Communication; a two-way street.

Dear readers,

I hope you all are faring well. This week has been quite challenging, I must apologize for being a day late on my delivery but as they say; in order to grow we need to step out of our comfort zone. The comfort zone is meant to do exactly what it says; keep one comfortable. So unless we are comfortable in what we are doing, in how we are living then we definitely need to step out of it.

In other news, my new activities involve me communicating with people; many of whom I just met and every day I practically meet one new person. I have to establish contact, and in that conversation give them assurance that the need they have come to me for, can be met. So last week while driving on the highway, I try to keep my mind active my having thoughts that require my brain to actively think. ( long drive tend to make me go into a “beta-state”, hence I need to keep my mind active). During my long train of thought processes, I got into a subject matter that actually woke me up. In our everyday life, we interact with different people and communication is vital in order for this to occur. In a standard communication process, we have two or more people engaging in either verbal or non-verbal interaction.

We live in times when whatever can be misconstrued is misconstrued, and whatever you say that people can manipulate to soothe their whims and caprices can be manipulated. It is also the age of social media and “instant messaging” thus many people want quick feedbacks to things without actually waiting for responses that are well thought out or meaningful. In fact, it may come as a surprise to some of you that we live in times when a lot of “nonsense” is actually “sense” to others. So communicating is actually very relative now. You may spend a lot of time “talking” to someone but fail to actually communicate what you really mean. In order for us to function as social entities, we definitely need to learn how to express ourselves and communicate better. Many relationships today go sour because of the level of communication that there is. Be it formal, semi-formal or non-formal relationships, communication is actually very important.

The interesting part of this analysis is that I always try to bring back whatever real life situation I am talking about to how it affects a spiritualist. The spiritualist is also involved in communication on many levels. Physically with other practitioners, subtly with beings on a different dimension or spiritually with the Supreme Lord. Furthermore, one of the strengths of a seasoned spiritual practitioner is his ability to communicate with the Divine; either via prayers, chants, meditation or all of the above. When a spiritual practitioner who understands the real meaning of communication on a spiritual level, he doesn’t waste his energy in discussions that reduce his power of speech. He definitely practices austerity in his speech by only speaking about things that relate to the Supreme Lord. By so doing, he actually gains a lot of spiritual energy in his power of speech and his words become more potent.

Communicating with the absolute has many aspects to it and these different aspects are accessible to different people on various levels. Some practitioners engage in the call out communication. In this phase, the practitioner knows that the Supreme Lord can hear us if and when we reach out and he knows the Lord responds, however, he is not seasoned enough to have the audience of the Lord due to immaturity in his quest. He continues nonetheless, with strong determination and hope and if he persists someday he will get to the second phase. The second phase is the call out with intermittent responses. At this point, the practitioner can hear, but his hearing is not fine-tuned enough and thus every now and then he fails to receive certain messages. These could be due to a myriad of reasons, for example, recurring bad habits that block that connection or relapse into missing or skipping his regulated spiritual practices. Under the proper guidance of a bonafide spiritual mentor, he can definitely overcome this setback.

The beauty of spiritual life is that there is definitely a chance for growth and development if we are certain about what we need to achieve. The third phase involves the practitioner making a two-way call, where due to his level of maturity in his practice, the blessings of his spiritual mentor and the grace of the Lord, he is able to communicate with the Supreme Lord deeper. Due to the humility of the spiritual practitioner, he doesn’t go trying to prove to anyone that he can hear or communicate with the Supreme Lord. He actually doesn’t try to speak with the Lord, he just acts in a way that the Lord can hear him speak. Nowadays, we have too many imposters, who claim they can actually hear and communicate with the Supreme Lord. The truth is, if someone really has that ability, he’ll be hesitant to actually let people know. Imagine having the personal phone number of the president of the United States. I doubt you’ll want to walk around telling everyone that you have it.

Now let’s not forget that we are actually speaking about the Supreme Lord here and not a mere mortal and as such, having access to such level of powers would actually make one humble. No one who is arrogant and a “showman” can access such amount of Divine energy or make such a contact.  In a summary, it is safe to say that with great power comes great responsibilities and every season spiritual seeker knows this. I’ll let you ponder on this for now. Till next week do have a great week ahead.

