Maitreya: When the creation started, in the very first moments of creation, there was the lower nature of the universe. There were the consciousnesses in the lower level. That is why there was chaos. These unit consciousnesses also were consciousness and the three gunas, but they had the illusion of separation from God. They were in Maya. Maya means the illusion of being separate from God.

Furthermore they were just consciousness and the three gunas. They didn't have any solid bodies like us and everything else related to the body.

God was in Pure Consciousness but they weren't. They weren't in Pure Consciousness, so they were not in the image of God. Also they were not in the likeness of God because God had the lower nature as the manifested universe. So the lower consciousnesses that were existing in the universe were a part of God but these unit conscious-nesses were in the lower consciousness, they weren't God.

God is everything but not everything is God. You see the difference? It is just like your body. You are everything. You are also your body. But this is your finger, this is not you. Your body is a part of you, but the body is not you. You are the whole body, everything in the body belongs to you and is you, but each part of the body is not your Essence. Essence is different than the rest of the body.

The whole universe is God. Everything is God. God is everything. But not everything is in Pure Consciousness. They don't have the solid body. God had the lower nature. God had the other consciousnesses in Him but these unit consciousnesses were in different levels in His Body, and still many of them are.

However, after the creation of the manifested world, now God has created man with a solid body, as the manifested universe is God's Body. Humans have psychic centers in their bodies which relate to the koshas or layers of the universe. Therefore every man, every human, is in the image of God, is a universe in itself.

Now we are in the image of God. We have our lower nature. We have our body as the creation. We have the three gunas, mind. We have a consciousness, or our Essence which is Pure Consciousness. Now we are in the image of God. But before creation we were just consciousness and three gunas, and we were in the illusion of separation from God. We were a part of God, but we weren't in His image, we weren't God. We didn't have psychic centers. We didn't have this body. We didn't have the exact duplication of the universe in ourselves. We were just consciousness and the three gunas.

But God not only was consciousness and the three gunas, He also was the potential of creation. He had the potential of being created. Now He is created. The creation really is the Body of God in the universe. It is kind of a solid part of God. As we have a solid body, He has a solid Body, as the creation. Now again we are in each other's image, because He has a Body and we have a body. Before that He had the potential of having a body but we didn't. So we weren't in His image.

Can you see what I am trying to say? We were just consciousness and the three gunas. So we weren't in His image.

Now we are in His image because we have all the parts that God has. We have a solid body. We have liquid in our body, as there is liquid in the universe. We have heat in our body, which is used for warmth, digestion, etc, as there is heat in the universe. We have air in our body, we breathe it in with our lungs. There is also air in the universe.

We have the ethereal level in our body as there is ether in the universe. We have the three gunas in our body, which is our mind, not our brain. Brain is just a machine. It just keeps the memory of this lifetime only. After this body is finished, this brain is gone. But our mind continues to live, continues to go to another life, another body, another brain.

We have mind. God has Mind. Our mind is our individual mind. God's Mind is the Universal Mind. We have a Soul. There is a central universe which is the Soul of God, which is the center of the universe. This takes care of the universe as His Body.

So see, we are in His image now, but before the beginning of creation we weren't in His image. That's why the Bible says, "And God created man in His image and likeness." That is when we became in His image.

Of course, when we reach Pure Consciousness still we are in His image, because then the universe becomes our Body. We don't need this body anymore. Our Body and His Body are One. We and Him are One. When we and Him are One again, what are we? We are in His image. We are in the likeness of God. But before then, in the beginning of creation, we were not in the image of God.

Remember, the Bible says, "God created man..." Unit consciousnesses are not created! They were always there. However, man is created in His image.

Question: After one hour walking and chanting Haree Om Shrii Hung, I stopped and said, Wait a minute, all is Divine, so we are Divine, so why do we have to be(come) Divine?
 

Maitreya: You chanted Haree Om Shrii Hung for one hour and you are still here [all laughing]? You should be gone to Pure Consciousness!

