BuddhiPurification

PURIFICATION OF THE BUDDHI,AND SELF-SADHANA. 29/03/98-Vancouver.-edited. P=Participant.

Before I start let me say that because I can talk about all this, doesn't mean I can do it. Also I believe Creation didn't happen and all this is just an appearance, but as Sankara said,its real whilst you are in it. (Actually the appearance didn't happen either, IMO-Tony.).

Purification of the Buddhi, or the individualised version of the universal Mahat, is necessary for spiritual progress. The Buddhi is an aspect of the Vijnanamayakosha or Awareness Sheath, it is the Inner Mind or Antahkarana. When it is turned inwards it pierces through Maya and leads to Moksha or Liberation. When it is turned outward it only succeeds in enhancing the power of the Lower Mind or Manamayakosha. This part of the mind is turned out to desires and satisfaction of the senses. A Buddhi turned outwards is a distortion of its'function. For man can manipulate his mind to enjoy the senses, out of season, so to speak. Unlike the animal,which only operates instinctively within its' Dharma.

I will briefly talk about the five koshas and how this purification process works. It is a reversal of consciousness as we know it, to its' "Natural" State. The five koshas are the ANNAMAYA,PRANAMAYA,MANOMAYA,JNANAMAYA,ANANDAMAYA KOSHAS. THAT IS THE FOOD,ENERGY,MIND,AWARENESS OR INTELLECTUAL,BLISS OR CAUSAL SHEATHS.

These Sheaths all relate to different planes of consciousness of course. The first thing you have to do when washing dirty clothes is loosen the dirt first then you can wash the clothes.

This is all illusion,for example do you get involved in a T.V. show? Do you feel for the person suffering? Well this world is also an illusion, why get involved in it? Feel compassion yet but do not get attached.

We must start self-sadhana by purifying the food sheath and work our way up so to speak. We purify the food sheath by regulating our food and avoiding tamasic food and meat. Eating meat means we absorb bad vibrations plus we are sending billions of Jivas to the subtle world many of which are born again as humans. Billions of people were these animals in their last lives and they bring their resentment of human beings with them. The resentment of their bad treatment and having their lives cut short. Hence this contributes to violence, mass slaughters and so on. People don't realise this,and they wonder why kids kill kids or there are massacres like Ruanda.

We purify the energy sheath by controlling our desires. This is also connected to the mind sheath where desires and attachment to the senses have to be controlled. The important sheath in this process is the awareness sheath which is part and parcel of the Buddhi, and controls and guides the lower sheaths particularly the mind. Intelligence isn't awareness, some geniuses are spiritually ignorant and unaware.

The Guru. "SPARSHAN,DARSHAN AND SAMBHASHAN.That is awareness of His presence, receiving the impact of His Divinity and assimilating and actualising His teaching,not just seeing,touching and listening.

Darshan is the Insight of Divine Beauty acquired from meditation. Sparshan means the installation of the lotus feet,and all that means,in one's heart. Sambharshan means praying directly before Him and listening to His response before the inner altar of one's heart.Meditation in other words.

Only a deserving Shisya gets a proper Guru.....Gita 4:39.40,and Sankara's Viveka Chudamani 19,20,and 363. So Buddhi should control the mind and not the reversal.S.S. and Gita 2:62.Gita 9:22. It is said that desire (for purification or Liberation) without effort is useless, Self-Sadhana purifies our impulses. "Manas Sathyate Shuddhate". Only Truth can purify and sublimate the mind.

To achieve this purification there are Four Exercises.

1) Swadhaya,that is reading spiritual books, bhajan, satsang, to make us aware of the Atma.

2) Japa, this should go on unceasingly, be aware and only come out into the world when it is necessary. To think of 'God' at death is very difficult, if you haven't practiced the Name all your waking life. It is better to start at about eight or nine years of age. Some people die and don't even realise they have died, others get distracted at the last moment, or are confused by the memories of their life. It is not so easy to be like Ghandiji and remember Rama as we die. Nobody experiences death for one is unconscious. Except if you are a Yogi then there is no death of course. Sankara says death is being separated from our desires.

