THE TRUE MIRROR

Guru Maharaj Ji's Satsang in London, England on Sunday, March 5, 1978

Dear premies, its really beautiful to just feel so much Grace and so much Love. When you feel something, you don't want explanations. When you feel something, you don't want to know anything else except to feel what that beauty really is, to feel what that perfection really is, and never in our hearts to lose track of that feeling, of that Love, of that devotion.

I was just sitting right down there. There's a little place to sit down. And I was listening to all the satsang. And you feel; you don't see. You don't have to see. And you don't have to look at things. And there need be no bright lights. And there need not be barriers or no barriers, or whatever. Just a very strong feeling, an incredible feeling. And that feeling comes when we really understand our Guru Maharaj Ji. That feeling really comes when we see our Guru Maharaj Ji. That feeling really comes when we obey our Guru Maharaj Ji.

Before I received Knowledge, there was of course a lot of love and a lot of respect for Shri Maharaj Ji. And it was really incredible, it was really something. It was different than my classmates had. And in the communication that was there, it was beautiful. But not until I received Knowledge, not until he imparted me Knowledge - not until I had been through the thing of "What is this world all about? Is there more? Is there more? Is there something more in this world? - not as though I had gone through everything than maybe you have gone through, or maybe even a fraction of what you have gone through - What was there to go through? It was very simple.

I was just a little boy, and I went to school every day and came back home to play. But that was it. And even within that, I realized there was unmeaning -just meaningless things happening in people's life, in my life: 45 minutes of different periods of different things; geography, or arithmetic, grammar. Everyday you had a chart and you had to make sure you brought the right book and so on and so forth. And it was like this senseless globe. It was a globe that was so confusing. And then when Guru Maharaj Ji revealed us the Knowledge, when Guru Maharaj J revealed me the Knowledge, it became different. It became so different, so beautiful, so incredible, because now ...

It was like being in an abandoned boat, in a little life raft. And okay, if you know about the new, modern life rafts, they even have a canopy, and the canopy is made so that in case it rains, it catches water. It has food. And it has an S.O.S sender. And it has all these different modern conveniences. But after a while, life becomes like this life raft that once was great, that once was incredible. Now that same canopy that was supposed to catch the rain water has a hole in it, the S.O.S. signal: Nobody is receiving it: the battery has run down on it. The flashlight - everything that's in that, is losing its aim, it's losing its purpose, it's losing its goal. Blindly, as we hope and expect and dream and imagine to go on everyday, we meaninglessly leave the greatest meaning behind of just being able to realize how beautiful Guru Maharaj Ji is, how beautiful this Knowledge really is, how beautiful it is to be there. It's an incredible feeling, just to know.

And I know that people have so much logic. And people abide by logic, their meaning, their little rooms, their little capsules that they live in. Things must to be a certain way. We all live like that. It's not just one individual. And yet, in living that life of our capsule, we leave something behind. We lose the reality of Why are we here? Why aren't we with Guru Maharaj Ji? Why aren't we with Knowledge? Why, for even one second, can't we obey Guru Maharaj Ji? Why is that mind there? Why is such an illusion existing that the canopy that it is getting bigger every day, that the canopy is starting to accumulate - or make - fresh water, that the battery for the S.O.S. sender is getting charged automatically? The imagination, the mind, is taking over; and in reality forgetting the reality that even the air is starting to leak out of that life raft.

And to look, and to see this ship coming at you, piercing through the fog, honking its horn. And seemingly it's the most beautiful ship coming through. And all of a sudden it stops and drops these lines. And you're just lost in your illusion, lost in your dream, in your ignorance. "Let go!" You say, "Thanks, but no thanks." And the captain says, "But what are you doing" And you just go "No. It's okay. Its okay. It's okay."

That's how it is sometimes, premies. Here we are. And Guru Maharaj Ji, by his infinite Grace and infinite Mercy, really - there's a saying in Hindi that in the middle of this whole world, the whole universe, all these big pieces of metal, red-hot, are falling. And if it wouldn't have been for that Master in this world, this whole world would just burn up.

And it's really incredible, because it's not in the sense of "Hindi" that we would all understand, or even I understood. But it was like trying to imagine that. Trying to imagine little hail, pieces about as big as hail dropping from the sky, red-hot, over the whole world over the whole earth at the same time. And the earth just getting burnt to ashes. But that's what's happening.

Our little holes, our little capsules: We've got to leave them behind. We've got to say, we've get to convince, got to see, open our eyes! Look around. Feel. And know that the raft is no good anymore. The things that we have held onto for such a long time are giving up. And there is only one thing that ever was there, that ever will be there, and that was supposed to he there for us to grab onto. And that's the Love, the Grace, the Knowledge. Guru Maharaj Ji. And that's what we have to do. That's the effort that we have to make.

