Yoga - Connection with God
Yoga is a science of connecting with the God within you. Yoga means union and it has its roots in the Hindu tradition. I have been very fortunate to be a disciple of a great Yoga Master and I was initiated by him in India and that blessing has transformed my own life.
When you hear of Yoga, you think of physical exercise, that yoga is called ‘Hatha Yoga’; it is the Yoga of the physical body. But, the deeper Yoga takes you in connection with God. Our Centre in Claxton Bay and across the world are devoted to human transformation and human development and the awakening of spiritual energy. Members from Blue Star are members from all organisations and all parts of life, so there are Christians in Blue Star, there are Muslims in Blue Star and there are in Hindus in Blue Star. Yoga is a Universal tradition. It is said today if you want to learn Yoga, you may learn more about Yoga outside of India because so many people have taken the tradition and developed it outside of India.
God is Real
I want to say to you that God is real. No matter how difficult times are around, I believe that God is real. I believe that we need to establish that deep connection with God that can keep us strong and safe. When we become forgetful, when our minds are troubled, when we sway in our faith and confidence in ourselves then we become vulnerable to the negative forces that are around us. Evil is real as you know, the closer it gets to you, the more real you are aware of it and the more real it becomes to you. No matter who you are, the need to get closer to God, the need to establish a strong connection is extremely important.
Satsang
I hope this evening that our satsang can take you into a space where you can feel that divine connection. For us satsang is not just about singing, satsang is not just about ‘pooja’ (rituals), and satsang is not just about repeating the mantras. Satsang is opening up your heart and feeling God’s presence and power inside of you; until and unless you can make that happen, you have not really touched the Divine.
Making that Journey Inside
In the Vedas there is the Maha Vaakyaas, the great statements in the Vedas. One of those statements is ‘Aham Brahmastami’ which means that I am divine, I am of Brahman, and I am of God. How many of you feel that you are of God? How many of you? The goal of spiritual life is to make that connection and to feel that you are a part of God.
Swami Vivekananda said that religion is realisation; religion is not just rituals, ceremonies and philosophy but religion is realisation. If you speak about God, you feel God, you must know God, and you must connect to God. If you speak about peace, you must feel it, connect with it and be a part of it.
This evening I invite you to make a journey inside of you, not a journey outside because you can travel through India and come back quite ignorant if you did not make that inner journey. You can meet all the Gurus in the world and still be ignorant if you did not open up your heart to them. You can sit in the holiest of temples and continue to be ignorant if you did not open up your heart and allow God’s power to flow in and through you.
One of the most beautiful things is that when we come together, we are stronger. In the human experience if one person is full of love, that person has the power to awaken love in others. If one person is full of peace, that person has the power to spread peace around others. Similarly if a person is evil, they would tend to spread evil around them. I invite you to share the goodness in your heart that we all can become stronger.
As we dedicate our satsang this evening to the late Robert Sankar, we pray that his soul would be blessed and he would continue to be at peace and he would continue to live in the light of the Divine. I pray his family and his extended family would be blessed and many generations to come in this family be blessed.
Go Deep Inside
This evening in satsang I would like for you to go deeper inside of you and begin to experience the God that is presence inside of you. The end of worship is to become one with that which you worship, to feel part and connected to that which you worship. To start saying the name of God is not the complete thing but to feel that you are a part of God is what is more meaningful. Surrender your minds this evening. Allow yourself to go deeper a little bit beyond the mind and experience what is there at the depth of your being.
As you sing let the experience be if you can of God singing inside of you of the Divine singing in and through you; not singing to God but to try to experience God singing inside of you. Try to feel that inner power coming through you.
Collective Consciousness
When you come to the temple or a holy place, it is extremely important to keep your mind in the present. We influence each other with our thoughts. Your thoughts travel outside of you and influence the mental field that is in the temple. The more peaceful you are in your minds, the more peaceful the whole group would be. The more centred you are in your hearts, the more centred the entire group would be. You share your thoughts and feelings with the entire group. We call the consciousness of the entire group ‘Collective Consciousness.’ When you are sitting with a group, know that you can influence the entire group even by being silent and by sending thoughts into the group. If you say ‘May everyone in the group be full of love, may all be peaceful, may all be happy,’ you will begin to influence the group.