Dreams

Dear readers,

It is a pleasure to be able to share with you all once again, yet another interesting blog this week. I hope you all are faring well. As a break to the last series of blogs I uploaded which were quite philosophical in nature, I decided to write on a more mainstream topic today. Today’s topic is one that almost everyone is conversant with and not much philosophy is needed to explain what it is. However we are going to be looking at the subject matter a few steps away from the physical aspect.

Today I shall be writing on dreams. So what are dreams? This word or concept is very interesting because it can be both a noun and a verb. Many of us are conversant with Martin Luther’s famous speech “I have a dream”. When we speak of dream as a verb we usually talk about the possibility of doing something. However when we speak of dream as a noun then we are referring to a series of thoughts, images etc. that occur in a person’s mind when they are asleep. We all have had dreams at one point in time or another and most of us do every night when we go to bed. In fact only a very few percentage of people go to sleep and do not recall having dreams. This could be for various reasons. The beauty of having dreams is that we are introduced to a world where we are not limited by time, space, nor our bodies.

At one point in time or another, some of us must have had a dream where we were flying, had special abilities, could speak different languages or had immense strength. We were able to do things that defied the laws of nature and the abilities of our physical bodies. Then we wake up in the morning and all that is gone. So what happened to all that we saw in our dreams? To understand this let us analyze a few basic concepts. We have the sleeping state and the wakeful state. In between these two states we have a third which allows for occurrences such as hypnosis, but that is another topic entirely. In our wakeful state, we do things with the help of our physical body. We walk, dance, talk, laugh, and eat, all with the help of our physical body. Thus we are limited by the capacity of what our physical bodies can do. We also have another body called the subtle body, some call it the astral body and those who practice astral travels tend to use this body more. Astral travelling is one practice that allows people to experience for a fact that they are actually more than just their physical bodies. We will not dwell much on this subject either.

In the dream, when our physical bodies are in their sleeping state, the subtle body is in its waking/wakeful state. It is safe to say that for those who are not very spiritually in tune with their subtle bodies, it remains dormant or asleep when the physical body is awake. So at night when the physical body goes to sleep, it becomes active. This body begins to engage in various activities, based on our desires, thoughts, imaginations or share dictates of the mind. Sometimes, information that is stored in our subconscious mind make it to our dreams and it develops form or shape. If we spent an entire day dealing with say flight bookings for people to a holiday resort, it won’t come as a surprise if at night we see ourselves swimming with dolphins in a breathtaking resort. Even though we might not have had a direct contact with a resort, but information of this place builds up in our subconscious mind as we were working throughout the day. Dreams could also be more than just thoughts or replays from our subconscious minds. Dreams could provide us with visions into events that are yet to happen, or even better clarity to things that have happened.

Some people have been able to testify to seeing things in their dreams and sometime later these things manifest in the real world. This ability if properly harnessed becomes some sort of clairvoyance and can be used to help people. Another interesting phenomena which we can get from dreams is that when one is very spiritually advanced, dreams could be a contact point for association with higher beings who may not be able to present themselves before us physically due to various reasons. In fact my spiritual mentor used to say that, whenever any of his disciples has any difficulty we should just speak to him and he would definitely give guidance. Many of my god brothers have recorded many occasions where our spiritual mentor would appear to them in a dream and give clarification to things.

The possibilities that are present in our dreams are endless and when we can access these properly, we begin to operate on a different dimension. Many of us might have seen the movie Inception, where the famous Actor Leonardo DiCaprio uses the sleeping state of dreams to implant ideas and thoughts into the minds of people. Even though many people might wave this off as just a movie, the idea of mind control via several methods is not new or alien in our society today.  The most popular form of mind control we all know is the Television or nowadays social media. There are however more subtle forms of mind control which are not easily accessible to the masses that is been used currently by many powerful countries in the world. These techniques are used to control, manipulate and even access information from competing countries via spy agents.

It is thus very important to try to keep track of our dreams every day, this way we can monitor the thought process of our subconscious mind. When we keep track of our dreams then we can also influence the outcome of the type of dreams we want to have. Yes, it is possible to influence the dreams we have. We can write down or dreams daily as soon as we wake up before we get off the bed. This allows us to fully recollect the dreams we had at night. Initially this might be difficult especially if we are not used to remembering our dreams. However with time and conscious practice, we will gradually begin to recollect more.

Till next week, do read, share and follow for more.