Yes, there are two approaches to Divinity. Some people say we are already Divine. We are. If you are here and now, that's it, you are Divine, you are One with God. So that is why in Haree Om Shrii Hung, the meaning is, The Goal Of The Life Is To Be Divine or Be(come) Divine. That's why "come" is in parenthesis. If you really are in the moment, if you can truly live in the moment, now, you are Divine. But the problem is, the moment you want to live in this moment, this moment is gone and you're in the next moment.

So living in the moment is not a very easy thing to do. It's easy to say but it's easier said than done. Living in the moment, or realizing to be Divine needs also the discriminative mind, something that a lot of people would talk about: Divinity is to be. You are Divine if you understand that Divinity is everything, so then I'm Divine already. But they do not use the discriminative mind with this realization.

That reminds me of the story of the yogi and his teacher. His teacher was giving Satsang. He started talking about God, that God is everything. Anywhere you look is God, so be blissful and look at everything as God, and don't worry about anything because God is everything.

So this yogi left his teacher and he was in bliss thinking everything is God. Suddenly someone yelled, "Mad elephant, mad elephant, get out of the way!" And this yogi who was in bliss, looked at the elephant who came charging toward him. He looked at him and he said, "Hey, this is God." The man yelled, "Mad elephant, mad elephant!" "No," he said, "God." And he just blissfully looked at the elephant. Then the elephant came and wound his trunk around him, picked him up and threw him. He fell in the middle of the bushes with thorns, got all bruised and broke a lot of his bones.

This yogi became pretty upset. He said, "This teacher is saying God is everything and look what happened to me. I was practicing his teaching." He came to the teacher and the teacher said, "What happened?" He told him what happened and said to the teacher, "Look what happened to me." The teacher said, "But you didn't listen to the man who was yelling mad elephant [all laughing]. That was from God too!"

So realizing that God is in different levels of consciousness is the discriminative mind. We can be Divine but at the same time we have to practice discrimination of the different levels of consciousness in the universe. For instance, I've seen people who drink, lie, break every Law of God and then they also believe that they are god.

We had people who came and lived at the Mission for awhile. They broke every rule of God, and at the same time they believed that they were gods, because that's what they were taught. They believed themselves to be Divine, because everything is Divine, so "I'm already Divine and that's it, I'm god so I can do anything I want to."

But that realization of being Divine or God is an intellectual realization. If you are really Divine and One with God, you do follow God's Laws. You become His Law yourself. You don't need someone to tell you what God's Laws are. If you really are One, you and God are One and His Laws are your Laws. No one needs to tell you, "Thou shall not." You won't. Period. You won't lie. You won't false witness. You just won't do those things.

There is a danger in realizing that you're already Divine, if you don't practice the discriminative mind. That is why if you cannot create a discriminative mind, it is best to realize that you have to become Divine. When you become Divine then you live in the moment. Then again you become the Law and follow the Law.

So there are two approaches, either you are Divine and you are the Law, or you follow the Law and you become Divine.

As someone said, "I eventually realized the beauty of the Laws of God after I started following them. Before that I was saying, Why shouldn't I false witness or break all those commandments or the Fifteen Commandments that we have? Or, why should I always keep my focus on God?"

But after you keep your focus on God for awhile then you realize that your life becomes more beautiful, you become more beautiful. You become more flowing. Your energy becomes more flowing. Everything around you starts happening differently because you are in God, and God is in control in your life.

If you are trying to get control of your life, that's a losing battle, because you are working with the principalities in the universe. You don't know those principalities, those laws, those ways that work around you, and they are very subtle. They subtly come to you, subtly take over your spirit.

But if we focus on God and realize that He is the doer and not us, He becomes the Charioteer, the one who takes the chariot where He wants to take it, and we become the passengers. Then He knows what is the best way to go. In that sense, it is true that God is everything, but not everything is in Pure Consciousness.

