12. Sri. Madhava Rao

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My Pranams to all.

This statement is taken from the message “Love universal” delivered by Rev. Master at Shahjahanpur in January 1976. Please permit me to share some of my thoughts on the topic.

One has been taught right from childhood that one will be happy when one gets what he wants and also not to get what he does not want. The other way around i.e. getting what one does not want or not getting what one wants is the cause of unhappiness.

Getting what one wants at best may give pleasure or contentment, not getting what one did not want may give him relief and not getting what one wanted or getting what one did not want may make him feel miserable.

The different flavours to the feelings of contentment when one gets what he wants can be attributed to

1. A desire being fulfilled. The desire may be a one time affair or may recur again. In case it recurs again, till it is fulfilled again there will not be any happiness.

2. The best effort that one could put in and having reaped its rewards.

3. The feeling of “Enough is Enough”

4. The feeling that what ever good one has got is the gift of the Divine.

There are many situations when one feels miserable, the causes may be broadly classified as related to

i. Bodily ailments

ii. Property related issues.

iii. Inter personal relationships.

As a practicant of PAM one has to understand that in the above statement. The Great Master is exhorting all to be happy under all circumstances.

Each one has a baggage of Impressions that one has already accumulated and has brought some along with them into this life. One has to undergo these impressions through the process of bhog. Bhog can happen in meditations, dreams, purification processes, Pranahuti sessions or as incidents in life itself. They include both the good and bad impressions. These impressions are a load on one’s consciousness and hinder his growth towards the higher states of consciousness. It is only when one is firmly established in the higher state of consciousness that one can be happy. It is this process of bhog that unfurls various situations which may in turn out to be the causes of misery or joy.

The first thing that a practicant of PAM learns is that he is not here to gain anything, on the contrary he is here to lose everything. (Any gain is only another impression being added to the already existing ones). i.e. All the impressions that one has brought along with him in this life and also the ones that have not been brought along. So the earlier concepts of happiness taught/understood by one since childhood have to be re evaluated.

Being in the family life one has to do his duties and in doing so one is bound to face different situations of Joy, difficulties and worries. When one ponders over the difficulties and worries he can understand that every difficulty helps in getting out from a misery. As long as one takes it as a divine gift no further impressions are formed. The sufferings and miseries are agents that help one in getting rid of some desire or the other. Miseries serve as a tool in going towards the goal of happiness. Contrary to the common belief that miseries are punishments, it is one’s own desires that punish and not the miseries.

All are happy when they are undergoing the results of good impressions because the results are up to or more than expected. Only some of them think about the results and are grateful to the Divine and also develop humility.

When undergoing difficulties, as Master has stated, “Really speaking, the difficulties are the operations of nature for our own good” (SDG 65) there is a three fold advantage,

• Miseries help us in getting rid of our impressions, there by liberating us to that extent.

• One is more inclined to think of the Divine when going through a rough patch in life either out of helplessness or because of the Master’s statement of “Mere consciousness of God cures many of the evils of the mind and removes difficulties from our path.”(DR-86)”

• There is another big advantage that Master has stated “When impure impressions come into bhog, the eyes of the creator are towards us” (SDG – 121), which affirms the belief of the abhyasi that the Divine is always with him.

In the same message Master had stated “It is a hidden dictum of Nature that every soul must live a happy and restful life.” And in the eighth commandment Master asserts that the happy disposition one should have is next only to the Divine. A happy disposition is a state which percolates its effect upon the lower layers and purifies them”. For one to get established in such happiness, one’s consciousness has to grow to such a stage. Individual consciousness grows in a natural way in the Natural path from

a) The experience of the transitory nature of life. When one starts to contemplate on this, one understands that there is something that is permanent. The question that comes up is what is permanent? The quest for the permanent makes a person restless and in the process of knowing about it he leaves out all i.e. the things he may have liked earlier or disliked earlier that is hindering this quest and develops his priorities. The next step that follows is feeling the presence of Divine everywhere. On contemplation one understands that the Divine is permanent and that everything belongs to the Divine. This helps in enjoying everything that has been given to him without really being the owner of the same. Renouncement to the extent of not being the owner dawns. This makes one think about the dependence on the Divine. One gives up ambition for any worldly attainment and starts to look within more seriously and starts getting attached to Divinity being unmindful of other things.

b) The next step that follows is that one becomes aware that he is dependent on the divine for everything and so is everybody else. This helps in developing the qualities of empathy, sympathy co-operation, sharing, service, fraternity etc. One begins to serve his fellow brethren in some way or the other. For this one will have to sacrifice many things. It is in this process of service that one will have to endure many things that teach forbearance. The wisdom that one is interdependent in life helps in making one more and more dependent on the Divine. This dependence helps one stabilise in service and in developing forbearance.

c) The next step that follows is one tries to get closer and closer to the divine. In this process one gets devoted to His cause in turn remembering the Divine as much as possible.

d) When one knows his own deficiencies which are hindering his nearness to the Divine and how much ever he tries to get out of them, is not able to get out of them, he surrenders all that he has and is happy to be a servant of the Divine.

e) To live a life of moderation and balance. To get established in such stages of consciousness apart from aspiration for the highest and yielding to the Divine, the support of Pranahuti is a must. Until all the states are not firmly established in one’s heart and go on getting rarefied the chances of being happy under all circumstances which the great Master is talking about may not be possible but glimpses of that state of happiness one may be blessed with due to influx of Pranahuti.

Pranams.