Pseudo Quintessential Spiritualism

Dear readers,

I hope you all are faring well. It is always a pleasure to be able to share with you all yet another exciting blog every week.

This week I’ll like to harp on a topic that is quite interesting and a source of concern for neophytes on the path of spiritualism. Often times either by false perception or transferred thoughts of misconstrued idealism, many newbies on the path of spirituality create a utopia of what they seem as the quintessential circle of spiritualist. In their minds and activities they wonder about from faith to faith, religion to religion waiting to find that sphere of the above described spiritualism, all to little or no avail. This reminds me of the famous novel “Animal Farm” by George Orwell, wherein he uses the perfect allegory to pass across the situations of a trouble State and the results therein.

A lot of people new to the path of conscious spirituality, (and I mean one that has for focus the concept of a personal relationship with God), often get caught in the web of differentiating pseudo spiritualists from the real ones. The externals are not an issue, as many people can easily figure their way through this part. The difficulty starts when the philosophy meets practice and practice meets the everyday way of life. It is at this junction the pillars that hold the faith of many start to wobble and eventually collapse. When the exciting “conscious chants” are over and the mind starts its rampage and reality sets in, the new spiritualist begins to wonder what happened to the promise of “eternal high”. When the delicious communion of cruelty free meal is over and the newbie sees that the seasoned practitioners and old timers are not so free from violence in their discussions, his doubts seem to crawl back.

Many newbies will play ostrich at this point and bury their heads in the sand of hero/mentor worship, self-denial, misinterpretation of the philosophy, and “adaptation according to circumstances”. The pseudo spiritualists in such a religion who is but a quintessence of Napoleon from the Animal Farm will usually try to fake the practice of the philosophy with the hope that someday they make it. This may work for a while for some people, for some time for most people but not every time for everyone. Truth be told, many people are not ready for the truth because it disrupts the reality of their ignorance. So what could the truth be? Why is it so difficult for the newbie spiritualist to figure it out? It takes intelligence to be able to separate grain from chaff. As easy as it may sound in real life, many neophytes and even seasoned spiritualists find it difficult to make this separation. The reason could be varied however when the basics are not learned properly, then it is hard to even grab intermediate matters talk less of the advanced stuff.

It is apparently cool and flashy to put up a show of being “woke”, filled with the spirit or being on the platform of spontaneous love of God, however what is not cool is having to deal with the reality that sets in after these imposters see that their charade is not getting them anywhere. Let’s take an example of someone who attends a party of world class swimmers held on a cruise ship. At high sea, the ship starts to sink and then he sees all of the “seasoned swimmers” panicking. Only to find out that they can’t really swim.  There is a mixed feeling of anger, betrayal, and even amusement when such a guest has to witness the pseudo swimmers struggle for their lives in water. The neophyte in spirituality is sure to witness such scenarios at some point in their journey into spirituality. The choice is theirs however what they want to do with such a lesson.

The best recourse will be to take the path seriously, to train body, mind and spirit in the true tenets of whatever spiritual practice they are into. It will be in the interest of this practitioner to look for a real seasoned practitioner that understands the theory and practice of the path they are on. The neophyte must also make sure that the seasoned practitioner lives a life that reflects a balance of both theoretical understanding and practical application. When that is done, then he has to address the most difficult part; himself. Like it or not the larger percentage of work to be done in order to progress in spirituality, is the effort we put in when there is no one looking. Those things that we do when we are alone with our minds and the Lord in our heart.

Amidst this rubble is a few percent of those who are “woke” or say aware of the feeble phantasmagoria presented by these charlatans who parade as God conscious people. This few understand that in every spiritual circle there is bound to be the struggle of light over darkness and both never coexist. This few “woke” individuals know that sometimes there is joy in celebrating small private victories as opposed to the general opinion of making a show of advancement. They understand that spirituality is a silent inner journey where the aim is to go as deep as possible, way beyond the superficial flowery externals; floating on the surface that people confuse as the real thing. We can say they have surmounted the tendency to be distracted by the byproducts of spirituality. As it is with every endeavor that exposes the malignant nature of darkness, these few individuals will face their portion of the soul’s dark night. In their purification the neophyte will be deceived to think of it as tribulations and as such ridicule them. However just like the proverbial phoenix, they eventually rise from the same ashes they were reduced to.

