Maharishi: Growth of Experience on the Path to Enlightenment

[Music] Growth of experience on the path to enlightenment. [Music] And I have a short experience, um, this morning when I woke up in that kind of quiet space between sleeping and waking, I heard these Celestial voices chorusing this really beautiful music. And, um, see, the music is even in G wies; it was beautiful. I hope they come again; some better should come again, not the same; no, on the path of progress, same is not found. Better, better, and better, and better. Um, Mahari.

Um, before, before I forget, on this one point, something very beautiful. For a very long time, it was thought, and even today it's continuing to be thought, [Music] that basic cities are the basis of progress. But what has lately been found is progress is the basis of maintenance. If one doesn't progress, maintenance is at stake. Even progress is maintenance; it is more and more glorious at every moment. So what one has to secure is progress; not bother for existence. Existence breathes life in the steps of progress. Progress is more fundamental to Creation than existence; it's very beautiful, just this, just this truth of life, that progress is more fundamental to existence, to life, than existence. So those who don't bother about existence, the progress, and in progress existence is better at every step. So the security of existence is in the procedure that glorifies it, in the procedure that presents it in more enriched form. Food and clothing, food and clothing, food and clothing. Suffering; belly, belly, belly. It's too, it's a very narrow view of life and a very poor view of life, and nothing great can be accomplished on a very poor level of understanding. What is necessary is progress, and a progressive man will have a better meal every evening and will have better clothes every morning; better because it's progressive, progressive. And one lays all emphasis on existence: bare necessities, food and clothing; same food, same clothing, or clothing; same rotten food; same food is always unenjoyable; same clothing always uninteresting. There has to be change, in the change, in the steps of progress, existence takes delight; otherwise, existence weeps. So it's not that existence is the basis of progress; it's the progress that upholds existence in its more renewed, more invigorated, more enriched, more fulfilled form. The whole perspective of Life changes. Progress, progress is at stake today because of stress. Stress retards progress. All the intelligent people who take greater responsibilities are found to increase in stress, and therefore this technique of TM, which neutralizes stress, takes care of progress, takes care of existence. Yes, say, where is the progress? Progress; it didn't keep going. Whoops, right. Um, they keep going, keep going, um, keep going.

I think I had, um, an experience of, uh, CC, um, during a dream, um, it's during meditation. I started dreaming, and I became aware of myself dreaming, and then, um, I found that I was watching the actual impulses that formed the images of the dream come up, just the impulses themselves, sort of arising, and then, and I felt as if I, I could also manipulate them, but I was still separate. And then, uh, as the dream, or as things progressed, I, um, you to exist; I started feeling a bubbling sensation in my spine, and it then progressed upwards to my head, and upon which time there was some light, and there was a rushing sound, sh- sort of sound, and then there was this voice, and, um, I know I, after I heard what it had to say, I sort of said, well, I better get out of this, and it was just sort of laughing for a few minutes, almost. But this is what the voice said: said, well, well, well, and this is all in a nice sort of tone, I want you, well, to receive me; my name is Lady Jane of old. Well, and does to say, upon this, I sort of stopped the dream, and I decided to sort of, uh, wake up, and I laughing for a few minutes, but then thinking about it later in, during the day, um, well, I was puzzled by the experience and hope that it wasn't any, uh, spirits or anything. The voice was a male voice. Release, release, release, release, release, release. Good. I'm glad. Rele—okay. Now there was, um, in our group, group meeting today, we're discussing another experience that I had had. It can happen to someone; someone knocks at the door, and, and one may feel shocked greatly; here the heart palpitation begins, and the great stress gets formed, and then the voice says, oh, I Mrs. this, and, and then maybe another wave of impact. So such a stress when comes out because you were in that, in that witnessing mood, completely silent, even when something was going on. That's why distress could is all with the same impact, with the same speed, with the same momentum, and it, it gave the same experience. But is it true that as we move from the relative down to the absolute, I mean, we pass through the celestial realm, as it were, and, um, is it not true that perhaps somebody could get stuck on that some point? Or where is there to Stu, to stuck? When stuck, what happens is that starts to stick; we don't stick to that; that sticks to us. Wherever we are, we are sleeping, that sticks to us; we are dreaming, that sticks to us; we are waking, that sticks to us. So that sticks to us wherever we are, like a shadow; we don't stick to that, but there's no way of having, say, the, the in know—well, not in know awareness, but just be, just before you say, get that awareness, or I mean, there's no way of getting, as it were, having your big self, sort of in the celestial realm, um, stuck, as yeah. Okay, I, it's, I'm just as long as I feel satisfied. Well, I do feel satisfied now that you said it's release the stress and not something in Celestial, fine.

