Stages of Progress

In the traditional systems we have got three centers below the heart level - the Muladhara, Swadhishtana and Manipura. They deal with the physical, vital planes of our being, pranic and vital planes of our being and enough literature has been written on that. Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj makes a very very significant deviation in his system by starting the progress only from the heart. He is just not bothered about the remaining portions and he says that the movement has to be done in the heart.

If you understand a bit, you are not a slave of the body, you are not a slave of the sense organs, you are not a slave of your prana, but, you are a slave of your ideas about the body, you are a slave of ideas about your prana, you are a slave of your ideas about the vitality. It is these ideas that are affecting us, this is unique to the human plane. Animals have got all these three but then they do not have a mentation, we are the only people. So he gives us the credit of starting the sadhana from the heart and doesn't bother us about the lower centers that are there which, every civilized person, educated person, a moral person would have anyway got out of reasonably and is trying to get out of it, that is what motivated you to come here.

The diversion of the flow that is there to the upper portion, is generally experienced very early in this system by people. Those who are sensitive are very very clear about it, the less sensitive they are perhaps not all that clear but anyway they acknowledge the vibrations. If you concentrate or apply your mind on the vibrations, you will have only the Omkara nada. That is the first condition of ajapa that you will be having.

Ajapa is not an unconscious repetition of a mantra that we have learnt as tradition teaches us but is an automatic sound that we hear in the heart first, in the upper portion of the heart. Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj goes to the extent of saying that, that is the fundamental index to note whether a man has moved to the upper plane, that is a parameter given for us to watch. This can be watched by your own experience. In the very first instance we say that we feel the vibrations, some people feel something of a heat, something of a sound, some push here and there, these are all the various ways in which it is experienced and that is the experience of ajapa.

The L to U is the first transition that should happen i.e. you must find your mental vrittis not going to the animal and the baser levels and as far as possible plying at human level. Why I am using the word as far as possible? We are all grihastas, we are committed to household life and we would like to lead a life which is useful to society in which we are born, we have got to contribute as expressions of the Divine for the better feeling about the presence of God; we have got to do that. We must enable others, as the 9th commandment says, to feel that piety and love towards God. Our behaviour should be such and that is possible only when you live as far as possible at the upper level.

Does this happen to you or not is the question and we have given you the answer it does happen, but more depends upon your own attempt. Something is done, it is like hatching - the egg must have life then hatching gives it the heat and then you have got a chick. Neither the hen by itself nor the egg by itself can do anything by itself; nothing will come out of it. So this fomentation or the heat that is given is the Pranahuti aspect of it, and the other one is your own effort. There must be a life in you, an aspiration in you to become better than what you are. You can't throw the load on others nor can somebody think that he can make something out of you. Nobody can do anything with you unless you are willing for that. If this aspiration is maintained it will be good, but how to get that? I want to serve, but I am not able to.

Now what happens is when you come to the knot 1 and 1a, located in the heart, they are twin points, they are knotted together and one is connected with the Viveka and another is connected with the Vairagya. Now at one stage we are taking about the grihasta life and simultaneously we are talking about the Vairagya. It may appear a bit odd, it is not odd. What we are trying to do here is, instead of a negative attitude towards the world and say that I shun it, we are asking you to develop a positive attitude towards the whole thing and then love God and His expression. So our attachment instead of being to our people in the sense of exclusively our own people, we are asking you to develop that attachment to the Divinity. The famous illusion theory is there where you have got one line and you think that's a big line put a bigger line by its side then this becomes smaller. That's how we develop the Viveka. So the bigger thing to which we get attached is the Divinity, the smaller thing which we would like to get less attached are the problems of life.