The secret lies not in personal prowess, expertise, erudition nor deceit, but in sincerity that cannot be purchased by anything besides genuine intent and perfect understanding of who and what God really is.

Till next week, do read, share and follow for more.

Death 1 ( The Moment)

Dear readers,

It is a pleasure to be able to share with you all today yet another blog. I hope you all are faring well. Today’s topic as many of you can see already is one we all avoid and have created a taboo around its discussion, however the last three days I have been a firsthand witness to a devotee who left his body and barely a day after got news of another young lady who also passed on.

In this light I felt it is only naturally that I speak about the most dreaded topic; death and dying. Before I commence my dissertation on this matter at hand, I’ll like to say maybe just maybe once in a while we should all get to witness someone leave their body. Why? It puts everything in your life in perspective. I happened to be in the room where a senior devotee passed away recently and often times we get to read certain descriptions from the Bhagavatam about what happens at the time of death and sometimes some people brush it aside as exaggeration or just stuff that may not happen to us. I can tell you that many might be in for a shock when their time arrives.

In 2005, about 12 years ago, I lost my Spiritual Mentor to some terminal illness and I saw how his body transformed in the last few months, but I also saw how what was in his heart became more magnified.  I need to say I have a lot of thoughts right now flying through my head so please bear with me if they do not seem to align or flow. I think right now, better than passing across some congruent thought pattern is my intense desire to pass across some real talk about life and death. One thing sure and certain is: we are all going to die, no one is making it out of here alive. I am sorry if this is too blunt but the earlier we know that it is sure to happen the better. The most striking part is that we have no clue when, where or how it will happen. Yet most of us live as if we have a contract signed with God as to how long we shall live, and go about life as if we were immortals.

So what is death? I guess you all already know. It is the physical termination of the physical body and the transmigration of the life force, soul or consciousness in that body to another (Bhagavad Gita 2:13). Now whether you believe in reincarnation or not that is another topic. (To know more about reincarnation, please click on the link). So what exactly happens at the time of death? At the time of death, one is enveloped by the sum total of his life’s thought process (Srimad Bhagavatam 3:30:18 purport). That is whatever we have given the most attention to in our lives becomes our primary thought at the time of death. If your life was spent chasing money, affluence, God, etc., at the time of death these thought become your primary thought. Why? Whatever we study for is what we recollect in an examination, and death is life’s final exam.

In life we all worry about many things which in real perspective are not worth worrying about. My spiritual mentor in his final days gives a two hour lecture on the subject; “Die before dying”, the summary of that lecture was to live every day truly as if it were our last. We hear this every time, some of us practice it maybe for a week or two then done. Truth be told everyday on this planet is actually our last, because we have no clue when that day is. Die before dying is putting first things first and seeing how these thigs affect us. An example of putting first things first is as follows; suppose today was your last day and all your family members were gathered around you, what would be the priority in your thoughts? Would it matter what dress you wore? Would it matter what someone else was wearing? Would it matter what race those who came to see you were? Would it matter what your bank statement was? Would it matter what car your friend’s drove in to come see you? Of course none of that would matter. The only thing that would matter would be to share as much love as possible, ask for forgiveness and focus our minds on the Lord’s pastimes as we prepare to make the transition. So if this right here is a simulation of what our last day could look like, now take a look at your current daily activities and ask yourself, am I truly living with the consciousness of one conscious of death or am I just going through life as if I were immortal? I have divided this topic into parts in other to be able to get everything I intend to say out properly. This is because if I cramp everything into one blog, so many things will just fly over our heads. I do not wish that for any one of you.

Usually when people hear those who are spiritual practitioners speak about death and the ephemeral nature of life, they often think we are fatalists and do not know how to “enjoy” life. They ask “Why worry so much about death? Why not worry about life and living now?” Well we do think about life and because we think about life we know is it temporary. We know that life is meant to prepare us for that transition, and that true living is having a life that reflects this mentality on a daily basis. We enjoy life with the consciousness of being the servant of God and as such we accept everything knowing fully well to whom they belong. To the degree something helps us remember that we are eternal souls in a temporary world, to that degree do we accept it.

Till next week, please do watch out for the part two of this series. Follow for more.

Ps. Photo credit not mine.

