Maitreya: Good evening. There were some questions that we
discussed the other day. Would you repeat the question again and see
what will be the answer?
Question: Maitreya, would you please
expound on why we say the Reminder three times and do that
twice each day?
Maitreya: Some questions have to be
spontaneously asked and answered right away. Some other questions
come to us, someone brings them up in the community and everyone
meditates on them for awhile, and then they are answered. This is
one of those that came up a few days ago. So, we had an opportunity
to meditate on that more and go to a deeper level to know, why we do
the Reminder many times, and twice a day is the least
recommended. We can do more times.
So the very basis for doing the Reminder is
to bring the mind from the worldly energy toward Godly or spiritual
energy. The very reason for giving this practice is to bring the
attention or energy from worldliness to a spiritual focus.
Mind has a tendency to chatter, to keep us busy and
make us think about mundane matters. If we're not directing our
energy toward God or toward higher energy, mind becomes dirty, very
fast. Like it says in THOTH, if we don't take a shower
every couple of days, we will be very dirty and uncomfortable. If
the body becomes dirty in a few days, mind is even more sensitive
than body, so it becomes dirty even faster than the body. So if we
try to take a shower at least once a day, we have to clear the mind
more than once a day.
So that's why we recommend to do the
Reminder
twice a day or more. Doing the Reminder, kirtan, chanting,
dancing and meditating -- all these are for purifying the spirit,
the mind, and bringing the attention from the world to the Spirit.
Worldly activities make us very confused and we
become very attached to the world, to it's temptations, to it's
offerings. If we do not keep our attention refocused back to the
Spirit all the time, after awhile we completely lose touch, and the
appearance of the world becomes reality to us. We will think that,
that is all there is for us. Because that is all there is, our
successes makes us ecstatic and our disappointments make us unhappy,
confused and resentful.
We just heard about the lady who committed suicide
in Colorado. The reason was, she lost her baby and she lost her
husband. She didn't realize that all that was given to her was from
God. God giveth and God taketh. It's a lesson to us to see how
attached we can become to the world.
Just like God gave Isaac to Abraham and then told
him to go and sacrifice him, for Me. He gave Isaac to him and now He
wanted him back. Abraham is supposed to be a very high Soul, in the
realm compared with others. He was the friend of God. With all his
highness, still he had a hard time to accomplish the Will of God.
Eventually, because his focus was always on God, he realized,
"Isaac's not mine." God gives and God takes.
So being in a spiritual realm changes our view of
the world. It makes us look at the world, not as absolute reality,
something that is ultimate, as there is no answer besides worldly
answers. If things are not happening the way I thought they are
going to happen, then that is the end of life. So there is nothing
left for me. If this lady had the knowledge, had the focus on God,
she would have realized, God is going to open another door for her.
"No, this is not the end of it." She would not have committed that
act.
That's why these exercises are given. We realize
that it is important to take time off, to direct our energy from the
world, and focus our attention on God. As we do that more often, we
realize more and more that really the most important part of us is
our Spirit, which is one with God, which is one with the universe.
And if we want to know the answers, the answers are already there.
Who is the best counsel in the universe? God. And
where is He? He's within us. If I want a consultation, I can go
within myself and consult with my spirit which is one with the
Universal Spirit. Then I won't be confused, because my mind will be
expanded and I can see things according to the Universal Mind. I
will be free of all these ups and downs in life and unhappiness that
comes to humanity.
That's why all these exercises are recommended.
Recommended, of course, means, I recommend, yet these exercises have
come from God.
What I recommend He commands! They have a spiritual
effect when you perform them. They bring a different energy to the
person who performs them. It is not the regular energy of the
person. They are given with the Spirit so they affect the Spirit,
they invoke the Spirit. That's what they call in the East, mantra.
Mantra means spiritual energy which has been meditated on and
crystallized into the words to invoke people to a higher Spirit.
