First we will see the meaning of the three words,mind,body and soul in the dictionary and then analyse further about our life and the purpose of being here in this world in physical form,

MIND- The seat of consciousness.The mind understands reasons and initiates action and is also the source of emotions.This is a simplistic definition for a concept that has been and continues to be the subject of vigorous debate among theologians,philosophers,biologists,psychologists,psychiatrists and other doctors.These arguments are too complex for inclusion in a dictionary’s definition.

The above meaning of mind is taken from Black’s Medical Dictionary,42nd edition.

Body- bulk,carcass,corpse,corpus,system,anatomy,physique,vital statistics,physicality,physiology,neuroanatomy,neurology,neurophysiology,organology,otology.Brain also is a part of body,the meaning of which in medical dictionary is the brain and spinal cord together of human or animal form the central nervous system(CNS).The control centre of the whole nervous system is the brain,which is located in the skull.As well as controlling the nervous system it is the organ of thought,speech and emotion.The CNS controls the body’s essential functions such as breathing,body temperature and the heart beat.The body’s varius sensations including sight,hearing,touch,pain,positioning and taste are communicated to CNS by nerves distributed throughout the relevant tissues.This information is then sorted and interpreted by specialised areas in the brain.In response these initiate and coordinate the motor output,triggering such voluntary activities as movement,speech,eating and swallowing.

Now it becomes quite clear that in our body we have two currents simultaneously flowing,as in animals also,which can be named as motor currents and sensory currents.The motor currents keep us alive,by controlling our involuntarily body functions,such as the growth of our nails and hair,our breathing,and our blood pressure,which are also called central nervous system(CNS).The sensory currents which make us aware of the sense of sight,hearing,smell,taste and touch.These currents are in the body of animals also.But what makes human beings special and different from animals is the”mind”.This is detected in human beings as specialised area between and behind the two eyebrows and defined in medical dictionary as”seat of consciousness”

SOUL-atman,inner being,mind,monad,self,spirit,spiritual self,life force,breath of life,ectoplasm,etheric body,etheric force,vital force,phantom,appariton,astral body,astral spirit,eidolon,ghost,image,vapour,wraith.

Medical dictionary does not have any meaning for soul,so the above meaning is taken from The Concise Dictionary and it is significant that one of the meaning of soul is “mind”,and hence whatever meanings of ‘mind’ are described in medical dictionary naturally apply for ‘soul’ also.

It is true that medical dictionary does not contain the meaning of soul but everybody accepts the existence of soul,even medical practitioners also privately admit that there is a soul.Science,in its attempt to explore the farthest reaches of space,is looking for answers to the origin of creation.Many physicists have turned to the east to explore the possibilities of realms of existence beyond physical world.A look at new age physics reveals a generation of scientists who are exploring the possibility that there really are universes existing concurrently with ours.The subjects ‘metaphysics’and ‘transpersonal physiology’in science are the new revolution and modern humanity at large has learned the lesson that any thing is possible.While science is delving in to what happens after this life,there is another field of science also being researched which is investigaing whether higher regions of existence can be tapped during this current lifetime.

Spiritual teachers,saints,and mystics have developed a technique by which one can transcend the physical limitations of this universe to discover higher realms of consciousness.Now the seat of consciousness in our body is’mind’,which is located between and behind the two eyebrows,this much is crystal clear to us.Coming back to soul,we have a soul in our body,there is no dispute over this universal fact,but where is this located in our body.Some hint is given in concise dictionary that one of the meanings of soul is mind,but other meanings of soul like spirit,inner being,self,atman are deeper meanings and the mind only caters to the bodily functions like it understands the reason and initiates action and is also source of emotions which differs the soul from mind.That means only science wouldn’t be enough to understand the soul.We have to go to saints and mystics who spent their life for attaining the knowledge of pure consciousness,who taught us without asking for any monetary benefits.They taught us that,presently our consciousness is scattered throughout our body and goes out of our body in to this world through the five senses;seeing,hearing,smell,taste,and touch.We have to withdraw consciousness from the world outside and collect it at the seat of the soul located between and behind the two eyebrows.This is the same process that all of us have to go at the time of our death.when someone dies,there is numbness first in the feet,then the numbness continues to the legs and trunk.Finally the soul collects at the eye-focus.At the time of death we find the eyeballs turn up,and then come down.So the soul is collecting and leaving the body.This is the highest chakra in the body.It is the point from where the soul leaves the body at the time of death.There are six chakras or centres in the body.Lowest is’guda chakra’located at the base of the spine or the rectum.Then’indri chakra’located near the reproductive organs.Third is’nabhi chakra’located near the navel.’Hriday chakra’is near heart,’Kanth chakra’is near the throat and the highest is’ajna chakra’,which the saints called as third eye or tenth door and is located behind and between the two eye brows,the same location as of the mind.We need to concentrate at this third eye which the soul must pass before leaving the body.So our mind itself starts functioning as soul as soon as we succeed in withdrawing our attention from the world.This location between and behind two eyebrows is named in varius ways in various scriptures as the ‘single eye’,daswan dwar(tenth door),third eye(shiv netra),divya chakshu.

We will go in more detail about the functioning of mind,body and soul so that the things become very clear to us,and there remains no confusion at all.

The Mind/Body/Soul are the totality in the process of self-exploration.Right now if our mind does not know what the soul knows,our life could feel as if it is being pulled in different directions,our very purpose of being on earth could wind up being compromised.

This is in fact the circumstance in which most of humanity finds itself today.

What must happen if we wish to live a life that serves its actual purpose is that our mind must bring in to its database that,of which the soul is already aware,so that we can produce the experience of it.The soul holds knowledge,while the mind creates the experience of what we call reality.This is the very reason that our totality(mind,body and soul)came in to the physical realm,to experience that of which it has full knowledge.Yet if the mind’s data does not include the soul’s awareness the continuing experiences the mind creates will not be expressions of what the soul knows and that will not serve our totality.

It is very important to understand that the’database’from which we may construct any present reality(ie-the information which is stored within us)exists in two different places and is accessed in two different ways.

The challenge in human life is that most people do not know this,or do know,but have not yet learned how to shift their point of focus from one well of information to the other at will,much less bring the two together.

The data about life is held in ‘memory’within our totality-and that one kind of’memory’is physical,while the other is metaphysical.The first kind of’memory’ we have called experience and the second knowledge.The first type of memory produces desire(a yearning for more experience),the second reveals intention(a yearning for a particular kind of experience-based on knowledge,not prior experience)

The first kind of’memory’is held in the mind,the second in the soul.The mind captures,categorizes,files,and brings forward memories of every experience our body and mind have ever had.The soul is the repository of all knowledge about who we are,where we are,why we are where we are,and all other aspects of everlasting life.This knowledge is what has also been called as ‘awareness’.

The sum of these two databanks is what they call consciousness.”consciousness raising” is to increase or expand the mind’s database,its limited storehouse of experience-to include more of the soul’s unlimited knowledge or awareness.

Experience + Awareness = Consciousness

The level of our consciousness depends upon how much experience we have had not only of our physical life but also of our metaphysical life the knowledge of which exists in our soul.

When in any particular moment,our present experience(that is the experience we are having now,rather than our memories of previous experience)and our present awareness (that is awareness of our soul to which we now have given ourself access)are joined together,the mind’s desire and the soul’s intention become one.

This is truly a marriage made in heaven.The meeting of the mind and soul.

It is impossible for the mind to hold at one time all of the knowledge held by the soul.If there is too much input the mind must’ring itself out’to avoid being overloaded.Hence the mind ‘forgets’some of what it once ‘knew’.So our mind brings forward what we need to know and puts away on the back shelf what we have no urgent need for.Or in our computer analogy,while our mind is adding data to the file currently open on desktop,it is closing other files to make the operating system run smoother.

It is precisely because the mind’s capacity is finite and the soul’s is infinite that,if the mind wishes to review the data of the soul,it will need to do so in bits and pieces.We sometimes call these bits and pieces “various births”.
Mind travels with the soul life time after life time.
When a person’s mind retrieves data from a previous lifetime(an enormous amount of anecdotal evidence suggests that this is a common occurance)that person is often called a ‘prodigy’demonstrating skills and abilities,wisdom and insight far beyond what present life experience would seemingly render possible.

When within a given lifetime that blending of the mind and soul occurs,the journey on which we find ourselves will finally begin to make more and more sense,because we are taking that journey in a state of expanded consciousness.Our perspective will have shifted and greatly enlarged.

Our soul has embarked on its sacred journey in a single identity eternally.Divine purpose of our life for which we are here from ages is to expand the reality of God,by experiencing the consciousness through our mind and body,and end our journey.

Agenda of the soul is to reach completion on its sacred journey.

The spectacular physiological,psychological and theological transition in to that higher level of self-awareness occurs only once in the epochal history of every sentient species in the cosmos,and this is precisely what is happening within the human race right now.

In our material world and mind and body experiencing this outer world,following look like the path of sacred journey,

1)The pursuit of love looks like the path.
2)The pursuit of security looks like the path.
3)The pursuit of power looks like the path.
4)The pursuit of success looks like the path.
5)The pursuit of money looks like the path.
6)The pursuit of happiness looks like the path.
7)The pursuit of sex looks like the path.
8)The pursuit of popularity looks like the path.
9)The pursuit of peace looks like the path.
10)The pursuit of social justice looks like the path.

Only if we are spiritually awakened or if we have spent a lifetime working for those above things and having achieved those goals at least in part,found that’this is not it’ and we are still not fulfilled-could we know that the path of the soul must be going somewhere else.
Further only if we take the path of the soul to that somewhere else place could we know that in that place will be found all the things we were looking for and struggling to create by leaving the path including everything on the list above.
The way to know what one desires is to bring our soul in to our mind,combining the two in to one,the way to express what one desires is to then bring the body in to this process.This is called ‘integration’.It brings the whole of us in to integrity.Now the holy trinity is completely realized-made real in us.This is what is spiritual mastery all about.

The oneness of all of humanity(atman) and God(parmatman)(and of the entire universe)is a difficult concept for many people to embrace.They are not familiar yet with ‘M’theory,which today’s physicists are advancing to offer,finally a theory of everything,and which supplies mathematical evidence for the notion that we do not live in a universe,but in a multiverse,made up of an infinite number of universes,all created and connected by a single phenomenon called the Membrane.People do not know that this is not’New Age nonsense’but today’s New Science.

New science and spirituality are finally reaching to a meeting point.Old philosophies in various ancient scriptures already describe about oneness of atman and parmatman and reject any kind of dualism.Advait(non-dualism) philosophy of Vedanta(Upanishads)upheld by Adi Sankara and later popularised by Swami Ramkrishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekananda is all about oneness of universe.In’japji sahib’ it is written”There is one reality,the unmanifest manifested,ever existent,satnam(conscious spirit),the creator pervading all,without fear,without enmity,the timeless,the unborn,and the self-existent,complete within itself”.In Sanskrit”vasudha-ev kutumbakam” means the entire earth is a family.All the saints and prophets believed in oneness of humanity.So there is no confusion at all.This is the only truth,although 98% of today’s world whether in politics or economics,in our society,the picture is quite opposite.But that does not make it any less true.

