the Base or Origin is presented to us by the Master out of his extreme love and consideration to lift us beyond the petty differences and squabbles that consume our time and other resources normally. We are then not aware of ourselves, our relations and relationships, our anguishes and animosities. Deeply entertained emotions of love and hatred equally disappear; attitudes of revenge loose their roots, if only we are attentive to the ground that is exposed to us by the benevolent Master.

The imperience that we have does not permit us to be satisfied with the necessity to evolve individually but it impels our being to personally participate in the Divine task of transformation and that call from the inner self becomes imperative. Having submitted our Egos and also surrendered our will in favour of the Divine Will, we find ourselves presenting bare and naked before the powerful and omni-potent energy that is intent and determined to modify and transform the human consciousness. The propulsion is experienced intimately every time the Pranahuti is offered and we find ourselves left with no option than to evolve. The human destiny to evolve out of its petty limitations, self imposed invariably in all cases, is not something that is pre-determined but the imperative to participate in the Divine plan is sought to be made clear by the process of Pranahuti. Without Pranahuti this imperative to evolve, may at best be felt by the most clear and vivid intellectuals as we have seen in the pronouncement of many Advents/saints/scholars and scientists of the modern day. If human transformation were to wait for the evolution of the perfect intellect in all, it may as well be concluded such a transformation is out of question, at any rate in the near future. That is what we have in the Indian Six darshanas and a host of other philosophies of the east and the west and the endless arguments in the favour of one or the other point of view.

In the state of consciousness that may be called as Void, we find there are no binds for us in any manner and we also feel that there is a spiritual awakening and a compulsion that get generated in us due to the death of Ego or 'I' ness. When the relentless will of the separate Ego yields to the Divine which is felt as an imperative impulse to evolve in our consciousness we find meaning for our being. This impulse has always been there and was clouded all this time as we were engrossed in our Ego agenda.

Due to the influx of the will of the divine as Pranahuti we become alive to the greater call and develop an attitude of renunciation which is the real vairagya. This is not renunciation of the Ego's agenda due to failures or dejections but a conscious decision to efface the Ego and live for the Divine, by the Divine and in the Divine.

Renunciation from all attachments that our Ego has developed in the course of its creation of its own universe is in no way connected to the various modes or orders of social life but a condition of consciousness in which it realizes its spiritual absoluteness. Here ethics and spirituality coalesce in the attunement of the individual to the structure of the cosmos. Man becomes one with creation, being freed from the bondage of attachment, convention and anxiety. The aspirant fixes his attention on nothing but the Infinite and is ill equipped to know nothing other than It. For one who has fixed for himself such a goal the duties of the Brahmacharin, Grihastha and Vanaprastha are not progressive stages of self-sublimation and self-transcendence but a compliance to the social order that a civilized society has developed to bring an ethical and moral order and each one of the stages actively assisting him in leading a life of total dedication to the Divine with an attitude of due attachment which is the real and natural meaning of Sannyasa. The three basic cravings, called Eshanas in the Upanishads, which correspond to the psychological complexes in the form of desire for wealth, fame (with power) and progeny through legitimate sex, are overcome in the graduated educational process constituted by the stages of life. This becomes much more easy with the constant affirmation that is had about our real nature during meditation supported by the process of Pranahuti that nothing here belongs to us and also by adhering to the philosophy that is advocated by our Master to treat every one and every task for us as those entrusted to us by the Divine as a trustee.

One who takes to a detached look at things and events and relations, is the real aspirant in our system, for whom there is nothing more important than the discharge of all duties as divinely ordained. He by virtue being a real human has got to discharge certain duties as a trustee is the noblest of the thoughts that our Master has given us, For us there is nothing here to own and possess but every thing is to be partaken of, rather than enjoyed, with a feeling that there is nothing except the Absolute in reality, expressing itself here in the past and the present. The anubhava or experience is a non personal unified enriched consciousness that swells into the future expressing itself in a more glorious manner. Those who tend to see values in the past are right but yet stagnated. And those who live the same values modified to suit the present are those who practice the right. But those who enrich the values keeping in view the needs of the future with a vision that is holistic are those who are the forerunners of the future. Such men alone can be called as Animitta-Sannyasins. It is only such persons who remain as gems and jewels in any society irrespective of the fact whether they are recognized as such by others. They are the excellent workers, supervisors, managers, doctors and are there in every calling and vocation. They are all in fact doctors of Divinity serving others with a total dedication to the divine. Because of the basic renunciation they have acquired due to the constant awareness of the Bare Ground where their total nakedness is exposed, they hold on to nothing, thus making it possible for them to develop the great virtues of Dharma (abiding by the Divine law), Dana (going even beyond the Law by resorting to self less offering), Tyaga (sacrificing ones own interest like King Shibi and Karna).They are the ones who can be considered to have understood the real meaning of the words 'due attachment' so often used by our Master.

