Kitabı oku: «Babaji - Meeting with Truth»

CHAPTER ONE
Your Life is as Good as You are Able to Imagine It to Be

I want to pass on Babaji's message purely. Babaji wanted me to shave my hair, but I did not want to. The message in this was that my vanity was still in the way of passing on all I have learned clearly and purely, but I will now imagine that I am a bald-headed person and we will see what will emerge. I may just as well give every­thing to you right now. I have nothing to lose and nothing to gain, so please listen carefully so that you can gain it all.

Listen deeply with your hearts.

You want to have a good life, so please give yourself a break. I'm talking to you - yes, YOU. What follows will change your entire life for the better, if you listen with your heart and allow yourself to feel what I am saying deep inside.

Do you want to be happy? Do you want to feel good? Do you want to be successful?

You can have all that right now if you stop thinking and doing what you are doing and listen very carefully. Start feeling happy, deep deep inside. You deserve it. You are lovable just because you exist, and for no other reason. You do not have to prove to anyone that you are lovable. Deep inside you, there is a place where you feel perfect and pure love, where you wish yourself well and where you wish others well. Feel the sun in that place and send that light throughout your body, to everyone and everything. Say "I love you" from that place, and "be healed". Then visualize your life as though it is already perfect, in detail.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you felt that every person you met wished you well and genuinely wanted you to be happy?

I want you to be happy. It's more fun. I'm wishing you well from deep, deep inside me. Please allow my rays in. Please be harmonious. You are good, if you are bothering to listen. You are also good if you feel any disharmony, for it is only a mistake that is all around us that can be corrected.

Believe that you can do it right now. Communicate with that part inside of you that is perfect. Thank your­self for doing your very best.

What do we want out of life? Money, sex, love? to have everyone come to us and say how great we are? Then what? When you are satisfied, when you feel good, will you then be ready to heal the world and to share your happiness? Well, you can feel good right now. You, and not anyone else, are in charge of your feelings. Why waste a lifetime to get what you think you want to be in order to feel good? You can learn to feel those feelings now; it only takes know-how and practice, like learning a new language. Each of us has the power within us to heal ourselves through using the mind and the breath.

Imagine traveling back in time, say 2,000 years, and bringing with you an airplane, a television, a radio and a telephone, You could not just appear because you would cause too much commotion. A population is often likened to a bell curve with the most developed on the right extreme, the least developed on the left and the majority in the middle. By "most developed" we often mean those who are open to new knowledge and who would be willing to learn from you. The majority would be too busy conforming to what is expected of them, while those on the left would probably try to kill you or to worship you as a god.

On the other hand, suppose that someone from the future came here and produced the following changes in your life; along with many other changes that are too early to document:

1 Taught you to heal yourself.

2 Helped you to experience spiritual or ecstatic experiences. (Some call them body orgasms without sex or they may be likened to Maslow's peak experiences.)

3 Guided you to peaceful harmony in your relationships.

4 Improved your ability as a therapist.

5 Showed you how to get what you wanted out of your life.

How is he to be regarded? These are among the many, many changes which occurred in my life due to my experiences with Babaji. Of special importance to me is the improvement of my ability as a therapist. When I became aware of how much time, energy and thought people spend in concern over looks and clothes, I was appalled. What is our body? Nothing, really. It will disappear in 50 or 60 years time. Wouldn't it make much more sense to spend more time, energy and thought on something that will be valuable to humanity, to the world, and to future generations? Ask yourself, suppose I die tomorrow? There is no knowing anything for sure. Right? What would I want to leave behind? I would want to pass on to you right now, this treasure that I have found.

One of the things that we want is to be truly loving of every human being. It is not enough to just try to, want to or pretend to be loving. We really want to be spontaneously and genuinely loving and to serve humanity purely.

To be in a state of desirelessness is to be free of resentments towards people and life for not having one's desires fulfilled. When there is no resentment, there is only love . This state of desirelessness is the most ecstatic place I have experienced. Amazingly enough, when I am genuinely able to give up my resentments, which are due to my desires, my desires become fulfilled faster. A world in which there is only genuinely happy feelings about each person's happiness is a world worth while living in - it is built on love. Love has a magical quality to it - it is healing.

I know that when I feel angry, irritated or jealous, it is not healthy to repress my feelings. On the other hand, it is even more destructive to lash out at those whom I truly love. The healthiest action is to transform that energy to positive feelings. The truth is that, underneath it all, I truly love every human being . I'd love to see happy, smiling faces everywhere. I'd love to live on a healthy planet. In order to transform my negative thoughts to positive thoughts, the main teaching is to "surrender to my higher self". Call it God, call it your perfect self, call it the self that Carl Jung says encompasses everything and all that we have, call it that part of you that wants to love everybody and everything unconditionally. It is the harmonious self, the non­judgmental self, the self that wants to serve humanity.

You are in charge of your feelings and thoughts and NO ONE ELSE IS. We often give power to others, to past incidents in our lives, and make ourselves feel miserable. However, ultimately, you are the one that chooses to feel good or bad, to think positive or negative thoughts. You are the one that can control your self and command it to feel. Like learning a new language, it takes practice and knowing how. Once you know how, the more you practice, the better you become.

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.

John, 4:16

"God is love and love is God ... Love is an awareness of this unity...."

