Satsang (Discourse) By

Maitreya

Maitreya: We have an announcement to make. The next Feast is going to be in Montreal, Canada. That's the decision that our brothers and sisters from Canada made today. We're all going to Montreal.

Actually that is almost going to finish the triangle, Albuquerque, Florida, and Canada. After that, when we go back to Albuquerque, that's going to completely seal the triangle. That way we're always connected together.

How is everyone doing tonight? You are so serious tonight. How come? [all laughing and some saying "sincere"] Sincere. Good. Are you sincere? Yes, your faces are sincere [all laughing].

What do you want me to talk about?

Question: After Satsang you keep silent for a period of time before you leave. What is the significance of this silent period?
 

Maitreya: Well, have you ever heard about Darshan? Darshan means, "To be in the Presence of God." That stillness connects you with the Spirit. When you are in the Presence of God, your acceleration is tremendously speeded up in your meditation and life.

That's why in the East it is so important to be in the presence of your teacher, in the presence of your Guru, who is supposed to connect you to God. When you are there in his presence that is called Darshan. Darshan means, "To be in the Presence of God."

Of course, in India they have individual presence. Each person goes and performs a few rituals, puja, and offers his offerings, and will be in the presence of his teacher. But here we made it into the mass Darshan, Western style, instant style. So when we give the Satsang, at the end that silence is when we all become connected with the Spirit. Hopefully it's going to accelerate our progress much faster.

They say, just being in the presence of the teacher accelerates your progress for many lifetimes because he can take you where he already is himself. So you don't have to work as hard for it.

It is just like, you want to receive a degree in education. Some people say, "Oh, I can do it by myself. I don't need a teacher. The truth is within me and I can find it myself." That's true.

Every book about the subject is in the library. You can go, sit and read it yourself. But how many people will be able to go and read about what is taught in elementary school, then high school, go to college, receive their master's degree and eventually become a master in their subject, get a doctorate in chemistry, or whatever subject they want to study?

If thousands of people decided to do it that way, maybe one or two would make it. But we are putting doctors out every year, hundreds and thousands of them. The reason is, we made a system. In the system there are teachers who teach us in each level. There are teachers who teach elementary school. There are teachers who teach high school, and then college, and then a master's level, and then if you want to become a doctor in any degree.

So in our life also we have many different teachers in our path. Some of them are in elementary school and they teach us a little bit about spirituality, just start us up with the alphabet of spirituality. After we have that one, and we grow a little proficient in the world, we go to the higher school of spirituality. Then if we are sincere, we go to college, and we get our bachelor's degree. If we want more, we go for our master's degree, etc.

Eventually we become a doctor in spirituality, not in Divinity. I'm not talking about the degree with the university. I mean the real Spiritual Degree, which is Spirit, we know in our Spirit. We are connected with the Spirit, which is within ourselves, not just having a degree as a doctorate in Divinity or something. But really within ourselves we know that God is always with us. He never ever leaves us.

How can He ever leave us? He is everything. How can God ever leave us if He is everything? He is closer to us than we ever can imagine, because He is us. He is a part of us. He is our Soul. He is our Being. If we understand that, then we know that He is always there.

It always surprises me when people say, "Oh God, where are you?" He just laughs. "What do you mean by 'Where are You?' I am always here. Just look a little deeper and closer, and you can see Me right there. I am with you always."

If we find good teachers in the Path, we can accelerate our progress much faster, because the teacher is supposed to be the one who is already called upon the Path. So he can just show us the Path and say, "Here is the way that you can go this far."

It is just like going to the library and reading all the books about a subject. Probably there are so many books it is not even necessary to read them. That's why the professor in college tells you, "Read these books. If you read this book and that book on this subject, you're going to know about the subject in your level." You don't have to spend too much time to read the things that are not necessary.

So if a teacher is connected to God, to the Spirit, he can reveal the Spirit to you also. When he is connected with the Spirit, he is in the Presence. When he is in the Presence, you are in the Presence. That accelerates your spiritual progress very fast.

That's why when you leave here, next year your life is completely in shambles [all laughing]. Things start happening to you, you don't know what is happening. You have so many things happen that you didn't even think possible. Probably if your Spirit wasn't accelerated, those things would happen to you in five years or ten years from now, or something like that. But when you are accelerated, that means you are going toward God faster, and your karma, or your past lives, the things you have to go through, you have to go through fast, and learn the lesson, of course.

If we have to leave here one hour from now, what do we do? We have to get everything packed up and ready to go in one hour. But if we have time, three days from now, we relax now. We just sit here and give Satsang, and have a good time.