My invitation from life is to’judge not by appearances’,but to hold to the truth.This truth will allow me to see others,and to treat others,as aspects of myself.That alone could change my life.If I did nothing else,seeing others and treating others as aspects of myself would alter everything in my experience.

Can my decision be experienced ‘totally’while I am in my present physical human form ?No.One physical lifetime is too limited for the unlimited oneness to fit into.I get that.Does my true identity have to be experienced totally for my life to have meaning and to be fulfilling ?No.I am clear now that attaining even portions or aspects of the Divine(oneness being the sum of those aspects)is sufficient for me to know immense joy and fulfillment.

I am also clear that sticking to the agenda of the soul is just the challenge I have been preparing for all these years as I now move in to the extraordinary times just ahead.

The whole earth is moving through these important moments with me even now,and I want to help’create’those moments,not merely witness them.I remember now that I can best do that by focusing much more of my life on the spiritual journey.

Yet how can what I desire produce good for myself and for the world,and what does a clear focus on what I desire”look like”in life’s on the ground,day to day moments ?That is the next question.And,by going within,I am sure that I can find many answers being drawn to me,by Me.One way might be for me to continue with this blog-but as the writer,or the Reader ?

Actually I like this idea.I can easily imagine that this blog is being written to me,for me by me.I like the idea that the”me”who I am is much bigger than the one physical form that currently calls itself Me.

I have often experienced”talking to myself”,or “thinking out loud” and so allowing myself to consider that this blog is a written version of that experience is an easy transition.

I can imagine that these thoughts and words are simply being transcribed for me by the part of me whom others refer to by different name and think of as the writer of this blog.

If I were to share with others what I am experiencing right now by suddenly switching my point of view from that of the writer to that of the reader,they would surely say that I have just lost touch with reality.

There is a certain irony in that,because it feels as though I have just now gotten in touch with Reality.

It’s true….I do know all that I am encountering here.I do know that the”someone else”who has written this blog is merely another part of Me.

I’ve always understood that all of life is just another part of me.And so I know now that I called forth this blog-as yet one more way to remind myself of the largest truths of my life.

I understand the point this blog is making that We are all one,and that,therefore,what I do for me I do for others,and that what I do for others I do for me.And so,focusing on What I desire is not”selfish” at all.

I find that if I hold the idea that I am writing this blog(as against simply seeing myself reading the words of another),the words seem to have less weight somehow.

For reasons not entirely clear to me(but probably having to do with my own spiritual immaturity and a resulting refusal to see myself as my own spiritual”authority”),I feel much more open to huge insights about life when I experience that they are coming from a source outside myself.

And do you know what?The thought just struck me that”perhaps this is why we have placed God outside ourselves”.

So…..I shall herewith return to the profile of the Reader-even if in truth the writer and I are One-as my latest demo of Free Will in determining how I choose to experience life.

When we see things differently,when we bring in the Awareness of soul as our mind encounters the data brought to us by our body,our entire perspective changes.And our perspective creates our perception.And our perception creates our beliefs.And our beliefs create our behaviour.And our behaviour produces our experience.

Bringing us the Awareness of our Soul to dramitacally alter our experience is what this blog is all about.

When we experience moments of sacred journey which can occur in any one of the moments of lifetime,our immediate wish will be to experience more of that in even greater form.That is the Law Of Attraction.So our soul will begin the whole process all over again-yet not starting from the beginning,rather,starting from right where we are now.This is”karmic cycle”or cycle of births.So the Soul continues the process till the completion of the Sacred Journey,birth after birth.

We wonder-if the mind travels with the soul between lifetimes,why are we now having to”remember” what we have brought from our previous lifetime?
The answer is the mind of all human beings is reset to zero at the moment of birth.All previous data is”deleted”.And so while on our first day of life our soul had an”awareness” of all,our mind held nothing at all.
This is not by”accident”,rather the accidents are those exceptional cases,where a prodigy remembers about the past births .

Life is designed to give the totality of us a fresh start with every incarnation,or we can say’reincarnation’.In this way we can recreate ourselves anew in the next grand version of the great vision our Soul ever held about who we are.

The slate is wiped clean as part of’God’s biggest gift’-Freedom.

Life wants us to have the freedom to make today’s choices as we wish,unburdened by the decisions of our past,and thanks to the glory of our Divinity.

Right now we might say”If the Mind is reset to zero at every birth,it might as well die at the end of its previous life,because what good is it in this life if it carries no memories of what is experienced?”
The answer is No.For our mind is indeed like a computer-only much,much better.
As we know,on a computer we can not permanently erase any data.We can send data to “trash”-that is we can “delete”it,but the word’delete’is a misnomer.We have simply sent our data to a separate location on our hard drive,the ‘trash bin’,but it is also a good idea to know that it resides there ‘forever’.

Our mind is more efficient than a computer.It can send data to ‘trash’(it does exactly that with each birth),but it can reach in to its deleted files and pull out even”shreded”data(memories of experiences that we’ve had over and over and over again,from lifetime to lifetime)and decipher it.

What does this mean as a practical matter?It means that while,yes,we begin each new physical life with a’clean slate’,giving us the freedom to make choices unencumbered by our choices in the past,our mind can still access prior data from previous lifetimes when the mind determines it is beneficial,and not a hindrance to do so.Any thing that stops growth is considered a hindrance.Any thing that serves the continuance of life is not.

For all ordinary intents and purposes,the mind is free of these trillions of bytes of deleted data,having no need whatsoever to bring forward past ideas or information that will not serve us in the present.

Rising above any past thought that our mind may have harboured about our inadequacies or failures,our refreshed mind openes at each birth to the Awareness that our Soul has always held,that we are magnificent.

That is the precise reason that little children are wonderful.The closer we are to the birth of our being,with our memory cleared of all our previous life experiences in the body,we can be of a new mind about things.And so it is that we have been wisely advised;-Be as little children(little Angels)

Let this be our mantra,now and forever.
See the world with the innocence of children.
Approach the world with the daring of children.
Love the world with the readiness of children.
Heal the world with the purity of children.Change the world with the wisdom of children.
Be as little children.

So finally our idea of the self and our reason for being on the earth breaks down,to two simple choices.

CHOICE 1-
We could conceive of ourselves as a chemical creature,or a logical biological incident.That is the logical outcome of a biological process engaged in by two other biological processes called mother and father.

If we see ourselves as a chemical creature we would see as having no more connection to the larger processes of life than any other chemical life form.

We would see ourselves as having to deal with life day by day,pretty much as it comes,with a bit of what seems like “control” based on advance planning,but we would know that at any minute anything could go wrong-and often would.

CHOICE 2-

We would conceive of ourselves as a spiritual being inhabiting a biological mass,or what we call a Body.

So we conceive that we are a Soul and not a Body.Once we conclude that,then everything changes and we start identifying with the larger process,the humanity with the Soul,no difference at all,the difference which we see is only exterior, between our bodies.It is becoming conscious of the Soul,a conscious entity which inhabits the Body and the soul is a part of the eternal Soul,The Creator,God,Parmatman,Allah,wah-i-Guru,Bhagwan Buddh,the omnipotent,omnipresent.

As a spiritual being,we would know that we are here(on this earth)for a spiritual reason.This is a highly focused purpose and has nothing to do directly with our occupation or career,our income or possessions or achievements or place in society,or any of the exterior conditions or circumtances of our life.We would know that our purpose has to do with our inner life -and that how well we do in achieving our purpose may very often have an effect on our outer life.

We understand that CHOICE-2 is a better option and we are tempted to select it.Yet merely making this choice is not enough.We will have to use some tools given to us by humanity,to make our life ethical,to embrace our identity as a spiritual being,and then implement that choice consistently with the help of a magical device,that will allow us to sustain the experiences to which the other tools lead us.

So first the tools to use for an ethical life,

We have read about 4 tools,Truth,Nonviolence,love and Peace,already in the last blog and here are 4 more tools to implement-

GRATITUDE—

Let’s understand exactly what this tool is.Gratitude is not merely an emotion,it is a decision.It defines and declares our experience of Here and Now.And hence,our reality.

Gratitude can be a simple emotional reaction,or it can be a magnificent spirirual creation.It is a simple reaction when our Mind is on Automatic mode.It is a magnificent creation when our Mind has opted for Awareness mode and merged with our Soul in making a combined choice about any present moment.

In every moment of our life we have two choices—to move in to Reaction or Creation.
Reaction and Creation are very close to being the same word.Only the C and R need to be reversed.When we C what we have always been meant to C,then we R what we always R–and the course of our Life is reversed.

Gratitude is one of the most powerful tools our mind has ever been given,but at the same time it is also the most underutilized.Because most people are not aware of the immence power of Gratitude to reverse a thought that is at the foundation of all suffering.

The central cause of suffering is the idea that”something is happening that should not be happening”.Gratitude unleashes an energy that turns this idea on its head,announcing that just because something is unpleasant does not mean it is unbidden,unwelcome or unwanted.(jo sukh deh ta tujhey araadhin,dukh bhi tujhey dhyaeen..dukh vich sukh manaeen…koi aan milaaye mera pritam pyaara….from amrit vaani,guru granth sahib).

If the Mind thinks that a particular pain is ‘unwanted’,it will not abide by it–and that is precisely what creates struggle in one’s life and suffering.
Struggle is the result of the Mind rejecting what the Soul offers.It is the Mind deciding to go in another direction,veering from the path of the Soul.Suffering is the emotional product of that decision.Both struggle and suffering are creations of the Mind,which is where our reality is created.

What our Mind thinks about something is crucial in determining how we experience it-and Gratitude can cause us to change our Mind.

Yet Gratitude is not a tool with which to fool the Mind.It is a tool with which to open the Mind.It expands our normal,limited thinking to include a counterintuitive truth,that even when something seems ‘bad’ for us,it can actually be good for us.Mirza Ghalib was a great philosophical poet who beautifully expressed about pain and suffering and how to take them in our stride–

Ishrat-e-qatraa hai darya mein fanaa ho jaana
dard ka hadd se guzarnaa hai dawaa ho jaana
or
Ranj se khoogar hua insan toh mit jaata hai ranj
mushkilen itni padi mujh par ke aasan ho gayeen

A song from popular hindi film ‘dost’ also expresses similar feelings,
“Kaise naadan hai woh,gham se anjaan hai joh,ranj na hota aghar,kya khushi ki thi kadar…….dard khud hai messiah dosto,dard se bhi dawaa ka dosto,kaam liya jaata hai….aa bataa dein ke tujhe kaise jiya jaata hai….”

Underneath this truth lies a deeper one:Nothing that ever happens is ‘bad’ for us,or it would not happen.Life is incapable of producing an event or condition that does not carry us to the next place in our evolution,and that is not designed for our next expression of Divinity.Since the expression of Divinity is the reason we are here,we can be sure that everything that is placed before us appears to serve this Divine Purpose.

