Swami Veda Bharati gave two lectures on “Peaceful Planet, Heart, and Mind” in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, on August 5 & 7, 2010. This is an excerpt of the original lectures.
[Guided Meditation]
Let your mind unwrinkle; Relax your forehead,
Feel the touch and flow of the breath in the nostrils,
Breath flowing deeply, smoothly, without a jerk, without a pause between the breaths.
Breath flowing nostrils to navel and navel to nostrils.
Now, along this pathway, enter your heart cave.
As you breathe, feel the heart cave expanding.
Light of love and mantra reverberating in the heart cave.
All living beings–their consciousness dwelling in the cave of your heart.
Their love and consciousness is in you, and yours in them.
Vow never again to cause any hurt to a living being…….
Without breaking the flow, gently open your eyes.
Maintain the same stream of consciousness even with your eyes open.
May the divine spirit that is this living spirit of all living beings, may that One bless you and all living beings.
May all living beings bless you.
[Lecture]
Any further commentary is unnecessary because you have expanded your heart and understood the unity of all living beings in you.
The Bhagavad Gita says, “he who knows action in inaction, he who knows inaction in action understands the mystery of action”. Only a meditation master knows this mystery that is also the principle of Tao and of all spirituality.
Action in Inaction; and Inaction in Action. Those contemplations are your guide, your inner guide, your voice of conscience, your third-eye of wisdom. Spirituality means meditation but meditation is not a withdrawal from the world.
Let meditation be in your home and wherever you are. Contemplate it in whatever you do. What conclusions you draw from it for your life, for your actions, for your words, for your choices, for what you eat, what you wear, and what you do when sleeping, when dreaming?
Someday, sometime, somewhere, in some incarnation, through the build-up over all of this time, build-up, build-up, build-up, build-up, there comes a moment. You will not know where that moment came from. It is part of that eternity that flows, flows through you; flows as the life and consciousness forces through all beings. You will realize that these ascending and descending forces, these expanding and contracting forces are not confined to this frame, to the skeleton of you, the body, or “I” “Me” and “Mine” as the possessions of your personality. It is part of that eternity that flows, flows through you and all beings. Then you will not be looking at your problems piece by piece.
Someday, sometime, do you know when, when you made a choice, and those choices became the actions that brought you the results you call “my” life. You have made plans for everything. You plan for holidays; you plan for what you are going to wear. You have plans for your accounts, and for your insurance. You have plans for your son’s or daughter’s schooling or wedding. Yet, you have no plans for reality, though Reality has a plan for you. When will you cease identifying with these actions you call life, with the possessions you call your personal property, with this body and the issues you have with your organs? What you have now is not what you had as a child. Your personal property is only for a period of time. Whose property will they be fifty years from now? I don’t know who is going to inherit the molecules of my nerves fifty years from now. So, come on tell me when? Now don’t tell me; you decide it quietly and keep at it, and you will find your spiritual plans revealed when you meditate.
Today everyone lives in pieces. You have fear of this; you have desire for that; you have anxiety about something; you have jealousy against someone; you have temporary love for this one; you have temporary aversion against someone else. You have a problem of losing weight and gaining weight, a problem with economy, politics, and all manners of social problems. Yet, when that moment of a flash occurs, your consciousness becomes unified, and no problem is separate from all of the problems.
In the unified mind, you understand the force and source. Yet, today the way you handle your problems, others throughout the world handle their problems; it is all in pieces. Again, I say you keep looking at problems piece by piece. Somebody is talking about children dying hungry, somebody else about climate, someone is negotiating about limiting the nuclear weapons, and others signing a peace treaty somewhere. I would like to know over the last ten thousand years, how many peace treaties have been signed on this Earth. By now there should be peace, don’t you think after signing so many peace treaties, recorded or unrecorded…? So, each problem is looked at separately, separately, separately. Whom should I vote for? What is happening in my economy? These politicians are all wrong. So many problems, so much confusion.
