Reference: Change (UK78-8)

Satsangs with Gururaj Ananda

From talk number UK78-8. Edited by J Lamb. Words in parenthesis added by editor.

All references to the masculine also include the feminine

Unprepared talk by Gururaj Ananda in response to ad-libbed questions
Session hosted and recorded by the British Meditation Society

 

Questioner:  Gururaj, the essence of life is the relative world is change, and this appears to be the only permanent thing about it, so why do we often find it so difficult to change, in our attitudes, relationships, or way of living?  Is it because of our conditioning we cling to what is familiar, because it seems to offer some sort of security?

 

Gururaj:  Yes. The only thing that is sure in the relative life is change. And we cling to the changes, the transitory value of life, because we find security. 

 

I think I've given you an example before, that in the Himalayas, a person has an accident, and is lying in the snow. Such a warmth envelops them that they don’t want to get up.  With the will to get up, and walk around a bit to circulate the blood, they would be saved.  But in that warmth established, lying in the snows, the person loses their life. 

 

This is similar to the daily experience of all of us, because we are afraid of the unknown, we stick to that which is familiar, in spite of it being so unpleasant to us, in spite of it bringing so much suffering to us. 

 

Common sense would tell us that we should evaluate relative existence, with all its changes, and try to see how beneficial change is to us.  We can still live in the changes, and change the changes; that is the secret of life.  What do we change?  We change that which is forever changing into changelessness, wherein stability could be found. 

 

The fear of facing the future, or turning away from that with which we are so familiar, is a sure sign of instability.  It is a sure sign of a lack of faith, it is a sure sign in the disbelief of Divinity. 

 

What prevents us from wanting to change?  What prevents us from remaining in the suffering and yet inwardly we would like to get away from the suffering?  And yet we are so tied down, bogged down, because of what we have been conditioned by. 

 

          Our minds are nothing but a product of conditioning.  I have known people, going for example into a restaurant and not wanting to try a different kind of food. They are afraid.  In business days, this is something I could always remember. Our man in Rome Eli Aptekman, had an American visitor, who was a buyer of films.  And Eli he took us to this restaurant, a beautiful place with all the fine Italian foods, meat foods, vegetarian foods, and all kinds of foods, and you just had to choose.  So when Eli asked him what would you like, he looked around and he said, ‘You know what I would like Bud, a nice hamburger’. Yes. Here there are tables and tables spread with the finest food, but he had always been accustomed to his hamburger and ice-cream and he wanted that.  Do you see?

 

          How much joy is missed in life because we do not want to change.  We are afraid, as we've said just now, because of insecurities, instabilities, a lack of trust.  The greatest things in life, that could ever be achieved, is not always to mind your step, but to take a leap.  All the greatest things created in this world, from the most fantastic bridges to the tallest sky-scrapers came about because a person was prepared to leap. 

 

Even in leaping, it should not be blind leaping.  Take, as a businessman would say, a calculated risk.  But are we prepared to risk our little ego, that little ego that wants us to cling, and cling and cling, to life? 

 

Now, there's nothing wrong in clinging to life, because everything is life, but what is our understanding of life, that is the question?  Does life only mean the conditionings that our minds, of which our minds is a product?  Does life only mean the mundane things to which we attach so much importance?  Is that really life, and is that really living?  Most of us don't live, we just exist.  And in this just existing, we drift, like a rudderless boat.  So there must come a time when a person must accept a higher value than the ordinary mundane changing values of life. 

 

          There a few kinds of people that would be prepared for change.  The one kind of person that would change is when he reaches rock bottom, when whole life has become too much for him.  He has reached the ground, and when one falls down to rock bottom, there's only one way he can go, and that's up. So when people go through the direst misery, remember there is an upward surge coming. It’s an infallible law. When you go through the worst suffering, do know that there is something better in store, the storm before the calm. 

 

The other kind of person that wants to change his whole life-style, would be the person that has gained some understanding. It would be the person that has seen the futility of his present lifestyle and very consciously wants to alter that lifestyle. The first person, the former person is forced into altering his lifestyle. The latter person, which includes many of us, wants to consciously alter that lifestyle.  And in wanting to consciously alter that lifestyle, we gain some understanding.  At first it is a mental understanding. That mental understanding, later with conscious effort, and the help of effortless meditation, becomes a realisation, where every hatred can be turned into love, where every adversity can be turned into opportunity. 

 

          One must not expect dramatic changes, because that which starts very dramatically can also end very dramatically, and you’re back to square one.  So proper changes in life and changing one’s life style must come gradually.  And as it comes gradually, the greater force it would have, and the greater impact it would have upon us.  Have you ever seen a flower growing immediately after you plant a seed?  When a housewife cooks, have you ever seen she putting the pot on the stove, and removing it in two seconds.  No, it takes time, it takes time.  Therefore one has to cultivate patience.  And the very patience that is cultivated is a joy if we understand why we are cultivating the patience. 

