On the First Maha-samadhi Anniversary of H.H. Swami Rama
Phone Address by Swami Veda
The Meditation Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
November 2, 1997
OM! OM! OM!
The days become sacred when a sacred being imparts a special grace or energy to the forces in the universe. All the annual cycles of celebration and commemorations are built around those occasions. In our present day society and thinking, the human being is no longer a unit in the universe; he views himself as something outside the universe, trying to control the universe as an outsider. This view is incorrect, we are part of the universe, the energy and life that flows through us is the same one through whose rhythms and waves, all the planets, stars, constellations, breath patterns, respond. That enlightenment is not an individual event; it is a cosmic or ultra-cosmic event. The coming into body of a sacred being, an enlightened being, also is not an individual event. It is not something over which only the immediate physical relatives rejoice; it is something of universal importance. It is a universal event. It is beyond the category of the birth of planets. It is said that when an enlightened being sits for his final enlightenment session all the saints, past Buddhas, and enlightened ones attend upon him. And thereafter, his rhythms are not the rhythms of an individual. Those of us who were fortunate to see the Master walking, who recall at times walking with him and feeling as though we paced together with the universal force, with some unseen, unknown magnet – those of us who experienced that phenomenon will never forget it, because it was not an individual but the condensation, the convergence of an unknown number of universal forces passing through that particular space, time, matter coordinate that we call an individual.
I’ve said, “The days become sacred.” Those of us who have been taught to be in tune, even to a minor degree, to be attuned to those rhythms, to the beat to which a master walks, find that on those sacred days, certain special waves touch us. These are not the waves of a physical energy, but rather something happens within the consciousness. We do not realize that it is all synchronized, that the events of consciousness are synchronized with the events in the universe. Or rather, to put it more correctly, the events in the universe are projections of the events in consciousness.
Some of us who are sensitive to these rhythms, have chosen to commemorate this occasion here on this date, on the 3rd of November, 1997, because, as I said in my letter, published in the Newsletter of the Sadhana Mandir, Rishikesh ashram over the Web, the Julian calendar that you all follow is the least scientific contribution of the West. Neither Julius nor Augustus were constellations. Nothing happens on the first of January. In planetary events, we note exactly what the position of the planets and the constellations are on a sacred day and we expect that when that position is again achieved after a year, certain rhythms will be felt, certain waves will touch us. This year, the commemoration is on the 3rd of November by the Julian calendar. Next year it may be on a different Julian date according to the positions of the planets and the constellations at that time, because as I said, the events of consciousness are not individual events.
Now this brings us to a question that so many of us have been asking. Where is he? Where is the Master? Soon after his departure, I said there would be many, many, many, many tall claims. People always ask, “What happens to the soul after death?” And I’ve always said that the question does not apply. “Where” means a place, a limitation of space. The soul has no limitation of space. “To go” is movement; the soul has no such locomotion. “After” indicates time; the spiritual forces are not subject to time. “After death” – whose death? That remains a puzzle because a spiritual being never dies because it is never born. Those who understand this elevate themselves to that consciousness, to that realm of awareness where these kinds of questions really become irrelevant, not merely in theory, but in their very being. The question, “Where does a Master go after he leaves the body?” Such a question is irrelevant.
Today I’ll share a secret with you. In your study of the subtle body and the causal body, in your study of the constituents of personality, you have heard that corresponding to the individual subtle body, linked to the individual subtle body, is the universal subtle body. “Corresponding ,” “linked to,” these are all incorrect terms. The individual subtle body is a wave in the universal subtle body. The individual causal body is a wave in the universal causal body. We who are so attached to being waves cannot comprehend the extent, the depths, the joy, the completeness, the bliss of the entire ocean. So we keep thinking of the fate of this little wave that arose and that subsided. But it is not so in the case of the master. A liberated soul may choose to keep a subtle body, may choose to drop the subtle body and remain only in the causal body. The Master may choose to drop the subtle body and the causal body the same way that he chooses to drop the physical body and, thereby, let the wave of the soul merge into Brahman. So the soul may merge into Brahman, or may remain a wave wrapped only in the causal body which is merged into the universal causal body, or that may remain wrapped in the subtle body which merges, as a wave merges, into the ocean of the universal subtle body. And it is in that universal subtle body that they dwell as universal subtle beings. That is why, in so many religions, saints are asked to intercede with the divine spirit. And that being the case, being one with the universal subtle body or universal causal body, they are free to make an appearance anywhere: in your wakeful state, perhaps – if any of us can be that fortunate – in your dream state, in your sleep state, in your consciousness, or in your super-consciousness.