Problems of life are personal and unique perhaps to each person according to his samskaras and there is no point in comparing that aspect of it and there can be no bodhayanti parasparam on that, except as to how you are able to solve a particular problem, somebody may share, if at all there is some similarity but each is unique to itself and no comparisons subsist. So we come to a position that bondages which we have chosen by which I mean apart from your own birth which is your choice. I will not digress there but then other things - your friends are your making, your wife is your making, your children are your making - these attachments are your own, nobody else has thrust them on you. Since these attachments are there, you get to know later that somebody has behaved or misbehaved, he has lived upto your expectations or anticipations or he has not, then you get a feeling of conflict, feeling of disappointment, all these things are there in life, each one is disillusioned after sometime. Slowly the friends drop off, surely new friends crop up just to fill up the gap but then you come to know that there is no other friend, finally you come to a stage there is only one friend and that is God. You try to pray, you try to pour out yourself before Him in your own prayer room, you definitely say this. There is no other friend with whom you can confide. There are many occasions when the husbands cannot talk to their wives and the wives cannot talk to their husbands freely. They would like to but they cannot. The same position is there between the son and the father, daughter and the father or the mother, between brothers, between sisters. Barriers are there; these barriers are basically things which push us to understand that these are all transient. Nothing is permanent, there is only one thing that is permanent and that is the feeling of the presence that there is somebody inside my heart who hears me, you try to develop intimacy with Him. That is the Viveka then the Vairagya, these are the two centers, these develop but then nobody gets stabilized there.

People go to the smashan - all wise, when they come back, perhaps one or two among them keep the wisdom of the transiency of the world and life. The remaining are lost either with their buffaloes or donkeys or men or horses or cars whatever it is. It requires a Kabir to maintain the serenity, composure, the balance while going to the smashan and coming back from it. That is the example given by Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj.

Now, you would like to be that, how can I do that? Here comes, because of the flow of thought from your lower portion to the upper portion what happens is, there is some vibration in the knot 1 itself which naturally happens. If it does not happen, in this system you are assisted by the transmitted power of the trainer to move to that level and from then onwards move towards next knot. Once you are stabilized at the Viveka and the Vairagya level reasonably, not totally, because if you get total Vairagya then the chances are you will not continue with grihasta ashram.

There is a peculiar method in this system that a person is allowed to move on to the higher plane of consciousness though his experience in the lower plane is less. This is similar to our system of education where a person who gets perhaps about 40% or 50% marks is promoted to the next class asking him to learn the remaining portion of the 50% later because that is anyway covered in the next class. This unique feature of pushing a person out from one knot to the other is a significant contribution of Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj to the field of spirituality.

Earlier, Bhidyate Hridaya granthis, chidyante sarva samshayaah. You have got to break open the knots whereas in this case, in this system, no knot is broken, they are loosened. They are loosened to allow the flow of consciousness to the upper side, to enable to move on. Such an enabling gives you the vibration at the 2nd knot, which is located in the right side of the chest as against the left with which you start with the heart, exact locations you can see the book (Path of Grace) itself. Here the first thing that we understand is that the consciousness transforms itself to one of an awareness of the interdependency we have got with each other and with that of the Divine. You know that we are not separate.

The individuated consciousness at the lower plane of consciousness in the heart is already got transformed by its movement to the upper plane and the development of the viveka and vairagya develops into an awareness of interdependency between all the people and more so with the force which is above us. We come to know that there is something above, very consciously we come to know about that. There is some binding factor for all of us though we seem to be separate. All human beings are united, for that matter all pranis are united. Some other saint went to the extent of saying that all existence is united, he could see even in the pashana the souls, he found they are also an expression of the Divine and then you have got similarities of expression in the vedic period of Isavasyam and all that. Isavasyam idam sarvam, everything is encompassed with the Divine. Yes, we feel that we are dependent and we also feel that He is also dependent upon us. I am as much required by the Divine as He requires me, this is the feeling that we have got and that is the real nature of our self. We have come here as expressions of the Divine knowing full well that we are going to express Him. If God wants to express anything here, He can do it only through us. If all of us were to take to sanyas and then get back to our source, there is nothing for God to express. He will be a barren God. He requires us as much as we require Him and that is the reason why Divinity is prepared to help us. Why Divinity should help us? Why it has been always answering to our prayers? If you put this question, He wants us very much, the Divinity wants us, and there is no other way by which it can express. So this is the condition at the second knot.