If you look at the Reminder you see that it
has seven verses. Each verse affects one level of the consciousness
of humanity. When we begin doing the
Reminder
we have been in the world, we have been in mundanity. We have been
in the process of doing things or going somewhere.
We really have to take that energy out of ourselves,
to pull ourselves back out of the world and take some time out to do
the Reminder. That's the first step. After we accomplish that
and we have enough willpower, or enough Love of God, or enough
desire to do that, the first thing we do is, "We pay our salutations
to the Divine Father."
We were in mundanity and we're coming back to God.
So in order to come out of mundanity, the first thing to really take
us completely out of mundanity and bring us to God is, "We pay our
salutations to the Divine Father." This just completely brings our
focus to God, the Father.
Divine Logic (Father) is the logic which created the
logical universe. Logic is consciousness. Because God is in Pure
Consciousness, He is Pure Logic. Father is Pure Logic. So that is
why we refer to Him as He who is helping all to reach Pure
Consciousness.
"Ignorance is the state of unawareness of the
reality behind this universe and enlightenment is the state of Pure
Consciousness." So the very beginning of the Reminder reminds
us of, Who is the Father? He is the Pure Logic, the Divine Logic of
the universe. He's the male energy of the universe, that's why we
call Him Father. He also is the Being that helped the whole universe
come from the unconscious mind, or ignorance, to the path of Pure
Consciousness.
Then, "We open our hearts to Your Grace", Mother in
Her highest form is the Grace, the Divine Mother. The Mother is the
creative force in the universe, the creator of the universe. Without
the Mother nothing could have been created. She is the three gunas.
She is the three creative forces. Also, if the first verse awakens
us from our mundanity, which is the first chakra, the second invokes
the second, the energy of fertility, motherhood. So the second
chakra is related to fertility, motherhood, procreation, etc. So
that is why the second verse relates to motherhood, the Mother.
And we open ourselves to The Grace, which is The
Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the only way to salvation. We need the
understanding of the Mother with the true realization of how She
works in the universe. If we had mostly logic, we wouldn't reach far
with the logic alone. We need that Grace to take us from mundanity
-- the Mother Love which protects the child and makes him grow up
and become a man -- to adulthood, to become a productive and very
wonderful member of society or the universe.
It is His guidance in the universe that makes us
reach Pure Consciousness. So "We open our hearts to Your Grace," for
our salvation and pray for Her Guidance, which guides us to Pure
Consciousness. Some people say, If you have a good diet, meditate a
lot, are in the solitude and not in the world, go to the mountains,
you will realize and reach Pure Consciousness. Yet how many people
in those cultures who do those things, reach Pure Consciousness?
Very few of them.
If the Grace is with you, with that Grace you can
reach Pure Consciousness in the middle of the most mundane
environment. That's why it's so important to know what Grace is. To
realize Grace is to realize the path to salvation. That's why
eventually they came to this conclusion that the Grace of the guru
is really the most important thing for reaching Pure Consciousness,
because only with His Grace is it possible to know God. Without His
Grace you will be completely confused.
That is exactly what the Reminder says, "We
open our hearts to Your Grace and pray for Your Guidance in
overcoming the power of the tama guna over our Souls." That is the
only way, not by diet, not by growing a beard, or shaving your head,
or wearing special clothes -- not by appearances. Appearances are
OK, like everything else, they have their own place but eventually
it's the Grace that brings humanity to Pure Consciousness.
Eventually we come to the third energy center, which
is the center of power and control. That is when we have to humble
ourselves and bring our heads down and say, "We adore and promise to
endeavor to help the whole universe to reach higher consciousness."
Now, we've reached the point where we can help or hinder others.
That is the power of this center. If you fall in that level, you
misuse your power and affect other people's progress, or try to
control them.
This is the point where you also can help. I know
the Divine Logic, I know the Grace of the Mother which is the way of
salvation. Now I can help. I can become a channel for God, you see.
