Prabhuji Magazine 1 - The Search

Mag azine MARCH 21, 2020 I SSUE no 1

T HE SEARCH...

W hen you fly, you learn that what matters is not touching the sky but the courage to spread your wings. T he higher you rise, the smaller and less significant the world looks.

As you walk, sooner or later you will understand that every search begins and ends in you. ~

Opening words The story of my life is nothing more than a long journey, from what I believed myself to be to what I truly am. It is a tale of transcending the personal and the universal, the partial and the total, the illusory and the real, the apparent and the true. My life is a flight beyond the temporal and the eternal, darkness and light, the human and the divine. This story is not public but profoundly private and intimate. ~ Prabhuji

Prabhuji's life is the life of a passionate seeker, devoted to the Truth, to reality.

We chose our first magazine, which was published on Prabhuji's appearance day (His birthday), to present some of his writings about the spiritual search, which were collected from his books.

In our daily life we are often too busy to stop and wonder about the mysteries of life. But, in these challenging times life?s circumstances force us to spend more time with ourselves. Being faced with such difficulties, we might start seeking answers to questions about life, death, truth and God...

Prabhuji never gave up this intense childlike interest.

Reading his writings and listening to his lectures can be a way to magically connect readers and listeners to the seeker in them.

Hope you will be as inspired as we are!

Ma Ramananda, Ramakrishnananda Ashram

THE SPIRITUAL SEARCH Excerpts from Prabhuji's book: Bhakti Yoga, The Path Of Love Any search impelled by the need for security will be reduced to a simple attempt to find consolation. And, since what we are searching for has already been registered in our memory, this process leads us to project our past and avoid the present. Such a search can never lead us to a discovery of any kind, but only to the identification of what we had expected to find.

But not everyone looks for security. There are those who perceive the ever-changing world and begin to question its existence.

The temporary nature of life prompts them to ask whether something permanent exists beyond this fluctuating world of ups and downs, happiness, sorrow, laughter, and tears.

Blessed are the brave who are bewildered by life, because the aspiration to inquire will arise within them!

Those who accept uncertainty and surrender completely to the unknown will embrace life.

Their spiritual quest will lead them to the true revelation of the mystery.

Although the divine seed lies deep within each and every one of us, it will not germinate if it is not fertilized by an aspiration for the Truth. The desire for authenticity is the determining factor in its revelation.

The greater the intensity of our thirst, the greater the possibility that the Truth will be revealed within us. While few experience God, fewer still are blessed with a sincere longing for him from the depths of the heart.

TO LOVE IS TO KNOW

The man of religion is a tireless seeker, an investigator, a researcher, a scientist of the subjective, and therefore, an attentive being. The true initiation of spiritual life is marked by an exploration of the real beyond the ephemeral.

Inquiry is the call to meditation.

The logic of the mind states that before we can love something, it is necessary to know it. But the heart knows that only by loving can we truly know.

If we study botany, we will gather information about flowers. But only if we love them, will we come to know the essence of a lily or a rose. If we obtain a degree in zoology, we will acquire knowledge about animals, but only by loving them will we appreciate the nature of a dog or cat.

The mail carrier knows our address, the grocer our name, and the mechanic our car.

However, only one who loves us, really knows us, understands our gestures, identifies our moods, and perceives our presence, perfume, and energy.

Similarly, though some may settle for knowing God?s supposed ?name and address,? those who wish to know him deeply must cultivate true bhakti .

According to bhakti yoga, ignorance is not a lack of information but an inability to love because we know only as much as we love.

Bhakti yogis understand that someone who acquires extensive knowledge will merely become a learned person; sages will only be revealed as those who love.

As they investigate, their findings begin transforming into love. So bhakti yogis are not religious scholars, but lovers of life and existence.

In that love, they find God.

IN SEARCH OF OUR DIVINE POTENTIAL Excerpts from Prabhuji's book Kundalini Yoga, the power is in you

This yogic path consists in awakening the divine potential, the very secret of creation, which lies hidden in the core of our humanity, and allowing it to express itself involutively. We elevate until any sense of high or low, inside or outside, disappears, while still valuing our experience of time and space within society. Because lying hidden in the depths of every moment is the eternal; of every place, the infinite; and of every human being, God

This type of yoga suggests we elevate ourselves, mature, grow, and blossom in and from consciousness. The distance between one chakra and the next will depend upon our thirst for freedom, our hunger for bliss, and our desire to love. We will move from the first center to the third only when we understand the true value of material objects and realize that to be is more important than to have. The distance to reach and awaken the heart center is proportional to the time we delay in accepting our solitude. From ajña to sahasr?ra there is only a step: from what we believe ourselves to be to our reality.

Kundalini yoga trusts in the human being; it teaches us that our divine potential will not be found in anything external because it lies within, and we only need to awaken it.