Um, in, in our group meeting this morning, um, we started discussing another experience I had had this morning, and, um, the conflict came up as to whether or not transcendental Consciousness can actually be remembered. Of course you can, fine. That's what I can—you explain the mechanics of how it can be remembered, please. When we, the green coat, at the time of wearing, one knows green coat, fine. And after some time, but doesn't remember, and then if the time comes, green cat—oh, yes, yes, I have green cat. So anytime one could remember, anytime one could forget, because it's so intimate, it's so intimate to oneself. One starts to remember with great awe and great applause. When it comes first, it's astounding; it's so beautiful an experience because it first came; we are not used to it, and when we become used to it, it's our nature; we don't even bother about anything; it's, it's our nature. Could I explain the experience I had to you this morning? Um, I was in a very subtle state, and my breathing and heartbeat, at least as far as I was aware, they just seem to cease, and then I just experienced, um, a beautiful light, sort of expanding out of my body, feeling, and this carried on intermittently for a few seconds, for about an hour. Uh, it would sort of happen, and the heart would seem to start up again, and breath would stop, and then it would seem to cease, and then this expansion would take place. Um, would that be the beginning of TC, or—oh, that we can't—expansion starts to take the—we can say beginning of DC; it may be a very clear experience of transcending, transcending, still, still sleeping. Yeah. Transcendence is fallen flat, but start to fall and fallen, so one could call it beginning of—thank you. Um, I have another note here; someone's asking, is it possible to have momentary awareness during sleep without having a clear experience of TC and meditation? Oh, yes; this is how it starts, this is how it starts, and this is how it grows; some little, by little, little by little. This is really, this just the right beginning comes, and one loses, and comes, and one loses, and then it comes, and one never loses. So it can come bre in—uh, it need matter which comes first, TC, or whether, uh, you have awareness in sleep. Sometimes the awareness and sleep can come first, then, although you've said that's right, momentary, uh, always experience momentary sity. Yeah, it can happen. Oh, you can—it can happen; all, all depends upon the, the elephants rising up. Okay, thank you very much. J. Yeah, very good, very good, very good. Mahi.

The good news from Australia, of course, is mainly happening right here, where we've had up to 10 Australians here at the course at one time, and five going back at the end of this month. That's the best news in Australia. But first of all, I'd like to mention some experiences I had, um, had experiences of witnessing sleep, but mainly before the course started, so I just mention that first. Um, once I was sleeping, just on the way between Ciren and here, and I was just deep in sleep and not aware of anything, when I must have been making a noise, snoring or something, and someone else in the room said, wake up, you're snoring. Is he—and this brought me up to being aware of myself; didn't seem to wake up the body, but I became aware and remained aware for the rest of the night, just aware of the body, just being there, and roll over occasionally, right through the night. And early in the morning, someone walked in for something, and I was aware of that without waking up; they walked out, and when I eventually woke up, it was as if I just decided to wake up, and I was completely clear, and there's no heaviness, no feeling of, of being, um, being asleep at all, as far as it's been awake, but I felt very fresh. But now, um, now I'm at the course here, it seems that, so, so many stresses, so many elephants are moving; I don't seem to experience this anymore. This is just because the elephants are moving, I suppose; so used to them, you don't feel—I see. Although it's gradually becoming slightly witnessing some of the deep unstressing I had went today in which I was feel my whole head was sort of locked in a very tight position, and yet I was able to decide, know, would I put up with this and enjoy it right through, or, or will I finish? Because near the end of the round, you know, I had this ability to decide as well, which was good. But on this point, another thing: what would you give some advice for young people who tend to be having relationships with each other out of marriage? And would you give us some advice on ideal marriage relationships? Meditate, meditate, meditate. [Applause] First, we give advice in meditation. Meditation, through meditation, we make people more, more intelligent, and in their increased intelligence they'll be than before, than—and it would, it be better for people to wait till they get to CC before they get married? So many marriages break; I think they shouldn't wait; we should hurry up; we introduce meditation at the age of eight, and then they are more than CC before they are marriageable age. So instead of restricting them, we hurry up; CC should hurry up to them; CC should hurry up to them. This will be good for the Next Generation. But what about our friends living now? We can only design a new house; old house we live as it is; we can't design a new house; you can put a new furniture, but it's not designing a new—but when we design, we already design in new house. But there is no reason why present sit generation should suffer because once one starts to meditate, one starts to feel better, no matter what generation. But when we talk of those who, who should have CC before marriageable age, fine; give them TM from 10, and TM from 10, and they are CC. And I've got another question; really it rose from