When I was speaking the other day, I asked– “What do you want? Do you want to suffer recession, or do you want to enjoy renunciation?” If you will pursue an unbridled desire; you want this, you want that, and somebody else wants that and somebody else also wants that. For three months or two years, they are very happy with those possessions and at the end what? The book of Tao – the law of nature, states: ‘things return to their opposites’. And, unbridled growth brings a collapse. Why do you pursue those desires in an unbridled way? Because you have no other means of satisfaction. For that moment, you feel satisfied with the larger piece of the pie, but do you feel fulfilled even with that larger piece?
When you discover a unifying stream, your sonar force, and your solar force, which are not confined to your five-foot-four, or six-foot frame, the forces of this universal connection, then you find connections among all things. And when you solve one problem and truly solve it, you will have solved all problems. There is a verse in a very ancient text of the Jain system of religion and philosophy, which you may not have heard of –
एको भावः सर्वथा येन दृष्ट
सर्वे भावा सर्वथा तेन दृष्टाः
सर्वे भावाः सर्वथा येन दृष्टा
एको भाव सर्वथा तेन दृष्टः
Eko bhavah sarvatha yena drshta
Sarve bhava sarvatha tena drshtah
Sarve bhava sarvatha yena drshta
Eko bhava sarvatha tena drshtah
He who has seen one being, one aspect, sarvatha, in all its modes, from all its directions, thereby, he has now seen all beings, all entities, all aspects, all states, in all their modes and beings. That is called universal consciousness.
I was saying that this economy is going to collapse 20 years ago. Nobody was listening, not because I have some great, some prophetic vision but because I know the laws of nature. The laws by which the forces of consciousness operate that the economies don’t read about. And you want to stop the next recession, stop the problems. How? Understand the forces of consciousness. Something I said that day with great, very great sadness, humanity, the way it is going, is going to go through enormous suffering. You haven’t seen anything yet. Unless you understand the laws of consciousness. The way your consciousness is going, humanity is bound to invite upon itself dreadful, terrible misery. Nobody will listen. Cut your desires down. It’s a very long time before humanity starts living by wisdom… very long time, very, very long time…
Simple question, “So what do I do with my desires? I want it. But I really want it. If I don’t get it now, I am going to be upset. I am going to be angry. So, what to do with those desires? Because if I don’t fulfil them, I get so frustrated.” Meditation naturally, slowly, gently reduces the forces of your desire. Because inside you, you discover fullness. Not in emptiness, that you must pour a yet larger bowl of something into your stomach, thereby your mind will feel filled. When you will learn to renounce that which would otherwise be taken away from you feel the equilibrium of satiety. So, I leave you the question; “do you want to suffer recession or do you want to enjoy the renunciation?” Your renunciation will be helped by your mind discovering its inner fullness through the practice of meditation. That’s all.
Meditation is renunciation. Renunciation means reduction of, reduction of possessions, property. Reduction of wishes and desires is renunciation; and with that naturally comes what in Sanskrit language we call ‘Abhaya’. This word ‘Abhaya’ means not causing fear in anyone, being of no danger to anyone, being a place of asylum for everyone. When the Swami raises his hand, that blessing says, “I grant Abhaya” I grant this recognition of the unity of all living beings; that is renunciation. May you be blessed with Abhaya.
[Guided Meditation]
Once again bring your mind’s awareness to yourself,
Renounce all external thoughts,
Feel the unity of life, the life-force breathing in you, the breath of all living beings breathed through you,
Breathing gently, slowly, smoothly,
Feel the flow with one divine name in each breath.
Mind, breath and divine name flowing in a single stream,
Now, at this moment of mind’s calmness, renounce one, any one desire of yours……..
Having renounced making this offering to the inner light of the heart-cave.
Continue with the mind-mantra-breath as a single stream.
Maintain this flow of consciousness even with your eyes open.
God bless you.