WHO CAN BE CONSIDERED A SPIRITUAL SEEKER? Excerpts from Prabhuji's book "Experimenting with the Truth"

Spiritual searching begins when we understand that desires bring frustration. We realize that no matter how successful we might become, in the end, our achievements will need to be abandoned. We see that as long as desire is present, we will keep projecting selfish longings upon life. We notice that our ambitions inhibit observation, obstruct access to reality, and prevent us from being in the now. Spiritual inquiry is seeking reality or Truth. Instead of running after the satisfaction of demands and selfish needs, spiritual seekers investigate themselves, their own yearnings, and even the motivations behind their search.

Material seekers dream of achieving whatever is out of reach, whatever they lack. Their search originates from a Experimenting with the Truth 81 feeling of deficiency. Spiritual seekers, on the other hand, aspire to recognize what they have; they want to become aware of what already is and perceive it as it is. This is a subtle yet enormous difference. They understand that a superficial life is meaningless, reduced to being born, sleeping, protecting oneself, eating, procreating, and dying. They refuse to see it as a passage from cradle to grave without any kind of evolution.

When they become aware of this inconstant reality, they discover that their life is nothing but illusion.

THE SEARCH

The search can begin only when we face life?s miseries.

Three walks around the city were enough for Buddha to become aware of the earthly suffering that had been hidden from him behind the closed gates of the palace. It was during these walks that he realized that worldly enjoyment and pleasures were trivial.

Having recognized the negative, he began the search for the positive; and it is then that Buddha left the palace in pursuit of real happiness, or absolute bliss.

Throughout history, little has made us more passionate than the search for Truth.

From this passion, works like the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads, the Zend Avesta, the Tao Te Ching, and the Dhammapada were born. Deep theologies and philosophies emerged from these scriptures, but also dogmatic religions, blind beliefs, and fanaticism.

Religious seekers wish to experience God or enlightenment; they go through life yearning for lights, opening chakras, and paradises, yet any attempt to satisfy these desires is material. As long as they strive to fulfil their dreams, there will be greed, and they will remain enmeshed in illusion. In the tenacity to satisfy their ambitions, they are like dogs chasing their own tails: the faster they run, the quicker their tails get away. Instead of seeking one?s own ideas about God, it is better to aspire for a direct experience. A true spiritual search is existential, not dogmatic.

The spiritual path is not about adding what we lack, but about getting rid of what we have in excess.

The wave is the individual aspect of the ocean; the ocean is the oceanic aspect of the wave. Examining the components of a drop, we can understand the ocean.

Likewise, if we begin by analyzing our individual aspect, we will end up accessing the divine aspect.

Inquiring into the personal, we will access the universal.

Observing the part, we will understand the Whole. The spiritual quest is just an effort to create the proper situation. When conditions are favorable, we will see that Truth, enlightenment, and God are already there? exactly where we are.

TANTRA LIBERATION IN THE WORLD

Excerpts from Prabhuji's book

The Tantric vision guides us on a search for our true nature, for the essence of what we are, for liberation from everything and everyone, including ourselves. At the highest levels, every attachment is transcended, even the attachment to detachment and the desire to transcend desires. As its nametan,or ?expansion,? suggests, Tantra indicates an expansion at the level of consciousness.

In the search for the whole, Tantra does not reject the part. Its holistic wisdom invites us to discover the ?macro? by observing the ?micro?, the eternal through the temporal, the One through diversity, the ocean through a drop of water, the whole through the individual.

It finds the transcendental within this world.

THE BODY Tantra recognizes that the body is the very place where Divinity resides and is also the instrument to experience it.Tantrikasdo not theorize based on dreams but work with the body, which is the closest and most immediate reality. If the spiritual path is the search for ourselves, it is natural that it would begin with bodily purification.

Tantra is the path of acceptance par excellence.

Instead of condemning the body as a tool of sin, Tantra accepts it in its entirety. Instincts and desires are not seen as causes of slavery. Even sense gratification can be a means to transcend the mind?s limitations.

Sex is unifying; it is the creative force of Divinity and the manifestation of an extremely elevated and pure power through flesh. It is a divine force that expresses itself physically. The divine power itself descends from its origin and passes through different planes of existence: astral, mental, and physical. If we ignorantly try to control or repress sexual desires, they will become an invincible enemy. But if we treat them wisely, even at the lowest levels, we will discover that sex is an important key in our evolutionary process toward freedom.

We can use the stairs to descend from a higher floor to a lower one and we can also ascend again by the same stairs: it is our choice. In any practice related to sexual energy, we must be extremely cautious and remain very alert. Our search for comfort can tempt us to go down and degrade ourselves. Like on stairs, going up is always harder than going down.

SEEKING Excerpts from Prabhuji's book What Is As It Is

Many ask themselves: Where is God? What is God? What is suffering? What is pain? What am I? If these questions come from this escape from pain, from this pursuit of a paradise, of enlightenment, of a state in which I am not going to suffer, then this search may be just another action that forms a part of this slavery-activity. This action limits me, enslaves me, it doesn?t let me move in any other direction.

Here we must see if our search isn?t part of the same slavery: does the call of the Lord come from slavery or is it a movement in the Self? Is it a vibration in the Self that urges me to search for the Truth at any cost?