And so we say,Thank you,God(tera lakh lakh shukr mere maalik….).We give thanks for the opportunity to heal an old injury,to close an old wound,to alter an old pattern,to shift an old reality,to release an old story,to change an old idea,and to create a new experience of Self and Life.

ENLARGING OUR CHALLENGES—-

The greatest secret of Life is not the Law of Attraction,but the Law of Retraction.This is used to ‘retract’ old decisions and make new ones,instantly.That is what true creation is all about.

When we bear witness to our responses to Life’s current events and immediately retract what we decided in the past about similar events,we give ourselves almost unimaginable power,including the power to end struggle and suffering forever.
Gautam Buddha demonstrated this precisely,and taught it.(remember the four noble truths and eight-fold righteous path to get rid of suffering)

It is Gratitude that gives us this power.Gratitude gives us a fresh Start.It is like being born again,and having the Mind reset to zero.It wipes the slate clean of all prior negative judgements that we may have held about any person,event or situation.

Our Mind has been designed to hold in memory literally millions of experiences in order for us to notice that we are encountering conditions and events in our exterior world that are the same or nearly the same in their emotional content as we have encountered before.

The noticing of this is intended to offer us repeated chances to respond differently to conditions and events(both past and present) should we chose to,thereby recreating ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are.

We see then,that a single Life offers in miniature what reincarnation offers in “maximature”:limitless opportunities to evolve.

This is the Process of Life in all its forms.

Scientists tell us that even the Universe is evolving.

Enough is Enough.It really is the time for the struggle to be over.And so a way has been found for the journey to continue,but for the struggle to be over.Tools have been given to us.One of them is The Law of Retraction,powered by Gratitude.
Using this takes us to the next stage on our sacred Journey.It is the next step to mastery.Mastery is when the challenges become greater,but the struggle disappears.

If we have been suffering,it is not because we have been following The Path Of The Soul.But it is because we have taken a detour along a trail that led us away from The Path,forgetting to remember who we really are,why we are here,and where we are intending to go(remember that song from ‘seema’by rafi saheb”kahan ja raha hai..tu ai jaane waaley….andheraa hai mann ka diya toh jalaa le….kabhi yeh bhi sochaa ke manzil kahaan hai,badey se jahaan mein tera ghar kahaan hai….”).

The Path Of The Soul does not require or include suffering.The way for the struggle to be over is to stay on The Path.Gratitude returns us there.It speeds up our evolution.It’s the fast track.

This Fast track is not conditional.We can go through one entire lifetime reacting the same way to the same kinds of events.Many of us do that.Only those who are deeply commited to evolution,would spend the time and energy on choosing and changing their emotions,shifting from anger or frustration to Gratitude,in order to produce new and grander experiences of themselves.

This requires a very high-level promise to oneself.It entails an acknowledgement that there is something Larger going on there-something more than just day-to-day Life,rolling out randomly.It implies that there is a particular process taking place in a particular way.A sacred process,an eternal process.A process that serves a Divine Purpose.

Our commitment to this Process and this Purpose is our own Calling,it is our own full-voiced declaration to the world,”My Life really is about more than just get the guy,get the girl,get the car,get the job,get the house,….I will not spend my time on the 98% of things that just don’t matter.I….will….not.”

GRATITUDE AND ROLE OF EMOTIONS—

Gratitude is a powerful tool that can change our experience of life by allowing us to focus on the only thing that matters,the question then arises-What could cause us to decide to feel gratitude in the face of events or conditions that ordinarily would invite condemnation,not commendation?
We are surprised.Are emotions to be decided to feel?We say that our emotions simply arise.They show up.Unannounced,Unbidden,Unexpectedly.We think of themselves as just having an emotional response.We often say that we were just overcome by emotion.
The truth is that all emotions are chosen-even first ones.The Mind decides to feel a certain way.Emotions are an act of Will.
This is a challenging truth to embrace.We are responsible for everything;for how we feel,for how we act with others as a result of how we feel,and for how all events in our life are experienced.We hold our emotions responsible for our sudden emotional outbursts and claim ourselves truthful also.So the human race can never evolve until we see the role we play in the creation of our emotions.

The story we’ve been telling ourselves about emotions is our admission that we have no idea how the Mind really works.
The fact is that emotions are chosen exactly the way we select our clothes to wear.Emotions are the costumes of our Mind.The Mind decides to feel a certain way.Our Mind makes its decision so fast that it can seem as though we have no control over our emotions.At least not our very first reactions.

Our Mind moves very quickly into an emotion,based on a thought it has formed.This is what it meant when we say”i felt very moved”.

Thought is Energy and our Mind’s job is to move that energy into motion(E+motion).
If we can change our thought about something,we can create a different Emotion around it-which will produce a different Experience of it.(using the law of Retraction),we could rise to a new level of preparedness to experience mastery in this Moment-because whether our Mind is caught up in memories of the past,or we are in a challenging present moment and wish to change our mind this instant about it using the same tool,we will in each case encounter Gratitude.

If we really want to create higher experience of self(and not just put a new car in the driveway),if we really want to create a better world(and not just a better necklace for our bodice),we will benefit enormously from an understanding of the mechanics of the Mind as briefed above.

As fast as the Mind works,it still works only on the Data it is working with.Programmers in the field of information technology are very familiar with the concept of GIGO.
Garbage in/Garbage out
So if we have put ‘garbage’into our Mind(about Life,about God,about any particular experience that we have stored in our virtually end-less memory),garbage is what is going to come out of our Mind about anything in the Present moment that even looks like a previous experience.Yet if we have put Gratitude in,then Gratitude is what is going to come out.

It’s still GIGO!

What we are saying here is that if we live in Gratitude for all events,then Gratitude for every one of our present moment events will arise-regardless of the event itself.

Our goal is completion but that does not mean that we have to show up as a mistake-avoiding,humanity-denying,wisdom-speaking guru every moment of our Life.In fact,everything we do moves us forward on the path of evolution,so let’s not berate or beleaguer ourselves for’not doing it right’ as we move through our days and times.

RECONTEXTUALIZATION-

Recontextualization creates a new context within which to frame life,virtually eliminating any reason or justification we might have felt in our life to be,lusty,angry,greedy,attached or egoist with or about anyone.This remarkable tool involves a repositioning of our perspective,allowing us to see what is going on at any moment in our life within a new and startlingly different context.

It should be clear at this point in our life that what brings us joy-is self-expression.It is through the fullest expression of self that the fullest experience of Who we really are is achieved.Now,a person looking at life a certain way might feel that the fullest expression of self is wonderful if it can be made to happen,but it doesn’t happen very often for many,and that life has more to it than this,and that we must all go on,whether we feel”fully self-expressed” or not.

Recontextualization,on the other hand,tells us that’full self-expression’ is the experience we came for.This creates a not-willing-to-settle-for-anything-less thought in our mind.It reformulates the days and times of our life within the context of our soul’s agenda,not our mind’s concept.The Soul’s agenda always exceeds the mind’s concept.This is true all of the time.

So this tool,Recontextualization,invites us to place the purpose of our life in to a new context-the Agenda of our Soul and the Sacred journey upon which our Soul has embarked.This is truly seeing our life and its every event in a new way.

With Recontextualization can come a sudden realization of the Self.And as we become a Self-realized being,rather than a reactive being everything changes in the way we move through the world.

We see our “job”or “work” also in a new context.Are we generous,giving,caring?Are we fair,honest,trustworthy?Are we protective,creative?All these things are aspects of Divinity that we give ourselves the ability to express freely,through the gift that life has given us of what we call ‘work’ or’job’ or ‘buisiness’ or ‘profession’ or ‘occupation’.

When we see our work in this context,we will experience it as part of a larger process by means of which we get to be particular aspects of Divinity that we have freely decided to be.We can find it easy and actually wonderful to do a work or job that we once hated,once we switch over to this new context.

The freedom of children to be authentic,pure and joyful is what we will experience,when a deep commitment to see how best and most completely we might express what one desires(One is none other than our self,Soul,a part of eternal Soul).This will move us into an Expanded Consciousness,from which all Divinity arises.

Such Expanded consciousness is the consequence when our Mind and our Soul come together.For then Experience meets Awareness.The question is how to create such Meet Ups.The first thing we have to do is eliminate any thought we may be holding that expanded consciousness is something reserved for a select few.

Expanded Consciousness is,in fact,very easy to experience,and everyone on the planet has done so.Yes,even children.Especially little children.I remember one song from an old hindi film which I will write here,

Bachhey mann ke sachhey,
saarey jag ki aankh ke taarey,
yeh woh nanhe phool hain jo,
Bhagwan ko lagtey pyarey…..

Insaan jab tak bachha hai,tab tak samjho sachha hai ;
jyon jyon uski umar badhey,tan par mayl ka lep chadhey;
krodh badhey nafrat gherey,lalach ki aandhi pherey ;
bachpan inn baton se hatkar,apni umra guzaarey…..bachhey mann ke sachhey…

The meaning is that little children are truth personified,they are the twinkling stars of world’s eye.These are the blooming flowers God loves.We human beings are truthful till we are little children,and when we grow,the dirt of greed,anger,lust,hate starts covering us.So how to attain that innocence of infants?All this effort,the tools given to us are for that purpose only.

The third tool in this second foursome is,

COMPASSION—

We should know that Consciousness fluctuates.It does not remain constant simply because it has reached a certain level,but increases and decreases depending upon the amount of the Soul’s Awareness that is integrated into the Mind’s Experience at any given moment.It’s a moment to moment experience.That is both it’s challenge and delight.The quest is never over,and it is never boring.

Yet there is a way to put an end to the “wild swings” from high Consciousness to low Consciousness that we may have encountered on our Sacred Journey.That way is to use the tool of Compassion when we observe ourselves expressing less than our higher Consciousness.

Allow our self to notice that we are just as we need to be ,just when we need to be,in order to move forward the agenda of our Soul.

A true scientist is never discouraged for long,working in a laboratory and failing to get the desired result.The scientist knows that the more sophisticated the experiment,the more nuanced each step in the experiment must be.The slightest shade of difference in approach,or in any of the many variable aspects,and the outcome can be vastly altered.Yet each approach leads toward the scientist’s desired destination.

So have Compassion for ourselves.We deserve it,we are good.
And while we are using this wonderful tool,we make sure to direct it to others as well.They are good too and they deserve it too.
The more often we use Compassion to offer others,the greater will be our familiarity with this remarkably healing tool-(daya dharam ka mool hai,paap mool abhimaan,’tulsi’daya na chhodiye jab tak ghat mein praan……from ‘Ram charit manas’by Goswami Tulsidas) and we will then find it easier to use it on ourselves.

So lets use this gifting tool very often.We will find that its effect is circular.As we give more to ourselves,we will have more to give to others.As we give more to others,we will have more to give to ourselves.We can start at either place.

It is,as all of Life….simply another form of Love.

The last but not the least tool in the series is–
This is a tool that we will use on everyone in our Life who has ever done anything in any way negative to us.The tool in question is…..

FORGIVENESS—-

Every one of the tools that we have been offered here is designed to produce one basic experience;Freedom.That is because freedom is the essence of Divinity.

