- Sri Darwin Gross: "The Atom" (1984 ed., pg. 17)
"I have found one thing to be true. If I will just be what I am and who I am, there is no need to have an image. No need for anyone to have an image. Why? We actually are ourselves. If we strive to be ourselves, then we have nothing more to strive for in his physical, human state of consciousness. For what more is there?"
- Sri Darwin Gross: "The Atom" (1984 ed., pg. 17)
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Here is a link to the new Spiritual Freedom Satsang (SFS) Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spiritual-Freedom-Satsang-SFS/298663636832985 Hi.
One of the cornerstones of Surat Shabda Meditation is the attention (Surat). As you practice this, you learn to pay attention to your attention. So here is an exercise you can work with. Periodically, throughout the day, pause and notice where your attention is. Is it focused on sensory perceptions and things around you? Are you feeling an emotion? Are you remembering something, or pondering something in the future? Is a memory of something triggering an emotion? Are you mulling over an idea or concept? These are all different foci of attention; and your human states of consciousness also correlate to the various planes. Physical is, well, physical. Emotions correlate to the Astral Plane, memories and future speculation to the Causal Plane and ideas to the Mental Plane. As you pay attention to your attention, you will gradually realize that you can control where you place your attention. This is a good initial step in learning the practice of Surat Shabda Meditation. Try it for a while - jotting down observations when they arise - and see what happens. Yours in the LightSong of Eternal Love, Michael Turner Spiritual Freedom Satsang GOD'S GRACE: A TIME FOR THANKSGIVING
- by Michael Turner © 2011 (From a satsang I gave following a reading from "God's Grace" in Part 3 of "The Teachings of Kirpal Singh") “In the fullness of time, when it so pleases God, He brings about a meeting between a jiva and a Sant Satguru, who establishes his contact with Naam - the power of God or God in action - the Primal Sound Current, wherewith a jiva is gradually led on and on until he reaches the source and the fountainhead of Shabd or the Sound Current. It is through the grace of God alone that one is initiated.” (“God’s Grace - Teachings of Kirpal Singh: Part 3”. Pg. 117). God's Grace is something that we’ve heard about all our lives. Any of us who went to Sunday school, who grew up in the 60’s, heard about Thanksgiving. We saw “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and all those old holiday movies. And we always said grace at the dinner table. Unfortunately, it almost became hokey to talk about grace and holy gratitude for a while because in the last few decades people became more and more aware of the difficulties of this world, of the suffering in it. Especially in America alone, it became fashionable to be cynical and I think one of the reasons for the upheavals we had thirty years ago was that people who were brought up with the Sunday school, Cecil B. DeMille, a whole Frank Capra trip about America, suddenly through the news, the evening news and the media became aware of starvation in Appalachia and disease and racism, and this, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, the best of all possible worlds, and a certain cynicism set in. I have heard more times that I would care to count, "If God is graceful, if God has Grace or love for us, why is there so much suffering? Why are there so many difficulties on this planet?” Theologians have struggled with this for a long time. Some people say that, "Well, you suffer because you’re meant to" or “You’ve been bad" or “Life is suffering”. What it really comes to is that this is a world of duality, this is a world of friction and abrasion and conflicts, not unlike isometric exercises. It is high density, high mass especially compared to other universes which are a lot more subtle. Yet because of the intense friction that occurs here - just like when you’re doing heavy isometrics, you build up muscles faster - when you’re dealing with friction and resistance, it is more of a challenge to maintain your spiritual awareness, your spiritual balance. Yet the rewards for doing so are infinitely greater than living in a so-called paradise where everything is beautiful. In some ways, the conflict and difficulties of our lives are a great example of God's grace, because it is through working with this resistance that we grow, that we develop spiritual strength, that we polish ourselves, just like rocks in a tumbler. If you’ve seen gemstones in their rough state, you will notice they aren’t particularly impressive. Rubies don't look like much; they’re just pinkish rocks. But through the process of putting rough cut gems into a tumbler where they rub against other stones, they gradually polish themselves and they develop into a purity and a clarity that is astounding. You wouldn’t see this brilliance when looking at a ruby to begin with. If it could complain, it would be screaming, “What are you doing to me?” It’s not unlike Rumi's poem about the chickpea and the cook, the gist of which is that the chickpea jumps out of the soup pot and says to the cook, “Why are you boiling me? What are you doing?” And the cook says, “I’m doing this to give you flavor. I’m doing this to bring you into a higher state of expression.” Sant Darshan Singh, Kirpal Singh’s son, said that our difficulties in life are another example of God's grace, because frequently it is only when we are encountering difficulties that we turn our mind to God. When we’re happy, were frequently thinking about everything but. But suddenly when things get tough, when you’re suffering in some way, you suddenly become very devotional; you're praying for the end of suffering. It’s a funny thing. Here it is Thanksgiving, and there is so much to be grateful for, yet many of us don't see it. I’m grateful for you being here. I cannot tell you all how good it feels to share evenings with friends and make new ones. It’s amazing how we all learn from each other. That's one of the blessings of having a planet and this society to be in. It’s another example of grace that we're given