Eternal Soul–The Great I AM–Found Within

Health Report: Dr. S., my saintly surgeon confirmed that all is well. Blood tests, PET scan, CT scan and MRI—the best diagnostic tools modern medicine has to offer—confirm that I am tumor free and overall health is excellent. It has been two years now since I had a liver resection to remove a tumor, and two and a half years since I had tumors removed from my small intestines. These operations saved the life of this body, and there has been no sign of tumors since.

While health of the body is not the absolute arbiter of fulfillment, it certainly is an important ingredient to our abilities and our pleasures for day to day activities. A malfunctioning body and physical pain can dominate the mind and affect our mood. To a greater or lesser degree sensations from the body and our ability to move and breathe will have its demands on our attention. However, to be master of ourselves we must be the gatekeepers of how much energy we give to the body.

In the same way that Swami Vivekananda said, “Do not make a religion of the kitchen,” do not make food and eating a fetish, even more so we should not put the body on the altar and worship it. The body is our instrument for operating on this physical plane, and like any instrument, a vehicle or a computer or phone, we want to keep it in good operating condition so that it performs its functions well and gives pleasure to its operator. We should cultivate the practice of knowing that the operator of the machine and the machine are not one and the same thing. In deepened meditation we have a growing awareness of the great I AM within, beyond the body, even superior to the mind and the individual soul.

Living in the body there are commonsense things we can do to keep the body-machine in good order: exercise and stretching, eating healthy foods (as Mother said, “Do not treat the body like a garbage can”), and thinking healthy, positive God-thoughts. I have experimented with different food regimens over the years with good results. In these past twenty plus years it became obvious both gluten and dairy had deleterious effects on this body, so I gave them up.

Recently I have been experimenting with Dr. Steven Gundry’s ideas on focusing on the health of the gut and its relationship with autoimmune diseases—in particular the role of dietary lectins and their negative effects on our digestive system. I am in phase 2 of a 3 phase program and will report back in a few weeks with more details in a posting at yogacharyadavid.com when I complete the second phase.

To have the right relationship with the body, then remain mindful of keeping the body healthy and doing what is best for its smooth functioning. There is line though, where you do not let the body and its relationship with the world take control of your life. Affirm, “I have a body, but I am not this body,” and give it its due, but no more. Practice finding that awareness that knows you existed before you took residence in this body, and knows you will exist long after this body has returned to dust. That while the body is important for accomplishing what you have come here to do, it is just an instrument for your use—a remarkable instrument it is true, but just an instrument.

I am pleased to have this excellent report from my medical team as it gives me the time and freedom to accomplish what God has me here to do. And every day I pray for your perfect health, so that you too may enjoy that same freedom and ability to do all that your Soul has intended for you in this lifetime. Use the gift of this marvelous machine to manifest your highest nature, and to bring the Light of the Divine to this world through the instruments of your body, mind and soul.

The summer solstice is upon us, and we feel the powerful vibrations of this hallmark event. Sri Yukteswarji made this an event each year, with chanting, feasting, and a talk he gave under the stars. What a lovely picture that makes in our minds as we think of sitting at the Master’s feet, absorbing the vibrant atmosphere of this spiritually charged occasion.

It is a fascinating idea that we are so strongly connected with all creation that distant constellations of stars should be influencing us here on earth. We all certainly feel the effects of lunar cycles, and we all know that there are mysterious rhythms in our lives in which things either go uncommonly smoothly, or it seems that we are fighting invisible currents of opposition all the way. The warp and woof of these events can be chalked up to chance, but isn’t it possible there are lawfully governed undercurrents in life that we can sometimes trace, even anticipate?

 In our perception of these outer influences, it is important to know that you have a power deep in you that supersedes all outer influences. Whether you come into contact with a negative personality, situation or contrary stellar influence, you are reminded that the power of God within you is greater. This does not mean that you will not have to contend with outer forces, but that you should not give it preeminence in your mind. The light, intelligence, love and joy of God is superior to creation, and tapping into that internal power is your best weapon for combating negative influences.

