Session 10: Silence , Love and Grace (26 July 1966)
I believe that most of us in this room, although every one of us has been with metaphysics, has not heard much about the so-called ‘Silent teachings’, and yet they are the most powerful, the most effective, and the very best of all teachings. They are the teachings that go on all the time, in spite of our not accepting them, they're going on just the same.
They are the teachings that are being projected by all the greatest of masters. Every great master that, in our concept, has been, in truth still is, and is sending out the teachings all the time, in silence.
It's not easy to explain the method, but it's something like this. — A master has the infinite power available to him, and he uses it. A master is able to contact every one of us four billion people on this planet, at the same moment. If a master wanted to, he could even appear in a physical body to four billion people individually, with four billion bodies, and talk to each one, and satisfy the need of that one.
A master is one who has no limits. If he can create one body, he can create four billion, but he doesn't do it because, first, he's not being asked. Second, if he did it, he would frighten more people than he would help.
But with all his infinite power, he is projecting the absolute truth to each and every one of us. He's projecting his conviction that we are, just like he is, an unlimited being. And the only way to experience that limitlessness is in silence. If there's any sound, if there's any vision, if there's anything other than the single one, we are not experiencing the absolute.
So the master projects with his power to each and every one the truth of what we are. He is at every moment sending that to us. There is no time when he is not doing that. The difficulty lies on our side. — We have ourselves closed off to it. We prefer to believe that we are limited bodies with limited minds.
And this is the God-given right that we have. We have the freedom and the right of being basically the gods that we are to choose to be limited. And we have done it for so long a time that we have convinced ourselves that we are.
So that the noise that goes on within us of limitation drowns out the highest of these silent teachings that are being sent to us all the time. So the way to receive this greatest of all teachings is to get quiet. When we get quiet, we begin to feel this highest of teachings. We begin to feel what we call higher, more peaceful, happier. We get a feeling of well-being. — All our problems disappear.
And most of us don't recognize that we are being supported by the great ones every time we move in that direction. Once we experience an assist from a master, we should be convinced of what happened.
Very often we get an assist and we think it's accidental or just something that happened. The more we recognize the source of it, the more we will receive of the same thing. There isn't any great master that doesn't do this. And the more we open ourselves to them, the more they come in, the more they establish us in the knowledge of what we are.
So to sum it up, the greatest of all teachings is the silent teachings. And the way to them is to get quiet and receive it and recognize that you're receiving it.
One of the practical methods of getting oneself to this place is the method of silence, of practicing quietude, of not talking, especially on your days off. Spend an entire day without talking or writing. Spend an entire week if possible.
But we should try to keep as quiet as we possibly can. The only conversation we should engage in is only that which is necessary to maintain the body and also anything pertaining to the path. If we are not talking about the path or about sustaining the body, we are expressing our ego. And each time we express the ego, we make it stronger.
Keeping quiet does not strengthen the ego and is therefore an excellent method of growth that will eventually lead any one of us to get to the place where we are able to receive the very highest of the teachings, the silent teachings.
HUMAN LOVE VERSUS DIVINE LOVE
Human love is what we think love is. [Human love is limited and with conditions attached to it, and yet it is that which most people define as love.]
Divine love is a constant, persistent acceptance of every being in the universe, fully, wholly, totally, as the other being is, and loving them because they are the way they are. Divine love is allowing the other one to be the way the other one wants to be. Divine love is seeing everyone equally.
And I think that is the test of how divine our love is. — “Is it the same for every person we meet every day? Is our love for those who are opposing us as strong as our love is for those who are supporting us?” Divine love is unconditional and is for everyone alike.
I guess the greatest example of it is Christ with his teachings of turn the other cheek, love your enemy, and so forth. If we as a nation were to practice this, we could make every apparent enemy of ours completely impotent just by Loving them. They would be powerless to do any harm to us, but we would have to do it as a nation. At least the great majority of the people would have to do that.
Divine Love itself is something we can't turn on and turn off. Either we have it or we don't have it, and it's impossible to love one person and hate another. To the degree that we hate anyone, to that degree we love others. Our love is no greater than our hatred is for any one person.
What we call love, human love, is simply there’s a need for that person. If we say, I love this person but not the next, we feel that we need this person, and therefore we'll be nice to this person so we can get what we want. But that's not love. Human love is selfish. Divine love is completely selfless.
The methods we use should be the ones that suit us best. The methods that we like we are able to gain most from. Therefore, each one should follow that method which he likes best. All methods will eventually lead to the one method of self-investigation. “Who am I?” “What am I?”
