DIVINE TIMES
MILLENNIUM '73 EDITION
PAGE ELEVEN

What Is Knowledge?

By Jim Bass

I have to tell you about this Knowledge I received from Guru Maharaj Ji. Knowledge is an experience, and it can't be explained, anymore than you can explain the taste of an apple. You can only know it through your own experience. But trying to explain it is such fun I thought I would give it a whirl.

A friend once told me about playing in his band. He said at times he would watch himself play. Instead of concentrating on his music, it would flow through him automatically. He said it was an incredible feeling to be able to stand back and watch it happen.

I understand now that art is the ability to stand aside and let the perfection inside ourselves flow through. Whether the feeling is expressed as music, literature, dance or painting doesn't matter. Great art happens when the artist can tap into the creative power buried inside himself and let it come out untainted by his own concepts and limitations. I mention this because Guru Maharaj Ji has shown me how to tap directly into that inner power through meditation. When I can do this, my life in its entirety becomes an expression of love, it becomes a work of art. The meditation Guru Maharaj Ji reveals is a 24 hour experience that puts us in touch with the creative power all day long. If I am meditating throughout the day, everything is art. Walking down the street is a dance, pouring a glass of water is sculpture, talking with another human being is poetry etc. This is what we call Knowledge.

What is Knowledge
"What is Knowledge? What is that thing which is within inside of us and is sustaining the whole world at every second; it is vibrating in the whole world every second. It's beyond all these things that we can think of, all of these understandings that we have of the world. It's just completely beyond and it's just beautiful and perfect."
Guru Maharaj Ji

Creative power

Saints have talked about this Knowledge for years and years, it's nothing new. In fact, this creative power is the primoridal energy that is responsible for the creation of nature (the greatest work of art in my opinion) and the rest of the universe. You might say that Knowledge is the secret of life.

I'll tell you how I happened to receive this Knowledge and I won't be disappointed if you don't believe me. More than once I have related my experience to people who patiently and politely listen in disbelief. I'll try to boil a lot down.

One night I heard one of Maharaj Ji's apostles or mahatmas give a discourse, the gist of which was that God was energy that could be directly experienced by human beings inside as light, sound, feeling and taste. This mahatma said he could transmit this Knowledge to people who wanted to know it bad enough. I decided to give it a try because it didn't cost anything, and I couldn't figure out any way I could lose, except maybe a few hours of my time.

Knowledge session

The next day I went to an initiation called a Knowledge session. The mahatma questioned me, and I found I had to clear up my doubts about the authenticity of the claim being made. (You have to admit that promising to show the secret of life is a heavy claim to make.) I was impressed by the sincerity I felt from the devotees of Maharaj Ji and felt determined to check it out. After a few hours of questions and answers, the mahatma began the practical instruction. There are four techniques that correspond to the four aspects of the experience of Knowledge.

First the room was darkened and the mahatma moved from person to person touching him on the forehead. With eyes closed I saw oceans of brilliant light and there was a multicolored pulsing and flashing inside my head. It felt like this was an escape hatch for my soul. This is called the opening of the third eye. Afterwards I remembered a line from a Beatle song that went, "Images of broken light that dance before me like a million suns/they call me on and on across the universe…" This seemed to describe what I had just experienced.

The second technique revealed inner music. At first it was faint, but then it got closer and closer and was sweeter than anything I have ever heard before. Music is made by striking two objects together and creating a vibration. But the sounds I heard inside were too subtle and soft to have been created by the striking of two materials together. It was clearly music from another world. After a while "I" began to disappear. Everything became music. I had become the music itself, I had merged totally with it. This was an amazing realization because I could look back at all the times I had tried to reach this state by smoking dope and putting on a good album.

The third aspect of the Knowledge is the Word. This is the Word that St. John referred to in the first line of his gospel. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Word does not consist of letters or verbal sounds. The word is a vibration, the original vibration. At the beach you can get into the rhythm of the waves crashing on the shore and it will make you peaceful. But the origin of that vibration is the Word and you can experience that inside yourself. When I tried this technique I felt waves and waves of bliss running up and down my body that kept coming faster and faster until finally I was elevated to a place of extreme clarity and peace. Time stopped and I seemed to know everything. I could never do justice to this experience in my explanation.

In all honesty I have to say I didn't understand the fourth thing which they call nectar. It is a sweet fluid that is said to be the source of bodily strength and is outrageously intoxicating. The mahatma showed us a method for tasting this nectar, but I was not too successful, although some of the people in the room were getting blown away by it.

This brings up an important point - your experience and the depth of your meditation depends upon your openness to it. If someone is calling you on the phone and your line is busy you can't get their message. In the same way, if you think you already know everything there-is or if you doubt the Knowledge then you cannot be open to receive it. So day by day as I meditate I have varying experiences. Some times it is amazingly high and I see lots of light but other times it isn't. Receiving Knowledge is not an automatic thing, you must practice it for it to do you any good.

Since I have received Knowledge I have become calm and much more clear mentally. I don't lose my temper very often and life is generally smoother. Because the Knowledge satisfies me within, I have more time and love to give other people, and this is a great feeling.

I am writing you all this because I want to share my joy with you. Humans are funny that way, they always want to share their joy. In retrospect I can see that all I have ever wanted out of life was to be loved. All any of us wants is love. As we are raised by imperfect parents, there are times when they cannot give us all the love we nec… This is not their fault, its just one of those facts of life. Our response to this lack of love is to build all kinds of defenses. The more we got hurt, the more we defended ourself, until we reached a point where we were so defended that nothing could touch us - even good things. If you observe human behavior, you can detect people playing social games in which they ask for love. Some become hypochondriacs so they can get attention, while others are show offs and get attention that way.

Source of Love

Psychiatrists are aware of the defenses and the games people play, and they come up with one therapy after another to remedy the situation. But the only remedy is love itself. This Knowledge puts you right in contact with the source of love inside yourself. And slowly through meditation all the hurts and psychological scars are removed, and you become free to live naturally and lovingly. Instead of playing roles all day, meditation lets you be real.

Why Maharaj Ji can do this is a mystery, but I know he can do it. I have experienced this and know it is true. Maharaj Ji himself has said, "Don't believe me, make me show that this is true. Belive in the practical, not in the theoretical."

The goal of this life is to live in love. If there is a source of love doesn't it make sense to find it? If someone really can reveal the secret of this whole mystery, doesn't it make sense to check it out?

The two travelers

Maharaj Ji once told a story about two travellers, one a merchant and the other a thief. The thief knew that the merchant was carrying $500 and went along on the journey so that he could rob the money. At the inn where they stopped for the night, the merchant went to dinner. The thief stole into his room and searched everywhere for the money but couldn't find it. He looked absolutely everywhere he could think of. Finally he decided that the merchant must have hidden the money in his clothes. He waited until the merchant was asleep and looked through his clothes. Still he couldn't find the money. The same thing happened the next night and the night after, and so on all the way to his journey's end. Out of exasperation, the thief finally admitted to the merchant who he was, and why he had accompanied him. "What I want to know," said the thief, "is where did you hide the money? I looked everywhere and still couldn't find it. Please tell me where you hid it?" At this point the merchant smiled and said, "I hid it under your pillow. I knew you would never look there.

So you see, the peace is under your pillow. The trick is to find the way to look under our own pillows. Then we can have peace. Maharaj Ji taught me how.