Pick the bones here, A talk I gave.

[Guest guest]

PURIFICATION OF THE BUDDHI,AND SELF-SADHANA. P=Participant.

 

Before I start let me say that because I can

talk about all

this, doesn't mean I can do it. Also I believe

Creation didn't happen

and all this is just an appearance, but as Sankara

said,its real

whilst you are in it.

 

Purification of the Buddhi, or the

individualised version of

the universal Mahat, is necessary for spiritual

progress. The Buddhi

is an aspect of the Vijnanamayakosha or Awareness

Sheath, it is the

Inner Mind or Antahkarana. When it is turned inwards

it pierces

through Maya and leads to Moksha or Liberation. When

it is turned

outward it only succeeds in enhancing the power of

the Lower Mind or

Manamayakosha. This part of the mind is turned out

to desires and

satisfaction of the senses. A Buddhi turned outwards

is a distortion

of its'function. For man can manipulate his mind to

enjoy the senses,

out of season, so to speak. Unlike the animal,which

only operates

instinctively within its' Dharma.

 

I will briefly talk about the five koshas and

how this

purification process works. It is a reversal of

consciousness as we

know it, to its' " Natural " State. The five koshas

are the

ANNAMAYA,PRANAMAYA,MANOMAYA,JNANAMAYA,ANANDAMAYA

KOSHAS. THAT IS THE

FOOD,ENERGY,MIND,AWARENESS OR INTELLECTUAL,BLISS OR

CAUSAL SHEATHS.

These Sheaths all relate to different planes of

consciousness of

course. The first thing you have to do when washing

dirty clothes is

loosen the dirt first then you can wash the clothes.

 

 

This is all illusion,for example do you get

involved in a T.V.

show? Do you feel for the person suffering? Well this

world is also an

illusion, why get involved in it? Feel compassion

yet but do not get

attached.

We must start self-sadhana by purifying the

food sheath and

work our way up so to speak. We purify the food

sheath by regulating

our food and avoiding tamasic food and meat. Eating

meat means we

absorb bad vibrations plus we are sending billions of

Jivas to the

subtle world many of which are born again as humans.

Billions of

people were these animals in their last lives and

they bring their

resentment of human beings with them. The resentment

of their bad

treatment and having their lives cut short. Hence

this contributes to

violence, mass slaughters and so on. People don't

realise this,and

they wonder why kids kill kids or there are massacres

like Ruanda.

 

We purify the energy sheath by controlling

our desires. This

is also connected to the mind sheath where desires

and attachment to

the senses have to be controlled. The important

sheath in this process

is the awareness sheath which is part and parcel of

the Buddhi, and

controls and guides the lower sheaths particularly

the mind.

Intelligence isn't awareness, some geniuses are

spiritually ignorant

and unaware.

 

The Guru. " SPARSHAN,DARSHAN AND

SAMBHASHAN.That is awareness of

His presence, receiving the impact of His Divinity

and assimilating

and actualising His teaching,not just seeing,touching

and listening.

Darshan is the Insight of Divine Beauty acquired from

meditation.

Sparshan means the installation of the lotus feet,and

all that

means,in one's heart. Sambharshan means praying

directly before Him

and listening to His response before the inner altar

of one's

heart. Meditation in other words.

Only a deserving Shisya gets a proper

Guru.....Gita 4:39.40,and

Sankara's Viveka Chudamani 19,20,and 363. So Buddhi

should control the

mind and not the reversal.S.S. and Gita 2:62.Gita

9:22. It is said

that desire (for purification or Liberation) without

effort is

useless, Self-Sadhana purifies our impulses. " Manas

Sathyate

Shuddhate " . Only Truth can purify and sublimate the

mind.

 

To achieve this purification there are Four

Exercises.

1) Swadhaya,that is reading spiritual books,

bhajan, satsang,

to make us aware of the Atma.

 

2) Japa, this should go on unceasingly, be aware and

only come out

into the world when it is necessary. To think of

'God' at death is

very difficult, if you haven't practiced the Name all

your waking

life. It is better to start at about eight or nine

years of age. Some

people die and don't even realise they have died,

others get

distracted at the last moment, or are confused by the

memories of

their life. It is not so easy to be like Ghandiji and

remember Rama as

we die. Nobody experiences death for one is

unconscious. Except if you

are a Yogi then there is no death of course. Sankara

says death is

being separated from our desires.