Those who have been blessed with a mantra or a higher initiation within the tradition are linked to such a universal subtle body. They are linked to the entire lineage of saints, sages, rishis and beings, the chain consisting of these links reaching up to infinity. And whether the individual master is in the physical body or not, through the agency of the little particle of the universal mind, the tiniest possible particle, your mantra, they have left their presence in you. They will guide you. A wave will come occasionally when you least expect it. And, that wave will leave an indecipherable samskara, an indecipherable impression. And, over the next months or years, you will find yourself doing something. But watch out. Watch out. The great temptation in the ego is to say, “I am guided by the master” when you are being guided only by your own unconscious desires, impressions, samskaras. Therefore, be careful not to make claims to the rest of the world. The masters, by their signs, let themselves be known.
Many of you might recall seeing him play tennis on the lawn in Honesdale. Many of us, who did not have the opportunity of having his individual instruction at that time, would rush and gather around the tennis court. Richard Kenyon tells me that one day, as he played tennis, after taking a stroke, he turned around to a bunch of people standing in one corner. Very angry, looking at them, he said, “Stop thinking of me as a sexual being, I am neither a man nor a woman.” He went back to his next stroke.
I recall in the very early days of my sitting at his feet, one day he asked me to shut the door of my meditation room, and he sat on the seat and said, “I will show you something.” He lifted his garment and said, “I will withdraw the entire prana from the right leg.” Within a fraction of a minute, the leg was dead. It was cold to the touch, like that of a dead body. It was white flesh. He said, “I have transferred all of the prana to this leg.” And the other leg was cherry red. He said, “I will reverse it now.” The other leg went deadly white and the right leg became cherry red. And, then he said, “changing bodies is only the next step from here.”
Now are we going to just sit back and, once a year, be satisfied with commemoration? There is work to do. We have become students and disciples to be instruments of divine will that comes through the saints. We have work to do on ourselves. How many of you, in honor of the bequest passed on from the lineage, made your next five year spiritual plan? Where do you wish to be spiritually five years from now? That is one question.
And in the process – all the work that the master has left behind; do we find in ourselves the dedication to serve, to complete that work, to help complete that work, the work that is to be done within ourselves, and, as an extension of that, in our surroundings. I wish and I pray that each one of us not merely become a vessel recipient of the grace, but an active participant in the grace, to respond to the presence of grace, to respond to that deep inner guidance that comes in response to our own internal urge toward divinity. And, I pray that your wish to become a pure being in this very life be fulfilled by that grace. Our homage to that grace that once walked on earth in flesh, and, now is, perhaps, merged with the universal subtle body or the universal causal body which continues to guide us. I pray that our response to that grace will be in the form of our daily turning toward the Source, to the daily attuning of ourselves.
Once more, please, let me remind you, especially as the master is no longer in the body. Let me remind you. We spoke of the universal rhythms; those universal waves do not return only once a year on a specific sacred day. For you, they may return each day. Each day become the recipient of a wave. If the wave knows, if the wave of grace knows where to find you, at what hour to find you, and you are there to keep that appointment, over a period of time, you will begin to feel a response arising within you. Receive the wave. That will elevate you, uplift you, guide you, purify you.
Now that the master is no longer in the body, it is even more important that we keep that daily appointment in commemoration, in celebration, in reception of the wave of consciousness that is ever, ever passing through you, but whose presence we neglect to respond to because we have drawn dark curtains over our minds. Pull the curtains apart, sit there daily, and remember to serve, remember to serve. May your spiritual journey continue to work under that guidance. He is not physically visible, but very, very much present – very much so.
Once again, I extend an invitation to you to come to this ashram in Rishikesh. Those of you who have been here, I assure you, the presence is still here. The energy is still here. The sanctity remains, the flowers bloom the same way. The Ganga flows with the same rhythm. And, those who come, do not feel that they want to leave. Right now, the ashram is full. And, those who are here tell me they do not wish to leave because the presence that heals the body and the mind is still very much here. I hope to see you here on one pretext or another. And, I am sure the master hopes to see you daily in the subtle body of the universe, wishes to commune with your subtle body daily at your meditation seat. May all the saints continue to bless us and may we remain ever linked with him. Thank you. God bless you. God bless you all.
Om! Om! Om!
