Harimedia Forum

The way Hari was answering this question in his lecture intitled "Surrender", I appreciated very much. The more often I heard it, the better I could understand him, and the more I was asking myself why I could not come yet myself to this understanding, which makes really sence. In regard to understanding, what it means to be self realized, he answered:

"When you are stuck, in having to define a particular level of atainment or achievement, in certain terminology. You limit that achievement, by the very definitions, you throw and rapp yourself up with. Your obvious goal is to get self realization, to get God realization. That´s fine, that´s great, we all would love such a thing.
But when you have been told, this is what self realization is. This is what God realization is. Well, naturally you will try, to bring yourself to that point. And when you don´t get there, which is usually the case, you will be discouraged. And than you question everything in your life, and maybe more.
Self realization is not a static state. It´s not like you are not self realized, or you are self realized. It´s not that, you are not self realized, and than boom you are self realized. Or you are more or less self realized, in a variable subjective way. Complicated things to talk about. The very term self realized, is a very absolute kind of term. It means you are at a state, you are there. You are in this category, you are self realized. It´s kind of, being you have been elected the president. It´s a very definitive, very definit, not vage at all, very particular, very focused achievement. Now I would suggest that, that very restriction, that term, and it´s restriction that comes with it. Is a very discouraging thing, it´s a not apropriate goal, it´s something which so restricts you, in your understanding of what you are, that it prevents you, from ever ataining it.

Now I know, what I said, sounds very kind of, like blasphemyes in one sence, we tread on this problem often. But I have been speaking about this, through among all of the discussions. That your realization, your experience, your evolution, your expantion of your consciousness, is a continuess affair. It´s not something you do, to get somewhere, it is what you are."

"Now when we do this meditations, when we do this energetic meditations, when we come in contact with our energy, when we use our energy, we expand our energy, we feel our energy, we connect with our energy, we are being in contact with what we are. That is our spirit. Sometimes the hardest thing to see, is that, which is right in front of you. It´s kind of like, when I am running all over the house, looking for my glasses, and they are in my pocket. You are looking everywhere, because you think, it has to be somewhere out there. But in fact it´s not out there, its right there. And then all of a sudden you realize, wow amazing...

To be self realized, I have to work and work, and do this and do that. And acomplish over long periods of time, many strict things, and this and so on and so forth, and I will get there. It´s kind of like you work hard, buy a ticket, and you end up at your destination. Or you do all of that, and one day God says, OK why not, get self realized... Ah, I´m there.

Now, I am not saying, this things are not possible, however, they are not the only possibility. After all, if you look within, and you feel what is there. If you can just simply feel what is there, it is there. You are there, that is it. The immediate response is, well, that can´t be it, it´s too simple. It has to be much more complex, there has to be lightning bowls, there has to be so many things, that manifest and apear. And I´m supposed to have all of this like, God knows what...experiences, and so on. It´s just too simple, it´s too basic, it´s too, whatever.

But I say, it´s what you do with it from that point, that makes it valluable. Not that the being itself, is not valluable, because I am not running around in a field, herding some cows, in a spiritual body. In other words, I´ve got to somehow or another, get to that state of self realization, either by working hard, and getting a degree, get my card, my paper on the wall, I made it, I´m self realized. Or else, I get the pst zap... and than I´m self realized. And than I dye, and than there I am, caried on a swan airplane to the place where I can herd some cows, and eat yoghurt with Krishna in the field.

So this configures my life right now. Work hard, you know don´t be atached to anything. Just work hard, do all this kind of stuff, this service and so on. Learn things, chant things, go to programs, follow everything, be a good person, and than dye and get everything. It´s something which there is a suspicious element in it, which I think one should try to sea a litle bit more clearily. And there are those, who sea the suspicious element in it. And therefore, they try to go to another format of the same thing, which is the raganuga format. Whereby you meditate, you visualize, you get into a bhava, you get into this understanding of yourself as a gopi, and you start to relate with Krishna in that way. And the more you develop it, the more it develops. The more you feel it, the more you understand it, and you dye and boom... you are there as a gopi...