A person who is absolutely and totally free…and this does not mean merely free to do anything he wants anytime,anywhere,but it also means free of any sorrow or sadness,any struggle or suffering,any wounds or injuries,any tragedy or torment-anything whatsoever in the past that could cloud or diminish or impact in any unpleasant way the Moment that is Present…a person who is this kind of free would love everybody and everything,always be at peace,experience joy,simply Divine.

So if the experience of Divinity is our Goal-(and it is,whether we have known it or not),then that which produces freedom would be the tools we try to find,so that we might construct our reality(which is totally an inner creation and experience that essentially determines what outer events and circumstances mean)in such a way that we would never be unhappy for any reason ever again.

Such a state of being would then allow us to move forward with the Agenda of the Soul,advancing rapidly and reaching Completion on our Sacred Journey,thus using virtually evey moment of our Life to serve the Divine Purpose.

This is the way Jesus lived.This is the way Gautam Buddh lived,Saint Kabir lived,Guru nanak lived and this is the way all spiritual masters have walked the earth.All of these masters,have said quite directly,that an achievable goal for all human beings was freedom from suffering-which produced everything else that a holy and good life will allow.

The tools we have been given here do just that.Gratitude will give us freedom from struggle and suffering,in an instant.Recontextualization will give us freedom from anger and resentment,in an instant.Compassion will give us freedom from self blame and lack of self worth,and from frustration from others,in an instant.Forgiveness will give us freedom from all hurt,damage,or injury in any way from any source.

On the day that we understand that we don’t have anyone to forgive,because all human expressions are ultimately an expressions of Love,if only in a distorted form,we will be free,no matter what has occurred in our life.Free from struggle,free from suffering,at last.

This is the kind of freedom that Nelson Mandela felt,allowing him to love the jailors who kept him imprisoned for 20 years,to use one recent,striking,human example.

As we have noted before,God does not and will not offer forgiveness to anyone for anything because forgiveness is not nessesary.It is replaced in the process of Divine balance with a more searingly powerful energy;Understanding.

Understanding thus replaces Forgiveness in the Mind of those who have expanded their Consciousness to include the Awareness of the Soul.The Soul knows that nobody does anything inappropriate,given their model of the world.The Soul knows that everyone is doing the best they can at any given moment.

All the tools given to us Truth,Nonviolence,Love,Peace,Gratitude,Recontextualization,Compassion and Forgiveness are highly effective in connecting our Mind and Soul.

But there is one magical device,that will allow us to sustain the experiences to which the other tools lead us,that is,

M E D I T A T I O N

If it seems predictable and spiritually trite to mention this here,it is only because this device has for so long been such a proven method of accessing the Awareness of the Soul that everyone recommends it all the time.Its predictability speaks well for its efficacy.By now we’ve heard about it from enough people.
What we may want to know,is how to do it effectively(if some of us are not already knowing)

Meditation is the process by which we withdraw our attention from the world outside and our body,and concentrate it at a point between and behind the two eye-brows,which is the seat of Soul,the meeting point of Mind and soul,the third eye or daswan dwar.By focusing our attention there,we come in contact with a current of Light and Sound which will lead us from our physical consciousness in to higher consciousness,in to the beyond.

These inner experiences are not limited to people of antiquity.Anyone in our own times who wishes to develop this for him or herself may have such experiences and verify the reality of the soul.The steps to spiritual consciousness are simple and can be practiced by people of all religions,all nationalities,and all walks of life.

The Light and Sound are the creative powers that brought all the various regions in to existence.”Awwal Allah noor upaya,kudrat ke sab bandey”is written in Guru Granth sahib,Guru Nanak stated”All knowledge sprang from” Dhun(the Sound)”.Now various scientific experiments also have confirmed this.This power of God which flows out from God also returns to him.When we withdraw our mind from the world outside and concentrate at the seat of the soul,the mind starts experiencing the soul and it can then travel on the light and sound through the higher planes,with the astonishing speed of Light and Sound,back to its source,in the purely spiritual realm.The process by which the Soul is brought in to contact with the current of Light and Sound reverberating within us is Maditation.

Meditation is a process of concentration.It does not need any difficult ‘asanas’ or any difficult physical activity.It is so simple and natural that it can be practiced by a young child or an elderly person or even by those who have some disabilities.Every human specy can have this simple process of concentration and can have access to the inner light and sound and realms beyond physical.

PREPARATION FOR MEDITATION-

FINDING A TIME AND PLACE FOR MEDITATION-

It is best to find a time and place in which we will have the least distractions from our surroundings.A time and place in which there is no disturbance of phone calls and there is quietude in the place.The time between 4 a.m to 6 a.m in the morning is the most suitable time for meditation,which is referred in our holy scriptures as ‘amrit vela’(divine moments).The place can be any one of our choice,it can be our drawing room,or any where,if other members of family are sleeping and somebody snoring then at some distance so that we are not distracted.Silence is important because we have to withdraw our sences and hearing being one of them.

We should sit in meditation only at times when we are fully awake.If we are sleepy and have not been able to sleep properly then first we should try to get proper sleep.We can say that while chosing the time and place,two conditions are to be followed,one there is silence and the other we are fresh and awake physically.

SELECTING A POSE-

We should sit in a pose which is most convenient to us.We can sit on a chair,we can sit on the floor,we can sit on a sofa,we can sit cross-legged or with legs straight.We can sit in any manner.One can even meditate standing up or lying down.The only thing that is expected of us is that whatever pose we chose should be one in which we can be still for the longest period of time.Before the mind can be stilled,the body has to be stilled.We have to be sure that whatever pose we select ,we can remain without moving,shaking or scratching an itch.For those who are physically unable to sit,they can even lie down.

Whatever pose we adopt ,there should be no tension in any part of our body.Once we select the pose ,we should not change it during the meditation sitting.We must remain still.

CONCENTRATING-

Once we select a pose,we should close our eyes gently,and there should be no pressure on the eyes.We should keep our eye balls horizontal,as if we were looking straight ahead.To provide assistance to help us bring our attention to the eye-focus and to still the mind we should repeat any mantra in which we feel comfortable such as’om shanti’pray for’jesus’,'bismillah rehmanurrahim’,'buddham sharnam gachhami’,'satnam sri waheguru’,whichever we are used to,we repeatedly recite silently,with the tongue of thought,and look ahead in the front between the two eyebrows which is the location of our inner eye and our efforts are to open the inner eye and close the outer eyes.outer eyes open outside and see outside whereas inner eye opens inside and sees also inside.The mind has experience of outside so it tries to drag outside with all our day to day problems,about past incidents,future plans,thoughts of work,family,friends etc.However if the mind is busy in the repetition of holy names,it becomes engaged with this current experience of repeating mantras,and other thoughts are temporarily sidelined.These holy names are to be recited silently,slowly,at intervals and not in quick succession or fast.There should be a slight pause between each name.

When we are fully collected at the eye-focus,we become absorbed in the field lying in front of us.We will begin to see some flashes of light,or lights of various colours.We should continue to gaze with full focus inside in to our inner eye in front of us.

We should begin with fifteen minutes and over time increase to thirty minutes a day.

The second practice is listening to the inner sound.As already explained we concentrate our attention at the seat of the soul and listen to the inner Sound current.This Sound is the holy Word,or Naam which brought all creation in to being.The Soul is of the same essence as of God and the Sound Current.Thus,when Soul is magnetized to the divine melody,can then travel on the Sound currents through the higher regions.

We have to increase the time of meditation gradually.Because if we think that by giving thirty minutes or an hour out of 24 hours to God we can get him,then we are grossly underestimating almighty,allpowerful,omnicient,omnipotent God and his creation.We have to literally surrender to him giving preferential treatment to the Agenda Of the Soul over every thing else.

THE JOURNEY IN TO HIGHER REGIONS-

As we become more absorbed in the inner Light and Sound that we see and hear in our meditation sittings(the progress depends on our level of concentration,which again depends on the time devoted and our single mindedness of the purpose which is spiritual journey and nothing else )we travel beyond the physical level and enter the spiritual region.The physical world which is made of whole matter is left behind and we find ourseleves in a plane of more consciousness.Here we travel in a covering known as the astral(spiritual) body which is ethereal(made of ether which is light,airy and of unearthy,heavenly delicacy of substance) region and is full of wonderful Divine Light and Sound.

As we practice more and more on our concentration we will travel beyond the astral region(which ofcourse in our day to day working life can be going too far because initially sitting for hours together and achieving total concentration depends upon an individual’s circumstances and his or her economic conditions.For instance a factory worker or a labour with meagre earnings and hard physical labour for daily survival depending upon daily wages may not find enough time and suitable place to concentrate whereas a well to do person with enough money for survival is better placed if he or she grabs the opportunity.But nothing is impossible for a human being so we will leave it to the individual.)and we enter the causal region.Our human body is the result of Cause and Effect as all other products,with an addition of consciousness and our practice of meditation is an effort to separate our consciousness from the matter.As we progress in concentrating more and more we succeed in our attempt to separate them.The causal region is consisting of equal parts of matter and consciousness.In this region we shed our astral body and we travel in our Causal body.

Our Spiritual journey is to be continued further as in the words of Iqbal Saheb”abhi ishq ke imtihan aur bhi hain”.

Going still further while continuing our concentration,we enter the supracausal region,which has more and more light and celestial sounds and bliss.The supracausal region has more of Consciousness and only a small amount of matter,which we call an illusion and we have to come out completely from this illusion to see and experience the truth with our mind and body given to us for this divine purpose.In this region,the causal body is left behind and our Soul is covered only by a thin layer.At this state of expanded Consciousness we recognize ourselves as a Soul.This is a state where we have the Self realization that we are “Soham”(This is a Sanskrit word the break-up of which is So+Aham,the meaning of so is’that’and the meaning of’aham’ is’me’or’I’ and the total meaning of the word “soham” is “I am that” or as written in vedas”aham Brahmasmi”means I am the brahman or pure self).We realize that we are of the same essence as that of the creator and creation,One in all and all in One,none else.Ultimately,we reach the realm from where the power of God emanated,the spiritual region known as “Sach Khand”(those who read Guru granth Saheb,and are aware about”Jap ji Saheb”,in 37th paudi described is”Sach khand vasai Nirankar,kar kar vekhai nadar nihal”,Nirankar is the formless,almighty creator whose abode is “Sach Khand”,abode of Truth.),Maqam-e-Haq,Realm of truth.This is the purely spiritual region of all light and divine melody,all bliss in which coverings around the Soul are all shed.There is not an iota of matter in this region.The Soul merges with the Eternal Soul,Super-Consciousness(the fourth state of “turia” in Mandukya Upanishad,the other three states being,”waking state,dream state and deep sleep state”),the drop of water merges with the Ocean and becomes the Ocean.A ray of sun-light merges with the Sun and becomes the Sun.