But if someone comes here and says, "No, you can't stay here anymore. You have to go back home in one hour. Your time is up." What happens? You have to get everything prepared very fast, so you have to go through the motions very fast.

That is exactly what happens to us. When we turn around from the world, to God, that's what we're doing. That's exactly what it is. The time is up. It is time to return to God. It's the act of baptism.

Actually baptism means to return, to turn around. You were going toward the world all this time. Now you decide, "No, I don't want the world anymore. I have to turn around and go to God." The moment you do that, things start happening to you.

That's why people become surprised when they start meditating or getting connected with the Mission. Suddenly they see their lives are accelerated. Things start happening to them, and they probably start blaming the Mission and say, "Oh, these things are happening to me, probably they are not good." But they are good.

It's just like when you fast. You might even get more sick in the beginning, before you clear up all those toxins. But if you stay with it and continue, when the toxins are gone and your body is healed and clean, then you're going to feel even better, completely revived, clean, and completely ready to tackle life much easier. You feel better, more connected.

Actually, that is one process of healing yourself, by fasting. When you fast, you let your body take care of the problems that you have. Before that, your body always had to spend the energy and time to digest food, to distribute it, even to store it, because most of the things we eat, the body really doesn't need. So it has to put it in different places of the body. "It's too much, I can't use this. Put it in this area, right now."

When we start getting fat, that means our body doesn't need those foods we are eating. It says, "I don't have time to burn this out right now." So it decides to just store it for use later on. Your body becomes toxic. That is why when you fast, you may even start becoming sick.

The same thing starts happening when you begin meditating, when you start going toward God. The moment you start going toward God, things accelerate in your life. You have to make decisions faster, faster and faster.

After all those decisions are made and all those impurities (toxins) are gone, then you say, "Oh, that's great." Then the journey becomes just a flow, a process, a wonderful dance with the Spirit because you don't have anything that keeps you from dancing. You're not heavy any longer.

If you have a lot of heavy weights around your body and someone asks you, "Do you want to dance?" you say, "I want to dance, but I can't. I'm too heavy. I'm just filled up with this heaviness. I'm depressed. What do you mean by dance? I can't even move."

But as we let those things fall down, little by little we say, "Hey, I can move now. I'm not as depressed. Oh yeah, I can go a little more. Let's go dance all the way with the Spirit."

Those are the things that just keep our lives down too, those heavy things in our hearts. They are heavy burdens that we have, the attachments, desires, and things that keep us from being light. The moment one of those goes, the more free we are and the dance with God becomes easier and more permanent. After awhile we become very proficient in dancing.

So the mass Darshan we give you can be called a radiation treatment. That silent moment at the end of the Satsang is a radiation treatment. The room is radiated with the Spirit. That accelerates everything for you.

As I said, that process is that we are in two different stations. Probably we can say, this is the radio station and you are the receivers. If this radio station is in this flow, in this frequency, and the radio is on another frequency, what happens? You don't pick up the station. But if I am in this frequency and your radio is also tuned to my frequency, then you are going to pick up the station and receive the radiation therapy. That is called Darshan. The more you know me (the station), the more and clearer you will receive my energy.

You didn't think this was going to go this long, did you [all laughing]? So that's what those last moments of Satsang are when the silence comes and everyone starts meditating. You find that probably either you're going to have a very good meditation, or an awful one. Either one is good. If you have a good meditation, you're picking up the station. If it's not a good meditation, you're still picking up the station [all laughing], because you're getting accelerated.

Question: On page 517 of THOTH it reads, "As a bad trend the Vipras have excessive love for individual freedom and democracy." What is wrong with the principles of freedom and democracy?
 

Maitreya: Oh, a good one. There is nothing wrong with democracy. But the human likes to take everything to the extreme. When things become too extreme, that is when the original intention is lost.

Democracy means, freedom to express the good things that are good for the society. When a democracy goes so far, that it can no longer stop the things that are not good for the society -- because we feel we are democratic -- then it loses its original intent and reason for which it was created.

Freedom... freedom is good. Freedom is for us to progress physically, mentally, and spiritually to the highest level. But if freedom dissolves into chaos, then it's no good. If everyone says, "I can do whatever I want to. I don't care what you say, or what is the proper way to do things. I will do whatever I wish to do. I don't want to have any discipline. I don't want to have any way of controlling myself. I am free to do as I will. This is my life and I'm free to do whatever I want to do," then that ends in chaos.

That's when we see that crime goes high. The problems in society start popping up all over. That means that original freedom that the founding fathers meant, and that democracy is supposed to bring to us, is no longer working. They have gone too far. By interpreting democracy and freedom in the wrong way, the people don't want to discipline themselves to bring that calm and united society together. That is when the democracy is no longer working.