It is true that Haree Om Shrii Hung, The Goal Of The Life Is To Be Divine. If you really are Divine that's fine, then you are already One with God. Otherwise, be(come) Divine, which is to know God's Laws, to meditate, to realize what is affecting you, what environment affects you, and what kind of reactions your actions cause, what is important, what is not important, etc. Pray to God, for example that prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

That is where meditation comes in. If we are already Divine, we don't need meditation. We already know what is good for us, what's affecting us, what is not affecting us, and we can follow a very productive life. But, if we really don't know what all this life and this energy is about, we'd better start meditating on it.

As you meditate you become more sensitive. The actions you're doing, for instance, are not going right. You realize, "Probably I shouldn't be doing this. I should put my energy into something more productive. I'm just wasting too much time and energy on this and it is not working. So I'd better quit this."

When one door is closed God is going to open other doors for you. You'll see, "Yeah, I can do this now." Then you see this is much more flowing, it starts happening for you. You don't really have to push it. You don't have to control anything. You can then follow the path of non-resistance, and have fun.

Question: Why is it that sometimes I feel the Grace of God so strongly and other times I feel miserable? Is it possible to feel His Grace all the time, or am I greedy to want Him always there?
 

Maitreya: You're greedy [all laughing]. The Grace of God is always there. It's showering us in every moment of the day. But there are also so many different energies around us that pull us in different directions. When those energies start pulling us, our ego jumps in because we have been in this habit of reacting to the way different situations affect us.

So anytime that kind of situation arises, our ego jumps in and wants to react the way it's accustomed to. The moment the ego comes in what happens is we become involved. Ego likes to get involved. Ego likes to be affected by the environment. The moment that happens we become self-centered again. That self-centeredness makes us fall from the Oneness and Grace that we just were feeling ten minutes ago.

We were so happy and so high, then we come to a different environment, different energy and suddenly we feel different. Why? Because that energy is set up to affect us in such a way, and it is very human to do that. Especially as we meditate and we become cleaner and closer to the purer Spirit, we pick up other energies very easily.

You have to take a shower at least once in a couple of days. If you don't take a shower, what happens? You become very soiled and you have to take a shower.

Even more important than our body is our Soul, is our Spirit. It is clean and it is ready to absorb these principalities that have been talked about, tama guna, ego, energies, different ways that the people want to engage us with their lives, with their own ways of thinking.

We all affect each other. There's nothing in this universe that doesn't affect another person or another molecule. Every molecule affects every other molecule. Everyone affects every other person.

That's why when we create an energy like this, every person who walks into this energy becomes affected. We are also affected by that energy.

It's just like water in two levels. If there is water at a higher level, and water at a lower level, what happens if we create a connection between these two? The water at the higher level has to go down and the water at the lower level has to come up. That is also how the energy works, with the higher consciousness and the lower conscious-ness.

That's why the Gurus, and the Grace of the Gurus is so talked about in Indian philosophy. He creates good energy in himself by meditating. He is connected with the higher consciousness, and being in the presence of such a person will bring us some Grace.

Being in the presence of the teacher is called Darshan. That pres-ence creates a kind of Shakti or Grace. Grace really is energy. In Christianity we call it The Holy Ghost.

So he has a lot of Grace, a lot of The Holy Ghost, and when he's connected to the students who are really connected to him, it's just like the higher water and lower water. It just gets transformed to those who are with him. They feel blessed and blissful because that connection is made between the two levels.

That's why I recommend many times for those people who are teachers in the Mission to go away to the mountains once in awhile to get away from everything they do, so they can go and meditate, pray and fill themselves up again. Then they can come and give it to others again.

If you give and give and give and give, what happens? You are drained of Grace. So the level goes down, everyone is in the same level and nothing is happening. It becomes stagnated.

That's why suddenly you see I vanish, I just go to the mountains. "What happened?" He was supposed to be here and give us a talk about the third seal, and he's gone." So I go to the Father and say, "I need some more energy." And God says, "OK I have a universe of it, you can have some." Then I can bring it here and say, "Here it is, let's share it with one another."