3)Homa, Japa becomes Homa, offer all activities to The Lord all day long.Don't offer Grace just for meals, Brahmarpnam etc is to purify our inner being for all is food for the senses.

4)Brahmiya Kriyate Tanuhu.A Divine Inner Body".(1)

Finally this inner balance leads to purification of the Buddhi. Cessation of the mind is the goal.

The Buddhi is not present in deep sleep just the thought "I am sleeping", we must purify even that thought and become God. Once we have stilled all thought we are God, we enter the fourth or Turiya stage of consciousness.

See all as God, Do all as God.This is through DAYA,KSHAMA,AND SHANTI; Compassion, Forgiving those that trespass against us, and Peace to all, all is God. Love,Love,Love,Prema,Prema,Prema. All is One!This is were helping others comes in for it lessens our preoccupation with ourselves and therefore weakens the ego sense,and helps expand our vision.

KOHAM.............SOHAM.Who am I? I am He!' Drive the thought inward to the Universal "I". By eliminating the illusion of an individual ego. "I"is that background feeling of awareness that suffuses everything.

All these exercises are to purify one's Buddhi so that one may have one-pointedness and achieve Liberation, or loss of illusion and Moha. For a purified Buddhi is essentially a state of no mind,which is Liberation. Love is the answer, infuse our thoughts!

(When a stage is reached that one feels deeply that whatever is being done is happening and one has not got anything to do with it,then it becomes such a deep conviction that whatever is happening is not happening really;And that whatever seems to be happening is also an illusion.)Sri Nisagardatta Maharaj.

We move from thinking we are our own thought, to realising we are God's thought and eventually we realise there was no thought at all,just Bliss.

Questions and statements,Tony and Participants.(It is all opinions.)

Tony.....How do you purify yourself?I'll throw it out to the male side first.

Joyce(Co-ordinator.).....Let's have a minutes meditation first!

P(participant.).....What is the relationship between internal and external purification?Is physical purification required for internal purification?

Tony.....We live in a polluted world,everything is polluted;the water we drink is polluted,the food we eat is polluted,the people we talk to are polluted,we are polluted.There is no difference.Everything is One.We divide the bodies and consciousness up into different planes,but it is actually just one.You cannot have impure mind,body and be physically impure and then try and purify the inner mind.It would be exremely difficult to do,it is all one,the body is what we eat,and our mind is what we hear,read or think.There is no difference between outer and inner purification it's all the same thing.(It seems we have to have purification of the outer to some degree in order to work on the inner.Eventually when reaching the light of the Self all impurity would be burned up.)

P....I think the most purest form of purification would be early childhood,four or five years old,to start the purification process.I have a question.You are saying Sparshan, Darshan and Sambarshan.....If you go through all three of those,in the presence of a Yogi,and touch the feet etc,does the purification process increase?

Tony.....Well I'm not a Yogi but they say if you touch the feet of a Yogi, the fact that you are near the energy, it would help you along in the purification process obviously, but if you go inside yourself then that is as far away as 'God' is . So you can have it come from inside as well. So it helps,it's not absolutely necessary but,for a lot of people,it helps.

P.....Purification can be achieved by first recognising and searching within yourself.First learn to love yourself because by loving yourself you can give this love.Once you have Divine Love to other human beings,towards the Earth,towards Mankind,towards the Universe purification is automatic.

Tony.....That's exactly the fourth exercise..Shanti..Love,Love,Love, Prema,Prema,Prema.It comes under Shanti one of the four exercises...It's Shanti.

P.....I think purification starts with control of the senses,not eating meat and if watching television,watching only non-violent shows.

