Picture: Mother–A perfect blend of will and surrender (circa 1967)

Mother spoke powerfully about two seemingly opposite means of dealing with life’s problems. One is to use your God-tuned will, as she effectively did, in order to overcome tremendous obstacles, and the second is to surrender to God’s will at all times. So which do you do, fight or surrender?

Confusion comes from the word surrender. Many associate surrender with defeat, this is not what is intended when it comes to your sadhana, your spiritual practice. Surrender to God means you are first attuning your mind to God’s Mind; if there is a difference between your will and God’s, then you go with what God is directing you to do rather than your own inclination.

For instance, lower impulses make you feel that your mind is being drawn away from God. You know the limiting, tortured feelings that come from following these desires. Like a honey trap you are drawn by the cloying sweet sensations inside the trap, but once you enter in you are encaged. God-experience frees you from the trap, but you must clearly choose God over sweet deadly promises.

You may have fear concerning some experience coming your way. Fear disconnects you from God, it builds fear upon fear and will dominate your life; it makes you think of the worst scenarios and you feel helplessly caught. The fact that you are made in the likeness and image of pure transcendent God-consciousness is completely obliterated by the fog of fear.

Surrender to God means you use your powerful will to focus your mind upon God, not the images of fear. You affirm that God is at the core of your being; it is His Light, courage, strength, mirthful-joy and love that act as angel’s wings to lift you above the clouds of doubt and enclosing fear. You concentrate on the truth that God knows whether a sparrow falls, and He has counted the hairs on your head (Matt. 10; 29-30); in other words there is not a single thing that occurs in this wide world that is beyond the knowledge and care of its Creator.

Currently I am waiting to hear back on the results of the biopsy taken on Thursday. In the waiting I have a choice on what to focus my mind; the possibility of tumor growth, or upon God. I know that God is aware of my preference for the test results. I affirm and I think only of having perfect health. I also am surrendered to His will, asking that all be accomplished for the higher Good of all. For me this is the larger purpose in life; the higher Good is more important than my own preference. Many times there is no difference between my preference and what is for the higher Good, but then sometimes there is. When there is a difference, I surrender to God’s wisdom.

So, in the waiting I feel I am God’s child, totally surrendered to His will. I also think only of perfect health; my body is filled through and through with His Light, all the cells shining in His perfection. No matter the results of this biopsy I will continue this thought of perfection, for it brings me into His Holy Presence in body, mind and Spirit.

I also behold that same Light in you, for it adds prayerful thought-energy to your perfection in Him. Not only is this thought of perfection best for your spiritual health, it also enacts the highest principle for superior physical health as well. In this way you use both surrender to God and your powerful will to lift you closer to God; enabling perfect health and giving you peaceful joy!

Picture: Seeing God in Everything

Moods are a bane to your spiritual life. They are caused by attachment; life is not going the way you think it should. This thought authors an emotion, and oftentimes this feeling is a well-worn track; like a rut on the road that draws an unwary traveler into a direction that gets you stuck.

Moods can be of two types, a rajasic mood in which anger comes in cutting thoughts and sharp words, slashing your way through the day. The other type is tamasic, a depressive mood that hangs around you like a dark cloud allowing no light to penetrate. Either or both of these moods can dominate the mind and bring the sadhaka to a dead end.

While having a reaction to life’s events can happen in a blink of an eye, and the body and mind can have momentary shock, there is a time limit when that reaction will simply dissipate. Then there are those times when you nurse a feeling, adding new energy for diverse purposes that will extend those feelings and  create a mood.

You may have an expectation that life should be different: easier, more prosperous, smoother relationships, healthier, kinder, etc. It is not that these are not perfectly good aspirations to have in life, but to be attached to these aspirations creates a mood; hanging on to that mood brings you down, undoubtedly bringing others down as well.

Master said that Sri Yukteswar warned him about becoming moody and having an unregulated life. Perhaps these are connected, moods being a result of unregulated thinking. We generally think of moods being an emotion, yet it originates in the reasoning mind, as we first entertain an idea of how life should be versus how it is.