All of us are like antennas. We can reach the higher energies and
transmit them to other people, in the universe, to earth, etc. Or we
can pick up mundanity and broadcast that. The more we are intoned to
God, the more we can broadcast Him.
Now "We adore and promise to endeavor to help the
WHOLE universe to reach higher consciousness." We expand our minds
and go beyond attachments to gain powers, or glory, or material
things for ourselves but our goal is to "help the whole universe to
reach higher consciousness." We know the Father (Pure Consciousness)
and the Mother (the way to salvation). These two are what the
universe is made of. So we are no longer attached to a small part of
God (universe) but the whole.
That is when we reach the fourth realization center:
the Love center where we realize how incredible God is. That will
make us humble, and how great are those Souls who have realized Him.
That's when we go down to your knees, bow our heads and say, "In
reverence we bow our heads in front of all those Great Souls, in the
past and those to come..." See, it's kind of humbling ourselves. We
realize those Great Souls have to be revered. These Souls who have
not only been in the past, are here, and they're going to be here
again and again to guide humanity to higher consciousness.
However, being attached to any of them will hinder
you, will stop your progress. The moment you say, "I found
it, you lost it." God is the universe. God is the whole universe
and beyond, and you can realize Him again, and again, and again in
so many different ways and still there is more to realize about Him.
So the moment you say, This is the only way, what you are saying is:
I'm going to put God in this bottle and that is what I'm going to
realize about Him -- this is what God is. The moment you did that,
you lost the joy of knowing Him more, progressing with Him, and
realizing Him more.
So that's why, "In reverence we bow our heads" not
only to the Great Souls in the past, but the Great Souls who are
here and the ones to come. You know them, as these Great Souls
always glorify Father. They don't glorify themselves. They are
Glorified not because of themselves but because of the energy they
represent on earth, the Spirit that they bring to the earth.
These Great Souls always talk about the Spirit of
the Father, the Spirit within themselves, the Spirit which guided
them. They don't talk about any physical god, which has shape or
name. That's why it's called Father or Mother. Really, they don't
have any name. It's said as a symbol because it's impossible to say,
This thing which is called God, we call Him Father or God. In
Essence He's a Spirit. That's why whatever has a shape or a name, is
not God, it's not It. They are still a part of God, yet they are not
the Essence. The Essence doesn't have any shape -- It's Formless,
Invisible, Nameless and Eternal -- It's FINE.
So after we have humbled ourselves and we have
reached this point of complete love and humility for the Great
Souls, which are one with God, then we reach the fifth level which
is submission and surrendering. That's why, "We surrender ourselves
to You, the words revealed to us through Your Prophets and Your Greatest Sign which clarifies the confusion between all."
Now it's the realization that, all these Great
Souls, and the words revealed through them, are really from God
Himself, especially the seven great truths which are presented in The Greatest Sign
and were released over the last 12,000 years.
These words have created a lot of confusion on earth, because we
keep each of them separate and say, This is my Prophet, this is my
Savior, this is my teacher. That creates confusion and separation
and that is where The Greatest Sign shines. It says, There's
no confusion. All of them have come from God and each of them has a
special message for humanity. When you put them together you see the
greater picture, the whole truth, and the whole is greater than the
parts.
Now Unity has come to humanity and all the religions
of the world. That's why, not only do "We surrender only to You, the
words revealed to us through Your Prophets," which brings the truth
and the message, but also, "Your
Greatest Sign." We do not surrender to The Greatest Sign
as a picture or visual aid, but what it represents, the Spirit
behind it, "which clarifies the confusion between all."
Even after surrendering we realize that there's a
greater part which is the sixth level. In that level we are One with
the Spirit. We and God are One. That is when complete submission
comes. "We submit only to you which is Formless, Nameless and
Invisible..."
Eventually a realization has come. There's no form
left -- Formless, Nameless and Invisible. Also, if everyone realized
God is Formless, Nameless and Invisible and became one with It, we
could completely overcome all these concepts about my Gurus, my
teachers, my Savior, my Prophet, my hierarchy, my anything that
separates us from one another, and become One right away.
