May 2008 bring many spiritual blessings, the main one being to Realise the Self!

[Guest guest]

, " Violet "

<violet.tubb wrote:

>

> Dear Folks,

>

> Happy New Year, 2008 to all! May this year bring many spiritual

> blessings, the main one being to Realise the Self!

>

> To that, i would like to proffer the appended, titled 'Food For

> Thought'.

>

> Enjoy!

>

> violet

>

 

Dear Violet,

 

i am truly exhausted by the last two of your posts:

 

Swami Rama Tirtha's Meeting with the Muslims

/message/8877

 

Food For Thought

/message/8878

 

The knowledge is so vital, original and enlightening that it took me

some time to fathom its immensity and depth. i am really exhausted to

even comment on them because ........ it is profoundly enlightening

and refreshingly original a knowledge, one that i never heard before.

i need some time to let it sink into my consciousness.

 

My pranaam for giving me this priceless gift on New Year's Eve, which

i can use as a formidable weapon to destroy falsehood. You truly

deserve to be my shakti sister. As a brother i will do my utmost to

make your New Year wishes for 2008 come true. i have now even more

confidence that we can make Shri Mataji's Divine Message to humanity

triumph. It is indeed a good omen, a very encouraging auspicious sign

that 2008 is starting well spiritually. Thanks to you Violet.

 

warmest regards,

 

jagbir

 

 

-----------------------------

 

Food For Thought

 

But from the point of view of the philosophy of Yoga, of Vedanta, the

mind is no more real than matter, nor is matter more real than mind.

Both are phenomenal, empirical creations of energy, that creative

energy of nature called 'prakriti' in the classics. The reality is

ultimately something other than both matter and mind: it is the

spiritual consciousness in which both live, move and have their

being. This spiritual reality, called theologically 'Brahman or God',

is not something apart from the world, neither is it the same as the

world. It is the substratum of the appearances of the world. The

world has an empirical, phenomenal existence, but the reality behind

that appearance is Brahman, the Absolute.

 

Just as the world of energy transcends the world of matter and yet

encompasses it; just as the evolution of science, from Newton's view

to Einstein's, the world of material atoms was found to be contained

and evolved within a subtler world made up of electro-magnetic energy

(because, as you know, in the Einsteinian universe the ultimate

reality is not matter existing in a solid framework of absolute time,

space and causation, as it was in Newton's picture of the universe,

but electro-magnetic energy, which we know as light, existing

as waves in a relative world in which the time-space continuum has

only a relative validity, and a framework whose appearance is not

fixed for everyone, but depends entirely upon the position of the

observer); so this world too, this world of energy, the Einsteinian

universe of relativity, is transcended by the world of forms and

ideas, which are the appearances of structure seen in sense

experience and in the mental images to which sense experience gives

rise.

 

The eighth century Vedantin, Sureshvara, points out that if you see

smoke rising from a fire, it does not have to push apart the empty

space in the sky in order to make its way upwards through it, because

the space in the sky is untouched and unaffected whether the smoke

rises through it or not; space is subtler, it is a more refined

principle. It may seem otherwise: if they were on the same level of

reality, then it would be either smoke or space, you could not have

both, and the space would have to get out of the way in order to

allow the smoke to ascend; but it is not like that. The space is

something subtler than the things which it contains, and so it exists

on another level of reality. In the same way as the space is subtler

than the universe of matter, or smoke, so the mental reality - the

universe of thoughts and ideas and sensations and experiences - is a

subtler reality than the physical reality; but it is still only a

relative reality. Transcending the mind, transcending the physical

universe and transcending also this subtler universe of the mind (the

mental consciousness), is absolute reality. And the clue to this

reality is man's real self, the Self hidden in the mind.

 

Our being functions on all these planes, and on all these planes it

requires food. The food of the body is physical food. The food of

vitality - of life - is energy. The food of the emotions is love and

the feeling of unity (and a man is starved indeed if he does not

satisfy the feeling for love or unity). The food for the intellect is

knowledge, and the food for the spirit is illumination; it is wisdom,

or spiritual enlightenment.

 

But as well as starving, or being malnourished, we can also eat the

wrong food. If we eat the wrong physical food, as we all know, we

grow physically unhealthy and suffer from the many diseases which

arise from errors of diet. If we eat the wrong emotional food,

seeking satisfaction in sensuality or sensationalism, or sentimental

nonsense of one kind or another, then we will grow emotionally

unhealthy. The human heart needs the right kind of affection and

friendly relationship, as much as it needs food and water. Only an

enlightened man, say the yogis, only a jnani, can live independently

of others, because only he has a true feeling of oneness with others,

whatever their behaviour towards him may be. But we need the right

kind of love; we need love of the highest, and the best thing is to

offer our love either to the Lord or to a saint or to a perfect

man or to a spiritual guide.

 

As the Lord says in the Bhagavad Gita:

 

He is supremely dear to Me whose devotion to Me is single-minded. I

am supremely dear to him and he is dear to Me. (7.17)

 

The wise worship Me, endowed with meditation. (10.8)

 

Their thoughts are fixed on Me, their lives are wholly given up to

Me. They are contented and rejoicing in Me. To those who are in

constant union with Me and worship Me with love, I grant the power of

understanding by which they come to Me. (10.9-10)

 

This, then, is the greatest and the best emotional food for man's

emotional being.