Using jnana, discrimination, you surgically remove or cancel the expectation that life should be different. This does not mean you do not aspire for something better, however, you cut out the expectation. Do you see the difference? For that difference is crucial. Expectation is attachment, aspiration ties into your creativity. Attachment binds you to this world, aspiration lifts you up, and when done properly unites you with higher consciousness.

It is compassion that wants a better world. You see the suffering in this world and aspire for healing: holiness, happiness and health for one and for all. A prayerful state of mind makes you look out to the world from the eyes of God; divine energy flows out from your heart in a compassionate living river. You then feel prompted into action to alleviate the suffering of another. Part and parcel to this attitude is the peaceful joy that flows throughout your being.

In contrast, when you have an attachment to the idea that this world should be better; should just work better, be more equal, just, etc., that attachment will make you feel angry or depressed when you see the poor state this world is in. Anger prompts cutting words left right and center for the villains, or you withdraw from this world into a dark mood. Neither of these responses connect you with higher consciousness, rather it creates doubt in there being anything higher than the suffering you see.

In both of these examples the world is exactly the same, however aspiration is freeing, attachment binds you. You must be a careful guardian of your thoughts and feelings in order to have true freedom. While a dark thought or feeling can erupt in a micro-second, it is likely that there has been a build-up period coming for sometime; a preceding lack of intensity in your sadhana. Constant remembrance of God frees you, forgetfulness binds you. It is a simple formula, and it determines your taking the higher road to true, lasting happiness.

Picture: Surrounded by Saints–Swami Satchidananda and Swami Chidananda of Divine Life Society–Anandashram January 1999

Papa says chanting Ram Nam is sweet, like candy in the mouth. In fact no words can describe the Bliss felt when chanting God’s holy Name. You may say that God has no name that can be spoken with the human tongue, and it is also true that every name is His name. However, there are certain names of God— in all languages—that have been surcharged through sacred repetition that has lifted up saints into the highest Consciousness; like a trail that has been blazed through the wilderness by thousands of years and thousands of feet that wear even sharp stones to smoothness. Ram Nam auspiciously qualifies as one of the most ancient and well used of such incantations.

It is God-experience alone that is the true Name of God: seeing the sacred Light, hearing the soaring AUM or AMEN, feeling the uplifting currents in the spine and brain, and expanding into infinite Spirit. Like a symphony orchestra, God can be the power of a violent storm or the sweetest touch of a spring breeze upon soft petals; God-experience encompasses all experience, and is far far beyond ordinary perception.

When I was a truck driver I drove mile after mile chanting the holy Name of Ram Nam. God lifted me up; my eyes partially closed leaving only enough consciousness in the world to operate the truck. Sometimes He completely closed my eyes and took me up into pure Spirit with a rush of Bliss and Power in the spine; then, of course, I had to pull over and park on the side of the road!

It took time and many many experiences but gradually the blockages were removed, so that now there is only the pure flow up the spine, the Name of God as AUM resounds all around, God’s thoughts flows through my own, His Love animates my heart, and His life-force walks and talks through this form. Far from creating ego this experience makes me absolutely know that of myself I am nothing; truly nothing. It is He, it is He, it is all He! Where is there room for ego when that is the case?

Oh what a love-affair God has created. He makes us journey far away from Him in consciousness. Then, He draws us back to Himself; creating magnetism when the time is right that we cannot, and do not want to resist. In this moment it is He who writes these words, and it is He who reads them, and it is He who charges them with His uplifting power to draw those He has chosen to Himself. What a wonderful play He has enacted!

When there is nothing but He, what is there to fear? If He wants a certain thing to happen, nothing can stop it. If He wants something not to happen, nothing can make it so. Our trying to go it alone is His trial in ignorance; our surrender to Him is His movement in time and space that purifies creation. Our part is to witness what He does within and all about us.

It may be that these words make no sense to you, and that is His will. It may be that you feel He is speaking these very words directly to, and through you, and that is His will as well. Many times I hear or see the words of a great Master, such as Mother, Master or Papa and I feel that the words spoken are my very own; for He makes me feel that kind of intimacy with these wonderful human expressions of Himself.

