Become interested in and treasure inner states of consciousness. Gurudeva's three suggestions: 1)Associate with others on the path; 2) Purify and maintain the force field of the home - puja on a regular basis helps the inner vibration of the house - be careful who you have as guests. 3) Strive to experience and sustain kaif, pure awareness aware only of itself.

Master Course Trilogy, Merging with Siva, Lessons 299, 300.

Unedited Transcript:

Good morning everyone.

Reading this morning from a combination of Merging with Siva Lessons 299 and 300, then making some comments on them.

"People are worried about the world's coming to an end. Every now and then a religious sect proclaims the new coming of the end of the world. But although the Earth as we know it continues its steady progress around the Sun, the conscious mind for thousands of people has come to an end, for the simple reason that they are no longer interested in it. For them, the world of inner sounds and colors has opened its far more attractive fare. But the job of sustaining and maintaining expanded awareness is not accomplished by losing the controls over one's powers of awareness. The actinic world is only attained and sustained by initiating definite controls over the odic world. One state of consciousness is controlled in the process of awareness moving and expanding into another state."

Very interesting idea that the end of the world is not just the disappearance of the Earth but rather the end of your interest in it. Think it's kind of like children growing up and the toys that they're attracted to. I remember one of our devotees sons, I think he was about three or four, and all he could think about was trucks. Everywhere he went he had his toy trucks with him and then when they were driving around he would point out all the trucks and even on his iPad he had truck programs, you know. And, now whatever age he is maybe eleven or twelve, I don't think he ever thinks about trucks. So, what's the point? Well, the point is as we get older what we are interested in naturally changes and in this case as we get spiritually older. it changes in a very dramatic way in that we start being interested in inner states of consciousness. And they hold more value, as Gurudeva says here, we treasure them more than we do just the outer ones. So, that's the end of the world in the sense of, we've become more interested in the inner world of inner consciousness than the outer world of, of possessions and people.

"As we progress along the path, we become more and more and more sensitive. This sensitivity is a wonderful thing. It's like graduating from being an old battery-set radio of the 1920s and '30s to a sophisticated, solid-state television. This sensitivity that you will begin to recognize is so refined and yet so strong. You communicate with yourself through the nerve currents which extend out, around and through the physical body-physical nerve currents as well as psychic nerve currents. Before we get deeply within on the path, we're not too sensitive. But as this sensitivity develops, we begin to see through our hands. We begin to hear feeling. We begin to see sound, and all sorts of new faculties manifest.

"Now, this can be very distressing, because we see things that we ordinarily would not be able to see. We hear meaning in what people say that ordinarily we would not be aware of, and we can become very disappointed in life, in people or in ourselves. This may seem like falling into a bog on the path, and we don't want to do this. We want to be sensitive, and yet we want protection, psychic protection. Our dreams become more well defined, but we don't want to be vulnerable to negative areas of the mind, disruptive areas, experiential areas of the astral plane while we are sleeping. Neither do we wish to be attacked on the astral plane by mischievous beings, entities that are on that particular side of life."

Then Gurudeva makes three suggestions. See if you remember what they are before I start going through them. Three suggestions, how we can avoid being, feeling that we're too sensitive and getting distressed.

The first one is: Associate with others on the path. Positive people. As Gurudeva says throughout the teachings: "The group helps the individual and the individual helps the group." Well what exactly does that mean? It means, naturally in, on the path of making spiritual progress we have our good days and our bad days. We have times when life is flowing easily and times when everything seems to be going wrong. Times when we're going downstream and times when we're trying to swim upstream. But, everybody in the group has different timing. So, if we're having difficult times there'll be others in the group that are not having difficult times. So it stabilizes us and helps us avoid getting as negative or distressed as we would if we were just by ourselves and therefore, helps up pull ourselves back together more quickly. So, that's the group helps the individual and of course the group is made up of individuals so the individuals all help the group because they're part of it.

So, that's a very important one and I always stress it. The example I've given a few times is the individual who emails in and says: "You know I haven't been doing my sadhanas for the last few years but I want to start up again. What do you recommend?" Well I recommend you find a group. I say you know, find a group. Find a satsang group nearby. You need to associate regularly with other people on the path. That's a very difficult challenge to do to start up again with spiritual practices when no one else around you is doing spiritual practices. Makes it really challenging. So, if you can find others who are also doing spiritual practices even somewhat different practices it's helpful when you're by yourself and trying to get going again.