 

As days go by, and we develop newer understandings, deeper and deeper understandings, then our attitude towards life changes radically, sometimes imperceptibly to us, but so noticeable by others.  And as one progresses, it becomes encouraging.  And the more encouragement one receives and sees and observes and feels, the quicker the progress on the path. 

 

What we have to do essentially is to wake up; to wake up from this deep sleep that we are in. That is causing the suffering to us.  And in that awaken-ness, that wakefulness, in that awareness we would find that we have stopped existing but now we have started living. 

 

When a person really lives, they inevitably will see life around them.  By that we do not mean people walking about, and birds flying and animals moving around.  We see that movement according to the amount of understanding we have.  But when we really live, then we see pulsating life around us, the pulsation which is the very joy of life.  We would see activity in everything around us, for there is nothing in the relative field of life that ever stands still. 

 

Even this human body changes every seventeen days, where old cells are destroyed, and new cells are built up.  You’re not the same person physiologically today that you were seventeen days ago.  So everything is forever ever changing.  But by living, by learning to live, we find the beauty in the relative change.  And to find the beauty in the relative change, as we progress on this path, we very spontaneously infuse the changelessness in the change, and thereby enhance the value of change.  But that does not come about sleeping, it comes about by being awake. 

 

Theological people would say, ‘Be awake to the glory of God’.  Yes, so there are many ways to achieve this.  The scientist that really wants to find himself can see that life through his microscope, and see things teeming with life.  An artist can see the living life in the colours he blends in his painting.  The shoemaker can see the very life in the leather he stitches, and a carpenter in the table he makes, the musician in his music. 

 

          Everything has to be appreciated at its fullest value.  Our comprehension of things is at a very superficial level.  And because it is at a superficial level, we cannot enjoy things very much.  And when we cannot enjoy, then we experience the opposite of joy, and that brings misery and suffering to us. 

 

So there is only one way out of the mess.  The way is to awaken ourselves, awaken the mind and the heart through our practices, so that it could be attuned with that which is higher than us, which has a permanency.

 

What this means is that changing and changelessness are part and parcel of each other.  There can never be the unchanging value of life if there was no change and there could be no changing things in life if there was not that permanency.  Both are two sides of the same coin.

 

          Now, we are not to neglect one for the other.  We must appreciate the change and at the same time appreciate that which is changeless.  That is the secret of life.  I am repeating the secret of life from its various angles, so that is why I say ‘That’ is the secret of life. What is ‘That’?  ‘That’ is the eternal factor, the infinite factor that governs the entire universe, not only governs the entire universe from standing outside the universe, but by being infused, it is the very essence of the universe. 

 

And ‘That’ we have to discover in our path towards self-realisation.  Self-realisation is self-integration. No person on earth could be totally happy until he is self-integrated.  Happiness too has levels. The more the integration, the greater the happiness.  And that is the path we are following through all the changing facets of life, to the changeless value of life, bringing the changeless value of life into everything that changes.  It sounds paradoxical but it’s definitely possible. 

 

So we start from change, get to the changeless, and from changeless we come back to the change but we do not come back empty handed. We bring back with us changelessness, so that we infuse it in all that is changing around us.  And that makes us live and to appreciate the real meaning and value of life.  This life is so, so valuable. 

 

          If you believe in evolution, you will realise that from the first primal atom, how that atom has progressed.  It has gone through various changes, various forms until it reached the mineral stage, and even in the mineral stage so many changes had taken place.  From there to the plant stage, all the various species, all these various experiences, for everything experiences and everything is an experience.  And through the species of the animal stage, and then finally to the stage of man, where man can really say that, ‘I am created in the image of God’. 

 

Man has the consciousness to appreciate that he is created in the image of God, because man has the thinking power.  The previous stages of existences in evolution could not discriminate.  Man can discriminate.  And it is our folly not to be able to discriminate, between that, which is forever changing and that which is changeless.  The power of discrimination, Viveka, as they call in Sanskrit, is there only for this one purpose - to be able to discriminate between the changing and the unchanging. In other words to discriminate between the relative and the absolute.  For the absolute is our real essence.  Our real essence is changeless, while all the change is the manifestation of the changeless. 

 

          When we combine, in our lives, the value of changelessness and change, then we live a full life.  We do not live a full life now, but those who have started on the path of self integration would appreciate, as one goes on with conscious effort in our daily living, (we discussed Yamin, Yaman, the other day) - to would appreciate, to reach that point, where life is all joy. 

