Practical applications of the spirit of the Upanishads

Using Translations and Selections of Yogi Ramacharaka
(in black italic)

Part 1

That wherein disappears the whole of that which affects the mind, and that which is also the background of all – to THAT I bow, - the all eternal consciousness, the witness of all exhibitions of the intellect.

This means that we should divest ourselves of identification with the images and thoughts that we experience as our “mind”.

Whatever you imagine to be true about yourself is a movie in your head.

Look for the reality beneath that.

And treat that reality with the utmost respect, even reverence, for it is holiness itself.

What are the applications of this for those who cannot pay their rent, and for those who own the building but suffer from a feeling of deadly meaninglessness?

You are reacting to images in your mind.

Direct your mind before it directs you.

Open your heart and mind to the truth and stop believing in your own lies.

What are your lies?

That you would be better off if anything other than what you imagine to be happening was happening.

There is no foundation to rely on because you don’t need one.

You ARE that foundation.

YOU are the essence of holiness.

YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR.

***

As is the sight of the sweetest Honey to the traveller in the Desert, so is the perception of the ever-effulgent.

So what IS that effulgent?

It is behind the silence in the sightless.

It is the knot of truth.

Untie it and be unbound.

So here WE are in some other kind of light.  In some other kind of sound (where there is no silence).

In your everyday reality do you crave the sweetest honey?

Of course you do.  

But as long as you seek it in the seen you miss it in the eternal.

You miss it in the now.

Look for it in nothing.

To be more practical, look at your cravings.  What are you “attached to” happening?  Whatever you expect from what you are bound to get, you get no further along the path of happiness, except through mastery.

Mastery begins with the mental training of not harboring mental images.

“But what, if I may ask, sacred master, advice do you give for those who fear when they face the fact that ANYTHING can happen?”

Because nothing can happen that they did not see coming, and could have avoided, they have nothing to fear.

“But what if one has not awakened to the dimension called, “The furnace of Creation” – In other words, what if one does not yet see how creation comes to be?”

Then there is really only one cure.  Face the fear until it stops.  The fear is nothing to resist, because to resist it is to produce it, for that IS its only cause.

“So fear equals resistance?”

That is correct.  To give up resistance is to give up fear.

Resist not evil. 

What does this mean?  It means first to not envision any circumstances that you feel resistant to.

So to resist evil is to first create it.  But it is an illusion, just like the rest of your thought-dreams.

“So what is the truth?” asked the chelah.

***

Action leads to incarnation and incarnation to pleasure and pain.

What does it mean to “incarnate”?  It means being born into the flesh in consciousness.  Equaling death to the spirit, this does not end pleasure and pain.  It manifests it.

“So I am to be inactive?”

No.  Only from the standpoint of judging yourself for your conduct are you to be inactive.

“How do I advance into the realm of non-judgment?” asked the Chelah, logically.

Hence arise all likes and dislikes, which again propel to action resulting in merit and dismerit.

Look at your reactions of like and dislike.  When you dislike what is happening to you, and when you like what is happening to you, look at what you are mentally projecting ABOUT what is happening to you.

You are projecting YOURSELF right into an illusion.  

“But should I experience no pleasure, no pain?”

One could say that there is only endless bliss beyond pleasure and pain, but that would say nothing but to those who hear God’s call.

I would be more accurate to advise, RESIST neither pleasure nor pain.

These put the ignorant wanderer, again, into the bonds of incarnation; - and so on and on, forever, rolls the wheel of this world.

In other words, resisting pleasure and pain concretizes consciousness into total identification with the realm of pleasure and pain on the surface.

This causes the concept, idea and instinctive response to “endless time”.

If you would just drop the concept of “time” from your mind as much as possible, you would return to the pristine palace.

But if course this would not necessitate your “running late”.  You can be right on time without imagining endless time, without imagining a future or a past.

“What is a first step?”

All you ever do is a first step.