I suppose people who are doing this, also become a little suspicious sometimes. Because after all, there are other things going on in their lifes, paralel, simultaniously. And wether or not, they get to that spot afterwords, you don´t know. It´s kind of, like you are following something purily on faith. Because they don´t come back, and tell you: Hey, you know, I did it, I am here, I am a gopi right now. You know, and you should do it too, because it realy works. And of course, so I should be exemplary in my wishiwashyness, I will say, that it´s of course possible. I am not saying that, that´s not possible. I mean, I would like it, to be so. But I would supose, there is certain thing, that one might be suspicious about, in that acceptance. That complete surrender to that, because you just never can be totaly sure, unless you just make yourself totaly sure.

But if you think about it. That meditation, when you really think about, what is going on with that visualization. Is that you do it efectively and properly. You have to be, on the level of someone, who can be in total contact, with that being. And than mold the being, by visualization. This are exercizes, to a particular goal, which you have accepted. This is only possible for one, who can withdraw the consciousness from the external, and be very aware of ones being, of ones essence. So therefore, what I have being explaining, about bringing oneself into that awareness, so that ones consciousness may be focused on ones essence, is the basis, even of that visualization discipline,-- to bring yourself in connection with a particular form of your own creation, and a form of the Divine. But ultimately, it is us, who create, it is us, who develop, it is us, who visualize, and therefore formulate our particular direction..."

"And therefore, I feel very strongly, and I know, from my experience, that this concept of being, of knowing your essence, your consciousness having the capacity to withdraw itself, from the external, and be situated in it´s natural state of rest, is the beginning point for anything and everything in life, in spiritual life, and growth and evolution and so on. And by going within, and than acting and manifesting outside, coming back within, you will find your way perfectly through this life. And I will simply assist, to help you make the conections to the Divine, when you feel you want to.

My facilitation of that conection, is simply to give you the tools, by which you make the conection, which is part of your consciousness, when you are in contact with what you are, your essence, your being. And accordingly, you will make connections to that Divine, to that Supreme, perhaps to the deity form, perhaps when you are in a quite place, perhaps in nature, you will have connections, you will have communications, you will have realizations, you will have experiences that will so affect you, so deeply, that you would not care, you could not care what anyone else says. How anyone else defines it, how anyone else speaks about it.

You don´t care anymore how people define you. Wether they praise you, they blaspheme you. They put you in this box, that box, it couldn´t care less to you, because you know. Now I don´t know about you. But as far as I am concern, I am much happier in that state, than being in a state, where I am believing something.

When I know something, I am much happier, than when I believe something. Because when you know, you know. And no-one can tell you, you don´t know. You don´t even bother argueing with people. Argueing is so silly. How do you argue about what you know? How do you argue about the self? How do you argue about your experiences, of connection with the Divine? How do you argue about the way your energies work? You might argue, somebody might say: But that´s not philosophically corect. What do you mean, you didn´t read it somewhere? Or you don´t believe it? Can you imagine the foolishness of another person who spends their time, trying to convince you, what you know is not...

"All what I can really do with you, is share with you my knowing. That´s all I can do. And that comes not just in words, it also comes as an energy."

By transcribing my answer to your question, you did a very great service to me. It allowed me to see that this method is useful in the creation of the book on which I now work. I am taking all the texts related to me from these forums and putting them in a book format. Now I see that it can work well to take transcriptions from lectures, especially the questions and answers sections.

My problem is that I cannot transcribe myself, as it would take far too long. Usually when they do it in Russia, they leave out words, misunderstand what I say and make it harder for me to do the work. But when you did it, although there are tons of spelling mistakes, at least I can understand what I said! This worked quite well for me.

If anyone in harimedia land can transcribe more sections of my lectures that they feel would go well in my new book, please do so and send it to me. But it has to be accurately done! Spelling perfection is NOT required.

Thanks

We are indeed somehow all related spiritually, or conected somehow or other. I was just after I transcribed your words, from the last lecture, thinking, that maybe I should have asked your permision first. And now you indeed answered positieily, and relieved me of my feeling bad.

I am happy to hear from you, that you will put your great understanding and realizations related to spiritual maters in writing. Since along time I wanted to propse this to you. You are able to explain many things in such a clear ind vivid way, that one can understand aparent complicated things very quickly.

If you like I can transcribe many things from your lectures. By using the program from the internet, it works very well, and I can understand you also very good. I am sure your published literatures will be a great succes among spiritualists of all kinds.

Sure you can do this! Thanks. Please pick the most relevant and useful texts.

From the lecture of Hari entitled "Quality"
Understanding the demoniac nature.

