Mahatma Gandhi Talks About Realization & God

Very prophetic... God, reason and realization: Mahatma Gandhi's Interview as recorded by the BBC (6 mins)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/gandhim1.shtml

Transcription of this beautiful talk:

Transcript

There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything. I feel it, though I do not see it. It is this unseen power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses. But it is possible to reason-out the existence of God to a limited extent.

Even in ordinary affairs, we know that people do not know who rules or why and how He rules. And yet they know that there is a power that certainly rules. In my tour last year in Mysore, I met many poor villagers and I found upon enquiring that they did not know who rules Mysore. They simply said, "Some God ruled it." If the knowledge of these poor people was so limited about their ruler, I, who an infinite lesser in respect to God than they to their ruler, need not be surprised, If I do not realize the presence of God, the King of Kings.

Nevertheless, I do feel as the poor villagers felt about Mysore, that there is orderliness in the universe. There is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives.

It is not a blind law. For no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings. And thanks to the marvelous researches of Sir JC Bose, it can now be proved that even matter is life. That law, then, which governs all life is God! Law and the law-giver are one. I need not deny the law or the law-giver because I know so little about it or him. Just as my denial or ignorance of the existence of an earthly power will avail me nothing, even so my denial of God and His law will not liberate me from this oppression. Whereas humble and new acceptance of Divine authority makes life's journey easier even as the acceptance of earthly rules makes life under it easier. I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever-changing, ever-dying, there is underlying all that change, a living power that is changeless, that holds all together – that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power of spirit is God and since nothing else that I see merely through the senses, can or will persist, He alone is!

And is this power benevolent or malevolent? I see as purely benevolent, for I can see that in the midst of death, life persists. In the midst of untruth, truth persists. In the midst of darkness, light persists. Hence I gather that God is life, truth, light. He is love. He is the supreme good.

But, He is no God who merely satisfies the intellect, if He ever does. God, to be God must rule the heart and transform it. He must express Himself in every smallest act of His ?????. This can only be done through a definite realization. More real than the five senses can ever prove use. Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive. However real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses, it is infallible. It is proved not by extreme extraneous evidence, but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within. Such testimony is to be found in the experiences of an unbroken line of prophets and sages in all countries in time. To reject this evidence is to deny oneself.

This realization is preceded by an immovable faith. He who would in his own person, test the fact of God's presence can do so by a living faith. And since faith itself cannot be proved by extraneous evidence, the safest course is to believe in the moral government of the world and therefore in the supremacy of the moral law: The law of truth and love.

Exercise of faith will be safest – where there is a clear determination, summarily to reject all that is contradictory to truth and love. I confess that I have no argument to convince through reason. Faith transcends reason. All that I can advice is not to attempt the impossible.

Humidity, Just Gets Me!

The smell of fresh rain is a trigger of powerful memories. The smell of Mother Earth is a propeller into heaven. The smell of rain is a carrier of peace.

It's the first spring-time rain in Ann Arbor today.

Meditation Evaluation Questions

Getting and sustaining realization are somehow appearing to be not the same thing. Anyone can get realization. Its an instantaneous thing. But sustainance is a whole different ballgame sometimes.

How was the week with respect to feeling cool vibrations on both hands?

Are there chronic issues you hope to resolve with the help of your Kundalini Awakening? How is the progress on that?

What are the top things that make you lose your balance in general?
Rate the following:
Kam = Unfulfilled Desires
Krodh = Anger
Lobh = Selfishness
Mad = Overestimating Self Capacity
Moh = Attachment
Maya = Illusions & Misconceptions

Have you pushed the envelope in knowing yourself? If yes, whats new?

Were there any moments outside of meditation, when you suddenly felt cool vibrations?
e.g. At Work, or listening to some music, or some artwork, or some person?

Easy Questions, Hard Answers

A questionnaire for established yogis to promote introspection:

1. How often do you feel totally cool vibrations on the hands?

2. Which types of collective activities have you attended:
- Weekly meetings
- Michigan Seminars & Workshops
- Mid-west or Regional Seminars
- National Seminars

3. When was the last time you played a part in a person getting Kundalini awakening?

4. What are the top things that make you off balance (non-collective, skipping meditation, succumbing to the 6*)?

* 6 = Kam Krodh Mad Lobh Moh Maya (Desires, Anger, Pride, Greed, Attachment, Illusion)

Ja League

Ja rule is - if ya can't create them, bunch them together. However, the optimist would say that The League of X Gentlemen is a bouquet of fine characters, seeking the eternal and good in them, while they havn't been exactly heroes in their recent pasts.