Then you come to know, He is not all that dependent upon you as you are on Him, He seems to have alternatives. If you do not fill in the gap, He can find somebody else to fill the gap, but you are not able to do that. In spite of our creating 300 crore Gods, we could not help having one God above all of them or seeing that one God through all these, that's a much more mature way of putting it. We have got about 360 crores Gods, but each one of them represents only the Ultimate for us and only people in this country can understand that. No other person is capable of comprehending this. We are a set of unique fellows, because of our karma we have got this type of understanding but you come to know that He is not all that dependent upon us and you understand I am more dependent upon Him than He, and that is the beginning of Bhakti.

People who would say that they start sadhana with Bhakti are really talking something off their hat. The stages of progress demands that you should go through these stages, an awareness of transiency of life, of temporariness of life and dependency on God has to come first then only the question of Bhakti. Love develops; Bhakti is another word for that between two persons. You must be aware of the sentences that are said 'he is devoted to the family' i.e. he attends to the work of the family with such an amount of devotedness as if, if he does not do it there is something which is likely to befall. A man is devoted to his wife, the woman is devoted to the husband, you use the word devote, love, similar relationship with God is what we want. There is no sense of expectancy between the husband and wife everyday to love each other. There is no sense of expectancy between the head of the family and the family each day. 'This is what he is supposed to do, this fellow is likely to be useful to me at my last stage' - no, I don't think any parent thinks in those lines but he loves because it is natural for him to do. That type of feeling will come when you know that we are all interdependent. Interdependency leads you to the feeling of devotion and love and we are supposed to move on to that plane. Whenever these things do not happen we have got to go through the help of Pranahuti.

Now, coming to the other aspect, by the time the first knot is crossed, you have already got a discipline, you tend to follow certain routines of sadhana. What could be just compliance to the letter of the book, whatever book it is that we have got, in the beginning becomes natural tendency for you to follow. Yama, Niyama these two things are a must. You must know, in order to achieve certain things, you have got to do things which are conducive for your progress, avoid things which are not conducive for your progress. This is what is meant by the dual term yama and niyama. It will be taking too much of time to talk about what are the yamas and what are the niyamas that have been prescribed but then you know that there are certain do's and certain don'ts. In our system we ask you to follow the 10 commandments knowing full well you must be knowing that these are all connected with several stages and you cannot follow all. Know one thing, the interdependency of nature compels you to pray at the morning. You would like to be in tune with the nature, you would not like to be variant from it.

When the problem of life takes a turn and we understand that there is some discipline that is required and then we follow that we also see that there are enough things that we have to put up with and the grihasta ashrama is the best training ground for spirituality. In a grihasta life, we have to develop a fortitude, we have to develop a patience whether you like it or not because we are living together. We have to put up with things, we have to compromise, we understand the interdependency, we also understand love, but we also understand one more thing called Uparati - A vedantic but still meaningful word, which means that I take things as they come. Titiksha is another word that we have got - forbearance. Forbearance and fortitude are essential for development of spirituality. The flippant remarks come down; you tend to mellow down, you tend to start thinking about things much more patiently. Your basic animal instinct has not changed yet, there will be occasions when you will be shouting, there will be occasions when you will throw away things, break things perhaps break heads of others also. With the development of Bhakthi, while these things still subsist, there will also be a prayer to the Divine saying that I have done these things please excuse me, please forgive me. I try my best not to repeat this but then we repeat. Promises are never kept even to God for that matter.