At each stage of our spiritual journey we experience more and more bliss which permeates our Soul.One by one the layers covering our Soul are peeled off until we return to our pristine state.At each region we think we have reached the highest state of rapture,only to find that the next stage fills us with greater ecstasy.The ultimate bliss is when our soul merges into God,the creator.This is the state we all need to achieve to realize eternal peace and happiness,which will last forever.This bliss and happiness we experience in meditation stays with us even after we come out of meditation.It is a wellspring of love and peace that we can tap into any time we wish.The experience is so powerful and deeply fulfilling that it helps us to transcend the pains and sorrows of life.No matter what happens to us in life,we have a fountain of nectar within us from which we can drink at any time.This is the gift of God we can achieve through Meditation.

NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES(NDEs) of Mind,Body and Soul -

A new field of research which has opened up in the west is called “near death experiences” or NDEs.Doctors and scientists are researching the experiences of people who due to some fatal accidents or because of some desease,are declared clinically dead in operation theatres and are back to life after some time.One recent survey showed that 8 million people had NDEs all over the world which is a monumental numerical strength we can not ignore.Their experiences were found to be similar.They entered the regions which were different from physical world.They found themselves floating above their bodies lying on the stretchers,watching the doctors and nurses working on them.Shortly thereafter these people go through a tunnel in which they emerge in a world of light.The light is very bright bur it is not hot or scortching.These people say that their hands are also made of light.Then a radiant divine Being comes forward and hugs these people with love,warmth and caring never before experienced.The light brings them peace and happiness.Most of the people said that they did not want to come back from that region.Since it was not their time to leave the body,they were suddenly sucked back in to the body.They then found themselves back in to the hospital room and place where their body was lying.Many of them could describe seeing the operation being performed on their body and hearing what the doctors and nurses said during the time,although they were clinically dead.It was difficult for the medical professionals to understand how people who were declared dead could see and hear from a vantage point outside their body.While there are variations in the events of various NDEs,one element is common to all,that is experiencing inner light.

More and more research in to this phenomenon has been taking place.These out-of-the-body experiences are new to the scientific community ,but we find references of these experiences in the lives of great sufi saints and mystics who have described poetically about their sojourn in the beyond,their flights in to spiritual regions where there is nothing but bliss,love and beauty.The founders of world’s religions and faiths have spoken of their journeys in to the beyond.

In the holy Bible we can read about journey beyond,
Enter ye at the strait gate….Because strait is the gate,
and narrow is the way,which leadeth unto life,and few there
be that find it.
(Matthew 7;13-14)

Guru Nanak in Japji Saheb wrote-
Sach khand vasai nirankar,kar kar vekhai nadar nihal
tithai khand mandal varbhand,jeko kathe ta ant na ant
tithai lo-a lo-a aakar,jiv jiv hukum tivai tiv kaar
vekhai vigsai kar veechaar
nanak kathna karna saar :
(Jap Ji Saheb,Paudi XXXVII)
meaning,
Sach khand or realm of truth is the seat of the formless,
where he creates,rejoicing in creation.
Here are many regions,heavenly universes
To count which were to count the countless.
Here,out of the formless,
Everything came in to form,
All destined to move according to his will.
He who is blessed with this vision,rejoices in its contemplation,
But,O Nanak,such is its beauty that to try to describe it is to attempt the impossible.

While doing research on NDEs,Personality assessments revealed that the people having these experiences were reliable individuals.The findings of the doctors showed startling similarities which crossed the boundries of nationality,religion and social backgrounds.Today these experiences have been given great attention by the media and have become a popular topic of conversation within medical circles.

A COMPLETE EXPLANATION OF “COMPLETION”

Completion of the Secred Journey is the Soul’s Agenda.Divine purpose of our Totality(Mind,Body and Soul) is the expansion of the reality of God through the experience of Consciousness (experience of Mind +awareness of Soul) and thus reaching Completion of The Sacred Journey .
The Mind and the Body daily cry out in bewilderment-There is so much to see!There is so much to do!There is so much pleasure to seek!So much to be afraid of,to get excited,to be concerned,to spend time on,what should I be focusing on?What should I be paying attention to?
It is the Soul that daily answers the cry of the Body and Mind by telling our Life what to focus on and pay attention to.

The Body and the Mind,however,are not always convinced that ‘this is the way to go’.For one thing,traveling The Path does not always seem to the Mind and Body to be as much fun,and not as much an adventure as say a drinking session,watching pornography, doing drugs,compared to these pleasure seeking devices,The Path may seem boring.But the pleasure seekers also know that the said devices can give momentary pleasure only,not permanent.

Yet because the journey has been described as “sacred” does not mean that one can not seek and find pleasure and excitement in worldy pursuits.It does not mean that one can not enjoy the thrills of life or grab all the joy that one can experience on a human level.

In fact,just the opposite is true.Because there will be less and less for us to be worried about-and eventually,nothing at all for us to be afraid of-we will at last be able to live our life to the fullest.

Yet what is living life “to the fullest”?What does a full life look like?A life filled with achievement?With fame?With the love of one’s family?With children raised wonderfully?Just what,exactly,is a “full life”?

It is a life that brings the greatest satisfaction,which transcends all of these things.It is a life that follows the path of the Soul.

As we follow the Path of the Soul we will find ourselves doing many,if not all,of the things that we may have done if we had “strayed” from that Path-but we will do them for a’different reason’,and in a brand new way;a way that produces the body and Mind’s full physical expression of the Soul’s metaphysical Essence.

When Metaphysical Essence becomes Physical Expression,Experience and Awareness become One,and The Totality of us has achieved Completion.And when our Totality(mind,Body and Soul) achieves completion,we behold the greatest joy and satisfaction we could ever imagine:the bliss of knowing Divinity,flowing through us,as us.

This process is not a one-time thing.It can,in fact happen many times during a single day.Indeed,it is the Soul’s agenda to create the perfect conditions for it to happen in ‘every moment’and to make every moment a Holy Experience.And that is a”full life”.

This achieving Completion is not only important to our spiritual well-being,but to our physical,psychological,emotional,social,and even financial well-being as well.

There is nothing else in life that can bring us security,health,prosperity,happiness,and inner peace faster or more abundantly than the achieving Completion.This is,of cource,the opposite of what we have been told.We have been advised that there are many other things to which we must pay attention.

We have been told that to be happy in life we need to get the guy,the girl,the car,the job,the spouse,get the kids,get the promotion,get the better house,get the grand kids,get the grey hair,get big money,own office or shop,get the retirement benefits,get the sickness,get the burial plot,and get out.

Our mind has been filled with many other messages that have created a day-to-day reality so far removed from our real reason for being on Earth that it is a wonder we find any joy,satisfaction,or excitement in our life at all.

Now we are being told that the only thing that matters does not have to do with any of this.The missing puzzle piece revolves around how we reach Completion on the Sacred Journey of the Soul.Can this be True?

It Can,and It is.

But not to worry.Going where our Soul seeks to go will not deny us the Good Life.Completion of the Agenda of the Soul will get us everything that our Body and Mind signal to us that they desire to enjoy.This is not about giving up one aspect of Life for another.

Trust that,we.We pay attention to the Soul’s Agenda,and to what it takes to complete it,and the rest of Life-not only what we desire,but all that we may imagine that we need-will take care of itself.It will take care of itself by itself.Like so well said in this verse,

Don’t go around asking
“What are we to eat?”
“What are we to drink?”
“Wherewithal shall we clothe ourselves?”
Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven,
and all else shall be added unto you.

The “kingdom of Heaven” and “Completion of The Sacred Journey” refer to the same experience.
The Kingdom of Heaven is not a physical location,it is a state of Being.It is the state of being “Complete”.
It is literally “heaven” for humans to find themselves in a state in which there is nothing left to be,do,or have in any given moment in order to experience inner peace,total love,and absolute bliss,because all that is and all that one could ever desire is fully present,fully expressed,and fully experienced Right Here,Right now.
We are Complete.
The Agenda of the Soul is to bring The Totality of Us to this very state,so that the aspect of life that is called”I” may express,experience,reflect,demonstrate,and ‘personify’ the aspect of Life that is called Divinity.

This is our Basic Instinct.

Survival is the Basic Instinct of most chemical or biological life forms.It is what makes flowers turn towards the sun.It is what makes birds fly to warmer climates.
Survival is not,however,the Basic Instinct of human beings (this is same what Swami Vivekanand said when he was asked about theory of evolution and survival of the fittest,and Swami further clarified that Consciousness is the reason of human evolution and revolution )nor of any sentient creatures in the cosmos who have evolved in to Self Consciousness.For such beings,The Basic Instinct is Divinity.
If our Basic Instinct was survival,we would run away from the flames of the burning house.but we run into the flames,because we’ve heard a baby cry.In that moment ‘our survival is not the issue’.(During the shooting of “Mother India”,actor late Sunil Dutt ran in burning inferno in Mehboob Studios to save late Nargis who was engulfed in the flames,without caring for his life,A soldier in war for his mother nation does not care for his life and sacrifices,which is nothing else but Divinity,Consciousness.

Something deep inside of us,something we can not describe or name,calls to us in such moments to demonstrate at the highest level Who We Really Are.

People who have done this,when interviewed later,never put it that way,of course.They say they simply acted on ‘instinct’.But it surely could not have been survival instinct,because their actions defied survival.Yet they had no fear-not even a thought of fear-at that time,because Who They Really Are know that survival is not the issue.There are no questions about whether they will survive ,the only questions are:How?In what form?Why?And for what purpose?
These become,in moments of self-realization,Life’s Only inquiries.And in such moments,The Mind and the Soul answer as One.
Instantly.
As a human,our Basic Instinct is on display when the complete Being that We are completely Remembered,Recreated,Reintegrated,and Reunited with Divinity.

Even as the tiniest cell within us is a member of our Body,so is every element of physical life a member of the Body of God.When the Mind’s Experience and the Soul’s knowledge combine to produce higher Consciousness,human beings choose to experience themselves once again as members of the Body of God.They are thus said to have Re-Membered.

This is what is meant by Completion.

EVOLUTION NEVER STOPS-

The Experience of Completion is sheer ecstasy for our Totality because it is a reunion of our spirit with THE SPIRIT.
It is a Holy Re-Membering.It is a coming Home.In the words of Em Claire…

….with great innocence I pushed off
in to the open sea
and have been away from my Home
so long now that I would not recognize my own face
but I know that Home
Home
remembers me….
This holy awareness can occur in any moment during our life.It is the nature of The Sacred Journey that makes this possible,since the journey is cyclical upwards(a rarest of the rare human specy involved only in misdeeds the likes of Hitler can go cyclical downwards),undertaken and completed over and over again at ever-expanding levels of manifestation.It is very much like going through school,finishing one grade at a time.
When we are in third grade ,we encounter again what we were introduced to in first and second grade,and we now have an opportunity to apply it.We now encounter what we had not encountered in earlier grade.New and greater challenges,an opportunity to master more.
Like the tree outside,whose seed carried within it all the coding required to grow into what it has become,we arrived here knowing everything we needed to know to be everything we were designed to be.
As part of encoding we have been given a higher level of consciousness than the tree,of course,but we are in some ways like the tree,in the sense that we are also growing in stages.