And when that question is fully answered, that is the end of the line. — There's nowhere else to go. Once we discover who we are, we discover that we are infinite beings, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent.
So the ‘outer teacher’ pushes us toward the ‘inner teacher’ — which is nothing but we revealing our real self to our Self. That which we have been seeking over the centuries outwardly in the world has always been right with us all the time, closer than flesh.
It's always been the ‘I’ that ‘I Am’. We foolishly have been looking away from it. The moment we start turning our attention toward it, the moment we start looking inwardly, we begin to discover who and what we are!
We should continue this until it's full, complete. And discovering who we are is the same as discovering that we are not the ego. We are not that limited being. Because we have strayed so far from the absolute knowledge, it's almost necessary for us to start on the negative side of eliminating the ego, to get enough of it out of the way so that we can begin to see the self that we are.
If we work on ego elimination, we should always balance that with getting quiet, worshipping the masters, dropping into the self, reading inspirational writings.
If we work too long or too much on the ego, we get caught up with it — it becomes real to us, it becomes too real. And then instead of letting go of it, we begin to try to sustain it.
So anytime we are working on any method of eliminating the ego, we should always balance it with a positive method of dropping into the self, into the quietness, into the feelings of bliss, so that we don't validate the ego too much.
The only growth there is, is ego elimination. Die to the little self, then the infinite self is there. The infinite self is always there. There's never a time when you are not a full master. That's perfection, that's eternal, that can never be changed. But your point of view, your identity with it, you can change.
Because being infinite, you have no limitations. And therefore you can't assume limitations. But it's only an assumption. It's only an apparency, it's not real. So we should die to the little self, the ego. When we eliminate that, this infinite being that we are becomes self-obvious.
The infinite self is there all the time, just covered over by concepts of limitation, which are only ego concepts. I say never forget God, always keep in the background, if not the feeling of God, the question, “Who am I?” Or always keep in the background, — “I am not the doer.” It's the body that's doingness. I am the witness.
Be the witness, and in that way growth goes on all the time. No matter what one is doing at work, there is always room to keep our mind on God, to keep our mind on the path, to keep our mind on a particular method.
And this should be done, if we expect to get out of the mess we got ourselves into. It requires full time, if we expect to get realization. Because of what I said before, we have tons and tons and tons of effort put into wrong thinking. Now that we're in the right direction, it's going to take that much effort to undo it.
Except if we recognize that being infinite beings, we do have the willpower, and we could will instant realization, if we would just do it.
How long does it take an infinite being to know that he is infinite?
Each one of us being infinite could do it in an instant, if we would but apply our full willpower. But our will is not that strong in that direction. Our will still says “We are bodies, mind, need this and need that and want this and want that.” But that doesn't take away the fact that realization can be instantaneous, the moment we do it. — “I am that I am.” “Thou art that.”
So the real grace is not external, but internal. The real grace is always there. You will never ever stop trying to return to this unlimited joy with no sorrow, because that is the natural state of the Self.
And that is the grace operating all the time. You're always being pushed toward seeking happiness, which is seeking the Self. So the grace is operating every moment. But if we expect someone other than us to do it for us, it will never happen.
But I believe it's obvious when you look at masters with people around them. People around them are not being given instantaneous realization, are they? Not because the master doesn't want it. Because we have to do it. The only thing the teacher does is point the direction that we must take. And each one must do it for himself or herself.
Now, in a sense, it's good to surrender to a master, to God.
But what is surrender?
Surrendering is saying, “Thy will, but not my will.” Not my little ego will, but the overall divine will. — And if you surrendered your ego, from that moment on, everything would be perfect.
But most of us who think we are surrendering are doing it very conditionally, just a little bit at a time. And it must be complete to be effective. If it's just a little, that's all the benefit we receive is just a little.
So divine grace is always operating. It's the self of you wanting you to let go of the ego concepts of limitation. And it drives you toward the Self in the direction of seeking happiness.
Someday you'll see the only joy there is, is of the self expressing more or less, or shining forth more or less. We uncover it a bit more and we feel happier. So every time you're seeking happiness, that's grace in operation.
So the grace is always there. But no one will do it for you but you, because you are that. It's necessary to take full responsibility for everything that happens to us, if we want realization. God himself cannot give us realization. If he could, we would all have it.
And the reason why he can't is because we are that God that we are seeking. It's nothing external to us. God is right within us, closer than flesh. And since we are that God, we are the ones who do it.
[Transcripted on Oct 2018]
[Updated on 25 May 2024 - assisted with TurboScribe.ai (free version)]
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