God is like that warm fuzzy, the more you give it away to others, the more you have. But if you keep it, it becomes like the manna they had in that desert with Moses. He told them, "Just eat as much as you can today, don't store it." But these people were so greedy, they said, "No, No what happens if we wake up tomorrow and it doesn't come?" So they stored the manna, they didn't give it to their friends and any who needed it. The next day they went to find their manna and it was all spoiled.

It's just like Grace. You have to give it away. The more you give The Grace away, the more you receive. But if you keep it to yourself, and say, "No, I feel so good, I don't want to share it with anyone," what happens? It spoils, because it's no longer a river. It becomes a pond and the pond always becomes smelly, soiled and dirty. But a large river is always clean because it flows toward the ocean all the time. It doesn't stop in any place, it just goes on and on. So just give The Grace to each other and see what happens. It feels good.

Question: The last one is short and simple, Maitreya, why do I love you so much?
 

Maitreya: Oh, oh! I'm in trouble [all laughing]. Because I love you so much. How can anyone not love God?

If you love me it's because you love God in me. You don't love this body. There are a lot of these bodies out there. How many bodies can you love?

But this is the Spirit behind it. Actually that's what we have to love, the Spirit behind this body. Because this body is one day going to go away and that's it, it's finished. It gets old and crooked, the energy is gone and probably I can't even give Satsang. Probably I won't have any teeth [all laughing]. Maybe I will write Satsang then, or type it on the computer.

I'm not going to give up. Actually when I started the Mission, the first two sentences that came out of my mouth were: Never give up, and never suicide. I've been in trouble since [giggle].

So that is what you love. That is the Spirit, that God behind the man. That's what all of us have to be connected to, to see that Spirit, God behind everything.

That's why last night when The Greatest Sign was there [over to the side] and I was here in the center, I complained. Why is The Greatest Sign there?

See I'm not going be here maybe in a hundred years, ninety years, but The Greatest Sign will still be here. The Greatest Sign is going to continue but this body might not continue forever. So we had to bring The Greatest Sign to the center again, and know that what is behind this body is The Greatest Sign. What is behind The Greatest Sign is God and His revelation. That's why we have to love that Spirit which is within all of us. We all have that Spirit with us.

I'm just here to reveal to you that it is possible to present that Spirit to humanity. It is possible to let them know God exists. It did not happen by chance, there is a God. There is a Being there, that, God is evolution. God is the creation. God is me and you.

It doesn't mean that we shouldn't have the discriminative mind and discriminate between levels of consciousness. But God is there. And we are here to show humanity that all these religions of the world have been sent by God, with the same Mind, the same God.

If we can see that all the religions of the world have come from the same God, then with what do we have to separate one from another? Nothing. This is up to each human. This is up to us, the people.

The more people in the different places of the world come together and realize that we are One, and create the Communities of Light, what will we have? We will have all the beautiful communities based on God. This is the realization that there is no Jew, there is no Moslem, there is no Christian, there is no Hindu or Buddhist, there is only one religion and that is the religion of the Spirit and we are all Spirits. We don't have any religion.

The Eternal Divine Path is not a religion, it is a path. It's a crystallized path. It is not a religion. It's the path of the Spirit, and each of these religions have a part of it.

It is just like the blind men and the elephant. One of them had the leg of the elephant and he said, "Here, it looks like a cylinder." They're blind, of course, they don't see it. But we have to open their eyes and say, "No, no, you can't see the whole thing. Open your eyes, the elephant has more parts to it. It has a tail, it has ears, it has a trunk," etc. The whole elephant is greater than its parts.

That's why we're here. We're eye openers. We show the whole elephant. The whole elephant is The Greatest Sign.

So we are here for a great Mission, a great work and we're doing it. We're doing it very well. It took longer than I thought. More than one year, huh? But it's happening. It's happening.