Look at the word "excessive" in the sentence. It means to go beyond the proper way of using something, in this case, democracy.

The intellectuals like to go further than necessary to interpret freedom and democracy for themselves, because they love to interpret the original intent to cover everything. That is when these good concepts lose their reason to be there. That is when the democracy and freedom are no good. Then we have to bring some discipline and some correction to the system, and bring it in a more orderly way.

But, in the time of other groups, just like Ksattriyans (warriors), they don't give any democracy or freedom. They are very authoritative. They say, "This is the way it is, that's the way we're going to do it, that's the way everyone else is going to do it, and everyone has to go with it." That is also an extreme.

Any extreme is not good. That's why we strive to keep everything in the middle path. The middle path is the best path, but humans love extremes. If you look at history, the human is like a pendulum. They go to the very extreme this way, or the very extreme that way.

That's why we need to bring everything to the middle path. It shouldn't be completely rigid like a totalitarian regime. It doesn't have to be completely chaotic. Somewhere in the middle there is a path where the other paths meet. That's why when we see that democracy is losing its meaning, and it's becoming chaotic, then we have to look into it and say, "There are some barriers, there are some limits necessary."

We say, "Yes, it is OK. This is a democracy. You are free. But you are not allowed to create chaos." Chaos is different than freedom. That is when it has to be corrected and the mass be educated to learn the true meaning of democracy. Then society is brought back to the middle path.

But the intellectuals don't have that ability. They love to discuss it. Just look at when you watch the news on T.V. They bring five or six people who will discuss a thing to death, but at the end they make no decision. They don't resolve the problem. They say, "Thank you, thank you. Bye-bye everyone." They go home and nothing is resolved.

So that is what they like. They like to discuss a lot. But they don't have that ability to go ahead and do something about it. That is the part that is not good in intellectual people. Intellectual people have to learn, not only to discuss but also to make decisions to resolve the problems.

As someone said, talk does not cook the rice. You can just put the rice in the corner and talk to it, "Please go in the water. Please cook." You can do this for the rest of your life and talk to it, but it's not going to cook.

You have to make a decision. You have to put the water in the rice, clean it, make the fire, put it on the fire, and cook it for probably twenty to twenty-five minutes until it is cooked. So that is the practical part of the person.

The intellectual knows how it is cooked, but he never gets to the step to cook it. They just talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it. That's the part that also is a little disturbing about intellectual people.

In our system the Paravipras know about this. Paravipras know that probably they are very good on committees. Intellectuals are very good on committees. They go and research, and find the problem. They can recognize what the problem is. Then they bring it to the people for a more practical application.

That's why intellectuals are the scientists, are the people who discover things. But it is usually the businessmen who make these discoveries practical and useful for consumption. Most of the scientists who also went into business to promote their own discoveries usually fail, because they don't know how to do it.

Of course, some intellectuals also have business abilities. If they can do it, that's fine. But usually they need help from some practical person. Business people are very practical. They are right down to earth. This is land. This is money. This is the product. How can we combine them together and come up with a product? Can we distribute it? How are we going to distribute it? Where are we going to distribute it? To whom does it have to be distributed? What channel does it have to be distributed through? So they learn to look at all these things to make this product available to everyone who can use it.

The intellectuals don't have that ability. They are very good in finding the problem. They are very good in creating the scientific discoveries. But when it comes to the practical part, they have a hard time with that.

So they are all necessary. As we said, all these classes are necessary. Intellectuals are necessary to find problems, to find scientific discoveries. But at the same time we need practical people who also can use these discoveries and implement them for us.

For instance, we were talking about Spiritual Science, science based on Spirit. We would like someday to have an R&D (Research and Development) division, where these things are studied.

Examples of this are fission, or the use of the sun power, or the wind, or the water, etc. The universe is full of energy. There is infinite energy. Now we are stuck with oil and a couple of other energy sources. But if we can tap into that infinite energy, just imagine how the standard of living of everyone on earth is going to rise.

It should not be just a few people with high standards of living who might say, "We have to keep this energy flowing because if we don't have the energy, our standard of living is going to go down." If we can tap that infinite energy, everyone's standard of living is going to rise to a much higher level.

So we're probably going to have a lot of spiritual intellectualists, the people who are spiritual and at the same time their intellect is developed. They might go and research and develop these new products, these new ways of doing things.

Like in the electromagnetic field, they are discovering now that they can build trains which can use electromagnetic technology to go two or three hundred miles an hour. You are here, and a couple of hours later you can be in New York. Many, many possibilities are there. They are all ready for humanity to take advantage of them.