"Of the questions that were asked, I answered most of them in text, because I didn´t think they needed a huge explanation, but there is one question, which I think is very interesting, and that is about demoniac personalities, the demons.

Now also in those books, which I have been looking at, in the previous week, there were a lot of discussions about demons, and most of the discussions were from the point of view of the Christian way of seeing things, or the traditional religious way of seeing it. Now we haven’t really discussed about demons, because I feel it’s just a waste of time to do so, I just never saw a need, but I am asked so I’m gonna say something. Now if you would remember what we discussed insight the lecture, there was this point about, when I spoke about speaking in Eastern Europe, about bringing a concept around a full circle and just going to that momentum, of having people conclude about God, and those people who have already rejected that, saying no, we stop here, we don’t go further.

So I think that we can safely conclude, that those people who we would classify as demoniac people, are those who have concluded something very deeply within themselves, which enables them to act in ways, which are very aggressive or harmful of others. But there are a lot of problems, when you´ve got to define them because there are even persons who would go to church regularly, who are people who proclaim about God, who are even fanatical in their religion, who may act in a way which other people would classify as demoniac. You even have the interesting cultural phenomenon of the traditional gods in Persia or Iran, are the traditional demons in India. Now that’s something pretty amazing, that how we define demons, is very much depending on how we define ourselves.

You will have people, who are fanatical in one religion, who demonize, which means who turn into demons people from another religion. It is a question of our point of view, in one sense. But that is not a very important kind of an answer, that’s not a very significant answer, that’s just an observation, to begin the answer, because there are energies, which are dripping with, what we would call evil, energies which we feel to be very, very bad, counterproductive, destructive, aggressive, without any heart, without any soul, just lost completely in this horrible qualities.

However it is, I think a certainty, that we attract these energies, that we empower these energies, to a large extend. If you think about it, there are many literatures, many movies much different kinds of presentations that human beings have made throughout time, where, not a lot of them, but I mean some very specifically focused, on how a person went bad, and turned to the dark side, by some small event, or some seemingly insignificant reason. Culturally, we have also seen that there was the black side, the white side, the good angels, the bad angels, these division into good and evil.

Now if I would have to speak from my own experience, I would say yes, I have experienced that dark energy. I have experienced that evil, and dealt with it, and yet at the same time, I am still not very sure of it being something archetypically and independently evil. Now in my situation, which may be unique, maybe is not applicable to anyone else. Or maybe only to a small group, or maybe it is applicable to everybody, I don’t know. But I can only speak from my understanding. It seem to me, that all of these energies had a very good reason to exist, that they had a service to provide to me, to force me to see things, to deal with things, to learn things, to develop things.

Now every child has monsters in the closet, that’s just the nature of children. There are monsters in the closet, or monsters somewhere that appear when one is helpless. And when there is a light on, or when there is an adult around, the monsters dissipate, because they are afraid of light, they are afraid of adults. They are afraid of a cross, they are afraid of some mantras, they are afraid of some kind of yantras, or medallions, or of herbs, or of essences. Now I am not going to say that all of this is simply related to, dealing with the monsters within, because it is more than that. I would say it is related to fear, that the fear that we have, the darkness that we have within, is a means by which the monster gets strength. In other words, we feed the monster with our fear. Now if you think about that. In other words that monsters existence, that monsters power is dependent on me, without me feeding the monster, the monster has no power.

My father told me something very interesting. In World War II, after the war was over, he and one other person, two of this guys were in charge of many thousands of prisoners, in a camp in Germany. Now just think about that. Two of them, two guys, my father who was 22 years old, and his friend was probably also something like that. Because that was those who were fighting the war. And the two of them were in charge of thousands of German prisoners. Now why did these prisoners stay in the camp? Now just think about it. There are thousands of them, and there are two Americans who couldn’t care less about taken care of these prisoners. Who could not figure out why they were doing it, and who only did it, because they were told to do so. In those days Americans were not very good in keeping prisoners. It just wasn´t something they did. This art of keeping prisoners is something they learned recently.

So they just appointed one very enthusiastic German to keep everybody in line. What kept them there? Well, some kind of fear, undefined fear of what would happen to them, if they escaped from that camp. Now just think about this. Let´s say there were two guys who had a gun, who may or may not use it, and there are thousands of you. If you all would at ones run at them, they would have no chance. But in your mind, well they can shoot one or two, understand? So out of the thousands, they would rather do nothing, than faith one or two of them being shut, think about that...