The transition from interdependency to Bhakti is a very very tough process and it is a gradient you have got to climb. This gradient requires a twist has to be done, this push has to be done by a person who knows how to do that and then once this is done and then you move on from this plane. So the movement from 2nd knot to 3rd knot, from interdependency to Bhakti itself is an enormous tough job because most of us who go to temples, who think that we are devoted, who feel that they are doing the meditations properly, people who think that they are worshiping God well are only trying to flatter God and not be devoted to Him. Flattery is one thing that we resort to i.e. we are still at the level of appeasing somebody to get our things done, we are still transacting at the level of equality. 'I give you, you give me'- that is my temple Tirupati. You do this to me I will put that money to you, I will perform this you perform that, transaction is at equal level, not at the dependency level, the Bhakthi has not developed. For all purposes socially it is agreed, I am not going to contest any one of these practices. My point is only stressing this much, the transaction level is one of equivalence and not one of being less than the Divine. Perhaps we are trying to be smart with Him because we like Him to give us about 10 lakhs of profit so that I may give 1 lakh of profit, so 1 lakh you find all of a sudden in the hundi. Submissive level has not developed, why it has developed like that would be a matter for them to bother about it, for a spiritual person he is not bothered about that. We know this much, we transact with God mostly at the submissive level and that is why we consider such a concept of God cannot be considered as the Ultimate concept. It may have its own value, we are not going to deny any one of those things but most of the people think that from bhakthi to saranagati also is easy. It is not so because the next quality, greatest quality that we have to develop is sraddha or faith. Until now the concept of faith has not come. We know there is a transiency of nature, we know that we have got to somehow or other get disinterested with these things, we also know that we are dependent and interdependent, we come to know that we have got to yield to the Divine but where is shraddha?

One of the most important ingredients of spiritual life is shraddha. Shraddha would mean, first of all do you have the confidence that you can know? Faith in yourself, faith in God, faith in the method, all these three things come here, without it you cannot understand much of faith. You should have faith in yourself or confidence in yourself, you can use that word if you want, you should have confidence in the Master or God, you should have confidence in the path that you are following. All these things get more and more regulated when you move on from 3rd knot to the 4th knot. The transition is relatively easier compared to 2nd to 3rd because there is a gradient there where as there is no gradient here, it is almost an equal plane and once shraddha develops, you will be in a position to move on to the higher plane.

I have been deliberately avoiding certain concepts. The bhouthika sarira with which we start has got the prana sarira also i.e. inside that is the prana that is moving around. That prana consists of 5 different types of prana we are aware of ­prana, apana, vyana, udhana, samana., these things move inside our body, in the sense they are capable of determining our boundaries. A body is one which determines our boundary, beyond this we do not go. It is inside, encased in physical body itself. Similarly are our feelings i.e. the manasika sarira also is inside our body because up to that is the lower consciousness as we have seen. These are the lower planes most of which are had by the animals.

The journey started with the manasika sarira of trying to go up and then you started aspiring for something else - vijnanamaya. We started moving on and then we started with vijnanamaya, we came to first vijnana that is transiency, second vijnana -we are interdependent or dependent upon God and third one is one of dependency, total dependency of being a servant of the Divine for His purposes and when we come to the fourth we say yes we are now moving on to the higher plane with confidence. Can I now move on to the higher plane? You seem to have developed a confidence there, till that time you don't have a confidence at all, you seem to be a slave of circumstances. I am yet but a slave of my wishes putting a bar to my advancement, that's how the prayer goes. So this prayer level, this level of being a slave to our own wishes is something that we have got to transcend and that is possible only when we say, thou art the only God and Power to bring us up to that stage. That is the faith in the Master, that surrender to Master has to happen. Surrender has got several ways. People think by falling at the feet of somebody you have surrendered, it is not true, or we go on crowing that we have surrendered.

Prapatti is another word that we have used but then that is not in this plane. Here it is only saranathva that moves you. Tradition has mixed these two concepts so badly. The saranathva enables you to develop a confidence that the Master is there to look after me -one is that you should fall at His feet or seek surrender, another is a feeling that he has accepted your surrender. We may go from one God to another God, infinite number of Gods are there and we have found in the puranas those people who are put to difficulties running from one person to another person, nothing new, that is a familiar theme. If you have got some problem, somebody has cursed you then you go to this person, you go to that person, he says I cannot do, go to him. All sorts of running after people seeking refuge, similar is our position. Whom shall I ask? Ultimately it is only God we have to ask but then do you have that confidence that He will take care of?

The famous story of Gayopakhyana has always been a bit problem for me. I have not understood much, anyone of you can throw some light on the subject. He is a great devotee of Krishna, commits a mistake, the first person to whom he should have gone is only Krishna and then say 'I have committed a mistake excuse me I have surrendered to you long back' but then he knocks at all other doors. That shows the deficiency in the lack of surrender there and that is the lesson that was taught in Gayopakyana from my point of view, from the point of a sadhaka that's how I look at it. Any lapse on my part I would like to present it before the God, before the Master in my night prayer. While going to bed, while complying with the 10th commandment, I would like to place it there instead of placing it to all others because that is the place where we can get refuge. The question is do you have that confidence.