Is it our idea that we live in a cruel and heartless world?That we are simply unappreciated,unrewarded,or even worse,unworthy?
Nothing could be farther from the truth.It is,in fact,exactly the opposite.It is because we are deeply appreciated,richly rewarded,and gloriously worthy that our life is presenting us with this current invitation.We have reached completion before and we have done it again,and now we are being elevated to the next level,as we advance onwards.
This is The Agenda of the Soul(Remember the Soul is same from billions of years,the drops of ocean longing to merge back in to the ocean),and this process is called”evolution”.It is a process of which we are a Living demonstration.

Evolution is not a process that stops.Completion,therefore,does not mean that we have finished something and reached the dead end.Because the instant we reach Completion the Soul conceives of a grander experience and design,because the bliss,the joy are infinite,without limits.And this limitless journey is not a source of frustration.Nor would we ever desire this process to end.The bliss of evolving to higher and higher levels of divinity is the ultimate attraction.It is the attraction of Life to More Life.It is the attraction of God to God.It is the Impulse of the Divine,in us.This Divine impulse is our basic instinct,that pulls us to the part of us,craving for the highest truth,the grandest love,the deepest wisdom,the greatest compassion,the largest understanding,the longest patience,the strongest courage-all these aspects of the Divine.

In the beginning was the word (‘bani”bani guru,guru hai bani’)and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.This word has been uttered in many ways over a million years.Some of those ways-Adonai,Allah,Buddha,Elohim,God,Hari,Jehovah,Krishna,Lord,Rama,Vishnu,Waheguru,Yahweh……
…….and not one of these ways does not include us.

Will we consciously give Divinity the experience of knowing itself and showing itself in,as,and through us ?

THE PATH AND THE PURPOSE-

There is no suggestion in all that has been said here ,that in the process of Divinity Expressing,what one is doing is irrelevant or unimportant.

All of life -including the ‘spiritual’side of life-involves “doing”,Everyone is always doing something.It is impossible not to be doing something.
Even when we sleep ,our body and mind are doing something-beating our heart,growing our hair,dreaming,even sometimes giving solutions to our problems.

Seeking to experience ourselves as who we are is the Path of the Soul.Throughout our life we are moving ever and ever closer to Self-Realization.When we demonstrate Who we are,we achieve Self-realization and having reached Completion of the Sacred journey,our Divine purpose is fulfilled.
And this can occur many times in our life-and does(like so many times people sacrifice for their fellow humans or their motherland)
We have experienced more than a few moments in which we expressed the qualities of the Divine.Our humility(or our culture) may prohibit us from labelling it as that,but a rose by any other name is still a rose.We have behaved with utter magnificence on many occasions.

And now,during this unique time in the evolutionary cycle of humanity,and as we move forward with expanded Consciousness in our life ,with our sensitivity to everything much higher than ever before,it is important to understand that sometimes a demonstration of Divinity may not look like what we would call the “easiest” path.

Life has a reason and a purpose.All people yearn to know what it is.Most have not yet clearly understood.
Our Soul is not on a wild-goose chase.It is not moving through Time and Space forever without a clear objective.There is a Divine purpose,as already written earlier,to expand the Reality of God.How this divine purpose is fulfilled?

Divinity can be experienced only through the ‘expression’ of it.Divinity can be imagined,it can be thought about,and it can be held in Awareness by the Soul,but until it is expressed,it is merely a concept.Unless it is expressed,it can not be experienced.
In short,God is using life in order to experience himself.
We can talk about Love,we can imagine love,we can think about Love,we can hold Love as an idea conceptually,but until we love ourselves,we can not experience it.
We can talk about Compassion,we can imagine Compassion,we can think about Compassion,we can hold Compassion as an idea conceptually,but until we become Compassionate,we can not experience it.
We can talk about Forgiveness,we can imagine Forgiveness,we can think about Forgiveness,but until we Forgive,we can not experience it.(Remember Gandhiji,who practiced Truth and Nonviolence and thoroughly experienced these virtues,thats the way of experiencing Divinity.)

To help the Mind better grasp it,let’s use that aspect of human life called Sexuality.We can talk about Sexuality,we can imagine Sexuality,we can think about Sexuality,we can hold Sexuality as an idea conceptually,but until we do it,we can not experience it.

Divinity is all of these things,and much more.It is Patience and Kindness,Goodness and Mercy,Wisdom and Clarity,Gentleness and Beauty,Selflessness and Nobility,Benevolence and Generosity.
We can imagine all of these things,we can think about all of these things,we can hold all of these things as ideas conceptually,but until we express all of these things in us,through us,as us,we have not experienced Divinity.

And we will never have an opportunity to experience these things unless Life provides us with such an opportunity.This is what Life is doing every day.Indeed,this is the purpose of Life itself.

Therefore,when Life brings us challenges,difficulties,and unique conditions,situations and circumstances that are ideally suited to bring out the best in us,we be a Light unto the darkness,that we might know Who We Really Are-and that all those whose lives we touch might know who they are as well,by the light of our example.

Why God works this way?Because god can not experience all that without the life .The Spiritual realm is the place where God is all there is.So there is no relativity factor.unless there is bad we don’t know what is good,unless there is darkness,we don’t know what is light.Unless there is finite we don’t know what is infinite.There has to be something small to know what is big.

In simple terms,God is growing,becoming more of himself through the process called Life.God IS this process.He is the creator and the created.

The cycle of life is occurring simultaneously everywhere.God is experiencing more and more of himself as the individuations of god experience more and more of themselves.This is called Evolution.This was accomplished by the whole dividing itself,from itself,re-creating itself in smaller and finite form.

No finite form,by the very reason of its being finite,could hold the infinite consciousness,awareness,and experience of the Whole,yet each individuated form was designed uniquely to reflect an aspect of Divinity itself.Putting all these aspects together,as one puts the pieces of a puzzle together, produces a picture of what all the pieces create.
Namely-God
All the pieces are part of the picture,and no piece is less a part of the picture than any other.
Get the picture ?
Now certain living things are given a quality called Self-Consciousness.
Human life was designed in such a way that what we call “Consciousness raising” is possible.In fact,human Consciousness can expand even to the point where it once again knows itself as part of The Whole.

Jesus,for instance,said-I and the Father are one.He understood his relationship to God perfectly.He understood that the picture which the puzzle created was not complete without him.He was The Completion.

So are we All.(har zarra chamakta hai anwar-e-ilahi se,har saans yeh kehti hai,hum hain toh khuda bhi hai……hungama hai kyon barpaa…from a ghazal sung by Ghulam ali saheb)
Take one piece of the puzzle away and the picture is not Complete.

The experience of becoming fully self conscious occurs through a process by which the individuated aspect becomes more and more aware that it truly is,in its individuated form,Divinity itself.

The individual piece recognizes itself as The Puzzle itself,simply divided.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER-

The immense power that is ours has to do with the tools we have been given with which to create the experiences of our life.With these tools,we can end suffering in our personal life forever and eliminate struggle from our encounters.

At first,we will not find these powerful tools in our Mind’s array of resources.Not until we have trained our Mind to include our Soul in our consideration of everything that is happening around us.Then our Mind can utilize these tools in the face of any circumstance,past or present,that invites our next demonstration of Divinity.
Moving into such a demonstration is not required or demanded of us.We can choose for the expression and experiencing of Divinity to be the purpose of any given moment in our life,or not,as we wish.Nothing “bad” will happen to us at the end of our present life on earth if we do not choose.The choice is entirely ours.This is described as “Free Will”.

In physical life there are forms of Divinity-some complete,some incomplete,some pure,some distorted-but there is no such thing as ‘absence’ of Divinity,since physical life,in its entirety,is an expression of The Divine.

The more thoughts we hold that are limited to the Mind’s Experience rather than including the Soul’s awareness,the less pure will be the energy that fills our being.Yet that energy will still and always be the essence of the Divine.

Let’s see if we can come up with an example that places this concept “on the ground” in everyday life.We use here a common experience,
FEAR
All Fear is a distorted form of Love.
If we think about it,we will realize that if a person loved nothing,that person would be totally free of fear,anger,hatred or violence,because there would be no need for such emotions to arise.
Exploring this further,we see that fear,anger,hatred,and violence are expressions of the ‘loss’ of something which is loved.
If there is no love of anything,,there is no sense of loss or deprivation,and therefore no negative emotion of any kind attached.
Because humans,in their limited perspective,misunderstand how to express their love,they behave in ways that appear to be the opposite of love-but which are,in fact,distorted wailings of love.

All expressions of anger and fear,hatred and violence are distorted wailings of love.If we grasp this,we grasp at the edges of Divinity.
Where Divinity expresses,forgiveness is never necessary,for it is rendered pointless in the presence of absolute understanding-which is,of course,what Divinity is.

This was the whole point of the biblical story of Jesus forgiving the thief on the cross next to him.
Jesus,in his absolute understanding,recognized that the thief acted out of his love for something when he stole and simply expressed that love in a distorted form.
God perfectly understands everyone and everything and God has no need to create a place of eternal damnation,indescribable suffering,unspeakable torment and unending torture.Heaven is all there is,and that paradise includes life on Earth.

If we do not experience life on Earth as a paradise,it is because we have not yet understood the true purpose of Life Itself,or how to manifest it in and through our daily lives.Yet evolution is the process by which all human beings come to that understanding,and evolution will not be denied to anyone.

Evolution’s extraordinary insight is that the worst crimes and behaviours of humans will never be forgiven by God.
Never.
Not because God refuses to forgive,but because absolution is not necessary,since all human action is based,at its roots,in love,however confused,mistaken,or distorted its expression.

Healing message is this-Evolution is not a sin,and God does not punish confusion.

“God may not punish Confusion,but God does punish disobedience.It is one thing to say we just didn’t know,but it is another thing to be told,outright,what is so,and then completely ignore it.”
We may have heard these words before.They spell out the Fundamental principle of most of the world’s religions.They tell us that god and Life are not One,but that God created Life,and Human as part of Life in God’s image and Likeness,but that Human can not become God,and must not attempt to be God,lest Human commit the greatest sin,for which condemnation to eternal damnation is,absolutely without a doubt,the punishment.

This,these organized religions teach us,was the great sin of Satan–and it is the sin that Satan is trying to get us to commit,so that we will join him in perdition.Satan is doing this,apparently,to get back to God for sending him to that awful place,Hell.Satan wants to ‘rob’God of his Souls by claiming them as Satan’s own,so that he can punish God for himself having been punished by God,so settling scores with God.
We have heard such commentaries as the doctrines of organized religions before,but now it may be useful to look beneath the dogma to what generated the idea of Right and Wrong/Good and Evil in those doctrines in the first place.
The dogma surrounding ‘sin’ is based on the theological doctrine of Separation.
Religions understand this.That is why religions teach us that God is ‘over there’(in the sky) and Human is ‘over here’(on this earth),and never the two shall meet,except on Judgement Day,when–even though we are not supposed to try to be God–we will,in fact,be judged on how much like God we have behaved.