 

Much of what we are offered today as food is 'ersatz' - and this is

just as true of the spiritual food as it is of physical food. It has

the right name but it is not the real thing, and it does not nourish

properly. Chicken in my youth was one thing: chicken as it is today

is a very different thing. It is still called chicken, but it is only

a label; in fact one might legitimately call it a libel. The official

legal definition some time ago, of processed green peas was 'yellow

dried peas, reconstituted by soaking and dyed green'! 'Full fruit

standard' used to be the legal name for something containing fifteen

per cent of the fruit named, and the rest made up from pulped turnip,

or whatnot. What's in a name? It is no different with the

contemporary mental and spiritual foods which are offered to man. The

so-called 'Zen Buddhism' offered by the beat poets, or the 'Yoga'

peddled by hippies, has the name of something genuine but none of the

power of nourishment for the soul which the genuine article contains.

Man, awakening to wisdom, has to discover the real food which will

nourish his soul, and that food is the spiritual teachings which lead

the soul to a knowledge of the non-dual principle within his own

being and within the universe as a whole. When he has realised this

oneness with all on the highest plane, then his realisation is

expressed in the ecstatic utterance which Swami Rama Tirtha quotes in

his essay on worship, Upasana:

 

Whatever grain is eaten, is eaten by Me;

Whosoever sees and breathes, does so by Me;

Whatever is heard or said, it is by Me.

Those who do not know Me as abiding in all, as the inner controller,

They perish in the world for want of knowledge of Me.

O lightning! I proclaim Brahman, who is achieved by faith and

endeavour.

 

Freedom through Self-Realisation

A.M. Halliday

A Shanti Sadan Publication - London

ISBN 0-85424-040-3

Pgs. 58-61

[Guest guest]

Dear Jagbir,

 

Thank you for your New Years Resolutions and 'brotherly comments' which of

course, are muchly appreciated (smile). i do like to find these spiritual

insights from others, which not only enhance the Truth, but which can also be

used to destroy falsehood. We can build on the great spiritual insights of

others, and carry them even further!

 

i think the New Year will see a 'new leaf' in our collective understanding - a

broader spiritual picture of everything. Falsehood will of course, continue to

be exposed by the Truth. More people will come to Realise their Self. And as you

say, we will continue to have confidence in Shri Mataji's Divine Message to

humanity!

 

Yes, i expect a lot of good things to come from 2008. With such a great brother

as yourself working so hard, how can it not be the greatest year ever!

 

warmest regards,

 

violet

 

 

 

, " jagbir

singh " <adishakti_org wrote:

>

> , " Violet "

> <violet.tubb@> wrote:

> >

> > Dear Folks,

> >

> > Happy New Year, 2008 to all! May this year bring many spiritual

> > blessings, the main one being to Realise the Self!

> >

> > To that, i would like to proffer the appended, titled 'Food For

> > Thought'.

> >

> > Enjoy!

> >

> > violet

> >

>

> Dear Violet,

>

> i am truly exhausted by the last two of your posts:

>

> Swami Rama Tirtha's Meeting with the Muslims

> /message/8877

>

> Food For Thought

> /message/8878

>

> The knowledge is so vital, original and enlightening that it took

me

> some time to fathom its immensity and depth. i am really exhausted

to

> even comment on them because ........ it is profoundly

enlightening

> and refreshingly original a knowledge, one that i never heard

before.

> i need some time to let it sink into my consciousness.

>

> My pranaam for giving me this priceless gift on New Year's Eve,

which

> i can use as a formidable weapon to destroy falsehood. You truly

> deserve to be my shakti sister. As a brother i will do my utmost to

> make your New Year wishes for 2008 come true. i have now even more

> confidence that we can make Shri Mataji's Divine Message to

humanity

> triumph. It is indeed a good omen, a very encouraging auspicious

sign

> that 2008 is starting well spiritually. Thanks to you Violet.

>

> warmest regards,

>

> jagbir

>

>

> -----------------------------

>

> Food For Thought

>

> But from the point of view of the philosophy of Yoga, of Vedanta,

the

> mind is no more real than matter, nor is matter more real than

mind.

> Both are phenomenal, empirical creations of energy, that creative

> energy of nature called 'prakriti' in the classics. The reality is

> ultimately something other than both matter and mind: it is the

> spiritual consciousness in which both live, move and have their

> being. This spiritual reality, called theologically 'Brahman or

God',

> is not something apart from the world, neither is it the same as

the

> world. It is the substratum of the appearances of the world. The

> world has an empirical, phenomenal existence, but the reality

behind

> that appearance is Brahman, the Absolute.