You develop a confidence when you move from 4th knot to 5th knot is what our experience says. It becomes easy for you to practice that commandment. Till that time what shall we do, it will be a ritual. Rites and rituals are nothing new in spirituality or religion, this is a ritual. The relationship between the stages and the 10 commandments is explained in the book Imperience Beckons

Now up to this we have come to the self, what was something connected with the annamaya kosa that is the bouthika, prananmaya kosa, manomaya kosa, we have said all these three levels are already passed by the humanity and we start only from manomaya onwards to vignanamaya and then to anandamaya. Now when you reach the 5th knot you are reaching a state of anandamaya. It's a state of ecstasy, state of evenness, a balance, no thought condition and all the time happiness and that becomes a trap. We think that itself is the end, we would like to stay there, what else do I want? I want the ananda, I got it, what more do I want? This is the reason why saints and sages of the past have never gone beyond this because they were happy with it. Few among them ever thought of going above and that is a very very arduous process of trying to go from 5th knot to 6th knot because it is a very steep climb, all this time we have been going through a zigzag method.

In tradition, instead of this zigzag we have got from anahata to visuddha straight, it's a straight line from heart to visuddha. First climb of 9" as it is put, dasangulam 10". This is dasangula that comes, this dasangula is toughest, while the next is much worse. The next is much worse and that one we have got to go only like that, there is no other way but in this system what happens is the flow of consciousness is diverted through the two sides of your face to the kanta chakra from the higher plane and then there is a gradual movement to the upside. Lest you get stuck up at the 6th knot, we move on to the 7th which exactly is the replica of 1 and 1a, the same viveka and the vairagya comes in a different way here.

Now, we moved on from the Atma sarira to the Brahma sarira. You are no more confined to the body, the pinda does not hold you. The experiences of our living beyond the pinda is what you get even when you are at the lower planes when you are meditating. You get the tidings of that much earlier may be even in the 4th knot you start feeling that you are expanding. Your common experiences are that many people have reported to us that they have found there is no body consciousness. They say that we do not know where we are, we seem to have expanded, we are not able to localize, I am not able to feel my legs, I am not able feel my hands, and my jocular way of putting it always has been perhaps you are suffering from numbness because that's also a time when we do not know what you feel. Is it numb or have you grown? it's a question of viveka. You know that you have grown then you know that you have grown, otherwise you know it is something else physiologically.

So when you grow into the Brahmanda sarira, these concepts become much better and discriminative intelligence becomes refined and that leads us to the next stage you have got one of dependency, which you have experienced in knot 3 gets reflected here as prapanna - prapanna gati. Bhakthi leads to prapanna gati 3rd and the 8th knot approximately always go together. The finer shades of these things come to you when you practice but then from that state onwards we move on to the next stage where you feel that you are the Lord. You feel so much in tune with the Master that you start thinking that you are the Master Himself, that's what we call a prabhu gati and then further on you move. You come to know that you are not the Master, you come to know that you have got the same qualities, isvara gunas you seem to be having, that means you are able to move around the universe in the astral plane, feel everything there. Now here that is the basic trouble, traditionally people who have felt it have always fallen they left their yoga because they thought they are equal to God. They behaved funnily also, 5th knot onwards they behaved funnily, various people have fallen at various levels. The reason for falling is, you feel that you have got the same powers but you do not understand the restraint that is required. A man who is more powerful has to have more restraint. He can't use it, he is not supposed to use it indiscriminately according to his whims and fancies. When he does it, a Ravanasura would be there or some other asura would be there, but they seem to be inevitably accompanying. The system gives you a protection; the Master uses your powers as if it is His own, for His purposes but you are kept oblivious, unconscious, unaware of what is happening to you. This is the greatest protection in the system that you are not allowed to have any knowledge of any one of your capacities. That is the best way by which any Master can protect us lest we fall. That would be the worst thing that can ever happen to us, having gone considerably to fall again. You know, the more you go the fall will be much steeper. You really sink, a man in the first step will only lose 6 inches perhaps for the step, a fellow who went on the top of the staircase if he falls he falls straight down breaking his bones and you know what has happened in the case of those two great jaya vijayas who were protecting the vaikunta.