Humans are told to be like God,but they have to do so without being God.They are told that they are made in the image and likeness of God,but they do not have the abilities of God.So they are consigned to failure before they begin in this business of being as much like God as they can be.

Still God will forgive them for their failures if they will try.But if they do not try,or if they try but fail,God will judge them,condemn them,and punish them to everlasting torture and pain.

This is organized religion in a nutshell.
But now,let’s consider this–If separation from God is not the ultimate Reality,If God’s revealed identity as That-which-created-life,But-which-is-’Other-Than’-Life is not the true state of things,then the basis of organized religions is faulty,and their doctrines crumble.

Should humanity choose to lay aside the doctrine of Separation,life on Earth could be lived according to a new Theology(call it Spirituality which does not believe in the Soul and God’s Separation)in a new way–not as an attempt to get back to God in heaven,but to get back to creating heaven on Earth;not as an effort to make sure we are not excluded from God’s Kingdom,but as an effort to make sure that God’s Kingdom is not excluded from us–and to make sure that this whole place(Earth) is treated as part of that Kingdom.

Ironically,this would be achieved by us being as much like God as we can be.So here is the Supreme Irony-First we are told that Satan was punished for thinking that he was Divine,then we are told that we were made ‘in the image and likeness of God’ and that we will be punished if we do not behave in Godly fashion.

Our ancient organized religions have landed human species in a peculiar situation where we are facing a future-creating choice;Old Theology or Spirituality,Outer God(Separated) or inner God(One with Life).

The Second choice offers Life’s most tantalizing enticement ever–to live the life we were designed to live,to experience our self in our truest form,to express the Essence of Who We Really Are in the next grandest way.

This is not something that is outside the capability of humans.”Regular People” just like us have done this,expressing Divinity in the next grandest way,and that is an ongoing,everexpanding process.

The good news is that even expressing a tiny portion of Divinity can change one’s life so dramatically that struggle and suffering,anxiety and worry,fear and anger,grief and misery can be removed from one’s daily encounters forever.

Completion of the entire process of Divine Experience through expression in the Realm of the Physical is impossible due to the limitation of physicality itself.Yet in the Totality of the three-part Kingdom of God(tha Realm of physicality plus the Realm of the Spirituality plus the Realm of pure Being)the Totality of Divinity can be known,expressed and experienced by our Totality (Body,Mind and Soul).

In Summary now,we can put all the contents together,this way-

The GRAND DESIGN – God created physicality as the means by which to express his Totality in relative terms,so that he can experience Divinity in all of its aspects.

The BLUEPRINT of PHYSICAL HUMAN LIFE- We are a three-part being,made up of Soul,Mind and Body.There is no separation within this triad,which we call”The Totality”.The Totality of us is,in fact,an individuation of Divinity itself.Even as Divinity is a Triune(Being,Knowing,Experiencing),so,too,are we(Soul,Mind,Body).We are,just as it has been said in many theological circles,made in the image and likeness of God.

THE AGENDA of THE SOUL -To express and experience every aspect of its true identity as an individuation of Divinity by reaching completion of The Sacred Journey in moment-to-moment expressions of Life,to collaboratively create,with other souls,the right and perfect conditions,situations and circumstances within which it becomes possible to experience this.

THE SACRED JOURNEY- An ongoing,eternal expression by the Soul of the Essential or primal Energy called Life,in specific and particular forms,fulfilling the Divine Purpose by means of physicalizations,which are referred to in human terms as “lifetimes”.

THE DIVINE PURPOSE- Continual Completion.That is,the complete experience of Divinity in any and every one of its aspects through ongoing physical expressions reflecting the nature of the Divine insofar as any physical manifestation is capable of doing so at any particular evolutionary stage.

Unlike flowers or trees or other less developed biological Life Forms,the Life Expression called human beings is capable of expressing and experiencing wisdom-specifically,the wisdom of soul-through which,when added to the Experience held in the Mind,a state of “partial Completion” can be reached many,many times,during many moments across one physical life span.

Humans have reached a level of Awareness that may be the highest of any Life Form on the Earth.

Our Life Form is now reaching a new level of Consciousness as a result of the Mind now playing much more attention to the Awareness of the Soul–even as a primitive human at some point became aware that the reflection seen in the water was himself.
Through the process in which we have engaged ourselves right here,we have seen our own reflection and recognized it as our self.

To use the Life Path Metaphor–It is when our Mind and Body deviate from The Path of the Soul that the Mind forgets the Self.And the Body and the Mind are not required to follow the Path of the Soul,as has been explained,and so can be lured by other attractions.Yet,there is a safety device built into this process–a device that guarantees that we will eventually make it safely to the top of the mountain.Like all good mountaineers,the three parts of the Totality of us,The Mind,Body and Soul,are tethered(Some call this connection a ‘silver cord’).

The connecting cord is very long,so the Mind and Body can stray quite far from the Soul before the rope becomes taut.(It could be said that God has given us “plenty of rope”.)But at some point,the rope becomes tight.It is then that we begin to feel that we are being pulled in three different directions.

Everyone has experienced this feeling.We may be feeling this way right now.If we are,it is because we have left the Path of the Soul.But we need not worry.We are on our way back to the Path.

THE CALL OF THE VOICE WITHIN—

There are instances in Life when a small voice inside us tells us that there is more to Life than what we know of in this physical world.It may be triggered by any developments.We suddenly begin to question the meaning of Life,who we are,and what happens to us after death.This nagging little voice begins to cry louder and louder.We start having a pull to search for the answers.This is God’s tug on our heart to pull us back to divinity.The moment he gets an opportunity, as soon as he sees that we have doubts about the reality and importance of this world and its attractions,he takes advantage of this situation and plants the seed in us which leads us to start our spiritual quest in search of the answers to life’s mysteries.His love starts working within us,and we begin to long to know God.That is a great day for us.We are hearing the voice of our Soul and its desire to meet its true parent.
As we pay more and more attention to this voice crying to go Home,(remember the Home…Home knows me)God eventually leads us to a place where someone can put us on the road back to Him.He leads us to a spiritual teacher who tells us of our true nature,that we are Soul and a part of God.He then shows us a method whereby we can rise above the body(similar to out of body experiences or NDEs detailed earlier)and see for ourselves our true heritage as drop of that Omnipotent,Omnicient Ocean of love,God.He teaches us how to meditate and invert our attention to the inner world of eternal love,bliss and peace.He puts us in contact with the stream of Light and Sound,called Naam(sadaa sift salah teri naam mann vasaaye,naam jinkey mann vasya vajey shabd ghanerey,kahai nanak sachey sahib kya nahin ghar tere,…sachha naam mera aadharo…..from anand sahib)which issued forth from God when He created this universe.That same stream flows back to Him.It is a stream made of the same essence of God,all Light,all Music,all Love,all peace,all compassion,all truth, and we all human beings,all living species deserve this Heaven which is our original Home.It is like our Home-coming.(subah ka bhoola sham ko ghar aa jaaye,woh bhoola na kahlaaye re bhaie bhoola na kahlaaye).When our mind with the awareness of our Soul comes in contact with this stream,it experiences a fulfilment and enjoyment because it is a part of the same essence as that stream.We(our totality of mind,body and soul)begin to feel more satisfaction and happiness from coming in contact with the current of Light and Sound than we feel from any physical pleasure.This contact is the power of Love which will turn our attention Godward.Our mind once turned inwards and experienced awareness,our consciousness starts raising and then there is no stopping for this ecstatic experience,it wants more and more and more,until our Consciousness reaches the abode of God,and merges with God,atman and Parmatman become One,no separation,which is the ultimate state of Bliss.This merger is the greatest bliss any of us can ever experience,and this bliss and this ultimate state of evolution will not be denied to any one,however confused,mistaken or distorted we may be.(Bada kamzor hai aadmi,abhi lakhon hain ismen kamee…par tu jo khada,hai dayaluu bada,teri kirpa se dharti thami….ai maalik tere bandey hum,aisey hon hamare karam neki par chalen aur badi se talen….)

This love and merger with God involves no physical union,this is a Divine Union and has no end.It knows no death.Even if our body may perish,the Soul is forever at one with its Creator and this is possible for all of us as we read in earlier paragraphs,”human Life is designed in such a way that what we call ‘consciousness raising’is possible.In fact human consciousness can even expand to the point where once again it knows itself as the part of the whole,that is God.”

MARRIAGE AND THE SACRED JOURNEY—

Married couples very well understand the role of Love and companionship in their Life and this same life together is on Sacred journey fulfilling the Divine purpose by means of physicalizations.Divine purpose is complete experience of Divinity in any and every aspect through ongoing physical expressions reflecting the nature of the Divine insofar any physical manifestation is capable of doing so at any particular evolutionary stage.So the marriage is a compulsory aspect through ongoing physical expression at our evolutionary stage.(In fact prophet Muhammed went to the extent of saying that’those who are not married,are not of my group’).The two partners in Life should assist each other while fulfilling the agenda of the Soul.When both Souls are filled with God’s Love,they will both be swimming in the same ocean of Love,bliss,the same ecstasy,the same Divine union.What greater common experience can two souls and two minds enjoy,(ek se doh bhaley,doh se bhaley chaar,manzil apni dooor hai rasta karna paar).This way both the partners will become even closer for they both experience the same indescribable delight,the same ineffable bliss.They will share a closeness with each other which is more than any physical union,once their Minds experience awareness of their Souls and their Consciousness starts rising.

SELFLESS SERVICE—

Among muslims all over the world,it is compulsory for them to take the pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lifetime.There is a story about a person who was not able to make it to Mecca and when asked about it,he replied that he was a poor man and somehow finally saved enough money to make the trip,but a neighbour approached him,asking for money for his starving family and he gave the money he saved,and was not able to make the trip.The questioner then told him,”Your pilgrimage has been accepted,God has told me that you are his greatest devotee.By serving your neighbour with the savings of your lifetime,you proved yourself to be the true devotee of God.”Selfless service is one of the greatest acts one can do in this lifetime.

True selfless service encompasses helping more than our own physical family-it includes all humanity.This is the true service to the God.Human beings are the only form of creation that has the godly capacity to love and serve others.To become a complete human being,we need to have this ability.

To truly perform selfless service,one must act without any desire for any reward,remuneration or recognition.It is given freely,motivated by a desire to help another.At the time of giving,one forgets one’s own needs,as well as one’s comfort and safety,to help someone else.There are people who give their own lives to save others.The underlying paradox of selfless service lies in the fact that while wanting no reward,selfless service elicits the highest reward-the pleasure of the Lord.Performing selfless service is as great as putting in an equal amount of time in meditation.Through selfless service we speed up our progress towards the attainment of inner peace and ecstasy.

There are various ways through which we can offer help to humanity and other life forms.We can help by doing physical,intellectual,spiritual service or service of the Soul.Volunteering these services through our time,money and efforts to save others or educate them or to make them happy through creative arts or writing to help people learn a skill or gain knowledge that can benefit them in their lives.Life gives many opportunities to help others grow intellectually,to better humanity as a whole.