One who feels the call of God in one?s heart wants Truth, not only if it is pleasant, but even if it causes suffering, even if one has to cry like the gop?s. One who seeks pleasure is not seeking God, but rather escaping from pain. God for this person is a cigarette, a coffee, or a more sophisticated drug, but it isn?t the complete liberation from slavery.

The Truth liberates as much from pleasure as from pain. Truth liberates from the entire misery.

For this reason, when searching for God, it is so important to understand ourselves. Why do we search? What do we desire? What moves us toward this spiritual search? What is the motivation? Perhaps we will discover that our suffering and our pain stem from the fact that we resist growing, we refuse to mature, and we don?t accept reality as it is.

We refuse to accept that everything changes, at every instant,and that in a reality where everything changes, we can?t become attached to anything or anyone, because that which we become attached to, is not the same the next moment!Places, people, objects... everything changes!

Perhaps by understanding ourselves, we will understand this flow of life, in which consciousness continues to manifest itself in infinite forms. Instead of being attached, we should learn to flow with consciousness itself and to allow ourselves to mature, to let ourselves grow, to stop resisting this maturation.

In this way, our action will no longer come from a past; it will not be just a search for an aspirin or an escape from pain, but it will be an expression of that consciousness.

Excerpts from Prabhuji's book: Advaita Vedanta, being the self

The search for reality The search for reality has been a passion for many people since the very beginning of humanity. The legacy of this passion are the great scriptural monuments like the Bible, Quran, Zend Advesta, Dhammapada, Tao Te Ching, and so on.

Pilate asks in the gospel of John (18:38): ?What is truth??

This question has sparked debates among theologians, philosophers, logicians, and scholars.

The quest for Truth As long as we are unable to transcend the mental level, which is saturated with ideas, concepts, conclusions, and rational hypotheses, we will go on developing mere philosophical theories. A weak quest for Truth will only create new doctrines.

The fruit of a half-hearted longing for reality is yet another philosophy. But a sincere and honest thirst for Truth can lead to a revelatory vision of reality that transcends thinking. The mind is memory. It is the warehouse of our past, and therefore, it is an inadequate tool to search for the unknown. Being the mind a product of the past, far from aspiring to reality can only dream of its own projections; it is incapable of finding Truth or even looking for it: it does not seek the unknown but the opposite of what it knows.

FREEDOM The ?I? cannot be free because the ego is slavery itself. Slavery cannot be freedom.

In the same way that the appearance of the light means the disappearance of darkness, the appearance of freedom means the disappearance of slavery.

The search for enlightenment is synonymous with the aspiration for liberation from everyone and everything, including ourselves. We are of freedom: from freedom we have come and to freedom we go.

Freedom resides as much in our origin as our destination. It is not something one achieves, but something one becomes.

As long as we remain confined by the mind, we continue to be slaves. Liberation is the absence of ?I?: it is the absence of you. Even though the mind cannot conceive of enlightenment, it can become aware of its slavery. Ultimately, freedom involves liberating oneself even from the need for freedom.

Pearls from Prabhuji "Do not sacrifice your life for anything; "Thank you, Lord, that I have so little to ask and so much to be grateful for ".

"Spiritual life is a path, a road from what we believe ourselves to be to what we really are".

sacrifice everything for life".

"Our difficulty to change comes from the excessive attachment to what we believe ourselves to be".

"Do not wait for happiness because it will never come to you: happiness can come only from you".

"If you want to change humanity, start with yourself ".

e

"For now, more important than knowing if there is life after death is learning to live before death".

"The important thing is not what you have in your purse, but what you have in your heart".

"Only what begins has to end; what has a start has a finish. One who lives in the present can neither be born nor die, because what has no beginning never perishes.

"Your words reflect your mind; your actions reflect your heart".

Prabhuji Art

"We are all born artists.

Since I got stuck in childhood, I consider myself one of them: a certified weirdo for whom art is more than enough.

Security brings with it a bit of death; that is why we artists choose uncertainty.

But we have a special gift to move in the dark by our own light. Aware of the abyss that separates revelation and our works, we live in a frustrated attempt to faithfully express the mystery of the spirit." ~ Prabhuji

To see more of Prabhuji's painting go to:

https://prabhujigallery.com/

" Th e yogi over com es desir es an d at t ach m en t , bu t in cr eases h is passion , seein g in t h is an in dispen sable elem en t in t h e spir it u al sear ch . Desir e is an em ot ion t h at bin ds an d en slaves, cr eat in g at t ach m en t an d addict ion , w h er eas passion is a qu alit y, a st at e of ?bein g?. For t h e t an t r a-yog?, r eligion does n ot con sist of belief or f ait h ; it is a passion t o be exper ien ced. M edit at ion does n ot f low er in a h ear t t h at h as n ot yet bu r n ed w it h t h e f ir e of a passion f or lif e, exist en ce, t h e t r u t h an d God."

Excer pt s f r om Pr abh u ji's book TANTRA , LIBERATION IN THE WORLD

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