Of course, these outer influences are not negative only—there are powerful external forces that help lift you up as well. The proximity of highly developed souls in your life, salubrious situations that support your spiritual aspirations, and the turning of the celestial clock; such times as the Summer Solstice. Sri Yukteswarji and experience tell us this is a special time, and by spreading our meditational wings we benefit from the powerful upward drafts that are present at this time.  

Let us join together in Spirit and feel the rising currents—the power and bliss of our Infinite Beloved. Let Sri Yukteswarji’s blessings shower Grace upon us all, renewing our world during this longest day, the Summer Solstice.

Today we celebrate fathers, for the vital role you play in the human drama of family. Indeed, when fathers are absent, families and communities suffer, so you are an essential part of both family and community.

One of the great changes that has occurred in the past twenty or thirty years is the positive involvement of fathers raising children. Many in my father’s generation, and generations before observed role distinctions where mothers raised the children, and fathers provided for and protected the family. Machines, technology and changing role definitions have freed fathers to have the time and energy to devote to family. The trend toward a more involved father has been a huge shift, one in which the father is more intimately connected with his children—this is a win-win for a father and his children.

There was a woman sociologist who looked at the voluntary role a father plays for his family, in comparison to living only for himself. To financially provide for himself only would require far less effort on his part, without the need for a family home, and food, clothes, and education for his children. Her point was that the father puts forward a tremendous effort to provide for his family, often without much acknowledgement—it is done quietly, expectedly, and without much fanfare. How grateful we are for those fathers who make sacrifices for family; often playing a more invisible but essential role to those he loves.

In many of the great Western traditions the father archetype came to symbolize God, or the chief god, such a Zeus. With the great master Jesus, we get the most touching, intimate connection with Father as God, or Abba in Jesus’ Aramaic. Now, to some it may sound heretical to give God a gender, but the truth is metaphors are powerful symbols that bring out certain positive qualities in us. Clearly for Jesus, Father was an endearing term for God that touched his heart, made him feel close and intimate with the Divine Presence that existed both in his own soul, and as the creative power and intelligence that has manifested as this entire universe. Far from the fiery rule-making God of Moses, Jesus’ Father is loving, understanding and giving—He doesn’t even mind a little rule breaking if it preserves the spirit of the law!

So, today I give honor to my father and grandfathers, and our beloved Father in heaven. To my father and grandfathers, I feel such gratitude for all your hard work that conveyed your love for family far more eloquently than you ever expressed in words. And, for my Father in heaven, may we all feel the same intimacy that Jesus felt in relationship with You—such love, care and closeness. And for all of you fathers today, who work and strive to make your families safe, secure and loved, I give you thanks.

God has me working more in the world lately, as we are doing some remodeling on this house. Planning, arranging and following up with contractors, making sure everything ready and they have what they need—He has me fully enabled and fully engaged. There is a wonderful feeling to the switch turned on that allows me to participate in this world; I always enjoyed working in this world, as I have done since an early age to the time He drew me more inwardly to Himself.

As spiritual aspirants, the crux of living in this world is for us to fully participate in it and not be separated from our true Self as a result. Events can come rapid fire, demands to make decisions, to make the body and mind function even when they are resistant to doing so, and success brings its own challenges tempting you to think that you are the doer. So, in challenging times or in smooth sailings these worldly occupations make it a necessity to have a highly focused sadhana-practice.

A devotee wrote to me: “Things will go along and I’ll make one decision to do something and then things are all out of whack. My decisions are not made from the heart often, because of this or that. Things just seem to come at me so fast, I cannot even stop to connect to light before making a decision.”  To one degree or another, isn’t this our dilemma of living in this world?

The key to maintaining our balance is the intensity of our practice—it has to meet or exceed the intensity of worldly demands. Now someone (not you of course) may say, “I have barely enough energy to keep things going in this world as it is, never mind adding another thing to my plate like having to remember God!” And if you think of it as only another task on your to do list, added to those things you are already not getting done, then that might be right.