It moves on and then you do not come to the conclusion that you can do whatever you like but you understand the lower condition also of being a prapanna and then you are a prabhu and prapannaprabhu gati also is there. These are all the states of consciousness that were described by Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj between the ajna chakra and the sahasrara which no other yogic literature anywhere in the world has ever taught of except for some reference you may find in jnanadeva, nowhere else you have got this. There also jnanadeva talks enormously about the kundalini only, he doesn't talk anything else. As a commentary for the Gita, the jnaneswari says something about it but doesn't say fully about it. Here we have gone through these experiences, we can definitely say yes this is what it is. By the time you are crossing the kanta chakra itself we know, if you have really crossed you know that you got rid of your sleep. One of the indices of knowing that you got into this 5th knot itself is that you will be in a dreamy state, dreams are more. When you come to the 6th knot what happens is you see the others but there is no impression that is cast on you, samskaras do not get formed and every person and every experience is treated as a shadow. Of course, shadows are creating samskaras today, thanks to your TV's -enormous shadows, virtual images capable of creating enormous samskaras in you - plus and minus - they cast impressions on you, because they are playing at the bestial plane of pornography and violence. These are the two things that I generally see whenever somebody tunes on, these are the two things that are there day in and day out projected but they create very very strong impressions. It is wisdom, it is viveka not to open it. We can always say the Socrates was always capable of putting down all these things and walk as a saint in the morning, but Socrateses are not common. Unless we have got a feeling that we are uncommon beings there is no point in comparing with such souls.

So the prabhu gati and then the prapanna-prabhugati are the stages where you get to know enormous things about the world all through shadows. You find you are active somewhere else where you are not, you feel the expansion, you get a very very faint reflection of that in your consciousness and nothing more than that is granted here and then we move on to the Sahasrara.

Now between these two - Ajna and Sahasrara - a significant location of point has been made of Chit Lake where your thoughts come. I do hope that the person who talked to you about the point A must have told you that any idea that we have got finally emerges from this place, that is the place where you get to know about the thoughts. Whatever thought you think, it comes there and then that is the one which creates your destiny. Similar is the position of the chit lake, it is some sort of an inversion at the higher plane where all the thoughts are there and from there only you are going to get all the thoughts and we can clean that up to see that certain amount of tranquility is given or obtained by the aspirant but then this is not resorted to everyday for the only reason it is not all that easy to tackle that. It is turbulent in our minds, unless the mind is already disciplined to some extent through yama and niyama, it doesn't make any sense to touch it, it is just entering into the stormy waters of the ocean, you can't cool it down. The diversion of the flow of consciousness to the atma chakra and the trying to lift you from the lower plane to the upper plane takes care of the control of the chit lake automatically because these are the two things that disturb us most. If this disturbance is reduced, the disturbance in that sea can be reduced and then any suggestion given right there is going to help us out here. Ananda as I said ends at the 5th knot, chit ends here (refer book Path of Grace) and then simple existence moves on. When you meditate you neither have chit nor the ananda but simply you are meditating and that is the sat. All the three put together is your sahasrara - satchitananda, you have got to move on. Tradition says this is the final limit, beyond this you do not go but Rev. SriRamchandraji Maharaj says you have to go still further. The thought can come to a stage, satchitananda can come to a stage of just not knowing what is the Reality itself, come to a stage of not knowing what it is, because you seem to be struggling with these three concepts again and again. There seems to be no way out of these three thoughts, the whole existence comprises of these, we come to that conclusion and they have come to that conclusion. With assiduous practice they have come to that conclusion but Master says this condition is a refuse of Reality. Reality is something more, consciousness per se if we move on, non awareness of existence itself, how it will be? How will it be? If you ask the question how it will be, how can you understand unless you are there. Up to this we are able to move on with the mind, this talk was going on, struggling after the ananda struggling with these concepts but now we come to a stage where no concept seems to work, that is the realm of God - the mind region starts as He says it. Upto shikara it is heart region, beyond that it is mind region, mind region of God - not ours, where exactly is the scheme of things, a blue print of our existence, it's in the mind region and by definition God's mind is something that you will never know lest you become God yourself. Nothing but one of dependency trying to say yes, I am here. You are aware still, awareness of dependency is still there. Saranatva is gone. Though saranatva is a next knot to 3rd, the 4th one saranatva is gone, confidence that I have been accepted also is gone but dependency is continuing because these two by the time we cross the 5th knot surrender has lost its value, by the time we reach the chit lake we have already lost even the remaining remnants of the prapannagati also which is only a reflection of the surrender. Saranagati is lost, so surrender is not the primary thing there.