Tony.....That's how it all started whether you descended as a Being or came up from the animals. Those big girls painted on the side of hoardings in India,shouldn't even look at that.It changes the direction of the mind all the time....Mental Pollution..exactly.

P.....You are what you eat...Purification Process starts with Compassion....eating habits,eliminate killing...etc.

Tony.....Exactly.

P....(Joyce the Co-Ordinator.)Talking about not positive but negative emotions.Feelings like;anger,greed,jealousy,fear,envy...we have them all in one degree or another. Pray about it,meditate about it,....clean your heart everyday you go into meditation and ask to be helped to be cleaned out.Without that you will never be pure.Our feelings bring us to our troubles and we simply got ourselvles into it with what we have been given as a gift....our minds.We can get ourselves out of it.Sometimes people will hold on to a feeling ,a negative feeling intil they die rather than give it up.I've seen it over and over and over.So you have to be honest with yourself.First deal with it...ask for help and may be just may be we will be purified.

Tony..Right..Somebody over here now?

P.....You mention Pollution,I think we are surrounded by negative influences,sensuality,television etc.We have to control our energies,thoughts and direct them on the path of meditation and purification.

P.....Purifying our thoughts starts within,but there are so many outside influences.One thing that comes to my mind,was the onion.Peeling away our faults,no matter how many tears to get rid of negative emotions.Going through all negative emotions peeling away slowly one at a time,slowly but surely.

Tony.....That's a good method,a lot of Yogis use it,they say Neti...Neti...not this ...not this...All the bad thoughts and so called good thoughts and things they eliminate one at a time.They end up with the one thought....Yes..that's what we have to do.

Tony.....There are many different ways and everyone has mentioned an angle of the same thing.So many different people,so many different levels of awareness.So people are coming from different directions all the time.

P.....This gentleman touched on what I wanted to say about continuing to ask the question "Who am I?". Joyce referred to emotions,so often our thought patterns which continually jump up from simple thoughts result in negative emotions,that she listed.But if we go back further the problem stems from believing that we are the body and I think continuing to ask the question"Who am I?" has to be the greatest purification.

Tony....By asking the question "Who am I?",that is the original thought of human beings,the Ego,that is the original fall of human beings:I".Every thought is connected with the "I"-because you own the thought,therefore if you go back to the feeling of "Who am I?",and you eliminate the "I" or you try and find the "I" you'll find the "I"does not exist.There is only one Universal "I".At that point the originator of all your problems and all your impurities and all your thoughts are gone.The chain is broken-the mind doesn't exist-it's just a bundle of thoughts and desires--and they are all connected to the"I" thought.The feeling of"I, once the "I" thought is gone then they go.This is the whole process of elimination.Is to bring the mind in and in and in,whether it's through different practical exercises or meditating.It's to get one pointedness,one pointedness,of concentration and go in and get the feeling like you were a little child.Jesus said "suffer little children come unto me".What He meant was be like little children,an innocent child.

P...(Same person.)...Having said what I have said,I also believe that a certain degree of subtley of mind is required to even be in a level of consciousness to even want to ask the question"Who am I?".To grasp the purpose of asking it,so a certain level of basic purification is already necessary.

Tony.Yes... they say there are "horses for courses",what suits one doesn't suit another.(There are different levels of awareness.)

P...Male..Love All.?.

Tony.....What does it mean?--well someone over here just mentioned it,start off by loving yourself and realising you are not an individual.You are everything and the purpose of loving all and serving all is getting your mind off yourself.It has all got to do with concentration,when you help people,it's not the people that you are helping.You've been given the opportunity to help them so you can help yourself.If you don't help them,they are God's people,God's poor,God will help them anyway.You're helping them to help yourself.It's to reduce your own ego,your own "I" feeling,the more you help people.Many many years ago when I stopped drinking and I used to go to A.A..They had a saying that if you are thinking of other people you can't get depressed,if you are out helping other people it's pretty hard to get depressed,because you aren't thinking of yourself.This is one of the main reasons for Seva,your mind isn't thinking about yourself,you are thinking of this person and that person,and you're not thinking of yourself,and that reduces your"I",thought.That's why "Love All".