So it is the intellectual who can discover those things. But also the businessmen, the practical people, will make these available to all of us to use. And the laborers make it possible to be built, etc.

Therefore, in that aspect, the intellectual's love of too much freedom and too much democracy creates chaos and problems. But there is nothing wrong with the very concepts of democracy and freedom. It is the misuse of these concepts that causes suffering.

Any concept in the universe can be used in three ways. As we said, it can be used from ignorance, passion, or knowledge. Anything that's done, according to the people, situation involved, and the place, can be from ignorance, passion, or knowledge.

That is also true about intellectuals. If they go too far, then the Paravipras will come in and put some barriers, some limits, on those chaotic concepts.

Question: Is there any relation between the Lokas and the dimensions? When we say, fourth dimension or fifth dimension, is it the same as the Lokas? Is there a relation between those?
 

Maitreya: Very much.

Question: Because you say Lokas are worlds, different worlds. So is it the same thing as dimensions?
 

Maitreya: Well, the relationship with the three dimensions is the manifested world. That everyone knows. Now we go to the fourth dimension which is the ethereal level. That's why it is so lucid.

Scientists want to know about ether but they haven't been able to stabilize it enough to study it, it's so lucid. They just can't pin it down to study it. So that's why they know very little about ether which is everywhere. Without ether, this universe could not be sustained.

There is ether, there is air, there is fire or heat, there is liquid, and there is solid. There are five elements in the universe: Solid, which is solid. There is liquid, which is water, oil, etc. There is fire, or flame. We see it and then we don't see it. It is something between the two worlds. Then we have air. We don't even see air. But if we move our hand close to our face we can feel it, it's there. And there is ether. Ether doesn't have any sight, doesn't have any taste, doesn't carry any sound, it cannot be seen, and has no touch. It just doesn't have any qualities of the manifested world.

Air cannot be seen. It doesn't have any taste but it can be felt. It has touch. Fire does have shape. It can be seen. It has touch. But it is between the seen and unseen. If you see a flame, a moment later you don't see it. It goes to the ethereal level. The only thing you can see of it is the smoke.

Liquid has touch, has taste, and carries sound. Compared to solid factor, the only quality it doesn't have is it is not solid. Solid things have all the qualities. They can be seen. They have touch. They have taste. They carry sound. That's why they have all the qualities of manifestation.

In the third dimension, which is mostly solid, there is the third dimensional world. When we consider the fourth dimension, then we are talking about the ethereal level.

That's why a picture cannot be taken of the ethereal factor. Solid evidence cannot be presented. It is something which you can see, but at the same time it looks like an illusion. So you can see it, but actually it is not what you see. It's completely different than what you see. That is what ether is. Ether is so lucid. You can see it (better word, you can gather evidence of its existence), at the same time it changes so fast, that you cannot pin it down.

That is where our ethereal body is connected with the universe. That's where the memory of the universe is. The memory of the universe is in the ethereal level. That's where the Akashic Records are. All the Akashic Records, all the things that have been done in the universe, from the very beginning of the universe to the end of the universe, have been stored in the ethereal level.

Actually, if you study the computers, the chips themselves are solid ether. They are crystals. Crystals are solid ether. That's why many people meditate on crystals, or hold crystals, because they are connected to the ethereal level. So they have some spiritual significance in their lives (though not the highest).

Also when a lot of people do astral projection or astral traveling, they leave with their ethereal bodies and go to the ethereal world. In the ethereal world, whatever they think, they create. If they go to the ethereal level, whatever their minds think, they create in that level. That's why some people who leave their bodies become so scared and they return very fast, because they take their impurities with them in that level. They see scary scenes and they become very scared and they don't want to stay there, and they rush back. They wake up shaken. It is often called nightmares.

Other people go there, they get more adapted and they don't think bad things, they see wonderful things. They see heaven. They see crystal water on crystal stairs, the fairies running all over the place, and all those things that we see some artists come up with. That's because they have such wonderful thoughts when they are in the ethereal level and they create that world for themselves.

It is so real that they come back and say, "Heaven is like this. Heaven has a lot of water going all over, and crystal, and it's very lucid, etc." At the same time even their visions are very lucid. You see those people who do painting of the ethereal level, their paintings are very lucid, very etheric.

Actually, that ethereal level can be a trap for some people. They go there and create their own world. That's why some of these people who go to astral projection, encounter these masters or people who sit there and they just are completely trapped in their own world because they created it themselves and they are completely trapped in that world. They can't return anymore. They just stay there. They are in the illusion that they are Masters.