 

3)Homa, Japa becomes Homa, offer all activities to

The Lord all day

long.Don't offer Grace just for meals, Brahmarpnam

etc is to purify

our inner being for all is food for the senses.

 

4)Brahmiya Kriyate Tanuhu.A Divine Inner Body " .(1)

 

Finally this inner balance leads to

purification of the Buddhi.

Cessation of the mind is the goal.

The Buddhi is not present in deep sleep just

the thought " I am

sleeping " , we must purify even that thought and

become God. Once we

have stilled all thought we are God, we enter the

fourth or Turiya

stage of consciousness.

See all as God, Do all as God.This is through

DAYA,KSHAMA,AND

SHANTI; Compassion, Forgiving those that trespass

against us, and

Peace to all, all is God.

Love,Love,Love,Prema,Prema,Prema. All is

One!This is were helping others comes in for it

lessens our

preoccupation with ourselves and therefore weakens

the ego sense,and

helps expand our vision.

 

KOHAM.............SOHAM.Who am I? I am He!'

Drive the thought

inward to the Universal " I " . By eliminating the

illusion of an

individual ego. " I " is that background feeling of

awareness that

suffuses everything.

 

All these exercises are to purify one's Buddhi

so that one may

have one-pointedness and achieve Liberation, or loss

of illusion and

Moha. For a purified Buddhi is essentially a state of

no mind,which is

Liberation. Love is the answer, infuse our thoughts!

(When a stage is reached that one feels deeply

that whatever is

being done is happening and one has not got anything

to do with

it,then it becomes such a deep conviction that

whatever is happening

is not happening really;And that whatever seems to be

happening is

also an illusion.)Sri Nisagardatta Maharaj.

We move from thinking we are our own thought,

to realising we

are God's thought and eventually we realise there was

no thought at

all,just Bliss.

 

Questions and statements,Tony and Participants.(It

is all opinions.)

 

Tony.....How do you purify yourself?I'll throw it

out to the male

side first.

Joyce(Co-ordinator.).....Let's have a minutes

meditation first!

 

P(participant.).....What is the relationship between

internal and

external purification?Is physical purification

required for internal

purification?

Tony.....We live in a polluted world,everything is

polluted;the water

we drink is polluted,the food we eat is polluted,the

people we talk to

are polluted,we are polluted.There is no

difference.Everything is

One.We divide the bodies and consciousness up into

different

planes,but it is actually just one.You cannot have

impure mind,body

and be physically impure and then try and purify the

inner mind.It

would be exremely difficult to do,it is all one,the

body is what we

eat,and our mind is what we hear,read or think.There

is no difference

between outer and inner purification it's all the

same thing.(It seems

we have to have purification of the outer to some

degree in order to

work on the inner.Eventually when reaching the light

of the Self all

impurity would be burned up.)

 

P....I think the most purest form of purification

would be early

childhood,four or five years old,to start the

purification process.I

have a question.You are saying Sparshan, Darshan and

Sambarshan.....If

you go through all three of those,in the presence of

a Yogi,and touch

the feet etc,does the purification process increase?

 

Tony.....Well I'm not a Yogi but they say if you

touch the feet of a

Yogi, the fact that you are near the energy, it would

help you along

in the purification process obviously, but if you go

inside yourself

then that is as far away as 'God' is . So you can

have it come from

inside as well. So it helps,it's not absolutely

necessary but,for a

lot of people,it helps.

 

P.....Purification can be achieved by first

recognising and searching

within yourself.First learn to love yourself because

by loving

yourself you can give this love.Once you have Divine

Love to other

human beings,towards the Earth,towards

Mankind,towards the Universe

purification is automatic.

 

Tony.....That's exactly the fourth

exercise..Shanti..Love,Love,Love,

Prema,Prema,Prema.It comes under Shanti one of the

four

exercises...It's Shanti.

 

P.....I think purification starts with control of the

senses,not

eating meat and if watching television,watching only

non-violent

shows.

 

Tony.....That's how it all started whether you

descended as a Being or

came up from the animals. Those big girls painted on

the side of

hoardings in India,shouldn't even be looked at.It

changes the

direction of the mind all the time....Mental

Pollution..exactly.