Now you can expand that in all kinds of ways. You know I mean, like for example there are criminals, who take some people, or hostages are there, or whatever. There is like always this fear that well, one or two of us could be hurt, therefore let us all dye. Because one does not really believe that they will all dye. Now I am not trying to say, I would have done it any differently. I am not trying to say that these people were stupid. I am just making a very general point about fear. So you got two skinny Americans, and I mean really skinny, because they did not had the greatest food. So this thousands of Germans were empowering these two skinny Americans. They were turning them into the masters of their fate. The child is empowering the shadows, empowering the closet to be a source of fear, by believing it so, by reacting to any stimulus in that way.

Yet at the same time the child will also have nightmares. We all had nightmares when we were kids, things that are inconceivable to us. Things who were not within our experience, horrible nasty things sometimes, that we could not even imagine would be true. Not often, maybe ones a year, maybe more, I don’t know. But some times we would have these nightmares. And we could define it as being under the influence of something demoniac. We could define it as the dark energy we could define it in all kinds of ways. But you could also define it in another way. You could define it in a way that you have participated in the creation of that situation, it is just that you forgot it. And now it is coming back to you as something unexpected, and therefore beyond your control, and therefore very fearful.

I mean from the point of view of history, Stalin, was one of the heaviest, most horrifying characters in history. And one of the most amazing things, about the creation of this person was that, through the whole revolution and the development after words, is that out of fear, people supported that development. And so long as that was not affecting them directly, it was all right, but when it affecting them directly, than they started to see things completely differently. So there is an example, of a group of people who together authorized, empowered and maintained a horrifying situation. And we see that political leaders of that kind, and there are many examples in history, and I dont mean to just single out Stalin, I just saw a movie about him the other day. So they usually pray on the fear of those who are under them, the greed and fear of people under them.

They pay off those who are close to them, either by money or by power, or by position, or freedom from fear, and it then becomes in the interest of all of them, to keep others around them in fear, to maintain their positions. So there we have demons and their associates and those who are afraid of them. If you look in history how such situations develop, how people don’t respond when they could have responded, for example in the rise of Hitler, something could have been done, but to have that foresight, to have that confidence in your vision, to have that ability to do so, is incredibly rare. So to a large extend it is very unfair to look back into history and sad: If only they had done this, if only they had done that, they should have done this, it was their responsibility to do that. That’s very unfair.

And often right now we are in a similar situation, maybe we haven’t seen it yet, perhaps it is not so bad to do the same thing, to make a correction, to do the change, but we don’t. And at the same time we look back and criticise. For example we are all participating in this culture which is destroying the environment. We are doing all our parts, to assist in the destruction of the environment. And this can do far more damage than any demons we can create. We are doing our part to support, maintain and continually create newer and newer economic demons, who are exploiting, not only us but the whole planet, people all over the world. I am just trying to say, I could go on and on about this, and really expand this point, I don’t want too. But there is a large part of what we call demoniac, that we have a part in supporting, in feeding. Now there are a lot of personalities who are born with realy lousy qualities, because of their experiences in the past, the things they have gone through, the way they have choosen to develop, because they were afraid, or had no other choice or they just felt no love in their life, and no support.

So at one point they kind of turn, at one point they kind of transform, they kind of like something clicks in their head and they say: Why should I care? Why don´t I just do this, it´s good for me to do. And they move off in that kind of dark direction. So they than start to develop in that particular way and than when they become full fledged, quote on quote, kind of demoniac, they already have a power which is very difficult to deal with. In other words, they have already, it is already to late, its gone to far, it can´t go back, its got a kind of a momentum, its got a kind of a direction that is fixed.

Is somebody by his essence a demon? Of course not, because the essence of what we are, is that quality of the Divine. Does somebody choose to turn towards darkness as their shelter? Yes that can definitely happen. How many of them are there? I think a lot less that you could ever imagine. And at what level are they? A lot less powerful than that particular way that you think, because everybody has just taken their quality and engaged it in the modern society.