Do you know why you leave your shoes outside, because your shoes trample the street and you did not want to bring the dust from the street inside the temple? Your mind has trampled the entire world today with your thoughts and in the same way you left your shoes outside, if you leave your extra thoughts out there and you come inside with a peaceful mind, you become more receptive and you transmit and give out wonderful vibrations. I am inviting you to share the best part of yourself with all of us.
Be Fully in the Mantra
In the chanting of mantra the time should come when each time you chant it you feel so joyful that you never get tired of chanting it. It is a way of holding your mind in the present, in the now. It is a wonderful exercise to continuously repeat the mantra and not think, ‘I have done it 100 times and this is a 101 and this is a 102 and this is a 103 times.’ You have lost all sense of how much you have done. Each one is a complete new one and you are so into the mantra that nothing else exists. It is like climbing a long ladder; if you look at the top and see how many rungs you have to go, you may get tired as soon as you start but if you are looking just at one rung each time, one rung and one rung, before you know it you will reach the top.
Never look at how many footsteps you have to make but get the joy of each step. Just enjoy each step and before you know it the journey is completed. It is so in chanting, just enjoy each time you say a mantra and be fully in the mantra and you will never get tired of saying the mantra. You will never get tired of repeating the Divine words.
We Make the Murtis / Statues Come Alive
When you walk into the temple, the temple is not divine because of the statues or murtis in the temple. The temple is not divine because of the beauty of the walls in the temple. The temple is divine because you express divinity in the temple, you express devotion in the temple and that devotional energy stays in the temple. When you come in the temple you try to be quiet, you try to be God Conscious and that energy you create stays in the temple. When you honour the murti, you are investing the murtis with energy; you are giving the murti power. Each time you consider the murti sacred and you honour and worship it, you are actually investing your power in it; you are investing love, peace, sacredness, and reverence in it. And when you come back to the murti that is what you get from it, what you have invested. It is we who make the murti divine by our devotion. It is we who make the temple sacred with our divine energy; it has no sacredness of its own except what it means to us.
When we see the murti comes alive, it is because that supreme consciousness in us is coming alive because we hold the murti sacred. Swami Rama Krishna Paramahansa from Bengal in India was a very famous Swami. He saw Kali coming alive in the temple. Nobody else could have seen it only him because his devotion was raised to such a level that the supreme consciousness within him expressed itself as being in the murti, that he alone could have seen. So, we make the murti alive, we bring that supreme consciousness into expression through our devotion. The temple, the walls, the statues have no power of themselves; it is only what we give to it. When we remember that then we see what great power we have as human beings - to create a sacred space, to influence each other.
Our Great Power of Intention
We can drive away evil simply by our intention, our great power of intention. If every day we say, ‘May this country be rid of evil,’ and we say it meaningfully and soulfully and more and more people will say it, the forces of the light will begin to transform the forces of darkness. If only we would be so disciplined and focussed we can transform anything. If every day you pray for light to drive away darkness, ‘Tamaso maa jyotir gamaya,’ if every day we pray meaningfully, the forces of light will drive away the forces of darkness.
The word ‘Guru’ means that which removes darkness. ‘Gu’ in Sanskrit stands for darkness and ‘ru’ stands for light. Guru is that which removes the darkness. May the Guru Power of our Universe take away all the darkness of evil. If we don’t support evil in our minds, how can evil exist? If we don’t keep evil in our hearts how can evil exist? If we don’t give way to anger and accept anger, how can anger exist? If we don’t keep fear within us, how can fear exist? If we keep love within us, how can fear exist? Let us remember the power we have.”
The Physical, Astral and Causal Bodies
There is a subtle energy body that exists inside of the human body. It is like a body of light, and it is called the astral body. There is another body that is called the causal body and inside is the Atma, that which you are. We co-exist now as Atma in three different bodies: physical body, astral body and causal body.