 

P.....You are what you eat...Purification Process

starts with

Compassion....eating habits,eliminate killing...etc.

 

Tony.....Exactly.

 

P....(Joyce the Co-Ordinator.)Talking about not

positive but negative

emotions.Feelings

like;anger,greed,jealousy,fear,envy...we have them

all in one degree or another. Pray about it,meditate

about

it,....clean your heart everyday you go into

meditation and ask to be

helped to be cleaned out.Without that you will never

be pure.Our

feelings bring us to our troubles and we simply got

ourselvles into

it with what we have been given as a gift....our

minds.We can get

ourselves out of it.Sometimes people will hold on to

a feeling ,a

negative feeling intil they die rather than give it

up.I've seen it

over and over and over.So you have to be honest with

yourself.First

deal with it...ask for help and may be just may be we

will be

purified.

 

Tony..Right..Somebody over here now?

 

P.....You mention Pollution,I think we are surrounded

by negative

influences,sensuality,television etc.We have to

control our

energies,thoughts and direct them on the path of

meditation and

purification.

 

P.....Purifying our thoughts starts within,but there

are so many

outside influences.One thing that comes to my

mind,was the

onion.Peeling away our faults,no matter how many

tears to get rid of

negative emotions.Going through all negative emotions

peeling away

slowly one at a time,slowly but surely.

 

Tony.....That's a good method,a lot of Yogis use

it,they say

Neti...Neti...not this ...not this...All the bad

thoughts and so

called good thoughts and things they eliminate one at

a time.They end

up with the one thought....Yes..that's what we have

to do.

 

Tony.....There are many different ways and everyone

has mentioned an

angle of the same thing.So many different people,so

many different

levels of awareness.So people are coming from

different directions all

the time.

 

P.....This gentleman touched on what I wanted to say

about continuing

to ask the question " Who am I? " . Joyce referred to

emotions,so often

our thought patterns which continually jump up from

simple thoughts

result in negative emotions,that she listed.But if we

go back further

the problem stems from believing that we are the body

and I think

continuing to ask the question " Who am I? " has to be

the greatest

purification.

 

Tony....By asking the question " Who am I? " ,that is

the original

thought of human beings,the Ego,that is the original

fall of human

beings:I " .Every thought is connected with the

" I " -because you own the

thought,therefore if you go back to the feeling of

" Who am I? " ,and you

eliminate the " I " or you try and find the " I " you'll

find the " I " does

not exist.There is only one Universal " I " .At that

point the originator

of all your problems and all your impurities and all

your thoughts are

gone.The chain is broken-the mind doesn't exist-it's

just a bundle of

thoughts and desires--and they are all connected to

the " I " thought.The

feeling of " I, once the " I " thought is gone then they

go.This is the

whole process of elimination.Is to bring the mind in

and in and

in,whether it's through different practical exercises

or

meditating.It's to get one pointedness,one

pointedness,of

concentration and go in and get the feeling like you

were a little

child.Jesus said " suffer little children come unto

me " .What He meant

was be like little children,an innocent child.

 

P...(Same person.)...Having said what I have said,I

also believe that

a certain degree of subtley of mind is required to

even be in a level

of consciousness to even want to ask the question

" Who am I? " . To

grasp the purpose of asking it, so a certain level of

basic

purification is already necessary.

 

Tony. Yes... they say there are " horses for

courses " ,what suits one

doesn't suit another.(There are different levels of

awareness.)

 

P.....Love All.?.

Tony.....What does it mean?--well someone over here

just mentioned

it,start off by loving yourself and realising you are

not an

individual.You are everything and the purpose of

loving all and

serving all is getting your mind off yourself.It has

all got to do

with concentration,when you help people,it's not the

people that you

are helping.You've been given the opportunity to help

them so you can

help yourself.If you don't help them,they are God's

people,God's

poor,God will help them anyway.You're helping them to

help

yourself.It's to reduce your own ego,your own " I "

feeling,the more you

help people.Many many years ago when I stopped

drinking and I used to

go to A.A..They had a saying that if you are thinking

of other people

you can't get depressed,if you are out helping other

people it's

pretty hard to get depressed,because you aren't

thinking of

yourself.This is one of the main reasons for

Seva,your mind isn't

thinking about yourself,you are thinking of this

person and that

person,and you're not thinking of yourself,and that

reduces

your " I " ,thought.That's why " Love All " .

