Infinite Action

We must realize that the single most important factor in spiritual growth is our mentality. If we want something material, we attain it through  dry material means such as money or a particular service and if we want something spiritual, we can only attain it through action from a more subtle platform. If our objective is spiritual, it only makes sense that the means by which we attain that objective are also rooted in the subtle level. 

          God already has everything that you could think of to offer to him. He is the Supreme controller and enjoyer of everything that our 5 senses may come to perceive. By his energies, he manages and sanctions everything that takes place in our universe. How then can we hope to advance in spiritual consciousness simply by offering to him a flower, fruit or some type of charitable service? The answer is simple, there is one exception to God's supreme control. The one and only thing that we have which God has no control over is our free will. Anything at anytime in this world can be taken away from us in an instant, anything. Yet we will always retain the ability to think what we want to think and act based on those thoughts, regardless of our circumstances. We have been endowed with this minute sense of independence of God's will for one reason that has been established by fully enlightened spiritual masters as the entire purpose of our existence. This ability that we have to discriminate between things that we give our energy to facilitates the exchange of perfect love. If God were to force us to be affectionate towards him, there would be no real intimacy or excitement. The real deep feelings of love originate in knowing that this person is choosing to utterly give them self to you despite all other possible engagements. Despite the millions of varieties of things or people that they could give their most deep rooted, confidential energy to, they feel confident that their heart belongs intertwined with yours. 

          The reason why this love is so powerful is because when it is pure, both parties experience ever-lasting and ever-increasing feelings of union, bliss, comfort and satisfaction. The best example of this is given in the relationship of the Divine Couple, Krishna and Radharani.  Let's say Radharadi cooks Krishna a meal. If Radha sees that Krishna is enjoying the meal, because of her unalloyed devotion and pure love for him she becomes happy and smiles. Next Krishna, seeing Radharani smile becomes enchanted by her beauty and love for him so he smiles. Next, Radharani seeing her beloved Krishna smiling at her with affection becomes even more joyful and may blush and giggle, Krishna hearing His cherished Radha's sweet laughter becomes even more ecstatic... This process goes on eternally in the spiritual realm which is only pure love however here in the material world it is usually impeded by one or both of the party's eventual feeling of "I'm not enjoying enough". In pure love, this feeling never arises because pure love is selfless. It is constant consciousness of the other person, not yourself. These feelings of selfishness are eternally tied to the material platform and so if we want to make spiritual advancement we must eradicate these selfish tendencies immediately. Pure love is completely spiritual and thus acting from such a platform quickly elevates us to higher levels of consciousness. 

          It is impractical to cease all material activities as buddhists suggest. Becoming static is against the nature of the soul which is active, going against our nature leads to frustration and dismay. The opposite of poor is not no money, it is wealthy, similarly, the opposite of materialistic activity is not inactivity but is spiritual activity or activity performed in spiritual consciousness, for an eternal spiritual goal rather than a temporary material one. One man may work with the motif of acquiring money so that he may gain some illusory sense of power and control over his surroundings while another may work with the motif of acquiring money so that he may donate it to a temple, church or spiritual cause. Both can be doing the same exact work but the mentality is completely different and thus the resultant impressions left on their consciousnesses are polar opposites. Lust, being eternally unsatisfiable will leave the selfish man despondent no matter how much he gains while the man who acted with love for a spiritual objective not only generates good karma but also feels that sense of satisfaction, comfort, happiness and union with something spiritual. Because love is reciprocation, the more the man puts his heart into his work, the more he will feel these transcendental externalities of love while simultaneously purifying his consciousness.  

          If we want to make advancement in consciousness we must focus not as much on what it is were doing but more so on how much love we are doing it with. If you are not interested in advancing in consciousness you will never be happy. Basing happiness on the world conforming to your desires is insanity because the world will always move in ways that we don't want it to. Thus if happiness came from things going your way then it could only be temporary, you would be bound to suffer. This means happiness actually must come from our perception of the world around us not, the world around us, (because the world around us sucks). So whether you want to advance in spirituality or you just want to be happy, become determined to act from the heart, with love. This is ultimately the only practical way of acting as it actually benefits you in every way imaginable. Remember the science of this eternal love, making it the most powerful and unimaginably marvelous force in existence. And realize it doesn't matter how small the action is, even if it's just the offering of a flower or fruit, because the moment we do it out of pure love, it becomes infinite. 

