BELIEVE IN THE PRACTICAL
–Guru Maharaj Ji, January 1979
Light Notes deals with a subject possibly new and unfamiliar to you: Guru Maharaj Ji and the Knowledge he reveals. We all have had some experience of knowledge, of learning, of understanding. But the Knowledge revealed by Guru Maharaj Ji is nothing at all like the knowledge of the world.
For what Guru Maharaj Ji reveals is an energy, the life force, the soul if you will, that is inside of you and inside of me and inside of everyone who is alive. And this revelation is called Knowledge.
The experience of this Knowledge gives you the realization that this is what all the scriptures are talking about. It is that experience which gives a person true joy, inner satisfaction and real peace. No matter what a person looks for, regardless of what someone thinks they need, it is within the experience of Knowledge that one's deepest longings become satisfied.
Guru Maharaj Ji reveals this Knowledge: it is inside of us, but it is he who reveals it. That is why he's called the Perfect Master.
Just as there is a master who can teach you physics, and one who can teach you math, Guru Maharaj Ji is the master who teaches that subject called perfectness. He has always been in this university called "Planet Earth." He has always had a classroom and students who wanted to learn. He is not a new phenomenon. He is that master who will answer the most important question, the only question, "Who am I?"
This master will not give you a textbook solution; he will not read
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PRACTICAL (continued from front page)
"I can name about a zillion advantages of this Knowledge, but one is good enough; that we will find peace, that we will find happiness, that we will find Truth, that we will find tranquility. That one advantage in itself is a complete advantage. That advantage is good enough for this whole humanity."
– Guru Maharaj Ji, January, 1976
to you out of someone or another's writings–not even his own, but he will give you the practical experience of that answer.
When I studied science in high school, the part I liked best was lab. It was one thing to read that water contained two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen. It was quite another experience to watch the instructor run an electric current through water and gaze as two balloons became filled with gas, one twice as fast as the other: H20.
I studied French for four years, and I did so well, but then during my first summer in Europe, alone on the streets of Paris, I realized that all my "A's" on the exams meant nothing, because I didn't know the language well enough to talk with these people. All my theory meant nothing, and only the practical experience, only that summer in France, enabled me to use all my learning.
Reading Light Notes will not give you the practical experience of true love, but Guru Maharaj Ji will.
There are so many theories being offered today on life, on truth, on love, on God, on reality, and on and on. But Guru Maharaj Ji offers freely to all who sincerely want it that Knowledge which turns theory into practice.
When I was younger, I would often see drawings or statues of the Buddha sitting, his arms outstretched, his legs folded. "What's he doing?" I'd wonder. I asked one of my friends, who replied, "He's doing meditation." But when I asked what meditation was, he didn't know.
Sometimes when my father came home from work, he would retire to the den for an hour of "meditation."–sitting quietly, thinking to himself about life, work, and truth. As I got older, I heard about all sorts of meditations: chanting, prayer, contemplation, contortions and numerous other means of achieving … something.
"Guru Maharaj Ji says, 'Come. I'll take you to a place that is more beautiful than you can ever imagine. Come, I'll show you that secret. I'll show you and I'll reveal to you that thing which all the Perfect Masters in the world have talked about.'"
–Guru Maharaj Ji, April, 1979
I could increase my intellectual understanding of the universe, lower my blood pressure or just make myself feel good about life. I could achieve these results with a weekend seminar, twenty minutes a day, $1 down and $1 a week. I could meditate any way I wanted to.
So I'd sit there, looking like the Buddha and thinking like my father: "Truth, purity, beautiful, wonderful, what's for dinner, what's on television tonight, why am I sitting here anyway …?"
Yogic postures came easy (I was a champion gymnast at school), but peace did not. And, after finishing a morning's regime of thoughts and words, I would get up and wonder, "Is this it? Is this all there is to meditation? Big deal!"
And, as an expert on meditation, when someone told me about Guru Maharaj Ji and his meditation, I figured, "Oh no, here comes another one."
However, I decided to check it out anyway, and ended up sitting in a room filled with people listening to someone tell me that meditation could not be experienced in thoughts, words or postures. Meditation, as defined by Guru Maharaj Ji, is perfect concentration on a perfect thing.
I couldn't believe it–Perfect concentration on a perfect thing? That's meditation? What about my ideas, my plans, my ability to stand unmoving on one leg for 45 minutes 'til the cramps set in? I wanted to get up and walk out, but one thing kept me there: the person speaking obviously had an experience. He seemed fulfilled, and I was not.
I could hardly believe that such a thing could be so easily available, but that didn't matter. I certainly wanted whatever it was. I approached an initiator of Guru Maharaj Ji's a few days afterwards and found myself saying, "Could I please know the Truth?" He conducted a Knowledge session and showed that to me. Meditation suddenly took on a new meaning, and if I'm not yet a Buddha, at least I can have a taste of that experience that the Buddha knew and spoke of.
Meditation, Guru Maharaj Ji once said, is a lead, a cable that connects us with God. And this is the meditation, the experience, that Guru Maharaj Ji reveals.