 

Even if there is pain, we have to be involved in the change. We are involved in the Gunas, the three forces that constitute life. We have spoken about the Gunas many times. Seeing that we are involved in this universe composed of the Gunas, there would be the pairs of opposites – pleasure & pain, heat & cold, sun & snow, etc.  We have all that (while embodied) but once we have realised the value of pain and pleasure then neither of them would affect us, for the greater pleasure you experience, remember, you have cultivated in yourself the capacity to experience just as great pain.  So, with the increase of that sensitiveness, your pleasures could be very high, and your pains could also be just as be as high. 

 

So, what do we do?  We take the two ends of the stick, the polarity that's involved in the law of opposites, and we gradually, through our practices, come to the centre of the stick where there is a balance.  And when one reaches the balance, then no great pleasure or no great praise lifts us up, and no great pain or displeasure throws us down, because we have risen above just mere existence.  We have risen above the pairs of opposites.  We have risen above the polarity that is the (main) constituent of this earth. 

 

These very polarities are of couse so helpful.  In electricity we have the positive current and the negative current.  Now do remember, that the positive current and the negative current, they are not opposed to each other, although their values differ. (We need them both). In the two extremities that they represent, they co-operate in such a way, as to produce light. 

 

          So all these things constitute life, but it is our understanding of what life is all about that would take us above all the change that we see around us.  And that means to become centred within our selves.  The purpose of all our meditations, the purpose of all our practices, is to centre ourselves. Most of the time we get pulled away, in this direction or that direction, within the framework of the law of opposites. 

 

But you can only go beyond the law of opposites if you want to go beyond them, which means centring oneself.  That is the secret of life.  That is the secret of happiness.  That is the secret of developing an understanding, where even the severest quarrel between husband and wife could be brought into such a togetherness of humour, where we can actually look at each other and laugh, and laugh.  That is how we have to live, if we want to find happiness.  And if you don't want to find happiness in this life, nobody stops you. There are still hundreds of lives, and you can try again. 

 

(Continue reading to have a fuller explanation of the 3 Gunas – Tamas, Rajas and Sattva))

 

Questioner.  When harmony and balance are basic aims of spiritual progress, why do these not seem to apply to the three Gunas, in that we are taught to subdue Tamas and Rajas in favour of Sattva?

 

Gururaj.  Beautiful.  It’s essential to understand that the function of the universe is never for it to remain stagnant.  The nature of the universe is a continuing state of flux, and the universe, it must be remembered, is on the relative plane.  Rajas, Tamas, and Sattva, they too are of the relative.  By living a life in such a way we subdue Tamas, which is darkness, and inertia.  And by subduing darkness, we bring light into our lives, which is Sattva.  Now the activating force between these two opposite poles, opposite ends of the stick, is Rajas.

The only reason why we want to reach the sattvic state of life is so that we could enjoy the light. 

Rajas, Tamas and Sattva cannot be destroyed.  They are there, eternally there to make this universe function, because the nature of the universe and all relativity is to be in flux, to be in activity.  And this very activity is regarded to be the life-force of the universe. 

Life-force can be enjoyed in darkness and life-force can also be enjoyed in light.  But there's a difference in quality.  You can enjoy laziness, inertia, you can enjoy that, and you can also enjoy light, tranquillity. 

 

          The purpose of life is to go beyond the qualities of inertia, because that is a lower form of enjoyment, and we want to reach a higher form of enjoyment which is light.  That is why we do our spiritual practices, (and open ourselves up to greater truth and our greater potential). 

But remember, even reaching the finest level of Sattva, we have not escaped the universe.  By reaching Sattva, we would enjoy the finest relative, which is more enjoyable than the grossness of Tamas, or darkness. 

 

          In our progress towards the level where we transcend the three Gunas, that level is the transcendent level.  How many people on this earth can live in the transcendent level?  Very few.  Very few.  If out of ten million, one reaches the transcendent level and lives in that state, it would be too much.  Perhaps a hundred million, a thousand million, reach that state.  Buddhas and Christs and Krishnas do not come to this earth everyday.  They live in that transcendental state, and yet are also mixed up in all worldly doings. 

But for the average man that is aspiring to reach that, the only thing he can do, is to remove himself from darkness and approach light, which is Sattva.  And when he reaches the finest level of Sattva, which is light, he enjoys the light.  But in enjoying the light, he will still feel a duality, he will still feel that a separation exists between the relative and the absolute.  So, when he reaches the finest sattvic state, he is pushed by the Divine force, call it grace, to merge away in the transcendent. 

So the Gunas are necessary.  Everything in nature - ‘Pakritti’ is the Sanskrit word - is subject to and controlled by the very constituents of itself which are the three Gunas.