"It is to provide the missing ingredient that the Lord incarnates forth from time to time in human body. For without obedience for and surrender to Him, one can never receive the Holy Knowledge. It is simple and logical. We can only receive God as much as we open ourselves up to Him. So to know Him we must love Him. Yet we cannot love an imaginary concept of God. We can only love what we have had experience of. So to love Him we must know Him. It seems insoluble, and this is why the Lord incarnates Himself. It is impossible to love God without coming into contact Himself in human body." - Sant Ji Maharaj
the editorialpage
At Hans Jayanti 1971, Guru Maharaj Ji scolded his Indian devotees. He told them that he had given Knowledge for them to realize and that they could not just worship him like they worshipped their idols in the temple. They could not do pranam once a year at festivals and expect peace and salvation. He told them to meditate.
Recently Maharaj Ji was in Denver to review plans for the mission over the next year. During his stay he made one thing clearer to us than ever before and that is the importance for each of us as individuals to assume the responsibility to be devotees of Maharaj Ji first and foremost in our lives.
Whatever we are doing as a movement is meaningless to you as an individual if you do not realize this Knowledge. Nobody else's meditation is going to make it possible for you to realize this Knowledge. You are the one who has to do meditation.
Maharaj Ji noted that although the stated aim of DLM is to spread Knowledge to the people of the world, you have to realize this Knowledge because you already have it. The people of this world might die waiting for Knowledge but we can't because we already have Knowledge. So we should not be looking into the future; we should be seeing what is important for us right now and that is to realize the Knowledge that we have.
Everything else in this life is just here to help us obey his agya and fulfill the promise of perfection that comes with the realization of this Knowledge. That means doing meditation.
In our effort to spread this Knowledge we can get carried along on the energy of the movement. When a mass of people is moving along, it is easy to get carried in that same direction. But on this path of discipleship to the Perfect Master you cannot be carried along; you must walk on your own. The only thing that can happen if you are getting carried along with the mass is that you will get carried away.
This Knowledge is like a vegetable: if you do not use it, it rots. It can even become poisonous at a point. That is how Knowledge is if you do not do meditation. It turns sour inside you and ruins your life.
All the lilas of the past year should be strong in reinforcing to us the importance of doing meditation because it doesn't matter how close you are to Guru Maharaj Ji. He said that you could spend your whole life living in the Divine Residence and that if you did not realize this Knowledge your life would have been a waste. The only way to realize this Knowledge is through meditation.
By Jim Bass
When I was a small boy I used to pass a pond on my way to elementary school. On most mornings, I found the pond still and glassy, its surface like a mirror that reflected serene images of trees, blossoms and clouds overhead. There was nary a ripple to disturb the tranquillity of the water.
The temptation to raise a little hell with such a scene was always too much for me to resist. Without fail my childish nature would prevail and I would rifle the pond with rocks and logs until it was a churning, thrashing pool of junior tidal waves and maelstroms. I never fully understood my motives for such wave making and until recently have thought the issue was rather academic.
But then I noticed a behavior pattern in myself and other premies that simultaneously reopened the issue and provided a clue to its solution.
One evening I left satsang with four other premies. We were all high. Two hours of satsang had soothed us and left us feeling clear and mellow. All five of us wore wide, relaxed smiles. Our minds were still like the pond I used to pass on my way to school.
Before we reached the parking lot someone suggested, "Let's go to Baskin Robbins. I'm up for a cone." His suggestion was greeted with enthusiasm. Splash! The first stone dropped into our mental pools and stirred the first ripples. The car door slammed and we backed out of our parking place. Someone else said, "I heard today that George Harrison has been hearing satsang and is interested in Knowledge …" Splash! Another stone hit the water and made more waves. Driving east on Colfax Ave., we approached a traffic accident in the opposite lane. Our driver slowed down as we all craned our necks to see something exciting. Splash! Still another stone into the water. As we passed the wreck, we all got a tiny shot of adrenalin.