Now, He tells me, it is time to wake up; it is time for you to wake up! To feel God weaving Himself through every experience you have in life and to know that it is He alone who exists; One without a second. Why should you suffer separation for one moment longer? There is no reason. He is calling you with His divine magnetism, for it is He, it is He, it is all He; there is nothing else. So, be that! It can all start with chanting His holy Name: Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram; victory to God, victory to the Light.

On this Easter morning we mark the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In the dictionary we read the definition of resurrection: the act of causing something that had ended or been forgotten or lost to exist again, to be used again. In the telling of the life of Jesus, it is the physical ending of his life when crucified upon a wooden cross, and then his miraculous rising back to life.

Resurrection from death is an event that occurs in the vast majority of the world’s religions, and it has deep significance for all of us. In a worldly sense someone may have his career, marriage, or a friendship resurrected after, to all appearances, it had ended or died. Emotionally and psychologically we may have resurrection when we recover from a trauma, and subsequently died to a meaningful part of ourselves, only to have it come alive once again.

Spiritually speaking, which is the primary purpose of Easter and the story of Jesus, resurrection takes on an even greater meaning. While the above mentioned resurrections are deeply significant to a person’s life, they pale in comparison to the spiritual dimension for you and for me.

We know from the scriptures that Jesus went through many profound experiences before he came to the crucifixion. He was baptized by John the Baptist, and God’s voice proclaimed him His son and a Light broke over him; he was tempted in the desert and overcame all obstacles; he selflessly served humanity through healings, teachings, and on many occasions working to the point of exhaustion, then finding renewal in isolation on a mountain top. These are just a few of the glimpses we have of the Master from the writings that have been preserved.

All of these experiences are leading to a kind of grand finale; a moment of great transformation. From the time Jesus consciously and voluntarily puts himself into harm’s way by returning to Jerusalem, through the moving events of the last supper and his total surrender to God in the Garden of Gethsemane, we follow the Master step by step finally leading to his crucifixion. Through Mother and Master we know that this description is the symbolic story of every aspirant as he or she seeks transformation from the human to the Divine.

Thus the inner or Mystical Crucifixion is a specific set of experiences everyone can expect to go through in their own spiritual ascent when the time is right. Resurrection occurs after the soul has gone through the crucifixion experiences necessary to purify body, mind and soul.

From death in the heart center a blocking stone is rolled away leading to a resurrection in which Divine Love now flows through the heart from an unending Source. Death in the fifth chakra, the throat center, purifies the Astral/electrical body of all impurities and now truth and radiance shines from the inner soul. Ascending to the Causal sixth center, the Christ Center, a resurrection of the pure intelligence of God now flows through the brain, bringing Light, Truth and Love from sacred Omniscience, God the Father. And finally, complete death, not just of the body, but of the all human sense of a separate self, leads to the  ascendancy of a son of man to becoming a Son of God; nay, more than that, the resurrection of God-hood.

This resurrection, as you will surmise, is not just for one man who lived two thousand years ago, but is the story of every individual making this ascendancy. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life; he leads you in the Way that completely transforms your life. It may come as a comfort for some to think that Jesus did all the heavy lifting and they can just ride along on his coattails. However, for the intrepid soul who recognizes the truth, resurrection must be a deeply meaningful transformation in his or her own life. The life of Jesus is a road map for the resurrection of Divine Consciousness in the sincere aspirant.

There has been something that has been forgotten, it is God-experience. There is something that has been lost, it is the realization of your eternal Self that is ever-conscious and is bliss itself. The resurrection of this state of Being means that it once again exists in your life in all of its fullness and glory, and for you to use it to help others achieve that same risen state. Easter is here to remind each one of us of this great and central Truth.

For those with eagle-hearts confinement to a limited body consciousness is too imprisoning, too suffocating to endure. Fortunately, we may learn to soar in spiritual skies and experience unbounded freedom, even as we yet remain living in the body.