The 2003 movie has good actors and nice action. Images are too dark and fast and creates a sense of loss of visual richness due to speed. Could have used slo-mo like in Charlie's Angels or other cult classics to actually deliver the action.

But nice movie. Nice make up and effects. And a nice Captian Nemo, the indegenously manufactured Nasiruddin Shah. The submarine nautilus is a swimming Hindu temple+palace. The diving deck is a Shiva linga and dieties all around. The set and clothes designers must have picked up a coffee table book on Hinduism.

Cold Mountain = Cold Shower

Ok. If you like to be depressed in hope that a 9 hour movie has a happy ending, and dont mind being served a sad end... Cold Mountain is for ya! Anyways, the music score is the great part as per VPSM (Vic's Personal Standard for Movies TM). The recurring theme is the detached love expressed in "Ain True Love"*, which is powerful poetry rendered very well. Other country music is inspiring. Images in the movie are powerful without being disgustingly surreal.

* The day later i posted this post, i found these awesome lyrics were none other than Sting. Am I surprized? No. Am I enamoured? Yes.

You'll walk unscathed through musket fire,
No ploughman's blade will cut thee down,
No cutler's horn will mark thy face
And you will be my ain true love,
And you will be my ain true love

And as you walk through death's dark veil,
The cannon's thunder can't prevail,
And those who hunt thee down will fail,
And you will be my ain true love,
And you will be my ain true love.

Asleep inside the cannon's mouth,
The captain cries, "Here comes the rout,"
They'll seek to find me north and south,
I've gone to find my ain true love.

The field is cut and bleeds to red.
The cannon balls fly round my head,
The infirmary man may count me dead,
When I've gone to find my ain true love,
I've gone to find my ain true love.

The Smartness of Evil in the Dark Age

An interesting question came up this week: Do I believe in evil? So Evil got defined as anything that acts without consideration for the whole picture. Made sense, but practically, is it possible to keep getting the whole picture & be in the good books?

A little insight into how evil works is interesting. Evil itself is a part of the whole and cannot function without the knowledge of the whole. So evil goes out and tempts free-willed humans to take a bite. Ordinary humans, without enlightenment will resist, forming an artificial barrier of mortality between the soulscape and the external. As the external evil approaches the conditioned soul, the conditionings will set up a shield and refuse fortright - e.g. a teen will automatically say no to drugs if there are no holes in the shield of positive conditioning.

But the external evil does not give up. It tempts, saying, a little wont do harm and creates a small access through the conditioning shield. The shield of our conditioning is always shallow and in this darkest of all ages, the evil is strong enough to penetrate it, by small excursions followed up by fuller attacks. Once the evil creates access ways, then it becomes a daily commuter route for evil to come in and party in the soul - addiction sets in.

So now the poor soul is hit by the addiction, cannot quit by free will as the access paths are now clearly developed. Any mental approach fails due to the simple fact that the external evil is strongest during these ages. It needs to be. How else will the truest gold be separated from the chaff?

When all external seeking fails, the internal seeking starts. A solution from the core, from the inside. A source to sustain that shield - a source to nourish that shield - a source to keep the shield from going down. A source that is inexhaustible.

So when the self-realization sets in, the shield is now intermittently connected to the spirit during meditation and is relatively impenetrable. But again, due to lack of continuous connection there are windows of vulnerability created. It might take a long, looong time to make this shield of the soul constantly connected to the spirit to keep it 100% effective. To eliminate all windows of opportunity for evil to creep in.

A day will come, I hope soon, when the shield will be continuously fed with the spirit. Evil waits, in the dark, waiting for the free-willed yogi to create a pause in the connection and it works on accessing the yogi again.

It might be tempting for a yogi to assume failure and surrender to evil which has demonstrated no easy goodbyes so far. God forbid, should the yogi assume failure and reach a mental conclusion to accept the evil's shadow for good.

The shield is Kundalini. The source is the Spirit. The connection is meditation. The battlefield is the yogi's body, soul.

All the best... to me.