discussions, um, other people have this idea, um, they're trying to work out what way of life one should lead. You've said a lot in the last two weeks about the reclose path, reclose way of life, devotion to the master. And it's not the main criteria that is actually happening within oneself. Devotion to the master had nothing to do with the way of life; all the householders are so beautifully devoted to Master's. Devotion to master means devotion to knowledge. So one, any, any way of life is, is equally open to such a level of liking, liking for knowledge. So, and whether married life or reclus life, one feels from within, and as one feels, one is, uh, free to make One's Choice. But devotion to master is, is always applicable to bothus householder; both are devoted to knowledge; both are devoted to Enlightenment; both are devoted to fulfillment; and this is all that the master is, expression of. So a husband and wife can both be devoted to the same, to the master. If husband and wife will be devoted to most, and because they know how to get devoted to each other, devotion is their life; wife is devoted to husband, husband is devoted to life; both get devoted to some, something more; they know how to, how to devote to someone, so they are living devotion. So the old message of, you know, you can only devote your life to one thing was a bad message; you know, someone said you can't serve two masters at once, but there are no two masters; Master is only one. That's right. So a person can make money and yet have a master, and this sort of thing. In the, the Christian have a better Master with [Laughter] money, because then he can go around the world and pick him up from somewhere.

One last—was there an illustration from your life when you were deciding that you wanted to be a Brahma? Was there some, um, decision you made with respect to your parents? As wondering because we all got parents are trying to push us into one way of life or another, and I feel that you—I said to them, I want to go. But did they try to stop you? And they were happy when they found out where I was going; then it was satisfaction. I never came out to, to just look to the skies and keep roaming about; I came out and went straight, like a Target, like, like an arrow on, on the target. What parents want is that their children should be fulfilled, no matter what line they take; they want them to be happy, and if from their standard, from their experience of the world, if they see that the child is going on the right direction, that's all that they want to see; what the child should do, they are not concerned much with that; only they are concerned with the result of his doing, whether he is going to end up in misery or success. And when the, the teacher is good, then the parents are satisfied that he, he gone to a right place, to a good place. Is parents only want their children to be happy, whatever they do; out of that doing, happiness should come to them; that's all the desire of the children, of the parents; they don't want anything else other than happiness of the children, always, always. Thank you very much, Jay. G. That's why we want to do something; we, we take their advice; we respect their advice; and if they don't understand something which we understand, then we try to convince them, and when they see that the, the child is very devoted to that cause, and without that he so miserable, gradually, gradually they begin to give in. And then, is it the world needs good brahmacharis and good householders only? No matter what one is, one should be good, a good householder, a good brah, and then the world will be better. This just needs some men of strong character, and they give it, give a lift to the whole situation; they give a direction to time; that's all that is necessary. Our present need is 3, 50; I keep coming back to that focal point, of course, 13, yeah, 13 million. The plan is going ahead, and every day seems to be easier; the target seems to be easier every day; that because when someone work gets done at the end of the day, it seems to be nearer, more near, more near. By the time you finish your roundings, it'll be just almost in the hand; be very good. Is she—I've had some very deep confusion about CC, especially the experiences that I've been mentioned the past couple of days, so I thought I would bring my confusion to the forefront; it'll be good; this is the time to remove all of that. I've written my question down, so it's easier. Um, there's a book by a very eminent and popular scientist in the United States; his name is Lang; it's called The Divided Sound, and in which he describes the schizophrenic, the unhealthy divided self, in terms that we use to speak about CC, and the integrated whole, healthy unified, the well-functioning man as one who can be fully involved in his activity. Now, I've had different times in my life, prior to starting TM, had many experiences of separateness during activity, and, and I've always regarded them as symptomatic, as a disintegration in my personality, as some sort of unhealthy duality existing within me, such as he has spoken of in his book. And with TM, it's been my great joy to feel a new holess in me and a new unity in my person, so that when I act, I can fully feel my actions and fully feel involved in them, and it's made me feel very good, and I don't really espe look forward to a, a duality existing again, unless I misunderstand what this duality is. But I feel I fully experienced myself separate from action at different times in my life; that that kind of separateness must not have been due to awareness of the self; that kind of separateness would have been totally in the relative. I remember this; I remember that also; this can happen, remaining completely in the relative; nothing of the absolute; I do this, and I remember that this and