Last night in our Kriya Class we explored that endless freedom. It starts with the mind’s power to create images, or imagination. Imagination is often derided as a false reality. And, it is a fact some can imagine many things, both true and false, and call it all true. But that should not take away from the reality that imagination can create a doorway to higher Reality; imagination is not that higher Reality, but it can trigger a true experience.

We started with what we were aware of in our normal conscious experience, ourselves in our bodies. Then closing our eyes we were aware of our breathing, for breathing is a vital part of our body-mind-Spirit connection. As we breathed, we inwardly saw our spirits expand beyond just the body and felt ourselves to grow out to the auric field, about arm’s length out, all around the body (imagine this for yourself even as you read this). We felt that we were expanded to that degree and we experienced the vitality, the peace and the Light of our Being was now larger.

Then we expanded out to the size of the room we were in, and all the people in that room. Gradually we continued to grow, and identified with the community we were in, and that the spirit of light, love, peace and bliss was permeating all that we encompassed. Then we saw ourselves beholding this world as if looking at it from a distance, and that Satchidananda (pure being, conscious awareness and bliss) was saturating the earth and all its beings.

We continued further to expand out to encompass the solar system, then the galaxy, and island galaxies, even out to this entire universe, and island universes, and the vast Astral Realm beyond material creation, then (if we dared!), to encompass the much more expanded field of the Causal Realm, and finally into the unlimited Spirit of God. And then to remember what it was like to be limited to the little body, how tiny and cramped this was in comparison to the vast expansion of Spirit.

No wonder we balk at the notion that the body and the material world are all that we are. And it also makes it understandable why souls get lost along the way and use drugs and alcohol in a vain attempt to experience that great freedom (and what a poor and dangerous imitation that attempt is!).

Afterward, even while driving the car home I continued in that expanded state of mind, and I told those in the car, “Not bad driving for one who is still out amongst the stars!” I had only a toehold on the body, enough to operate safely here on earth. And now, in the early morning hours, my Spirit continues to soar in the freedom of endless expansion and bliss.

We all can merge thinking into Being with practice and purification; and oh what we may be as we explore our true Being! Can you not sense the call of freedom tugging at you, an open breeze that seeks to fill the sails of your Spirit and take you into unending Bliss? It can start with your imagining this reality unfurling those closed tight sails, but then entering the doorway, finding yourself moving into the Reality of freedom loving Divinity within you, and all about you. Even now, do you not hear the call?

Health update: With practice one can move from oceanic consciousness to the little pond of body consciousness, without losing the freedom of the eternal Self. So, to shift subjects, this body continues to feel perfect recovery. Blood tests show that I am on the cusp of no longer being anemic; I do not notice any current signs of fatigue from the previous very low blood numbers.

I received my first vaccine injection that only contains my own cells, a combination of sterile tumor cells along with concentrated white blood cells. Other than some tiredness in the afternoon since the injection was received, I have had no other reaction. The idea is to target the immune system onto those cancerous cells in the early stages of formation. This is the second phase of the study for this vaccination. In the first phase (a test of a fewer number of participants), the three or four participants who had stage 4 cancer and had these injections have not had a recurrence of tumors. The few numbers of people in this category is not conclusive, but encouraging.

Also I have consulted one of the nation’s best oncological naturopaths and he said that melanoma is the top cancer for being responsive to naturopathic treatment. He took blood samples and I will meet with him again in a couple of weeks. In the meantime he recommends eating large servings of vegetables, half of a plate of food are vegetables, a palm size amount of protein, and a half to a cup of complex carbohydrates (such as quinoa). Use the Vitamix daily to liquefy an apple, a carrot, and a mixture of green vegetables, whatever is in the frig such as kale. Also he has prescribed large doses of curcumin in capsule form, some other supplements, and to drink Sei Mee green tea, whose ground leaves are equal to 20 cups of ordinary green tea in antioxidant power. He will have other recommendations after he gets the results from the blood tests.

In the meantime I feel the vitality of perfect health, and most of all, of course, God and Gurus grace continues to fill me with the unbounded freedom of the Divine Presence.