That is not the highest spiritual realization. That is really a misconception by many people. They think they can do astral projection or out of body traveling and that's it, they have reached a very high level of spiritual realization. No. Actually, the fifth level means they made it to the fifth chakra. They have two more to go. That's why it is very important not to become trapped there, because it's beautiful to go there. It's probably a hundred times, a thousand times more beautiful Maya than we have on earth.

If we are trapped in Maya here on earth, imagine how much more a possibility that we will be trapped in the ethereal level. If we don't become trapped in the ethereal level, then we go to the sixth level which is Consciousness. We go beyond manifestation.

As I said, any manifestation has the three gunas in it, even in the ethereal level. Ether is made by the three gunas. But when you go to Consciousness, you go beyond any manifestation, you go to Pure Consciousness. That is when you feel you and God are One. There is no separation.

That experience is even hundreds of times, thousands or millions of times more beautiful than the ethereal, but there is no Maya anymore. You have a completely calm mind, and you manifest the qualities of God. You don't strive for powers.

The people who go to the ethereal level usually strive for power. But when God touches you, you strive for Understanding, Love, Unity, and all those wonderful qualities of the Spirit and the Soul, instead of you sitting there and saying, "Oh, I have the power to manifest myself in five places." Who cares?

That's just like the story about this great yogi who was in India. This disciple came to him and said, "Oh Guru-ji, I'd like for you to give me a mantra. I'd like to become your disciple." The Guru said, "But you have to work hard on it, OK?" The disciple said, "Yes, I will do that. Whatever you say. Just give me the mantra." The yogi said, "OK, here is the mantra. Go and meditate."

The disciple went and meditated for ten years. After ten years he came back and said, "Come, come I want to show you something." The yogi said, "What is it?" The student said, "No, come, I want to show you something."

The student took the yogi to the lake, and he started walking on the water. The Guru called one of the boatmen and said, "Take me to that stupid yogi, I want to talk to him." He paid one penny to the boatman to get to the disciple. When the teacher reached the disciple he told him, "After ten years you accomplished something that I can buy with a penny? You wasted your time."

If it came to you that you can walk on the water, it's OK. God granted it to you. But if you meditate that you can walk on the water, then you are wasting your time. Worse is that you meditate that you can bend a fork, or something similar.

So go beyond these powers. When you go beyond these powers, you are in Pure Consciousness. You are connected to God. Then you know that God exists, He really does.

A lot of people really don't believe that. Did you know that 99.99% of the people really don't believe God exists? They really don't! They talk about Him, but they really don't believe it. If they can do something when no one is looking, they will. If God exists, how can you do something when no one is looking and say, "Yeah, I can do this without any problem." So that's why if we really know God exists, then we can't do anything when no one is looking. In that level it is even beyond the ethereal level.

So astral projection and getting to the ethereal level is not the highest spiritual progress. You have to go even beyond that. Then when you go beyond that, as I said, you manifest God's Qualities: Gentleness, Lovingness, and Understanding. You don't want to be understood anymore. Who cares, do you know yourself?

I don't want to be understood. I understand myself. A lot of people say, "No one understands me." The question is not if anyone understands you, but if you understand yourself. That is asking someone else to do it for you which will benefit you very little. Know thy Self man, to know God. Looking at thy Self and God is the same thing. So we have to understand our Selves before asking someone else to understand us.

After we understand our Selves, we don't need to be understood by anyone because we know God then. When we know God, we want to understand. We don't want to be understood any longer.

That's fine if they don't understand you, do you understand your Self? "I understand my Self? Great! So I am free." Then you can just go on with the work of God and do whatever is necessary to be done in your life.

Then God is going to show you the way you have to be doing things for Him, which is good for you, of course. When you do for Him, it furthers your progress to Him.

When you go to the fifth level, or fifth dimension, it's unexplainable. That is the Consciousness. The sixth level is the level of Oneness with God. In the seventh you're no longer in the body. You're just like a drop falling into the ocean.

You no longer exist in the body. The body cannot hold you any longer. The connection between the body and Soul is severed. The body can no longer hold you. You are beyond the attraction of Maya, beyond the attraction of the body.

That's why, even the people who come back to earth as Avatars, or as people who have come from Pure Consciousness, God has to make some temporary karma for them so that they can stay in the body. Otherwise they cannot do that. If God put them in the body, they just go back to God. Put them in [all laughing], back. He has to put some string there to keep them there.

So there is a relationship between those dimensions, Koshas and Lokas, but it is not as clear. It has not been studied as much, but there is, Yes.