You can feel the physical body and you can identify with the astral body by the subtle energy that you feel that is called ‘Chi’ or ‘Prana.’ We have an auric field, a field of energy that comes from that subtle energy field. Those of you who studied the science of the chakras, they form the field of subtle energy; they are in the astral body.
The causal body is a body where all the information is stored from all your past lives and all your existence. It is like a storage field, an energy field that stores all the information inside of you. And what holds everything together is the Atma.
The Atma is the part of you that is aware. The part of me that is aware is called Atma, I can witness, I can look, I can observe; that awareness is fundamental to my Atma. They are characteristic qualities of my Atma. That awareness is modified because I think that I am the physical body, so I am caught up in the physical body. When I am dreaming, I am identifying with my astral body.
According to the Vedanta teachings, in dreams it is the astral body, so when you meet divine teachers in dreams and when you dream of things that are going to happen it is because your astral body is active. Those who are clairvoyant, they have very active astral senses.
All the memory of your past lives is stored in your causal body inside of you, which is deeper than the subtle body.
You can communicate with people even if they have gone past the physical world. Those of you who have experienced deeper communication, sometimes you are thinking of someone and they call you on the phone. What does it mean? You are thinking of someone overseas and the moment you think of them strongly, the phone rings. What does this mean? It means that you can communicate astrally in a moment without telephone lines. Sometimes you are in a meeting and the person next to you expresses exactly what you were thinking. How did the thought reach in the other person? You did not say anything. Sometimes you are thinking about something and you read it in the newspaper, somebody else is thinking about it.
We can communicate beyond the physical body. If you think strongly and another person is next to you and person is compatible, they can pick up your thoughts. Even if someone goes beyond the physical world, you can do the same. People become immediately saddened when someone dies. If only they would understand this technique, they would be able to communicate with the person even after the person has left the body. And that is how we can communicate with Robert Sankar today or any member of the family who has passed on. They are alive in the Universe. Their identity, their ego, their Atma is still there and we can communicate with them. And any member of your family who has passed away, you can communicate with them even now. Just think of them very strongly with that heart-to-heart connection that you would have with them and they would come to you. They would feel you, the vibration will transfer, and it will communicate. Use it ! Use it !
Those of you who knew Robert, think of him lovingly. Any members of your own family, think of them lovingly as we pray, they are receiving it.
Meditation
Meditation is the art of going inside of you and connecting to that great power inside, but you need to learn how to make the mind quiet and you need to be focussed.
Sit in a posture that is comfortable and let your back be as straight as possible. Bring your mind into the present moment, be here and now. Centre yourself in that space where you can feel peace, where you can feel love, where you can feel goodness and stay there. Be nourished by that peace. God exists within you as infinite peace, as infinite love and infinite power. Be quiet and acknowledge that great power.
If you want to go deeper, focus on that point on the centre of your eyebrows, the Ajna Chakra and breathe slowly in and slowly out as you move the prana within you, the subtle energy of the breath. Let the breath flow in a gentle rhythm as you breathe in and out and you will find yourself becoming peaceful very quickly as you focus on the breath.
Think of your existence in the Divine, God is in me, God is around me. Infinite peace is in me, infinite peace is around me. You can repeat the words that are sacred to you and feel the power as you repeat them with a focussed mind. In that sacred space, make a wish for our world, ‘May all be peaceful, may all be happy, may there be peace, love and harmony in our world.’
Let us connect to those dear souls who have departed, ‘May you be well, may you be at rest, may you be in the light.’ Let us say a prayer for our dear Vindra, ‘May you be protected, may you be released.’
Beloved God, Creator of Life, Infinite Self, we offer thanks for the blessings of this evening. We offer thanks for Your sacred presence in the peace and love that we feel. We ask You to bless our community, bless our world with peace, love and harmony. May the forces of the light transform the forces of evil. We pray for the good health for everyone here, blessings on their families. May all be blessed with good health, happiness and prosperity. Beloved God we thank You, we praise You, we love You. Peace, peace, peace.