Devotion, it is our duty to be devoted, that is the feeling that you get. Why should you be devoted? So that I may get some promotion, no, so that my daughters marriage is performed, no, it is my duty to be devoted, it is our primary duty to be devoted is the awareness of consciousness there. You move on, you move on further then this feeling gets rarified, all of a sudden you are faced with certain amount of splendour. Splendour is one of the difficult words to translate into our language. I have been struggling, any one of you can help me in this, splendour, they are all the origins of the Being itself. Now coming from the Base, suppose we look at the Reality per se, it is of the nature of the consciousness, you have been told. That consciousness has become matter much later, first it expressed, it came out, it came out with multiple colors. Now multiple colors are only gross reflections of the seven colors, the seven rays are out each one giving us a particular hue of consciousness. The experiments on the colors and the types of consciousness variations have been done, they have no value here because you don't see it with that intensity. There is a faint reflection of that feeling, all these things moves on, how it will be, it will be very difficult for me to say now but I can tell you one thing - happiness, joy, bliss, splendor put together all of them, that is the feeling you get there, it is impossible to describe. It doesn't end there, the consciousness still is there, the sakshi is still there, reflective consciousness is not there to this extent, but is still there, that also ceases and I am told that we may have to swim there forever. I do not know because I have not seen forever. Up to this I have struggled, something beyond this I will not be in a position to. So, with these few words, I share with you the stages of progress that are possible for you and I want all of you to have it.

So long as bestiality is not going to be controlled don't talk about progress as our Master puts it in the book SPARKLES AND FLASHES. I will share with you some thoughts more, they are not mine, they are Master's. He has given in some nutshell as to what exactly we should do. This is a small phrase from Sri Ramchandraji Maharaj, it says,

What I want is that all of you rise as suns of spirituality, that means the highest stage, but how is it possible? and when that is possible? He answers when you orbit in such a way as your movement be direct. I don't know whether you understand this concept of orbiting directly. Orbit is always like this, how is directly, these are all the enigmas, koans. You understand more when you actually practice because all the time our thought is centered around Him. When your mind is always fixed on Him then you are straight. When you think about His qualities, you are out of it, you are in an orbit. The qualities of God which have been praised by so many ways ­sthothras, mantras, sahasranamas umpteen number of ways they are all orbit, outside circumference. You orbit straight only on Him and nothing else i.e. your orbit becomes so small over a point, it rounds revolves around that. When you take a big circumference, big area go on adding space then it becomes a big one. It's a point, orbiting around a point it is as good as almost direct. How to find this orbit how to move direct? By keeping the destination in full view as I just now said we keep the destination. How to remember the destination? By becoming one with it. One with what? not with destination, the concept of becoming, how to remember the destination go on remembering. Let remembrance be your nature, that is what we mean by constant remembrance, constant remembrance of the goal. The next one - and when can a person be one with that? When you lose yourself. When you are lost in remembrance, then you lose yourself. How to lose oneself? By bearing no other thought in the heart than that. And how is it possible? By practice. How practice is possible? Through love and interest, love God. How love and interest can be cultivated? Through determination. How determination is possible? When we gird up our loins to sacrifice our pleasures and to shake of idleness. I hope all of you have got the determination and I wish you all the best.

God bless you all.