God; form or formless

Dear readers,

It’s a pleasure to be able to share with you all once again yet another interesting topic. Last week we had the chance to deliberate on a thought-provoking matter and needless to say we were able to gain a lot more insight on tests in our spiritual journey.

Today however topic of deliberation is different and beyond the regular, before we delve into it, allow me to give a brief preamble. If you are new to this blog space and would like to have a background information on what I’ll be discussing today then please do read this blog >God’s descent<. Having said that, today we shall be discussing about the form or formlessness of God. It might sound somewhat bold to try to “depict or describe” God, however there is no cause for alarm or panic as whatever I present here today will be backed by references from scriptural texts and in this way we can appease the minds of my readers who are from various religious backgrounds.

The reason why I have chosen to deliberate on this topic today is because; tomorrow the world over many Gaudiya Vaishnava will be celebrating the advent of the Supreme Lord on this planet over 5000 years ago.

So first question is why would God want to come here to this planet in the first place?

In the Bhagavad Gita Chap 4 text 7 and 8, the Lord gives the reason why he descends. He says whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious principles he descends, and when he does he comes with the objective of re-establishing religious principles, protecting his devotees and annihilating the miscreants. Sometimes the Lord doesn’t descend himself but sends his emissary to do his bidding. This emissary could be the Lord himself in the form of an incarnation or of a being invested with spiritual potency to carry out his mission. The Bible confirms this in John 3.16 where it says for God so loved the world that he sent his Son, that whomsoever believed in Him would not perish but have ever lasting life. So by accepting the Lord or his incarnations when they descend puts us under their protection. When we are protected by the Lord we definitely will have ever lasting life.

Does God really have a form?

Many people ascribe various attributes to God, and in this light describe Him as the great Light, the Great sound, the great energy etc. In as much as He is all these, He is also more. He is the great light but also the source of that light, he is the great sound but also the source of that sound. He is described in an ancient text known as the Brahma Samhita, or hymns by Brahma; one of the demigods working under the Lord’s direction. In this text it is mentioned that “the lord has an eternal, blissful, spiritual body. He is the origin of all, and has no other origin. He is the prime cause of all causes. This means that despite the fact that He has a body his body is not subject to the laws of material nature like ours. We have a body that grows, falls sick, gets diseased, grow old and eventually dies off. These attributes do not occur in the body of the Lord, thus his body is eternal, blissful and spiritual. His body doesn’t deteriorate in any way form or manner. He never gets old and there is no question of death for him, as he is death personified himself.

In the Bible in Genesis 1:26, God says “let us make Man in our image and likeness” which means we have a form similar to his.  In the Hadith, it is mentioned that on the day of resurrection, Allah will come to those who worship Him and He’ll say I am your Lord”, they reply: we’ll stay here till our Lord comes to us and when he comes to us we will recognize him, then Allah will appear in such a shape that they can recognize.

If God has a form why is that form not spoken about, or why is He treated as formless by many religions?

In all sincerity, many people are hesitant to speak about the form of the Lord due to inadequate information on this subject matter. This is because not many scriptures have a detailed description, and thus there is hesitation to discuss that which is not properly explained. However those who have access to revealed scriptures like the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures known to Mankind, have no difficulty in getting the right information.  Second is they find it difficult to actually discuss the subject because they are limited in understanding and feel the Lord’s form is like theirs; which is full of limitation. The human mind finds it difficult to discuss about the absolute or anything absolute because it is finite in nature. Naturally whenever there is a discussion in that direction and there is inadequate guidance then the immediate response is to try to negate the concept so as to remain “safe” in their limited conception.

More so, one cannot speak about what one has no information on. In order to speak about the name, form, qualities and pastimes of the Lord, one needs to have access to the information and the right attitude to get it. Also, because this concept has been abused by many people who claim to be “god”, because they know it is valid and exists, many religious do not even teach it ( for those of them who know).

The form of the Lord is definitely not one we can cover in one dissertation, however this is just a sneak peek into the concept of the nature of the form of God. When we make a genuine effort to try to serve the Lord in truth and surrender to a bona fide representative or spiritual guide, then we can hope that the necessary information needed is revealed to us. By the mercy of the spiritual master one gets the benediction of the Supreme lord, and without his mercy one cannot make advancement.

I hope this dissertation helps shed light on this matter. Till next week, do share, read and internalize. Follow for more.