Nothing but ignorance is the cause of all this; the remedy lies in the destructions of ignorance.

Identification with the mind’s ideas of reality is ignorance.  Do not identify with your ideas of reality.  They are confining and judgmental.  They are illusions inducing delusions in the unenlightened.

Knowledge of Brahman is the way to find final beatitude in the destruction of this ignorance.

By “Brahman” is meant a certain quality of divine being that we can describe as “Cause” or better yet, “First Cause”.

Knowledge of first cause is the real object of any pursuit of happiness.

Do you KNOW what is really causing what is?

Do you KNOW how to cause what you choose?

Do you KNOW why you want to cause that?

“You are taking me into a journey where my mind feels out of control,” said the challah.

I’m happy for you.

For knowledge alone, not action, which is only a part of ignorance, is competent to accomplish this result.

These words are intentionally replete with blinds for those not yet initiated into the deeper mysteries.  Once again, the “action that is part of ignorance, and nothing more, is the imaginary action that you desire and dread.

Awakening informs us of our acquisition of new knowledge.

Knowledge is always new.

“What of the sensation of familiarity, which brings forth certain memories of the past?” queried our chellah.

What if I said, “I don’t remember.”  Would that be adequate?

“I would surmise, or at least speculate, that the sense of what you say is that you have forgotten that sense of “familiarity” – and that, to you, all is ever new.”

On one level that would be true.  On another, even I have no idea of what you are talking about.

“Are you invisible to yourself?”

Now you are touching on the occult meaning of the evil vampire, king of the ever dead, symbolized by his absence of reflection in the mirror.  That is something considered to fear by the ego, the bundle of values not related to reality as it really is.

Chellah: “I want to know how to apply this to my dilapidating life.”

What are you supposed to do?  That is your question?  Intend to do what you are supposed to do.

“How do I fulfill my potential?  How do I achieve the goals, fulfill the destiny, that I set for myself?”

You apply Karma Yoga, that is, unstoppable working for what you want.  You have a way to success available.  But you have to give up your ego’s appreciation of it to wield such great power effectively.

In other words, you cannot take it personally.  To take it personally is to take it from yourself.

“I want to hasten the time.  I want it for this life.  For this family.  And I want it for now.”

Let it go.

Nor is it possible to do away with likes and dislikes so long as ignorance is not done away with.

This means that likes and dislikes are baseless because they are based on the ignorance of identifying with the dreams of the mind.

Whether you like or dislike something it is a sacred gift of the divine.  

Do not abandon the source of joy that is beneath the experience of likes and dislikes and is unending.  

The fact is that dislike offers no joy to the one immersed in it.  So you can be all swallowed up by your passions.

“Do not resist this?”

Do not resist this.  Engage your RAGE to dissolve it.

“Anything preventing me from what I want - Please tell it to me.” The challah began feeling more and more upset, more and more desperate, with every word.

This is therefore undertaken with the object of destroying ignorance, as well as its effects – this world – and also of explaining the real philosophy of Brahman.

So the “ignorance” is whatever dilemma you think you are in.  Living in the dream of that dilemma prevents you from seeing what is really going on.

Stop rebelling against not being where you want to be.

The challah looked down in defeat.  “What SHOULD I do about it.”

Stop imagining it.  Direct your mind.  Envision what you want to bring about and go in quest of the way.

“I’ve done everything I know to go that way. And I am at zero, or way too close to it.”

Be the magician, AND the fool.

***

From the senses finding each its own gratification in the objects peculiar to each, here arises no real happiness, but only a temporary allaying of the fever of the mind.

So now you know that all you are ever confronted with is extreme challenge if you are willing to face that deep.

You will be challenged to know that the meaning of Job was initiation into direct conversation with God.

Which doubled his portion beyond the divine experience of the infinite.

That is the nature of all of your suffering.

Go through it in quest of God and come out with the infinite plus double.