However, God-remembrance is not simply another task—it is our primary task. Not only that, but just as importantly staying connected with God, your real Self, brings important benefits that will actually help you in your worldly life. These benefits are the real secret in life so that you can have both a full and a fulfilling life.  

The first benefit is that in God-awareness you remain in a calm center. Like a skilled athlete you operate in “the zone” where there is a natural flow in body and mind.  From that calm center you are in a prime position to use the reasoning mind as well as the intuitional mind. Like a general observing the field of combat, you see the movement of forces and calculate what needs to be done, not overwhelmed by the noise and confusion of war. This calm reason adds and subtracts based on experience and learning. The intuitional mind does not add or subtract, at least not consciously—it knows through direct perception what is true. Intuition comes, not through reasoning, but as a flash of insight. Both reason and intuition are invaluable aids for you to operate in this world.

Being Self-centered means you adhere to the highest standards. Abiding by right action, according to your reason, helps purify your mind that will then give you access to truth from intuition. Through intuition you know what is true, not only for yourself but in others as well. Honing this skill for knowing what is right action saves you from disastrous mistakes. Right action, or dharma, is the most efficient means forward both in this world and spiritually. While wrong action can look more expedient in the moment, it inevitably builds resistant karma that immediately, or eventually, causes you suffering and undermines your success.

Your spiritual practice bears the fruit of bliss, light and universal love on your tree of consciousness. All humanity seeks happiness, but so many seek it in this world only. A deeper analysis reveals that this world can never yield the kind of happiness we truly seek. Some will say our “reward” comes in an after-life—do not seek it here. Mystics and yogis have asserted we have access to that “reward” right here and now, but not through worldly means. Spiritual happiness is bliss and is to be found within and in the present—and while it is latent in most, nevertheless it is available to all.

Having your happiness already in place makes you enabled to give perfect service to this world, for with your happiness in place it is easy to detach from outcomes. It is your internal joy that now fuels your participation in life, not some hoped for outcome or afterlife. Of course you have goals for what to do and what you want to have as a result, but your happiness is not dependent on such outward rewards. As a result you are centered in your Self, not identified with the things of the world. This detachment gives you balance and a perspective that makes you more proficient in your activities.

And the price of entry for discovering this here and now reward of spiritual attributes? It is, of course, to keep you mind on God: to breathe, be a mindful witness to all that you experience, to keep your attention at the ajna (point between the eyebrows), chant His name, and meditate deeply upon Him. Love is the most powerful attractor in this world and beyond. Love of God automatically brings about detachment. Love of God is you most powerful asset for living in the world, but not of it.

Practice, practice, practice—until you are living in the “spiritual zone” and feeling God’s joyful Presence within you, until you are centered in your deeper Self no matter your outer circumstances, and your inborn dharma spontaneously guides you to right action. By enacting this practice you receive life-giving energy (supplying you with far more than you give in your practice). It is not simply another task to add to your “To do list,” it the one indispensable thing you do when fulfilling you daily duties in this world  and in serving your Infinite Beloved.    

Upon waking this morning thoughts streamed from the Superconscious mind that included the phrase, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Then followed the stream of thought: there are times in life when great trials come, and other times when life has a happier nature; these two alternating experiences can be graphed like a sine wave or a financial chart of rolling stock, as they move up and down—an inevitable movement in a life.

It was Thomas Paine who wrote these words about trying times entitled The Crises. It was toward the beginning of the American Revolution when a small number of militia, farmers and silver smiths untrained in war, took up arms against what at that time was the greatest army and navy in the world—and things were not going well. Not only do such crises occur on fields of military action, but in family life, professional life, and very importantly in our spiritual pursuit. From the first paragraph of Paine’s inspired writing we may borrow its wisdom and strength to meet our own crises when it comes:

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated”

Is it not true, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly?” My thoughts were then guided to Mother Hamilton and the life she lived, enduring one trial and difficulty after another. It was destined that she would chart a new course largely on her own, unaided by organization and often not understood by those around her. Yet, her determination, the will of steel under her velvet-love for God, guru and humanity never wavered.