The 'due attachment' from my humble point of view is the attachment to the Divine- which can never become undue, what with our puny status in the scheme of things. It is the glory of the Divine that it chooses to offer opportunities to the human beings to simulate the Divine. That is the origin of Masters. What a great Master we have who exhorts us always to imitate him and become Masters in turn and we become a source of inspiration for others. There is no challenge greater than the one which asks us to be Divine. To become Divine is our birth right as the seeds for the same are already there waiting to be nourished and nurtured. Those who respond to this call by working for the same incessantly and without any remission are the ones who get enriched by the very active presence of the Divine sprouting in each of us fulfilling the Divine promise of bringing out a transformed human being. Such are the ones who are fit for service to lead others to and in the path of the Divine. Amongst our gathering for those who have eyes to see and hearts to feel there are quite a few such souls and my prayer is that such souls may increase and bring more Peace and Harmony.

The path of meditation has always been considered in tradition as superior to the ritualistic religious discipline worshipping either the sakara or the nirakara forms of the Divine. Those who have had the experience of Real but yet do not continue in the path are bound to return to the path and reach the goal, according to tradition in seven lives. Those who have moved in the path of meditation and yet missed the grace according to tradition reach the goal of no return to birth in one more life. Those who have moved in the path of meditation and had the grace of God never return to birth. My request has always been to recognize the merit of the path by experience and acknowledge the same. Do not judge the value of this system by the imaginary notions of what reality is; do not judge the merits of the system by dogmas and beliefs created by people who had little practical experience; do not get guided by notions held by guru kitabis. Having known the path it is our duty to follow the same with single pointed orientation, refusing to entertain notions and beliefs however ancient they might be. Ekagravrtti is a necessary precedent for effective sadhana. As for Masters grace we have it in abundance. The path of no return is here and it is for us to accept, follow and pass on.

Those that had the taste of the Void or Nothingness, when reflect on such an experience with the required extent of devotion and love to the Master are sure to resolve the basic bonds of

1. Awareness of independent existence starts the moment the Jiva is born and gets strengthened by the customs and educational inputs of the society and culture which promote "I" ness. The aspirant who beholds the Truth in its naked ness leaves this illusion and gets out of the bonds of I and Mine. These are the people who can be considered as Saintly because their actions depend on the natural responses rather than based on preconceived notions and prejudices. Their aim happens to be universal good.

2. The second important bondage they get rid of is the bondage of rituals and practices that go by the name of religious customs. This is due to the natural consequence of the perception of Reality as it is and they come out of their rituals and customs and do not cling to them simply because they are old and therefore there must be something good in that. They also understand that these customs have been changing according to the times and their insistence on these to continue as they are is morbid. The suffering due to this bondage itself is something that only the person who goes through it knows and blessed are those who are not chained or imprisoned by such routines and rituals as they do not have to work with their intellectual and pseudo intellectual chattering in their mind.

3. The third most important bondage that gets loosened because of the experience of the Real is the clinging to associates, associations, customs and habits, companions of play and game and clubs, relatives and relations of all kinds. All these tend to be perceived as totally irrelevant to the task on hand. Those who face the Truth Eternal start leaving out all that is not relevant to reach the goal and go about their task of owning up the condition of the Real through constant remembrance of the experience they have had during meditation.

I feel that our gathering has many such souls totally dedicated to the cause of the Master/Divine and feel immensely happy to be in their company for a couple of days now. The joy is inexpressible and that is mine as well as, I am sure of all of you.