Because look at where the mind puts us every day. Where does it take us? Can you for one moment in your imagination re-create a day?

I'll take an example. You get up. Let's say you are a premie and let's also portray an image of a person who's partially practicing. Okay! So he gets up, he sits down in the mode of meditation - and I mean the mode of meditation, the physical posture. And then after a 1itt1e while be has trouble. He can't really meditate, so he just rolls over and takes a little nap. And then be gets up, goes out, gets his paper, gets the scene together, sees a picture of Guru Maharaj Ji, goes like this (bows). And then, that's it. He just splits. Split, into this world. Just splits into unreality.

You know, I'm positive as a matter of fact I'm 100 percent positive there are people in the audience, there are people in this hall saying, "What unreality? What is unreality? Everything's real, isn't it? Anything I can touch, see, perceive. It has to be real.

No! You see the problem is that the glasses that you're looking through are red. And everything that you see is red. That doesn't mean that everything is red, just because you see it red.

What I'm trying to say is that you take for granted your perception of this life as real. And that is why you say, "This microphone is real because I can touch it, this chair is for real. I can touch it." My question goes beyond all that reasoning. My question goes, "Am I, the one who's touching this chair, real or not?" Are you, the person, the hand, the body that touches, that goes out, that picks up the newspaper, that thinks, that imagines, looks out, and calls, and makes codes fort reality, and announces things to be real - are you real? Have you actually understood the real purpose? Have you understood reality? Do you even know if you are artificial or you are real?

What I am talking about is that you are a glass that does not have a base. And therefore, keep filling it with water, and seemingly endless, endless, endless gallons go into you and you never fill up. That's what I'm trying to say. What I am trying to say is that it you cannot have the real thing, the real experience of satsang, and meditation if you cannot base that understanding of Guru Maharaj Ji - then you are like that glass that doesn't have a bottom. And therefore, your reasoning is baseless.

And that's what we pursue every day, in this whole world that's what we like to pursue, that's our pleasure to pursue.

Okay, maybe I'm being a little too strong about this. But the thing is, this is not my first satsang. I started giving satsang a long, long, long time ago. As a matter of fact, you could say if you wanted to that I used to give satsang even before I had Knowledge. (So-called. It would appear to be satsang.) It just strikes me again and again, that since then I have been telling the people of this world the same exact thing: Realize that Knowledge, Realize who you are. Realize that Reality. Forget the illusion. Forget it. There is nothing to it. There really isn't.

And they don't. It hasn't happened yet. And that's why, sometimes, it seems quite natural to tend to get a little strong about it.

To just tell people, "Listen, don't he like that donkey" And I'll give you that example. There were two donkeys. And one was carrying salt, and one was carrying cotton. And obviously, the one who was carrying salt didn't have seemingly that big of a load on his back. It just had two very little bags of salt. And the one who was carrying the cotton had a huge load, seemingly. Because it was very light, the guy made it a big load, with a lot of cotton. And they both came to a stream. And they were both getting really tired.

And the "cotton" donkey says to the donkey who's carrying the salt, "Man, this guy is really mean to me, because, look, he has given you - and I envy you because you are not carrying as big of a load as I am!"

The donkey said, "No, that's not true, you know. Your load looks big, but actually I'm carrying a lot more load."

And he said, "No, I don't believe you. I envy you. I'm jealous of you." They were tired, the donkey who was carrying the salt was little smart ... (that doesn't rhyme together). He sat down in the water, in the stream, and just the flow of the water dissolved the salt, and his load became light. And all of a sudden, the donkey got up, and he was really happy because the weight was gone off his back.

So this other donkey said. "Wow Look at that! That's great! All I have to do is just sit down in the water, and my weight will get less and then I can go." And so the donkey did sit down in the water. And slowly the cotton stared getting wet and heavier unti1 the donkey couldn't even get up and drowned in the river.

So now, premies, here is an example. And it's not that funny. But it's a true example. That's what we do in our river. We see some odd happiness - happiness maybe that's not even real. And we pursue it. We start pursuing it. We start getting into it more and more and more.

And then we say, "Well, if I do the same thing, my weight will decrease. My weight will get less, and then I don't have to carry so much in my life." And so we sink in the river of maya more and more and more and more. (Incidentally, if you don't know the meaning of maya, it's illusion. It's whatever is out there.) And sink into it more and more and more and more, till we can't even get out, till we can't even get up, until we completely drown.

To me, that's the way a lot of people are. I mean, really, for one moment just look at it. What is the purpose of your life? Why is there a life?