Shri Babaji

Babaji's motto is Love, Truth, Simplicity.

I had first learned of Babaji when I read the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, (1945). I started reading it in 1976, enjoying parts of it, while finding other parts extremely boring. Somehow I stayed with the book and found a beautiful chapter about an amazing being called Babaji. On the surface, it sounded like a nice fairy tale, but for some unknown reason I felt deeply moved by his description and by the stories told about his activities. He supposedly had the ability to materialize a body from time to time. He does not usually stay for long periods of time in a body. Yogananda mentioned that he had met Babaji twice in his whole life. Each time, he stayed with Babaji for only a few minutes, and Yogananda considered himself extremely lucky.

Babaji is a Mahavatar, A divine incarnation, and guru of Lahiri Mahasaya. Mahavatar Babaji has refused to reveal to his disciples any limiting facts about his birth­place and birth date. He has lived for many centuries amid the Himalayan snows. "Whenever anyone utters with reverence the name of Babaji," Lahiri Mahasaya said, "That devotee attracts an instant spiritual blessing."

I tried to repeat the name Babaji several times, to see whether I felt anything and whether spiritual blessings would come my way. A part of me knew that Babaji was a reality. There was a kind of an inner knowing that was unexplainable. Most of me, however, ridiculed that possibility and left it as a good fairy tale. I understood from other parts of the book that, if you felt a yearning to meet him, you could talk to him and he could hear you from wherever he was. If you have a pure heart or if you are deserving, he can arrange for you to meet him.

I reflected inwardly to see whether I felt that I was deserving. "Yes," was my immediate response. "Why not?" was the next response. Still, I also questioned myself, "Who do you think you are?" I decided to give it a try and see if anything happened. So I imagined talking to Babaji and I said something like the following: "If you are truly around, Babaji, and this is not just a fairy tale, then I would very much want to be your student. I would love to have such a pure teacher." I then forgot all about my communication. However, unusual events occurred in my life, and two years later, I found myself sitting next to Babaji in the foothills of the Himalayas. This was a place that I would not, in my wildest imagination, ever dreamed of visiting.

One of the unusual incidents that prepared me for Babaji's teachings was meeting with some Western renunciates who were the disciples of an Indian Tantric master. The way I understand it, a renunciate is a person who has given up worldly attachments in order to gain higher purity and awareness. Their spontaneity and aliveness attracted me. I was introduced to Kundalini meditation. I was impressed with the wisdom that seemed to pour out of the people with whom I inter­acted. One renunciate asked me, "When are you going to India?"

India was the furthest thing from my mind.

"Tomorrow," I replied jokingly.

Why not? was my next thought. It would certainly be a liberating experience to just pick up and go. What a luxury! But I could not do it. My first consideration was money. I didn't have enough for such a trip. Then, suddenly, in that same week, for the first time in my life, I had some money of my own, about $2,000. I had never before had that amount to myself. It suddenly became clear to me that I was destined to go to India. If not, why had the money suddenly appeared? I felt a surge of excitement within me. Why not? What else was stopping me? My husband, my son, and my work. Thinking it through, I decided that everyone would benefit if I continued to grow emotionally. I finished my duties as a clinical staff psychologist and as adjunct professor at Kean College. In July, 1977, I flew to India. I decided to experiment with becoming a renunciate and I was given the name Ma Prem Shivani (Mother/Goddess of Love). My life began to take on a new form. I realize now that, without this person's teachings, I would have never understood Babaji. I would have run away, discarding his teaching as crazy.

In India, I felt as though I had discovered myself. I joined a few encounter groups and released a lot of junk from my past. Most of the groups were conducted in the nude. I at first felt resistance to taking my clothes off. The group leader said in disdain, "You are a therapist and you are embarrassed to take your clothes off? What happens when a patient tells you about his sex life? Do you also feel embarrassed?"

I reflected on my interactions with patients and realized that I did feel uncomfortable when the subject of sex came up. I pondered how I could be helpful to someone else if I myself had not yet resolved that dis­comfort in me.

I took off my clothes. It did not take long to adjust because it really was not a big deal. As time went by, I became freer and new experiences started happening. For example, I started experiencing new states of ecstasy or, as some call it, body orgasms in the absence of sex. My whole body would start melting into some kind of energy field and I would vibrate with delicious feelings that reached very high peaks. I certainly didn't expect it to be that good.

While I was in India, I remember thinking of Babaji and calling his name. I felt a little foolish yet open to the possibility of his appearing to me.

"Babaji, I am in India now. It is really you that I want to meet."

At the end of my visit, I wondered if it would be healthier and a more genuine life for me to stay in India for good. I was very tempted. In the end, I decided to return home. Now that I knew what ecstasy was like, I would try to find a way to maintain it and to bring it home with me to my family and friends.

I remained a disciple of this tantric teacher for one year. At times, I felt embarrassed and even ashamed of the idea of having a guru. Most of the time, however, I was able to feel high and content. Although I encountered a lot of resistance at home, for the most part my friends were intrigued and supported me in my new venture, at least at first. Later on they felt scared of my new knowledge (so I thought) and avoided me. I felt scared, too. At first I did not trust my judgment enough and longed for support. In contrast, now I feel certain and the results in my life are a good proof that this path is valid.