We can draw so many lessons of loyalty and strength of resolve from Mother’s life. Life can challenge us to the core, and if the goal is high (And what is higher than God-realization?), then the price must be steep. To paraphrase Krishna in the Gita: fight the good fight with all your strength and be ever focused on God. Whether you win or lose in the outer sense is not in your control, that is up to Me (God). But, whether you win or lose, by staying focused on Me you win the spiritual battle by being aligned with truth and ever advancing in Self-realization.

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” When you conquer hell by realizing God, the glory of triumph is not a tickertape parade or your picture in the paper, but it is the bliss that wells up from deep within, it is the Light of your eternal Being blazing, and it is the revelations of inspired wisdom from the Infinite. Anchor yourself in this thought in times of crises and in times of ease, God and gurus and all the saints and spiritual masters who have ever tread this path of realization are with me. Awareness of the fact that I never standalone means that when I touch the fabric of God’s Being through remembrance of Him, I touch the glory of all that He is!

Occasionally I hear the arguments from atheists, “There is no proof of God.” And yet, a glance around us demonstrates an intelligence so monumental as to convince any open skeptic. The idea that the universe, the earth and the biosphere of the earth could all happen by random mutations and chance, even allowing for billions of years of evolution, really cannot explain the complexity of design that goes into a flower, an animal or human being.

The human body is demonstration enough. In the human body a hundred trillion cells (estimates vary, 37 to 100 trillion), imagine that, a hundred trillion cells, and ten times that many micro-organisms (good bacteria) operating in the gut that some call the “forgotten” organ, are all working in an efficient manner that keeps a heart pumping, and a series of organs that are performing uncountable functions all the time. Could human intelligence design and make such a body? While we are busy mapping the body, and describing many of its functions, we are light years, if ever, from being able to make one from scratch. And yet that is what this universe has done.  

And the human body is just a fragment of all creation around us—the atomic and sub-atomic functions that sustains and surrounds us, the unmeasured stellar systems, look in any direction and you see miraculous life self-creating, refining and improving. It is quite a lot to take in. And yet, in its colossal nature, this physical creation is but God’s footstool. (Isaiah 66:1)

And for all the magnificence of this creation we see all around us, it is merely reflected intelligence. When you look at a building, you see the reflected intelligence of the architect, not the intelligence itself of the man or woman who designed the building. If we want to know that intelligence itself, it would help to have a conversation with the architect, and you will see the nature of his or her thought, what went into the design and the construction—there is so much to be learned. Add another layer to that of having a conversation; if, in your time with the architect you could actually experience his mind at work, get a glimpse into his inner intelligence? Experience his thoughts in your own mind.

Then we consider once again the creative intelligence that has gone into bringing forth life, all of life–imagine being able to glimpse that mind! Albert Einstein, the great physicist, famously said, “I want to know God’s thoughts – the rest are mere details.” What a wonderful concept. And this is what mystics and yogis have claimed: in stilling the human mind you can be illumined with the way of knowing things even as God does.

This is quite a statement, yet, what if you saw this world as God sees it? When Jesus picked up a simple lily flower and said, “Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these (Luke 12:27).  What was he seeing in that lily? Was he seeing it as God sees it? I think, “Yes.”

I have seen this world transform into a living expression of Divinity. I think, “Yes, this is how God sees creation, perfect, blissful, an expression of purity and such beauty.” And when we look out and fail to see the world with those qualities? Perhaps it is because we do not see this world as God sees it. Perhaps we insist on our own interpretation of what we see, and perhaps we are only insisting on our own ignorance—our own limited vision of what truly is. Indeed, as Jesus said in the Gospel of St. Thomas, “The kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth, but men do not see it.” It is time to know the mind of God, to awaken to an entirely new way of seeing this world.