It always gets me real concerned when all these people come out with all these crazy explanations, generation of cells and degeneration of cells, and test tube babies, and all these different trips - you know, making people so that they could use them as robots. Or something like watching Star Trek where these people are travelling in time people are travelling in space, these people are coming with all these theories, of how this odd-looking monkey was your ancestor, and trying to prove it, trying to take the bones and saying, "Yeah, see how this is more similar to your hone structure. This is more similar to your bone structure, till now you here." And, like Marolyn was saying, why has there been a refinement? Why have we come to this point? That's a good question.

And of all the questions that we ask ourselves or ask other people. There's a good question that we have to ask ourselves: Why are we here, after all? Why are we here? What is the purpose to be here in this world? Is it to get stuck in the traffic jams every day? I mean so many things happen out there. Is that it that we so blatantly and dedicatedly pursue, as though that were it, as though that was the goal of this life. You start looking at it and you see, it feels like a sponge, like a great big ...

I saw this little disc, this little gadget like a holograph. It's about this big, and it has a concave mirror. And you put something in the center of it, and because of the reflection from all the sides, it creates an image on top of what's in the enter of it. And you reach over to grab it, and it's not there. And you keep looking at it.

Or it' s like sometimes at night time when you're going up some stairs and you think there is a stair there and you step. You feel the whole adrenaline shooting right up you, as if you fell or something. The whole thing just feels like such an illusion. And it is!

And you can't really get rid of that illusion. And yet, here you. There is this machine; here you are. And here is this big machine: illusion, a mirage. And here is the reality. And reality is real; it has no shape, has no weight, has no mass. And therefore, it need not exist in any shape. Because it' s real. Reality doesn't have to prove itself. It doesn't have to do anything! It's there. It's perfect. It's infinite.

But it's there. And we are in the middle. And here is the mirage here is the illusion. And somehow, in this mirage, in this illusion, we have to go under this illusion, then through the middle of this illusion. Go back where we supposed to be, and then right into reality. It's sort of like making an infinite sign.

To be able to be in this world because we are born ... it really was an incredible example. Because when a baby is born, that baby is so pure! I mean. it's not like a baby is born and there's a guy standing at your door with a summons saying, you know, "You should appear in court on such-and-such date."

So now, if you were to now take your calculations and calculate: There is this baby, and that's the way we all were. Okay, So maybe now we might be six feet tall, and look at things from a little different perspective. But remember, once we were all babies. Yes, those things that have to wear diapers! And here we are. And between that baby that has just been born, to what this world is, is an incredible, incredible thing.

It should not be too hard to calculate who put that link there. Because it's completely obvious to me that it's us who put this complete craziness, this complete worldliness, this complete attachment, there. And then, there's a very good principle: Two things cannot be at the same place at the same time.

So either we can be full of that Love, of that devotion, and really experience the reality because the only way you can experience the reality is to become real yourself! As I said, reality has no shape. It need not have any shape. Because it does not have "generation." It does not generate and it does not degenerate. Because it's real. And therefore, to be able to be, to be able to perceive it, to he able to he one with it, is the only way to become real. And I mean it's such an incredible thing to look at it from that perspective.

Because, wow! Everybody has concepts. If there's 8500 people in this hall, there's 8500 concepts. And it's 100 percent that two concepts don't meet. Maybe they might be resolved, or seemingly look like they are the same things, but they are going to come from different sources. Became we are all different. And yet, are we supposed to be all different? I don't know how many billions of people are on this earth, but are we all supposed to be different?

And yet, what makes us different? It's really something, because you look at it. And every country's fighting a nationalistic war. There is this whole scene going on everywhere. I know that when Westerners come to India, they are made fun of - very much so. And when the Indians come to West, they are made fun of. When white people come into Africa, they are made fun of. When Africans go to America, they are made fun of. There is a whole nationalistic war going on everywhere. Somebody might be smart enough to come out with an answer saying, "Oh yeah, because you see, God has put us into different continents, and God has given us different complexion, and has given us different features and so on and so forth", okay?

What about the Canadians? They're having a big one this time! The French Canadians want to have nothing to do with the other Canadians. And I'm not saying that this should be the justification of Mr. Trudeau to say, "Listen, stop the war, because you're all Canadians." No. But it's like that's not one problem of Canada. Believe me you, it isn't. That's the way it is everywhere: so much separation, and separation and separation and separation and separation and separation and separation.

And do you know what that indicates? Isolation. You want to isolate something your life. And you peel away, peel away, peel away at the wrong things! You want to get to the source. You want to dig and dig and dig and dig till you hit the heart of the gold mine. But

March 1978 

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