Hari om.
When we come to temple, I think we should have our focus on just one
aspect of the temple and that is to come to prayer. I don't think we
should worry about who's here, and who's not here. Because that's not
what you come to temple for. We should be coming here for other reasons –
divine ones. You come here so your pure awareness merges with your
material awareness, so you can attain states of consciousness that are
beyond this realm. And that is what we should come here for. This is not
a place where we come to socialise, to have satellite groups. This is a
place of worship so let us keep it like that. I don't like it when
matters that are not temple issues become temple issues.
You need to understand that everybody makes mistakes. Nobody sitting
here has never made a mistake. If you didn't make a mistake then you are
an idiot because the fact that you are here means that you grew by
mistakes. Mistakes in this lifetime are experiences that we learn from.
Everybody makes mistakes so let them find solutions and find themselves.
In Patanjali's Yoga Sutra he says that when dhyanam, dharana, and
samadhi are focused together, it's called 'samyama'. That is the state
we should be in. We shouldn't be identifying with our body or the body
next to us. This is how I wish everybody could live. We can live and
accumulate possessions on the material plane, but we should not be
attached to them. The day that it is decided you have had enough of
worldly matters, you will leave your body. But you take nothing with
you, only your experiences. These are experiences that create your next
samsaras. Your karmic consequences in your next life are the experiences
you take from this life.
In the short time we have left, let us develop divine experiences rather
than living in our mental patterns and habitual practices. Let us live
in divinity, in God. Let us live in the gurus. It is very important in
this life and in this present time. The most important thing is to be
conscious of the Divine residing in some unseen Cosmic realm. And that
can only be experienced after you leave your physical body. Any
experience prior to that is for a selected few who have not let any
obstacle come in their way. Patanjali goes further to say that these are
all modifications of the mind, and we must live away from these mind
factors. Mind can be a master, or a slave. You decide what you want your
mind to become. If it becomes your master you will slave all your life.
If it becomes a slave, you are a master all your life. The mastery of
the senses is the most unique principle. In the Yoga Sutra of
Patanjali, it is mentioned in book three that dharana, dhyanam and
samadhi unite and take you to the state of sanyama, pure consciousness,
ultimate truth. And we need to go to that ultimate truth. It is very
important. If you don't attain that in this life, you'll be back here
doing the same thing you did in this life in your next life and carry on
like that, being born in this material plane to suffer the consequences
and colouring of this material plane.
You are just a unit of pure consciousness, and in that single unit of
pure consciousness, you must find the Self. It is very important to find
the Self. Not the physical self that you bath, dress and make up, but
the deeper, greater, purer, higher Self that lies within you, called soul, or
atma. As Paramahansa Yogananda said: 'In the inner altar of the being is
Ishwara'. Find that Ishwara. And that is how Sivabalayogi came to be.
He lived in that Ishwara. He was a great individual who lived in modern
times right up to about 1990.
So, please, let us come here for one thing. Attaining self-realisation
should be your key thought and focus in this life, this journey and in
this space.
OM.