that; this can happen, and that, that we will not attribute to separateness which belongs to CC. The separateness that belongs to CC is due to the existence, our existence, which was experienced as individual existence; now expands, expands; it becomes infinite, and the moment the existence becomes infinite, all that is boundary, that belongs to boundary, naturally falls off; all perception belong to boundaries; this, this, this boundary, sense of sight, sense of hearing, all within boundaries, and now the experience has expanded itself to such enormous unboundedness; this unboundedness of the experiencer and the boundaries of the experienced objects, these don't have any relationship; boundary has no relationship with the boundless, and this separation of the boundless and the boundary is due to the expansion of one's awareness. And the dual perception, which has nothing to do with the unboundedness, is only in the relative; this and this at the same time, this and this at the same time. So when two kinds of activities could be perceived almost the same time, then one kind of activity could also be silence, but relative silence; that relative silence, this relative activity, both could be experienced at the same time, and it might, we felt that this is silence and this is activity; it is silence, but this silence is not the Eternal Silence of being, which is unbounded; this silence is just lack of gross activity. So such a silence and activity could be experienced remaining in the relative field always; this may not have anything to do with CC, and if this kind of relative silence or Gap was being felt, then this Gap was due to the inability of compromising between the relative silence and the relative activity; the compromising, that means coordination was shallow coordination, and the coordination means coordination of body and mind, coordination between mind and senses, coordination between mind and senses may be less, and due to this, what you call it double perception or dual personality, some such things, but they are due to lack of coordination between mind and senses; coord, Toro coordination is missing. When one starts to meditate, self begins to expand; power of the Mind expands; with the expanded power of the Mind, coordination between mind and senses becomes better; with better coordination, the situation improves. So when one was feeling a sort of disintegrated or a sort of dual personality, dual perception, due to lack of coordination of mind and senses, when the coordination becomes healthier, one begins to feel more integrated; then that relative silence and relative activity, they both fall on one category, and the self, expanded self, infinite self, falls on the, uh, other side of the reality, so both begin to be experienced, but this silence is infinite silence along with the relative activity; that is why when you are feeling something, silence, some activity, and ever since you started to meditate, you feel more integrated because that discrepancy of dual perception is gone. Makes it clear. Yes, thank you very much. Um, I've been passed a note asking about the experience of deja vu; someone wants to know what's, what's happening during that experience of deja vu; it's an experience where you, you're doing something and you feel you've done it before, experienced it before; that word, am I right? Deja vu; it's French; I don't know what—already seen me, already se seen, already seen. Who passed me the note? It's a phrase in French; I, I believe it's an experience when you've done something and you feel somehow, sometime you've been there before or you've done it before, but, but you don't know where are you referring to; maybe a reincarnation; that's what you're thinking of, or something; he doesn't know; it can happen; it can happen; it can happen. This experience of pure Consciousness, uh, could have happened before, and when this happens now, when could be reminded of that previous experience that this had, had happened; so it can happen; the experience may not be always new; could be an old experience; so that is all right. Thank you very much; we accept that old French saying. J. Yeah.

Many people have been talking about, um, c—yeah, it's very nice; it's very nice today, and it was very nice yesterday, and I think it's going to go on being very nice. Very good. Um, that is it; I wanted to speak, um, to someone to this one point, um, about women's Liberation, marishi; I think it's right there because the Liberation comes first, and then the womanliness is natural. Um, new cc is always very tender; it's, it's very tender. Yes. Um, I feel like nature is, uh, nature is so proud of me, and the last few days, nature has been watching me and saying, come on, come on. I remember how I first started TM; I was very fortunate to have my introductory lecture given by marahi, and it was also in this same room, and there were about 30 people there, and I remember afterwards a friend of mine saying, well, what did you think? And I, I said, I don't know what it is, but I want it, and he's got it. And another thing that I remember that I've thought of many times in the last few days was that I didn't know anything about what you wereing saying, or she—I didn't understand the words Cosmic Consciousness at all; I didn't understand anything; all I knew was that I was unstressing so much then, and I didn't even understand what that was, that I couldn't sit through the lecture. And as the years have gone by, I've been able to sit longer and longer and longer and longer and longer and enjoy it more and more, and the one thing that sticks in my mind is you had a red rose in your hand, and when, when you started the lecture, it was a bud, and when you finished the lecture, it had bloomed, transcended. And I feel very much like that Rose. And I guess the last thing that I