By the time I've returned home and propped my elbows onto my baragon, my mind is back into a lather. The calm pond is no more. What happened to all that soothing satsang? Why did we five so eagerly abandon our calm center for a few thrills? We had felt so mellow after satsang but were so ready to swap that feeling for a little excitement.
Is peace boring? This is the central issue. Once again, is peace boring? We must believe that it is. Otherwise why were we so eager to sabotage our tranquility with other experiences? Does peace require supplementation or is peace a complete experience?
I'll digress briefly at this point to report an observation about human nature. That is, people seek and require two apparently opposite experiences. One is for security and stability. This manifests in human life as tradition, political and religious dogma, insurance policies, law and order political views and structured personal relationships. Without such crutches, life would be unbearably stressful for most people.
Inspiration ………………..Sant Ji Maharaj Ji
Publications Director………………David Passes
Editor………………………………………Jim Bass
Managing Editor…………………..Dan Hinckley
Editorial Assistant…………………….Paul Starr
Staff Writers……………………Lucy DuPertuis
Sophia Collier, Pat Dowd, Glen Whittaker
Designer ………………………..Richard Rogers
Artists………………..David Davis, Jim Schultz
Photography ……………John Chan, Jeremy Taylor
Thomas Pratnik, Bill Van Scoy, Michael Bady
Layout…………………………….Nancy McCoy
Dandi London, Jodi Scalzo
Transcription…………………Michelle Mitchell
Typesetting…………..Bertha Trujillo, Joy Jaber
Copy Camera……………………….Barry Oilman
Printing………………John Boldt, Michael Diess
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Production……………Tom Clark, Patty Lancaster
Distribution……………………..Keith Breuker
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Divine Times is published monthly by Shri Hans Publications, 511 16th St., Denver. Colorado 80206 © 1974 Divine Light Mission. All rights reserved. Subscription available for $5.00 per year, checks payable to Divine Light Mission Send all changes of address and subscription correspondence to: Shri Hans Productions, Box 2997, Denver, Colorado 80206.
But people also long for freshness and freedom. After all, variety is the spice of life. This drive can manifest itself in such extremes as the daredevil antics of Evel Knievel, the radical politics of the Weathermen or the drug induced behavior of LSD trippers. Or it can come out in subtler behavior like gossiping, gawking at accidents or petty quarreling. The form is not important. What counts is that the routine is broken, that the status quo is upset.
So man is caught in a dilemma of fractured desires. One part of his nature wants to structure his life in concrete while the other wants to blow it apart. Man's search for peace is an attempt to reconcile the anarchist and the reactionary within his own psyche.
This returns us to the main issue. Is peace boring? No. But the only way to know that is to experience genuine peace. Authentic peace. The real thing. It is a rare experience. True peace is found in deep, pure meditation. There is one sort of meditation where you become mellow and relaxed but still feel like getting up and doing something. This is nice but it isn't peace.
Peace is the experience which appeases both the anarchist and the reactionary in man's character. Peace offers excitement as well as tranquillity. Pure meditation offers the perfect marriage of the two extremes. Try it; you'll see that there is no greater security than realizing that you are infinite and there is no greater thrill than witnessing the creation of the universe within yourself. This happens simultaneously in meditation. This is peace.
My guess is that the first kind of meditation, meditation with a little "m" is just a stage on the way toward meditation with a capital "M". And that part of growing spiritually is learning to resist the temptation to throw stones in the pond. That temptation is a hurdle standing between us and perfect peace.
Recently I've noticed two approaches to practicing Knowledge, to practicing meditation. One is to use meditation to augment one's enjoyment of the world. The other is to depend upon Knowledge for everything, to put one's eggs all in one basket.
It reminds me of a conversation I overheard in Los Angeles last spring between three premies. One said, "Knowledge sure makes things different. I wonder what getting stoned is like with Knowledge." The second premie replied, "Yeah, I know what you mean. I wonder what reading Herman Hesse is like with Knowledge." The third said, "I wonder what Knowledge is like with Knowledge?" Can you imagine that?