Islands

Religion it's self is a system of beliefs,values, customs etc. regarding something or someone that is transcendental to the material creation. Yet despite this, the religious have always been quarreling about why their particular color of skin is God's favorite. However in order to truly understand spiritual truth, we must first accept the most basic yet essential fact about ourselves, that we are not these bodies but eternal, wise, and blissful spirit souls. Once we are able to give up identification with the body, we lessen our intense envy for those who are more beautiful or materialy advanced than us and we put much less focus on our material situation, realizing that home, where you belong is elsewhere. This mental health improvement allows us to begin to develop a genuine sense of compassion, and as the intensity of our material hankerings has decreased the mind can finally focus and begin to comprehend something spiritual. How can we hope to understand something spiritual while maintaining a materialistic mindset? It is in fact impossible to gain any spiritual wisdom while influenced by a materialistic standpoint. Materialism is, I want to conform the world to my desires. Because we have been endowed with free will, we can surely retain this mentality for as long as we want, however we will only find ourselves in deeper and more severe situations of suffering and confusion. With this type of mentality any spiritual wisdom heard passes through the wry filter of your mind and the message becomes distorted. Basically, you hear what you want to hear and again, we have free will so we of course can go on with our selective hearing eternally, but we will only reach lower and lower levels of consciousness until we are worse than the dog and hog. This is so because spiritual wisdom does not conform to your desires, neither does God. Thats why in this materialistic world everyone is suffering and no one can see God. God and the truths regarding him are not subject to our misconceptions and imperfect senses, they will go one existing eternally as they are, perfectly. Thus in order to perceive something spiritual you must develop a spiritual state of mind. The spiritual mindset is the opposite of a material one, spiritual mindset is realizing that since time immemorial, you have been in ignorance. You have been a slave to your senses constantly catering to their every impulsive whim whether it be food, sex, intoxication, all the while thinking yourself the controller whose sole purpose is to rearrange the world in a way that provides you with optimal enjoyment. The spiritual mindset is feeling disgust and remorse at the materialistic way of living, having foreseen the impudence and the suffering felt by yourself and others when selfishness rules over someone. The spiritual mindset is surrendering to the higher power that is within you and without you. That which connects not only everything in this world or this universe but everything in all existence known and unknown. That surrender entails giving up the designation of being "the knower" for as as long as we go through life thinking we understand everything, we leave no opportunity to actually advance towards a deeper level of understanding. By thinking we know everything we shut down that which doesn't appeal to our current frame of reference, which for most of us is very limited. Most of us live in one place for a very long time and we grow accustomed to that place and the lens from which we perceive things is very heavily influenced by that place. For example if someone lives their whole life on a secluded tropical island, they may think that the entire world is a tropical island. If you try to tell this person who's mind is only accustomed to tropical weather that there are places where it snows all the time, they will not understand. Now the person can either admit he doesn't understand and then become more educated on the reality of planet earth or he can think, "No, this person is crazy, I know what I'm talking about" and continue to live in ignorance. I think that we all live on our own little "tropical island" and I know that there is a whole world, a whole universe out there to explore full of beauty, truth, adventure and satisfaction. But in order to see whats really out there, we first must admit that our little island isn't the only thing available, that in fact there is much more to this life than meets the eye. Developing a more spiritual mentality takes a lot of patience and determination but by gradually lessening our tendency to identify with material nature and realizing arrogance is ignorance we gain access to the ocean of boundless, illuminative and eternal wisdom.

Vedic Mind Control

The Buddha has said, "The mind is everything, what you think, you become." this quote has always struck me in the sense that most "realistic" people such as myself, have come to the realization that the future is, for the most part of out of our control. But what a beautiful concept presented by such a realistic being, that we are certain to become a product of our thoughts. In a more technical sense, my Spiritual Master has outlined the power of thought as follows, "From good ideas come good thoughts, from good thoughts come good actions, from good actions come good habits, from good habits come good character and when we have good character we reach the proper destination." Some of us who are more optimistically inclined may hear this and think, Yes! this is a truth of truths, from now on I will only think positive thoughts and in the future my life will be positive! However in time, we all come to realize that curbing the mind is not so simple. In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna after hearing Krishna's instruction to focus the mind, pleads to Krishna for further guidance. Arjuna at this point has understood the power of the mind and it's capabilities to shape the future for the living being but he also realizes that the mind is fickle and wavering, that it's very nature is to accept something one moment and reject it the next. Arjuna suggests that to curb the mind would be more difficult that to control the restless wind for both seem to move so passionately yet without a substantial and beneficial motif. Krishna responds that the only way to curb the mind is through intelligence. But before the intelligence can work properly, we must have a goal and we must be serious about that goal. If we are moving through life whimsically, then our intelligence may lead us here or there for there are many millions of different ways to gratify our senses in the material world. The paths in which we find ourselves may lead to more sense gratification, or less but we will always have minimal control of the future, as our mind will lead us in one direction one day and another the next. If we develop a meaningful goal, and we meditate on that goal, then our intelligence throughout the day will discern in favor of that destination. In this way we may train the restless mind to be active in a way that is favorable to our goal. When internally we are focused on our goal, then externally we will act in such a way that brings us closer to the goal. Our intelligence should also be used to justify the objective for there will b many convincing propositions made by the fickle mind to give up or focus instead on something that can provide a quick sensuous reward like sex or drugs. The mind and the soul are bound to disagree thus when facing mental discrepancy, we should search out our duty which is to become self realized, we should reflect on the suffering that results from failing to become self realized and we should remember the tricks that the mind plays on us to entangle us deeper in misery and torment. developing this one-pointed intelligence is the key to advancement on any level, in any situation or circumstance not just in regard to spiritual growth but to growth in general. However by cultivating an intelligence that compliments the desire to become self realized, we may actually tame the restless mind which will torment the living entity no matter how materially advanced he may become. The intelligence of those who are controlled by sense gratification is many branched, always taking them to places they couldn't have imagined themselves previously, dark alleys, tasteless clubs, etc. But for one who is resolute in purpose, who uses the intelligence to fix the mind on the constitutional position of the self and the self's respective duty in the material world, for him the mind becomes the best friend, pushing him towards his goal by reminding him of the tremendous amount of negative reactions brought about by straying from his path. For such a person the goal is one, the intelligence is one, the mind is one and thus the destination is always the same, success.