P...same person.Enslavement,you are a slave?

Tony.....No,No,it's not being a slave,a slave is somebody that has no will,there is no karma(Seva),in being a slave,for he has to do as he is told.There is no good or bad karma in being a slave,he has to do as he is told.When you are doing good work like this,you are creating good karma of course,if you can eliminate the "I" thought,you eliminate that as well.It's not enslavemenat helping other people,a slave has no choice.

P.... The best method is Namasmarana,and only seeing God,seeing everything pure,and you will see yourself pure.

Tony.....Japa is the same thing.It's like the psychiatrist programming one's mind,he doesn't eliminate the problem thoughts but reduces them to say 5%.The other 95% is the programming the psychiatrist put in there.So for all intents and purposes the bad thoughts are gone.With Japa you are programming yourself,you are programming your mind with God.The Name of God,The Form of God and God are all the same thing,there's no difference.So by doing Japa you increase the Love,you purify by "eliminating" other thoughts from the mind,and constant Japa....well it creates Liberation.

P...same person..In the Baghavad Gita Lord Krishna says see all equally as God.See only the Pure no dirt,everything is Pure.

P.....To purify ourselves,to engage ourselves in good satsang and meditation,jnana,which is a step towards purifying ourself.Talking about food--the concept here is Hindus not eating meat,for more sathwik food,but there are more tamasic food in vegetables.

Tony.....Like eating too many onions and chillis?

P....same person.Correct!In Ayuraveda there are more Tamasik vegetables mentioned--in a book by Sankara--I can't remember the name--advising not eating tamasik food.Talking about eating meat there are so many Saints eating meat,talking about the Buddha.There is a Buddhist concept we take food from other people,whatever they offer we eat.But they are highly spiritual Saints and all.

Tony.....To a highly evolved Yogi(Jivanmukti),it doesn't matter what you eat anyway.

P...same person.Yes!Basically not eating meat to avoid killing.There are lots of people eating meat,they are more spiritual than those who are eating vegetables.

Tony.....It depends on what your level of awareness is,there are four types of Human Being,Human animal,Aspiring Human Being,Human Being and Divine Human Being.

If you are a Human Animal you can do all the things that animals do-mate,eat,sleep,defend whatever.If you are an Aspiring Human Being you have to change yourself from an animal.You have to take on Ahimsa,not killing an animal to eat its meat.

Human Beings are like a flower,a flower bursts into creation and it gets to a certain point,at the end of the day when it closes its petals and it goes back in again.Human Beings are the same,not every flower bursts into creation and comes back in at the same time.Some close earlier some close later,the person still coming out into manifestation,they are more likely to be a Human Animal.If they have decided to close in the petals and come back;whereas they are more likely to be an aspiring Human Being.

Tony....And now we can have the last speaker.

P.....A last thought --to say that cleanliness is next to Godliness,cleanliness spiritually and physically its the same.So for the spiritual and mental we shall take a bath.We take a mental bath whilst we are doing our prayers and meditation,so it washes our mind.It should wash our mind but we don't know how pure we are,or where we are at.So by just doing it,we should eliminate some of the impurities that we think and receive.

Tony....It's no good in wanting to be Liberated unless you have a method of Sadhana.You have to have a practice,you have to have a system.It's no good saying I want to be Liberated,you've got to have a system.You say Morning Prayers,how much Japa do you do on a regular basis,how much Seva do you do.You have to have a Sadhana,if you don't have a Sadhana you're not going to get anywhere,Even if it's just thinking I'm not the "I".

Joyce...Thank you Tony for giving us this opportunity to think about ourselves.I was just thinking you can't love yourself unless you purify yourself,you have guilt about whatever you are doing,that will destroy that self love.Thank you again.

Om Namah Sivaya.... Tony