The second suggestion: By keeping your house, your meditation room as clean as possible. By entertaining few guests and then only people of the same caliber and nature. Guests should not stay more than three nights.

So its, its not just physical cleanliness, physical cleanliness and the force field of the house interact. And the states of mind and the guests in the house also influence the house. So, we want to keep it physically clean, in particular the shrine room, and also clean the atmosphere. So, good way to clean the atmosphere is lots of fresh air. One of the advantages of living in Hawaii is we can open our windows 365 days a year; we won't freeze to death. Looking at the temperatures today, most places look somewhat reasonable, forty degrees here and there. But Edmonton says zero degrees. So, we're fortunate. You know we have the ability to have fresh air all year long and to have windows open. And we want to air out the house if it, if parts of it don't get a lot of fresh air. Then of course, incense is very helpful for purifying the vibration of the house and of course doing puja on a regular basis also helps the inner vibration of the house. And, as Gurudeva says: Be careful who you have as guests. Basically you don't want too many guests particularly of a heavier vibration otherwise, it'll impact the house, the vibration of the house will go down.

Then the third suggestion, this is: "...That is why you strive for mastery of sadhana, mastery of concentration, your ability to hold awareness where you want it, when you want it for as long as you want it, and mastery of your ability to experience kaif, pure awareness aware only of itself, by taking awareness out of the entire context into just being aware. This practice of kaif is one of the fundamental protections from psychic or astral invasion, for when you are in that state, great clarity and willpower persist and the lower states are transcended..."

That's a very important and the most mystical of the three practices is: If we just pull ourselves out of various states of mind into pure awareness aware only of itself then that is a protection, because we've pulled out; we're no longer influenced by that state of consciousness that we were in.

"...To attain and sustain kaef is a simple practice. You pull awareness out of the thought processes. You pull awareness out of the emotion processes. You pull awareness out of the bodily processes, and you're just completely on that pinnacle of being aware of being aware. That's so necessary to practice every day, even if you do it for a split second..."

Then Gurudeva mentioned an important point next: "...The experience of kaef can be attained by anyone on the face of the Earth, at least for a split second, because it's so easy to be aware of being aware..."

So that's an important point. If you're, for someone who's new to the practice it may seem difficult. 'Have to control all my thoughts and just be aware of being aware; I can never do this.' Gurudeva's saying it's very easy to do but initially you may only be able to do it for a split second. But even that is helpful, just pulling it out for a split second.

Then he goes on to elaborate:

"...To hold that experience and to stabilize the physical and emotional elements long enough to hold that intensity for even a minute takes more practice--not too much, but consistent practice. To maintain kaef for two minutes requires more effort, more will, more dedication to the life of sadhana. Five minutes requires more. That's the test."

When it comes to experiencing kaif, easiest to do so first thing in the morning. Before you turn on the intellectual mind. Get it all involved in all the things you have to do today. Once you turn it on then you have to turn it off. So, it's easier to experience kaif by meditating before you turn on your detailed planning for the day and the week and all. So that's a simple suggestion.

One other comment was distressing states of sleep. Sometimes I get emails about that. And the time of day when distressing states of sleep usually occur is after sunrise. Or right before sunrise. So if you're experiencing distressing states of sleep need to go to be a little earlier and get up a little earlier. It's a very simple practice but effective. Definitely effective. And then, if it's happening in the middle of the night it's good to wake yourself up and stay awake for a while. Could chant AUM, for example, for a few minutes, but you don't want to just stay in a kind of half awake state. Need to wake yourself up. Sit up, then put yourself back to sleep and chances are you won't go to the same area of the mind, that you'll avoid it. The exception is if you're in a, in a build, sleeping in a building that's got disturbances in it. You know, if you're not in your own house, some hotel or some place that's has disturbances in it. Then you just have to do the best you can. Don't book it again.

It's one reason Gurudeva liked new hotels. The newer something is then the less chances there are of psychic disturbances and Gurudeva liked to say: "Sometimes I'm asked why I stay in five star hotels? Because there aren't any six star hotels."

So he wasn't trying to you know enjoy luxury per se, he was trying to enjoy a high minded vibration, an undisturbed vibration which you get with something that's new and something that's really up to a high standard.

Have a wonderful day.

Aum Namah Sivaya.