want to say is I remember also your constancy; it was the same then as it is now; the situation may be different; it's beautiful that there are so many more, but the message, you, the same exactly. And as I have changed again and again and again, and I look forward to going on very much, only I remain changeable. Yeah, the truth stays the same as we come up to it, and to everybody, to all my friends and people who are unstressing, I feel like writing you a postcard and saying, it's a very nice place, and I wish you were here. Thank you. [Applause] [Applause] This was the secret of the number that Jerry told me today; 650 are coming on January 2nd, apart from about 180 initiators on the 2nd. This is the beginning of a good world, of a better world; it's very good; it's very, very good. I hear all those in the kitchen and medical staff and everywhere very happy and working very hard, and all more like, more delight, more delight. Very good. If you could have such courses in 350 places in the world, that will be the day; maybe next winter, next winter, next winter, next winter; then we will feel we have done something; something has happened; it's coming. Yeah. Um, about these experiences of these, these except for the one we've just heard about, the, the experiences of, of temporary Cosmic—

Consciousness. Is there any way to tell when you're there? If it's temporary or permanent? No way to tell. All right. Once we are in that state, we are in that state. What's going to be 2 minutes later? Don't know. Only when it disappears then we know. Oh, some more ice to melt. And in that state, in that, that is a state, and that is it. And we know that that Cosmic Consciousness, the the sure sign of it is uh, when you have a wakefulness during sleep and waking 24 hours a day. Can we are there also such signs for God Consciousness and unity? Also the same way. It also develops. Every state of consciousness develops in this same way. It comes and goes, and comes and goes, and comes and goes. Is there any sure sign of GC or UC or UC? I think I understand, but the the line between, yeah, CC, what is that? Yeah, yeah. It's very sure. Experiences are very clear. Experience is when when uh, transition from GC to UC, it's a very clear transition. And from CC to GC is that so clear? Same way, same way. In CC, I am all that is dominating. In GC, I get a sort of trans F to thou. I am CC, Thou Art GC. And I am and thou art am and amness. You see, first in the state of ignorance, there is no trace of ey. The ey is too superficial a boundary. The real not there. In CC, I am I am master of all. Is-er way the poet wrote. Because then the self is dominating. Self is unbounded, and that's a very real state of experience and life. And then surrender takes over, and GC comes. Thou Art. Does that Thou Art apply to everybody, or is it just one? Thou Art. Once you see one Thou Art, you are GC. What is GC? That unboundedness of the self and perception on the celestial level. Celestial, Celestial, Celestial, Celestial. Here, there, everywhere. Celestial. That Celestial overwhelming Thou Art. That some whole or solidness or Continuum. Celestial Continuum. That Isha. And then this unbounded s gets sold out to that because it's so blazing, blazing, because it is on the level of the senses. Experience on the sensory level just uh, enlivens the finest quality of perception. Finest quality of perception. And then just as this unbounded was was Hess of life in CC, Celestial is so that wholeness of CCE. And this unboundedness of the celestial, they get to one with the other. So something which was experienced as separate from one so far in CC, and as the CC was developing, everything was separate, separate, separate. Now everything being Celestial is so very intimate to that Infinity of the unbounded self. It's so intimate, they both become together. And in that togetherness, th that's all the ey. Even an infinite gets a sort of merged into that. And that that momentary period of th art and the what then my Lord, and the surrender. The surrender is of that Perfection that even the line of joining is missing. It's beautiful. That's like the Drop in the Ocean. It's just no drop there at all. A river in the ocean, there's no meeting point. Even the meeting point is not available. So in this merger on the field of surrender, one just gets delighted into the wholeness of the perception. And that perception is my Lord. So one gets merged, one gets United, one gets surrendered to one's Lord. And this is the state of life in which Thou Art is a reality, as much a reality as I was. So first I gets awakened CC, and then thou gets awakened, and then I and thou come on the same level of infinite unboundedness, and that is fullness of Life, integrated life, Unity. So the transition from one state to the other is very pronounced, is very specific, it's very clear. So there is no no no no non-recognition of the of the different value of CC and GC and UC. They're very well pronounced, but but it's it's an it's an evolutionary change from CC to GC. It must come on gradually, right, right. And and without a master around for the next 10,000 Generations, how how are we going to make sure that people say oh this is definitely GC, this is definitely UC? I'm producing Masters. Masters are going to be Masters for all the 10,000 years. The 350 centers will take care. It's such a beautiful happening. That's such a beautiful phenomenon. Angels are dancing and doing music in the heavens on just this plan for the world. It's something very delightful, very delightful. Great. I have a question that was passed to me. It says, when there are flashes of GC but CC has not been reached fully, is permanent CC close? Very close. Maybe not so close. Very close. Very close. Not doesn't exist in that sphere. Very close. It's very close, very close. E for.