Yoga of the Heart

BLAME GOD FOR EVERYTHING

The longing for God, or the spiritual body, gradually results in a constant Remembrance of its presence. Lakshmanjoo used to say, "Blame God for everything." He was telling me that this attitude is one way to become conscious of God in everything. By "blaming" God, or my spiritual body. for everything, I would never forget God; thus I would always be practicing Remembrance.

Lakshmanjoo: There was one student who wanted to see God. His master told him, "if God does not appear to you, beat him with stick." So there was Shiva lingam [a physical representation of the power of Shiva consciousness, usually a naturally formed phallic-shaped stone]. This student used to go and beat that lingam with his shoes. He had decided. Then a flood came and this lingam was covered with water. He dived there with shoes.
Alice: To beat it some more.
Lakshmanjoo: There appeared Lord Shiva to him on that day. Because he did not miss even one day. To beat him is also devotion. It is not devotion only to praise him. To beat him also is the worship. So God is never out of mind.

Seeing God in Everyone
Rajat Singh was one of the great kings of India. He used to wear the Kohinoor diamond on his arm, and sometimes he hung it around his horse’s neck, just for the fun of it. Any beggar who came to his court professing to have any kind of philosophical understanding was welcomed with gold dishes and jewelry and every kind of comfort, because in the Eastern way of thought, whoever comes to your door is considered divine, a representation of God that you cannot recognize, but who resides in all forms of life.
So it was the custom to believe that any guest may be God taking a human form. We can never really know whom we are looking at. We may not recognize God, but the constant Remembrance that God is always there helps us to recognize the divine in all things.

There is a similar thread in mythology, in stories where enemies of God are given a choice to work in an unpleasant situation acting as an adversary, and so return to God more quickly through that attitude of intense opposition; or to act as a devotee, which would mean a longer time to return to God’s presence. Invariably, the adversary chooses the hostile shorter time in order to return to his beloved state of the divine as soon as possible.

The point is that such intense hostility is a type of Remembrance that can be used to bring one to ultimate realization. Whether fully agreeable or fully disagreeable, the aspirant is fully concentrated on the Remembrance of God. Lakshmanjoo and I discussed one of these stories in our conversations. (In the great epic Ramayana, Ravana is the demon who kidnaps Rama’s wife, Sita. She is rescued, and the demon is killed, by Rama, his brother Lakshmana, and the monkey god Hanuman.)

Alice: In mythology there is a story about how Ravana was given a choice that he could achieve union with Rama [another name for God] after many lifetimes of devotion or after only three lives as Rama’s worst enemy. This is what you mean, isn’t it, that whether you beat God or love God, it’s all the same.
Lakshmanjoo: All the same, yes, because of Remembrance.
Alice: So Ravana actually loved Rama.
Lakshmanjoo: He worshipped Rama. He wanted to receive his death from Rama’s sword. Otherwise he would have not done this mischief with Sita. He would be deprived of the honor to die by Rama’s hand. Alice: He knew Rama was going to kill him.
Lakshmanjoo: Yes.

In this popular Indian epic, the character Ravana is depicted as practicing the greatest form of Remembrance because his constant hostility to God was considered the same as constant devotion.

DEPENDING ON THE SPIRITUAL BODY

Practicing Remembrance gives you a support that you can always depend on. When I remember that my spiritual body is carrying all responsibility for my life, my physical body feels great relief. People find great happiness in dependence, because it relieves them from carrying responsibility, but because our culture places such great value on independence, people often feel guilty about being dependent.

I have learned that there is no need to get rid of dependence. It is not inherently harmful; there is nothing wrong with it if it serves you. But I want to be dependent upon something that is real, not something that changes. I want something that lasts. For this reason, I have learned to place all dependence on my spiritual body.

The feeling of dependence I want is similar to my experience with floating. All my life I have had the unusual ability to float in any position: vertically, horizontally, legs crossed, one arm under my head, reading books. I just don’t sink. Something supports me. When I was a child, my sister used to pile stones on my stomach to see how many it would take to sink me. I can remember in India just floating along down the current on the Ganges River, and Rama running along the shore, screaming in horror, "Get out! Get out! The turtles, the turtles!" I did not know that great snapping turtles live there in the northern Ganges River, feeding on corpses and ignorant swimmers.

I find great pleasure in just standing up in the water with nothing under my feet. I’m not afraid of sinking. This is the feeling of being supported totally and easily by the spiritual body. Once you feel this support, you are unafraid. You love it. What holds me up in the water? Simply the belief that I will not sink. How did I get that belief? Somehow I learned that I could be totally dependent upon an unseen support. Now I know that that support lies in my spiritual body.

Remembering the Source of Emotion

Who makes you fall in love? Who feels love? Love makes you feel in love. It is not another person, it is love personified in the spiritual body within yourself. Love lives in the spiritual body. Love was there long before you were born and is going to be around long after you go. You can never own love; you can only experience it. When allowed, love expresses itself, and the only responsibility you have is to remember that.

Remembering that the source of such feelings is the spiritual body deepens the experience — like receiving an extra dip on an ice cream cone. This is what is meant by grace: a gift that has not been requested. The practice of Remembrance is a conscious effort to make yourself a perfect instrument for all experience. Dependence on the spiritual body is a brilliant, astonishing, nonintellectual, totally intuitive power that possesses your very being when all your walls of resistance have become porous.

Alice: Swamiji, is devotion to God an emotional state? Is it one-pointed concentration of love, of your own desire of love for God?
Lakshmanjoo: It is intense desire. Intense desire to see him. Neglect all other things.
Alice: To someone who is aspiring . . . that is the most important thing in their life, isn’t it?
Lakshmanjoo: Yes. The only important thing. Not most.
Alice: Everything else is just simply related to that.
Lakshmanjoo: It is just straw.
Alice: When we were talking about Santosh [Contentment], you said that a person must not want God consciousness. How can a person practice devotion without wanting to see God?
Lakshmanjoo: There is urge to see him. There is not wanting. Urge to see him is in the spiritual nature. Wanting is in the physical. In wanting there are two urgencies. Two figures which seem to be separate. A separation which does not exist.
Alice: Is this urge coming out of one’s own self?
Lakshmanjoo: No, it is transformed. Your self is transformed in yourself.
Alice: Into the Universal Body?
Lakshmanjoo: Yes, because whatever exists in this universe it is not away from God consciousness, in real sense. But we don’t understand that. We have neglected that side of understanding. So we think that we are kept away from God consciousness. Actually we are not kept away from God consciousness. We have ignored God consciousness, by our own will.

When you begin to master Remembrance, you will never lose awareness of your spiritual body; the channel to your physical body will always be open. You feel a childlike wonder as the power from the spiritual body comes to you. You are not afraid in this helplessness; you feel extremely comfortable and fully supported while this change in your nature takes place. There is a great peacefulness that comes, very much like the experience that many people have described of returning to the womb, where one rests with all needs supplied, simply growing and learning, totally dependent upon the source of life in the mother. Once that peacefulness touches you, you can never forget it.