There can be, for instance, people who have that mentality, who are just trying to exploit and manipulate the economy, for their own benefit to get money, or to accomplish some purpose they think they should, or there is even who are presidents who do such things, or there may be people who try to become teachers of children, who are pedophils. Yet in each of these cases, you can say one thing for certainty. Each of them does what they feel is right, at the time they do it. And yet what is right in the light side may be not the same right that is in the dark side. But they are doing what they think is right. But is there really a dark and a light? Or is this just our conception. Can we really say, we live in the light we don’t live in the dark? Or do we have some light, have some dark within ourselves. And is it not possible that the demons, who we think attend to us, might not be performing a very important role of chasing us away from our dark side, and chasing us into our light.

And from that point of view, do they not perform for us a valuable service?! If you think about things that we call demoniac, they are based upon power, that the demoniac personalities will use the power to control me, to exploit me, to take from me, to kill me, harm me, hurt me, this is the way we think. But there are people in the world today, who will say that about each other. There will be Arabs who say that about Americans or Israelis. And the Americans and Israelis will say that about the Arabs. You will have that even between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, Northern Ireland. You will have this in different parts of the world, where each define that persons qualification for being a demon, which should be destroyed, because of exploiting them, controlling them, taking from them, hurting them or killing them.

One could say the same thing about most kings during the Middle Age, the dark age in the European history. I mean what definition do you use, to specifically delineate the divine and the demoniac? Well I have seen people who in a very simplistic way say, that if you are a servant of God, you are not demoniac. Yet the president of the United States is a born again Christian and the leaders of the so called terrorists groups, who are Arabic, Muslim are very devote followers of Islam. I don’t believe that their faith is artificial; I don’t believe that they are simply saying it to bewilder people. I do believe they really believe it that way. And they both go to war, absolutely convinced that God is on their side. And they are both absolutely convinced there is no greater demon than theyr enemy.

I don’t think that definition works; I don’t think that’s the definition and if you try to find another definition off what´s a demon, well it is very hard. But one thing you know for sure. When you feel it you know it. So why not use that as the definition. A demon is that energy which comes to me and tries to devour me with fear and hatred and exploitation and whatever.

I mean how else you can actually define it? And when you define it like that, you see things very differently; you no longer have the authority of God on your side, to conquer the demon. You no longer claim some absolute authority to declare, define and fight against demons. Thats not an absolute thing, it’s your relative decision. And you look beyond, the so called inhered personality of the person and you look at the circumstances, within which the personality is flourishing and you attempt to change that. And you stop to support those things, which you feel are demoniac, by not participating in the continuation of it. That’s another way of looking at it.

Now let’s take for example the problem, when you feel for whatever reason, no more analyses of the whys. But you feel this energy is coming at you which is going to harm you. Forget about defining it. It is harmful to you, it is coming as an attack, its comming to cause you harm, subtly, grossly, in a clever way, in a hidden way, in an obvious way, whatever it is, it is coming at you. Well I would say, that everybody, everywhere throughout time, has accepted the axiomatic right to self defence. Now I don’t want to talk about, whether or not you use the right, because turning the other cheek that’s your prerogative, but there is a right to self defence. And that right is built into your cells; it’s the feeling that every living entity has everywhere to stay alive, to not be harmed.

Now what do you do with it, that’s up to you, up to what you can do, what you want to do, what you think you should do, and ultimately what would be the most successful way you deal with this. Some people deal with the protection of themselves by putting up shields so nothing can come in. Other people try to dissipate bad energies by burning them up and sending them away. Other people try to reason with these energies, to understand them and maybe even have to change within themselves, to calm down the energy, in other words, you do what you can do, according to what and how you can do it, what is successful, what you feel like you should do; it’s all up to you.

There are often energies that come to us and overpower us, even if we are very strong, because there is something we’ve got to learn from it. That service they are providing us. Or maybe we have the mentality and the energy as a warrior, so they are just coming to make us grow in our strength, so that we learn to really deal with them, until we can defeat them. And maybe you are meant to just develop your love, to such a degree, that you can just smuddle them in love. Because that’s really what they need, that’s really what should have been given in the first place. And maybe you have just to develop such a clever way to just simply neglect it, it´s up to you, it’s the way you are, it’s your nature. Different natures will deal with these things differently.

There is no general answer it’s up to the specific situation, the specific personalities involved in each and every case. Sometimes diplomacy is needed, sometimes an apology is needed, sometimes war is needed, sometimes neglect is needed, sometimes patience is needed, sometimes love is needed.
I hope I have brought some light on that situation."