each other in whom we can see the Light of God in their eyes, and hear the Song of God in their voices and children’s laughter. Yet it is also difficult, because of all the challenging things that happen in life. It is difficult to have gratitude, because frequently our prayers tend to be "Why me?" We ask for a better job or to relieve the pain that's hurting us, or stop bad things from happening to us. Sometimes, as the challenges come fast and furious, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by them and be aware only of the hardships of life, forgetting all of the blessings we are offered every day. One of the essences of this path of Shabda Yoga is learning to deepen our devotion to the Divine, and a key to this is through gratitude. My Master, Sri Darwin Gross, wrote a song called “It just is”, which opens with the words, “Thank you, with Love.” My Master taught me that “thank you” is a wonderful mantra, because when you say, “thank you”, your spiritual heart opens up. And it’s through the spiritual heart that love flows. I’m not talking about emotional love (although that's an aspect of it), but real spiritual love. Spiritual love is the wave of the Eternal One that lifts us up and takes us back home to Itself. It takes us back home to our true nature, which is what we call self-realization. It takes us back home to God, from which It originally comes from, a process known as God-realization. By practicing gratitude, by saying to people you meet on the street, " Ilove you," silently through your eyes, or saying “Thank you”, you open the inner doorway and divine love comes through. In doing so, even in a difficult situation, (you might even say especially in difficult situations), you feel better in the process. It may sound selfish to say it’s all about feeling better. But one of the things that I believe is that an open, loving, enlightened perspective feels better, makes you happier than being shut down and uptight. We see ourselves in other people’s eyes. Anything we hate in other people is usually something about ourselves we despise. It is important to realize that we are all particles of God, and that every person we project negativity upon is really just another way we project it back upon ourselves. Divine Spirit has taught me this lesson over and over again. When I’m angry at somebody at work, if somebody pushes my buttons and I get into a reactive mode (even if it might appear to be justified), it just ricochets right back on me. It’s like an instant mirror. So to me it’s not cost effective. If I feel irritable, I have to deal with it. I don't deny it if it’s occurring. But to get angry on any level is not cost effective. The outcome for me does not warrant what's put into it, because I feel ill afterwards. It comes back to gratitude. If you open your heart to love and to graceful living, you will begin seeing that everything, even the stuff that's thrown in your face sometimes, is a gift. It’s all just mirroring ourselves, which is in turn mirroring God. We learn to come into balance with Divine Consciousness. We learn that it’s not God personally coming down on us, like some guy on a throne casting lightning bolts saying “I’m going to get you”. It is just the law of this universe of action and reaction that whatever we put out comes back to us. If we unite ourselves with Divine Love, if we merge into, melt into love, then there’s ultimately no giver or receiver. There is just Love that is loving and continues to love. This is really one of the keys of developing into God realization, realizing that we’re all part of the same wave of Love. We can melt into It and let Love lift us up. Any questions? Q: “To me it looks like people are not content with just existing or being born, or even having anything. They expect everlasting life after this life. It’s like a greed thing. It’s not like a loving thing, it more a love of greed or something. People not happy being themselves or being here as a person with their family or whatever, they still want something in the afterlife . . .” M: That’s because ultimately what we’re seeing is just the reflection of a soul wanting to expand. Really, it comes from our desire to grow and prosper and flower, but we are programmed through living in these worlds of duality to be shortsighted and to externalize our validation to objects and other people. We live in an addictive society. We live in a society that preaches that the whole core of consumerism is external fulfillment and gratification of desires, which of course goes back to what are we taught? We are taught to desire. If you look at any of the major religions, the masters always say the same thing: desire is the ultimate motivating factor. It is a magnetic force that keeps you bound to this mode of action and reaction, and a continual dynamic of exponentially increasing desires. It is a core addiction from which we operate. The whole key to liberation is when you realize that, ultimately, there is nothing to desire, because it already is. Desire implies there’s something you don't have, that there is something you are not. The saints say that, in order to truly start on the path to God, you have to desire God like a drowning person desires air. You have to crave the nectar of God like nothing else. What is interesting is that, when you rise into the wave of Divine Spirit, you get to a point where you have to let go of even that desire. You just have to relax and let the River carry you, until you realize that you and the object of your desire are one, and you reach a state of desirelessness, ultimate gratification, ultimate gratitude. You realize you already have everything anybody could possibly want. I mean it gets to the point where I look around and see people who are hung up on their acquisition trips. They’re really into power, status and prestige. It reminds me of that line from “The Ballad of John and Yoko”: “Last night the wife said, ‘Oh boy when you’re dead, you don't take nothing with you but your soul. Think!’” You can have everything possible in material possessions, and yet your body is still going to fade away. It brings to mind the poem “Ozymandias”, wherein some people come across a great edifice, kind of like the monolith in “2001”, and nobody knows what