The moment we realize that, the unity is complete
between us. We're not going to argue whose teacher is better, or
whose hierarchy is higher, or who in the hierarchy is higher and who
in the hierarchy is lower, or was Esa (Jesus) the minor disciple or
the higher disciple? Who cares? What he said was important, which
was the Spirit of the Father through him.
He wasn't overshadowed by anyone. He was
overshadowed with the Father Himself. If we realize that, then these
arguments no longer exist. Let's just forget about these and get on
with the work and create the Communities of Light instead of
sitting, wasting our time and energy in being confused about all of
these trivialities.
That is the only state that unifies humanity. "In
any other state, humanity will be divided." And we are, because many
are in other states. They have gods in heaven, on earth and under
earth. God said, you should not have any god beside Me, the
Formless, Invisible, Nameless and Eternal (FINE). That's one of His
Ten Commandments.
Now that we are in that state, there's nothing left.
We are One with God. It is the highest state we have reached in the
body. And "Also, this will prevent us from surrendering to false
prophets and teachers." We have a measurement a yardstick now. Is
this person talking about the Spirit, Formless, Nameless, Invisible
and Eternal? Or is he talking about other things that create more
confusion between us, create more separation between us? If he talks
about anything else but FINE, then he is a false teacher. That is
not from the Spirit. That's from ego. That's from something that,
Oh, if my teacher is better than your teacher, then I am better than
you. There is no such thing as better. We are all from One Spirit,
from One God. We're in different levels of consciousness, but that's
the only thing that distinguishes us as higher or lower.
When we reach there, "In reverence we bow our heads
in front of all those Great Souls who will teach us how to know You
and show us the way to become Pure Consciousness." Again, this is
invoking the Grace of the teacher, that brings salvation to
humanity. And that is the goal to reach, to reach a state of Oneness
with the Spirit and realize that, that's the only thing that unifies
and brings unity to humanity.
The question is Why do we say it three times? Isn't
one time enough? No it's not. As I said, we're coming from mundanity
and trying to do the Reminder. The first time we do it, we
come to it with excitement -- Oh, let's do the Reminder. The
spirit of worldliness is still with us. When first we do it, it's
just the words, we are still in mundanity. We're not really hearing
what we're saying. We're just saying it, and the mind starts
wandering here and there. The second time we say it, it goes deeper.
And the third time it completely surrounds the person, and the
person starts hearing himself or herself, and if he's sincere, he
will see the real meaning of the Reminder
and its effect.
Actually it's very good to say the
Reminder
as slowly as possible, especially if you're doing it alone. Meditate
and contemplate every word that you're saying. What do they mean?
What do they represent? As you continue saying them more and more,
and meditate, the more you say it, the more you understand the
meaning of it and the Spirit behind it.
As I said, it carries an energy different than your
regular energy. The more you say it, the more this energy becomes
anchored into you, and the more of this energy that is anchored into
you, the more you like to say it, because you like that energy. That
energy is freeing. That energy brings higher consciousness. That
energy brings greater realization to you.
So actually, the more you say it, the better. Yet
because we have to be in mundanity also, we can't say it 24 hours a
day and every minute, unless we say it in the Silence of our hearts.
So that's why it's recommended to do it at least twice a day, saying
the verses three times. If you can do it three times a day, at least
three times, that's much better. If you cannot do it three times, at
least do it two times.
I guess, we can explain it over and over, and there
is usually much more than is said in any Satsang. I'm sure the topic
is going to come up again, and we're going to explain it differently
and/or in more detail. In general It is an energy, It's a mantra,
It's a Reminder that explains the purpose of the Mission.
It explains
The Greatest Sign. It explains the goal of life.
It's a reminder, it reminds you again and again of
what we stand for and what we have brought to humanity. And because
it has come from Spirit, it will eventually affect your spirit. The
more you say it, the better.