We all have spiritual needs.There is an inherent need in humanity to know who they are and find out about God.Throughout recorded history all civilizations had a system to understand the Soul and God.All sections of human beings have tried to find solutions to the mysteries of Life and Death,the Soul and God.Even in modern times,people belonging to any religion spend time exploring the inner mysteries.Selfless service is helping seekers satisfy their spiritual quest.Theoritical side of Divinity can be explained to the seekers and rest we can leave it to the seekers,because a selfless approach is to show the path honestly,walking on that path is the prerogative of the seeker and nobody can interfere in his freedom or what we call a”free will”.Anyone who applies diligently to the spiritual practices can reach the goal.”What one person has done,another person can also do.”

Most of us wish to see an age in which there is no war,no crime,no violence and no hunger.Each of us can help to bring a bit of the kingdom of heaven on earth.All spiritual adepts tirelessly work throughout their lives and pray that the kingdom of heaven comes on earth so that the world becomes a paradise of bliss,peace and love.If each of us radiates god’s love,we each become one less person to cause pain and suffering to others on this planet.We also serve as an example for all with whom we come in contact.

By serving selflessly,we expand our hearts from our self to our family,to community,our mother nation,the world and the cosmos.Selfless service comes from an understanding that we are all members of one family of God.If we re-read the Agenda of the Soul written above the whole picture becomes clear about selfless service,”To express and experience every aspect of its true identity as an individuation of Divinity by reaching completion of the Sacred journey in moment-to-moment expressions of Life to collaboratively create with other Souls,the right and perfect conditions,situations and circumstances within which,it becomes possible to experience this.”Such conditions can not be conceived without considering the entire humanity as a single entity.

Many people have given of themselves and have helped improve the quality of life on this planet.Scientists have worked tirelessly to cure deseases,make discoveries.Many Saints,Sufis,Mystics,Prophets devoted their life for humanity,to make people safer and for their spiritual upliftment.We are nowhere near these greats,but they can be an inspiration for us so that we contribute our little bit of knowledge and skill selflessly to make the world a better place to live.

There are so many songs in hindi films expressing selflessness and humanity,some of these songs are mentioned here-

Lata ji in ‘Pooja ke Phool’”apne liye jiye jo woh aadmi nahin hai…..chal iss tarha ke jaise chalti hain yeh hawaaen,phoolon ko yeh hasaaen…”
a song by Manna de saheb is “apne liye jiye toh kya jiye,tu ji ai dil zamaney ke liye….” in a film ‘Badal’
one song by Mukesh saheb is”kisi ki muskrahaton pe ho nisaar,kisi ka dard mil sakey toh le utaar,kisi ke vaastey ho tere dil mein pyaar….jeena isi ka naam hai…” from film ‘Anari’
Rafi sahib sung many such songs,one is”Insaf ka mandir hai yeh,Bhagwan ka ghar hai…hai paas tere jis ki amanat usey de de..nirdhan bhi hai insan muhabbat usey de de….jis dar pe sabhi ek hain,bandey yeh who dar hai…”
Kishor sahib sang”pyar baanthte chalo…kya hindu,kya musalman,hum sab hain bhai bhai…” ”
A song sung by yesudas saheb “madhuban khushboo deta hai,sagar sawan deta hai,jeena uska jeena hai,jo auron ko jeevan deta hai….madhuban khushboo…”became very popular.The popularity of these songs prove that they touched the heart of humanity.
So many songs can be cited which convey the message of selflessness and humanity,in English and other languages.All scriptures are full with such messages.We have to learn from these messages to live a life which is more humane and selfless.

EGO AND PRIDE—

It is said that God proclaimed to humanity”Where you are,I am not.Where you are not,I am there.”Right now our condition is that we believe we are the body,looking in the mirror,making up ourselves with good clothes and cosmetics,with a good name and status,a religion,nationality,applying our mind sharply to only our outer appearance.The mind is a lover of enjoyments and is led by the senses to seek pleasure,and in the process does not respond to the awareness of the Soul.So the experience of the mind is without awareness.Even then we think that we are powerful,all-knowing,and endowed with great qualities.We are filled with ego.Ego keeps us from knowing our true self and so knowing God.If we are ever to escape its web,we need to respond to our awareness,which is our Soul,(We have to be aware of the truth that we are Soul,mind and the body,not only body),so that we can steer our way out of the devious trap of our ego.

MANY FORMS OF EGO—-

Ego manifests itself in many forms.we usually refer to ego as pride.We can have pride of knowledge,pride of power and pride of wealth.Means we think we are responsible for our possessions.We attribute all our belongings whether power,money or knowledge to our individual efforts and then think that our achievements are more than others in many ways.

But no matter what religious background we come from,we all are taught that God is the creator.Considering this alone should be enough for us to realize that we are but small specks in the entire scheme of creation.He is all,and we are all but tiny insignificant beings,like a drop and God being Ocean.How many times do we think of God as our Creator ?How many times do we realize He is the giver of everything we have ?How nicely Saint kabir said’dukh mein simran sab karey,sukh mein karey na koi’.There are atheists,who do not believe God exists.For many years,scientists removed God from their view of the universe because He could not be verified by their scientific instrumentation.

We can see how far our ego can get the better of us.This has resulted in placing too much importance on the individual self and our personal capabilities and powers.Our Soul in the body works in this world through the Mind.The tool of the Mind is the brain.The brain is a complex organ that receives sense impressions from the world.Many think that the brain is the seat of Consciousness,but the fact is that the Mind controls the brain.The Mind has access to the Soul and the brain does not have any contact with the Soul.The Mind is a product of the causal plane of creation.This region consists of a mixture of spirit and matter.When Mind forgets about the Soul and uses only brain for sensual pleasures of the world,creates new ideas and new inventions,it thinks that it is the doer.It forgets that the wonderful brain it uses to communicate with the world is a creation of God.We are so full of pride of knowledge,that we have forgotten that the tools we use are inventions of God.

Our pride of knowledge has several harmful effects of which we need to be aware.We not only forget God when we think we are the doer,but very often we injure others also.We think the other person is wrong,incompetent or stupid.So many lives have been lost because one ruler thought his or her way was right and wanted to do away with anyone who thought otherwise.So many wars were fought because the leader of one nation felt his or her ideology better than that of other countries.

Most of the arguments echoing throughout countless homes and offices are based on pride of knowledge.bosses and employees argue,co-workers argue,parents and children argue,husbands and wives argue.The contents of most of these arguments are ego battles over who is right and knowledge also is sidelined very often,and money becomes the sole criterian.During these useless ego-clashes,Mind loses the track and does not involve the awareness in its experiences,so the energy is often negative and a sheer waste.This way so much time in our lives is wasted.

So this pride keeps countless individuals from realizing our true self by keeping apart the mind and the Soul,(remember the equation,Mind’s experience+Soul’s awareness= Consciousness).Consciousness can raise only when the Mind starts experiencing and expressing awareness.Pride makes us like an inverted or overflowing cup.How can anything be poured in to a cup that is turned upside down or overflowing.If we are sincerely interested in returning to our Home,then we need to be aware of this impediment on our Path.

We make arbitrary decisions to show how powerful we are.Sometimes we are insensitive to the needs of those below us.We try to force our views on others.If we wish to have compassion and mercy from him,we must ourselves first become compassionate and merciful to others.We have pride of wealth,and we never think of wealth as a gift from God.When we lose it we blame God,but when we gain it,we give credit to our efforts.And when we have plenty,do we ever think of sharing it with those less fortunate than ourselves.We need to treat everyone equally,whether or not they have riches.

Saints,Mystics have love for all people,regardless of their social status and position in life.They see the Light of Divinity shining in all persons irrespective of their material possessions.We must do away with this false pride and recognize that everything we have is by the grace of God,(Hookmay andar sabhko,bahar hookam na koi,nanak hookmay je bujhai,ta hau’main’ kahai na koi…..from japji sahib),Guru Nanak Dev sahib said that everybody is under God’s command and nobody is beyond it,if we understand his command then we can get rid of our false ego.

We can eliminate the various forms of pride by thinking about God.We must remove our I-ness and replace it with Thou-ness,with God.When we meditate,if we block the door by standing in it,then God can not enter.But if we step aside then God will come in.He will fill us with His love.The more we empty ourselves of our ego,the more Divinity can enter in to us.Ultimately,our entire Totality will be permeated with Divinity until we become one with him and our Divine purpose is fulfilled.

THE FIRST GIFT—-

And so with eight marvellous tools and one magic devise we are now able at last to take our mind off of the 98% of things that really don’t matter in our life,but they crowd our mind every single day of our life,to the point where it’s been months,since we’ve asked ourselves;How can I best serve the agenda of my soul?

“What in the world is that?And what does that have to do with how we’re going to pay the mortgage,or the car loan or our family’s expences?Good God,get your head out of the clouds.”
And that’s how “real life” can get in the way.That’s how what’s happening now can look like it has nothing to do with our eternal journey.That’s how everything that’s going on ‘outside’ can feel like an obstacle to everything that’s wanting to go ‘inside’.And there’s no way we’ll be able to use any of those tools consistently unless we first give ourselves a special “gift.”

This gift precedes all the tools,and creates the space for us to be able to use them.Its the very first gift we must give ourselves on the Sacred JourneyIt’s our “ticket to ride”.

We must be in the possession of this gift if we’re going to even see the potential of changing a moment,much less our life-to say nothing of actually doing it,using the wonderful tools that life has given us.
The gift we must give ourselves is….

WILLINGNESS

This is the essential ingredient in any truly transformational experience.Without it,nothing we have read about here will be possible.With it,everything we’ve described here can occur.

So how does one move into Willingness?It’s a choice.It is quite literally,an Act of Will.To engage it,we must have ‘will power’.We must understand what is meant by the phrase “Free Will”.

One must free one’s will.

Our will and God’s will are One.This is another way of saying That God wants for us what we want for us.It is also true that what we want for us is what God wants for Divinity itself.

Divinity and Humanity want the same thing-the highest expression of Life that is possible and conceivable in any given moment.Yet our human will can be,in a sense imprisoned.We can,for sure,build our own jail.step into it,and close the door behind us.

We sadly and mistakenly think this jail will get us to where we earnestly yearn to go;a place of safety.We want protection,finally from Life.We’ve had enough sadness,suffering,enough attacked,made wrong.Enough,already.Enough.

So we retreat to the fortress of our Mind’s limited experience.At least it’s familiar territory.At least it’s common ground.At least it feels safe for the moment.

Or is it?Soon,while sitting in this mental bunker,we find that we’ve not gone to a Safe House after all,but to a Jail House.We see that while we thought we were going to be safe,the people here are always angry and afraid.

We can now always tell if we have slipped back into that place.It is when our current thought is not connected to our Eternal awareness,when our Mind is not combined with our Soul.

We stand where the Mind and Soul come together and the Soul’s positivity converts whatever negativity the Mind may at any Moment hold.The tools given to us cause the sheer uplifting power of the positive to supersede the draining energy of the negative.But none of it will happen-none of it-without we first entering fully into Willingness.

(TO BE CONTINUED FURTHER)