 

P...same person.Enslavement,you are a slave?

Tony.....No,No,it's not being a slave,a slave is

somebody that has no

will,there is no karma(Seva),in being a slave,for he

has to do as he

is told.There is no good or bad karma in being a

slave,he has to do as

he is told.When you are doing good work like this,you

are creating

good karma of course,if you can eliminate the " I "

thought,you

eliminate that as well.It's not enslavemenat helping

other people,a

slave has no choice.

P.... The best method is Namasmarana,and only seeing

God,seeing

everything pure,and you will see yourself pure.

Tony.....Japa is the same thing.It's like the

psychiatrist programming

one's mind,he doesn't eliminate the problem thoughts

but reduces them

to say 5%.The other 95% is the programming the

psychiatrist put in

there.So for all intents and purposes the bad

thoughts are gone.With

Japa you are programming yourself,you are programming

your mind with

God.The Name of God,The Form of God and God are all

the same

thing,there's no difference.So by doing Japa you

increase the Love,you

purify by " eliminating " other thoughts from the

mind,and constant

Japa....well it creates Liberation.

P...same person..In the Baghavad Gita Lord Krishna

says see all

equally as God.See only the Pure no dirt,everything

is Pure.

 

P.....To purify ourselves,to engage ourselves in good

satsang and

meditation,jnana,which is a step towards purifying

ourself.Talking

about food--the concept here is Hindus not eating

meat,for more

sathwik food,but there are more tamasic food in

vegetables.

Tony.....Like eating too many onions and chillis?

P....same person.Correct!In Ayuraveda there are more

Tamasik

vegetables mentioned--in a book by Sankara--I can't

remember the

name--advising not eating tamasik food.Talking about

eating meat there

are so many Saints eating meat,talking about the

Buddha.There is a

Buddhist concept we take food from other

people,whatever they offer we

eat.But they are highly spiritual Saints and all.

Tony.....To a highly evolved Yogi(Jivanmukti),it

doesn't matter what

you eat anyway.

P...same person.Yes!Basically not eating meat to

avoid killing.There

are lots of people eating meat,they are more

spiritual than those who

are eating vegetables.

Tony.....It depends on what your level of awareness

is,there are four

types of Human Being,Human animal,Aspiring Human

Being,Human Being and

Divine Human Being.

If you are a Human Animal you can do all the things

that animals

do-mate,eat,sleep,defend whatever.If you are an

Aspiring Human Being

you have to change yourself from an animal.You have

to take on

Ahimsa,not killing an animal to eat its meat.

Human Beings are like a flower,a flower bursts into

creation and it

gets to a certain point,at the end of the day when it

closes its

petals and it goes back in again.Human Beings are the

same,not every

flower bursts into creation and comes back in at the

same time.Some

close earlier some close later,the person still

coming out into

manifestation,they are more likely to be a Human

Animal.If they have

decided to close in the petals and come back;whereas

they are more

likely to be an aspiring Human Being.

Tony....And now we can have the last speaker.

P.....A last thought --to say that cleanliness is

next to

Godliness,cleanliness spiritually and physically its

the same.So for

the spiritual and mental we shall take a bath.We take

a mental bath

whilst we are doing our prayers and meditation,so it

washes our

mind.It should wash our mind but we don't know how

pure we are,or

where we are at.So by just doing it,we should

eliminate some of the

impurities that we think and receive.

Tony....It's no good in wanting to be Liberated

unless you have a

method of Sadhana.You have to have a practice,you

have to have a

system.It's no good saying I want to be

Liberated,you've got to have a

system.You say Morning Prayers,how much Japa do you

do on a regular

basis,how much Seva do you do.You have to have a

Sadhana,if you don't

have a Sadhana you're not going to get anywhere,Even

if it's just

thinking I'm not the " I " .

 

Joyce...Thank you Tony for giving us this opportunity

to think about

ourselves.I was just thinking you can't love yourself

unless you

purify yourself,you have guilt about whatever you are

doing,that will

destroy that self love.Thank you again.

 

Om Namah Sivaya.... Tony.