So one day during my meditation, this revelation occurred to me that it is because….
the first thing we need to kill are these negative tendencies that we all carry.
Patanjali has been one of my favorites.
Even modern psychology will be incomplete
unless we include the yogic principles,
which were already stipulated or somehow categorized in a systematic way,
god knows how many centuries back. And he was such a genius that he included all those steps.
It doesn't matter where you begin, but my guruji
Ram Chandra ji, he said, "Let's begin with meditation”.
When your mind incrementally gets purified, there'll be incremental
improvement in your perception
and thus your consciousness. And with this incremental refinement of consciousness,
you will perceive the world based on where you are,
you will appreciate the yamas and you'll appreciate the niyamas.
And you keep wondering, you know, why a rishi,
such a great sage would begin these steps with yama.
Yama is generally understood, in our culture, as the lord of death.
Yes.
Why does he begin by reminding us of the lord of death? So, one day, during my meditation,
this revelation occurred to me that it is because... the first thing we need to kill are
these negative tendencies that we all carry.
Ahimsa (non violence) of course, it tops the list, whether it is through actions
or whether it is through thoughts or intentions,
doesn't matter. I may not commit, but my mind will create havoc.
And truthfulness, though great, should not be at the cost of
this ahimsa. And ahimsa (non violence) also becomes
very futile or becomes pale when compassion is left in the background.
So this is all a conglomerate, you see, it is a whole complex thing we cannot avoid.
One supports the other.
And my guruji used to say that, you know,
all these eight steps... doesn't matter where you take them from,
but eventually take them all, so that your life becomes complete. And, his main purpose is that
you look at this, you know, everybody wants peace these days.
"In our days when we were younger," he's talking of the 1800s something, you know.
"During our days people were craving for salvation at the least and those who were a little bit more
advanced were looking for liberation."
And then he said, "What a tragedy of this modern world that people are looking for peace."
To him, this peace has become such a tragic word
that people have to look for it because it's our nature,
not just peace is our nature, bliss is our nature.
And he said, what a fall the great human beings have today. We have to hanker after peace.
So, my idea that I would like to share is, you know, as
you have already put it in very beautiful words,
"Let's be peace, let's breathe peace,
let's drink peace.” Let's have peace all within and let it ooze
in our environment. It is our state of being that will resonate in our environment.
And then as this critical mass, what we call... when automatically something is set in motion,
this non-local participation, as you have mentioned
in one of your books, which I read recently,
I think everyone joins in this gang approach of establishing peace.
So it's a wonderful thing,
arriving at a critical mass to make a change in the world.
Yes.
Daaji, as you just said,
peace is not something we find. Peace is what we are to begin with.
And, all we have to do is... meditation, of course, is the basis of everything.
All we have to do is through meditation,
cut the veil of ignorance
that is hiding the truth. So peace is already there. It's there.
It's just overshadowed
by distraction, literally by sensations, images, feelings, thoughts, perceptions,
which give us the experience of the physical world. But actually
even the physical world, it's not physical.
It's a perceptual activity in consciousness. So ultimately, there is no physical world.
As you rightly said, "meditation is the key to cut the veil of ignorance."
And I have also,
having gone through some of your material, I realized that you're very focused on what
you call, heart meditation.
Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher said "the heart has reasons that reason does not know”.
And that was Blaise Pascal who said that. The heart is the seat of ultimate infinite
computing that is being downloaded from Brahmanand itself.
So for that reason, I think what you're doing,
contributing with heart meditation and bringing peace
to the world is such a great thing that I'm very honored and privileged to quote this.
Thank you bade bhai, thank you.