it is. On its facade is a sign which reads, “Ozymandias”, and commands them to bow down to this great edifice of a past leader – “Look upon me and despair”, that sort of thing. And yet in the last line of the poem it records how the people walked away, shrugging their shoulders as if to say, “Whatever”. For none of them had any idea as to who this person was. He died thousands of years ago and left a big rock, you know. But he is still dead. When you find God, which is truly your divine nature, everything comes into perspective. Then you’re able to function in the dance of life and enjoy it, participate in it. There’s nothing wrong with this per se. You don’t have to be an acetic living in the woods somewhere in order to find and actualize God. There’s nothing wrong with having a nice car or a well-paying job if that is the way that you can help express the spiritual energy in a certain context. This is a key to co-workership with God. Each of us has within us our own creativity, our own interests, our own things that turn us on. This is something I keep coming back to. Some of us are bakers, some are lawyers, some are ditch diggers, some are computer programmers, some are fire people, some are letter carriers. Each of us has something that we do, and it is through our unique, personal creativity that God and Divine Spirit reach out and touch others. If God wants to touch a couple of souls in an office building who are awakening and blossoming into their Godhood, one way it does this is through a satsangi who also happens to work at that company. By this person being an open, creative instrument for Divine expression, the Spiritual Current just passes through their eyes and their beingness and helps awakening souls around them. If that person was an acetic and lived in a cave somewhere, he or she wouldn’t be working in the real world and people in the world would be cut off from this moment of Divine Grace. So God expresses Itself through all that It flows through. This is the greatest wealth a person could possibly imagine. There are great stories of Sawan Singh when he was the Living Master in India. He would be holding Satsang with 10,000 people at the Dera (the ashram where they had the meetings), and there would be bank presidents sitting next to sadhus, who in turn were sitting next to craftsmen and people who were extremely wealthy, people who were former rajahs and kings and princes. They were all people whose inner sight and inner hearing had been awakened. They had realized that their Satguru had arrived, that their ticket home was here, and He was the conductor on the train of life taking them back. Sawan passed from this scene in 1948 after initiating about 85,000 souls, and satsangis like Kirpal Singh and Charan Singh began teaching the path of Surat Shabd Yoga and offering Holy Naam initiation. And they had satsangis who began giving Shabda Initiation in turn as well. It’s a continuous thing, one of the great gifts of God to humankind, and one of the great examples of God's grace. We are greatly blessed by the fact that the Lord always expresses Itself to human beings through other human beings, to give us a living example of God-in-expression which is on our level, not removed somewhere in an ivory tower or a cave, or confined to the dusty mists of history by a book or a different plane of existence. Every day, since humankind first became conscious, there have been living, human instruments of God-in-expression, which is something that I’m very grateful for. If we can just awaken people to this basic fact, we would see a whole lot less negativity and desire-based action in the world, including the work environment. And we would come pretty close, as close as we’ll ever come, to heaven on earth. Q: “You don't think it’s a flaw in human nature or character, to be like that? For example, Adam and Eve, they could have lived forever in paradise and they gave it all up, it still wasn’t good enough for them.” M: Well, the story of Adam and Eve is really talking about that original paradise which is the level of pure spirituality, the Soul Plane, the Kingdom of Heaven. This level is the True Home, Sach Khand. Below Sach Khand are the worlds of duality, extending from the mind on down through the causal, emotional/astral and physical bodies. By partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, what that really means is that soul took on a mental body and became aware of duality. Through its own curiosity, it became stuck in the wheel of cause and effect. I wouldn’t call it “fault”. If anything, I might call it “shortsighted”. Most people tend, at some times in their lives, to be shortsighted. It’s part of human nature. It doesn’t make them necessarily “bad”. We are all like fruit on a tree in the process of ripening. Some are more mature and closer to being ripe than others. Is a little bitty green apple that's unripe bad? Or is a tomato that's still hard and green bad? No. It might not be edible . . . yet. But it is potentially edible. You just have to give it time to bask in the sun and drink the water of life and it will turn into something of great beauty which is the destiny of all souls. Thank you . . . with love, May the Blessings Be! ******************************* MichaelTurner@spiritualfreedomsatsang.org Dear Friends, On this day, it is good to take time and give thanks to God for all of Its blessings, and to our family, loved ones and friends for the love and blessings they bring into our lives. I am incredibly grateful for my wife, son and family - and for all of you, my brothers and sisters and friends in Nam. And I am also thankful for the gift of having triumphed over cancer and being alive. Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody! All my Love, Blessings and Appreciation in the LightSong of the Eternal, Michael Spiritual Freedom Satsang Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Spiritual Freedom Satsang website - a work of love in progress. I want to dedicate this site to my Master, Sri Darwin Gross, and all of those great souls who have served God and shared the Way of Shabda, the LightSong of Eternal Love, with us since the dawn of humanity. Darji, thank you . . . with love, Michael
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