Double your money.  Bet on TRUTH to win.

“So give up fear.”

So give up fear.

It is vain, therefore, to grope for any real happiness in the world of objects.

That does not mean that real happiness is not that enthusiasm and inspiration you feel when you dream up a possibility that you believe in, that you believe will change your fate in the way that you want it to be changed.

It means that groping out of fearful desperation is inherently delusional, because you will confront ever fear that now confronts you here.

“But I will know the gratification of achieving this dream,” said the challah proudly, with his chest out.

The deluded deceive themselves by imagining every experience of evil to be so much good; but in birth, death and limitation, the wise never fail to perceive the evil that conceals itself under the inviting form of objects.  They find no happiness in things subject to such results.

There is no good in evil that is really evil, for evil is the absence of good.  You can experience as much of this as you choose, to the extent that you really do have free will.

Where others see an endless now, some see transition and limitation being imposed conditions by even the most promising ideas.

“Would you have me devoid of ambition?” asked the challah, almost stoically.

I would have you be ambitious for the infinite.

“I’m only asking for your help right now in being a good householder, a good provider for my family.”

The smallest happiness, in the real sense of the word, is no way possible in anything; - oh!  I should become that Self which is all bliss, all existence, all enlightenment.

You must face the smallest trials as you would face the greatest.

You want be successful in the worldliest sense of the term.  Don’t you think I understand it.  You want the magic cure.  You want the tonic fix.  You want the alchemist’s stone. You want to purchase a ticket that can take you anywhere.

“I want to be free of these forebroodings.”

Knowledge of the Divine dissolves all bonds, and gives freedom from every kind of misery including birth and death.

Why would “birth” be assigned the adjective “misery”.  Does not the soul of the angel-infant know that here is a place where misery is felt upon its entrance into this world?

You want God to give you your solution.  You want to make it through this so-called “defeat”.

Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, the Sun, the Moon, the Thunder, the Wind, the Sacrifice, and so on, are terms used by the sages to describe the One Eternal, as they look at It through the multifarious forms of the intellect; - all my best worship to that Divine Essence, the destroyer of that ignorance whose form is this world.

To be “destroyed of that ignorance” leaves nothing left blocking that inner vessel to receive the divine light of love that leads thy way from above and beyond.

“I pray for thee to speak plainly about my way” Said the challah, respectfully.

That should be known as Brahma which, beyond the gaining whereof, there remains nothing to gain; beyond the bliss whereof, there remains no possibility of bliss; beyond the sight whereof, there remains nothing to see; beyond the becoming of which, there remains nothing to become; beyond knowing which there remains nothing to know.

You feel determined to manifest your condition of mind that you define as your goal.  You face failure.  You persevere anyway.  You remain determined. You want more tools.

The first tool is TRUST in that all embracing Love, which is beyond containment and rules thy life.

Fear alone produces its thought up consequences.

Face thy ignorance…

Examine thy feelings…

… Until you see failure as an illusion of the mind.

You have feared nothing.

Whatever you see yourself doing in your mind is an illusion that you live in just as long as you remain blind to the inner light that reveals what your mind is doing.

You have to see your deepest negative illusions in order to let them go.

“Is there a way to bring this miracle about?”

This is All, and so is that; - All comes out of the All, - taking away the All from the All, the All remains forever.

This is all, but you want to change the shape of all.  You want it to make space for your personal form of reality that you identify with that matches your desire.

You want to know a way to make that happen, but you see none.  You see only potentials that are imaginaries.

So you are giving it up to me to solve for you.

You’ve got to know how to make it happen to be able to preserve it for any length of time.

He is eternal among the eternal, conscious among the conscious; He, ever one, produces the variety of ideas in the many; - knowing that Divine One, as the Supreme Cause, all bonds dissolve themselves into nothing.

When in desperation you open your heart to receiving real guidance, without attachment to this or that outcome, you will receive it.

to be continued...