>

> Just as the world of energy transcends the world of matter and yet

> encompasses it; just as the evolution of science, from Newton's

view

> to Einstein's, the world of material atoms was found to be

contained

> and evolved within a subtler world made up of electro-magnetic

energy

> (because, as you know, in the Einsteinian universe the ultimate

> reality is not matter existing in a solid framework of absolute

time,

> space and causation, as it was in Newton's picture of the universe,

> but electro-magnetic energy, which we know as light, existing

> as waves in a relative world in which the time-space continuum has

> only a relative validity, and a framework whose appearance is not

> fixed for everyone, but depends entirely upon the position of the

> observer); so this world too, this world of energy, the Einsteinian

> universe of relativity, is transcended by the world of forms and

> ideas, which are the appearances of structure seen in sense

> experience and in the mental images to which sense experience gives

> rise.

>

> The eighth century Vedantin, Sureshvara, points out that if you see

> smoke rising from a fire, it does not have to push apart the empty

> space in the sky in order to make its way upwards through it,

because

> the space in the sky is untouched and unaffected whether the smoke

> rises through it or not; space is subtler, it is a more refined

> principle. It may seem otherwise: if they were on the same level of

> reality, then it would be either smoke or space, you could not have

> both, and the space would have to get out of the way in order to

> allow the smoke to ascend; but it is not like that. The space is

> something subtler than the things which it contains, and so it

exists

> on another level of reality. In the same way as the space is

subtler

> than the universe of matter, or smoke, so the mental reality - the

> universe of thoughts and ideas and sensations and experiences - is

a

> subtler reality than the physical reality; but it is still only a

> relative reality. Transcending the mind, transcending the physical

> universe and transcending also this subtler universe of the mind

(the

> mental consciousness), is absolute reality. And the clue to this

> reality is man's real self, the Self hidden in the mind.

>

> Our being functions on all these planes, and on all these planes it

> requires food. The food of the body is physical food. The food of

> vitality - of life - is energy. The food of the emotions is love

and

> the feeling of unity (and a man is starved indeed if he does not

> satisfy the feeling for love or unity). The food for the intellect

is

> knowledge, and the food for the spirit is illumination; it is

wisdom,

> or spiritual enlightenment.

>

> But as well as starving, or being malnourished, we can also eat the

> wrong food. If we eat the wrong physical food, as we all know, we

> grow physically unhealthy and suffer from the many diseases which

> arise from errors of diet. If we eat the wrong emotional food,

> seeking satisfaction in sensuality or sensationalism, or

sentimental

> nonsense of one kind or another, then we will grow emotionally

> unhealthy. The human heart needs the right kind of affection and

> friendly relationship, as much as it needs food and water. Only an

> enlightened man, say the yogis, only a jnani, can live

independently

> of others, because only he has a true feeling of oneness with

others,

> whatever their behaviour towards him may be. But we need the right

> kind of love; we need love of the highest, and the best thing is to

> offer our love either to the Lord or to a saint or to a perfect

> man or to a spiritual guide.

>

> As the Lord says in the Bhagavad Gita:

>

> He is supremely dear to Me whose devotion to Me is single-minded. I

> am supremely dear to him and he is dear to Me. (7.17)

>

> The wise worship Me, endowed with meditation. (10.8)

>

> Their thoughts are fixed on Me, their lives are wholly given up to

> Me. They are contented and rejoicing in Me. To those who are in

> constant union with Me and worship Me with love, I grant the power

of

> understanding by which they come to Me. (10.9-10)

>

> This, then, is the greatest and the best emotional food for man's

> emotional being.

>

> Much of what we are offered today as food is 'ersatz' - and this is

> just as true of the spiritual food as it is of physical food. It

has

> the right name but it is not the real thing, and it does not

nourish

> properly. Chicken in my youth was one thing: chicken as it is today

> is a very different thing. It is still called chicken, but it is

only

> a label; in fact one might legitimately call it a libel. The

official

> legal definition some time ago, of processed green peas was 'yellow

> dried peas, reconstituted by soaking and dyed green'! 'Full fruit

> standard' used to be the legal name for something containing

fifteen

> per cent of the fruit named, and the rest made up from pulped

turnip,

> or whatnot. What's in a name? It is no different with the

> contemporary mental and spiritual foods which are offered to man.

The

> so-called 'Zen Buddhism' offered by the beat poets, or the 'Yoga'

> peddled by hippies, has the name of something genuine but none of

the

> power of nourishment for the soul which the genuine article

contains.

> Man, awakening to wisdom, has to discover the real food which will

> nourish his soul, and that food is the spiritual teachings which

lead

> the soul to a knowledge of the non-dual principle within his own

> being and within the universe as a whole. When he has realised this

> oneness with all on the highest plane, then his realisation is

> expressed in the ecstatic utterance which Swami Rama Tirtha quotes

in

> his essay on worship, Upasana:

>

> Whatever grain is eaten, is eaten by Me;

> Whosoever sees and breathes, does so by Me;

> Whatever is heard or said, it is by Me.

> Those who do not know Me as abiding in all, as the inner

controller,

> They perish in the world for want of knowledge of Me.

> O lightning! I proclaim Brahman, who is achieved by faith and

> endeavour.

>

> Freedom through Self-Realisation

> A.M. Halliday

> A Shanti Sadan Publication - London

> ISBN 0-85424-040-3

> Pgs. 58-61

>