So many great saints and past masters have told of the wonder of meditation. They sang songs about wells that never ran dry, of blind men seeing light and deaf men hearing music.
More amazing to me is that Guru Maharaj Ji, freely and lovingly, has shown me that experience. He not only talked about it, he not only described the beauty of it, but he showed it to me … inside.
Q. Guru Maharaj Ji, you seem so happy.
A. People think that when a guru comes into the world that he is going to be serious as stone: that he is never going to laugh. But one who has found happiness, if he is not going to be happy, then who is going to be happy? Not the guy who is sad.
Q. Can you define for us what this Knowledge is and how it may or may not differ from other religious teachings?
A. Actually, I will give my own definition for this Knowledge as I have experienced it within me. This is the experience of bliss, the experience of the primordial vibration; of energy.
Q. Is this a physical sensation you feel?
A. No. It is that energy that has been right from the beginning. We see the bulbs glow, we see the televisions run, we talk and we see ourselves alive. It is all due to some energy. And the same energy is making us alive, you see, and that energy which is within, inside of us, the realization of that energy, is called Knowledge.
Q. Is meditation required, or is it suggested or recommended?
A. It is required, I would say, because what I mean by meditation is the concentration upon that energy.
Q. And the meditation can happen anywhere?
A. Yes, yes.
Q. As they say in some religions–you can pray in the kitchen if you care to.
A. Yes.
Q. Is there any kind of instruction on how to meditate or what to meditate upon?
A. That is the Knowledge. The revealing of that energy is called Knowledge.
Q. What I am asking is are those who become your followers coached, schooled, instructed or aided in any way in deciding what to meditate upon?
A. No, no, no, no, no. It's not like this. He is revealed the Knowledge, and then he has peace. It is very difficult to describe. For instance, it's very hard to explain to someone the experience of a pinch. You cannot explain to somebody the experience of a pinch unless you pinch him.
Q. How do you give the Knowledge?
A. It's impossible for me to explain it in words, because it's a most practical thing that has to be done.
Q. Can I ask what is done?
A. You can realize it yourself, you know. I cannot describe in words what is done. Knowledge is Knowledge. You ask for it and it shall be given to you. That's probably the nearest you can get to it in words.
Q. How can one receive Knowledge?
A. This Knowledge has to be revealed by the Perfect Master who is the source. We have to go to the source. And that's why it's very necessary that we go to a Master.
Q. Can the Knowledge be realized through spirit?
A. No. It has to be revealed. By a Perfect Master.
Q. By a living Perfect Master?
A. By a living Perfect Master.
Q. You refer to yourself as 'Perfect Master'. What does that mean?
A. It is really quite simple. Separate "Perfect" and "Master." A math teacher may be referred to as math master. In the same way, one who teaches perfection may be referred to as a Perfect Master.
The connotation of 'Perfect Master' may appear to some people as meaning physically perfect. Because the body has a beginning and an end, the body itself cannot be perfect. But the Knowledge that a Perfect Master reveals is Perfect, and therefore he is known as Perfect Master.
Q. Why is it so hard to find internal satisfaction?
A. Because we are just not looking the right way.
Q. But why do we always look in the wrong way?
A. Because we are ignorant. And that's why there is a Perfect Master to tell us that we're looking the wrong way, and to turn us around. See, the point is, we need this Knowledge. Man does not need gold to survive. He can live without gold. Man cannot drink water twenty-four hours a day, man cannot eat food twenty-four hours a day. What does he need? All the time he is longing for satisfaction. And that he needs.
Q. You have said that you expect to see peace on earth in your lifetime.
A. You will be able to see peace in the world on people's faces. Premies (disciples of Guru Maharaj Ji) have realized peace, and peace can't hide itself. It just comes out. And when everybody is going to realize this, it's going to be …
Q. Will everybody realize this then?
A. It's not a hard job.
Light Notes is published by Divine Light Mission, P.O. Box 390959, Miami Beach, FL 33139. ©1979 Divine Light Mission, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Address all correspondence to Divine Light Mission.
We have to understand what this life really is, who we really are. You have to look at an overall picture and say, "Who am I? I'm a doctor, or I'rr an engineer, or I'm a pilot. But who am I? Who is that real thing? What is that real thing that is inside of me that I am here for?
Because you're not here to become a doctor, by no means. You become a doctor because that's what you want to do. But does that mean that whatever you want to do in this life is the purpose of your life? Certainly not!
There is just one set purpose of life. And every Perfect Master that has come in the world so far has pointed out that purpose of life. And it's been exactly the same. Theories and words can only take you so far. But this experience takes you miles beyond. This experience takes you further and further and further.
There exists a thing that's completely infinite. Past all the universes, past all the stars, the galaxies, all the Milky Ways, all the moons, all the suns, lies an incredible experience, lies this incredible energy. And that energy is experienced. The experience of that energy, by Guru Maharaj Ji's Grace, is possible now.
And that is what's being rendered to us. That's what's being given to us: to be able to experience that perfection, to be able to experience that bliss, to be able to experience that incredible beauty that lies within all of us
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