'Now it makes sense' edited

[Olesya]

Now it Makes Sense.
By Hari, Nov, 3, 2007

"Hari speaks about his struggle to find a cohesive understanding that accommodates all aspects of life within an individual based spiritual structure and how he resolved the issue to his complete satisfaction. This inspired presentation shares how the ongoing transformation of this great shift of consciousness will manifest."


I am actually very excited about speaking today. And I know that’s strange, because usually I complain about sometimes not having something to speak about or sometimes feeling a little bit of a challenge to meet the expectations of people. This week I don’t feel like that at all. Actually this week, well, let’s put it this way, this morning - everything fell into place. I don’t know how to explain it, I don’t really. I can explain it like this: the way I work as a person is that my mind tends to solve problems in the background. That means that I do things like I’ve been trying to fix my pool out here, and I’ve been cleaning, and organizing, and working on Swedenovas web shop, and things like this. But while this is going on in the background, when there are these little spaces, or when I read something in the news, or when I understand somebody’s problems somewhere or a painful situation somewhere, all of a sudden the things I think about come into a different prospective, I see them differently, they make all of a sudden more sense, they fit into something larger.
Another one of my personal characteristics - it’s not that this lecture is about me, but it fits within the contexts of what I want to talk about today - is that I see things in a very large context. If what I do doesn’t fit into a larger context, I feel discouraged in the sense that, OK, maybe not discouraged, discouraged may not be the right word, but shall we say, - I don’t feel inspired, I don’t feel inspired to do bigger things or to aspire for something or to try to achieve something because I don’t see a reason to do it. It seems as if these things don’t really have a great value to me because they don’t fit within a larger picture, they don’t fit within a holistic understanding of my life or life in general.
So, this is one of my characteristics: life has to make sense to me. If life doesn’t make sense, if it doesn’t fit within a broader picture or scheme of things, I don’t feel very interested in it; it doesn’t inspire me to work hard for attaining something. And it’s not because I’m lazy, I’m definitely not a lazy person, I’m always active. But unless there is a reason to do something, I don’t want to do it, unless there is a reason to say something, I don’t want to say it, unless there is a reason for some kind of communication or some kind of work, I don’t want to do it.

The reason I’m sharing this with you is because I think it’s something that many of us share and it’s very good that we understand this, that we don’t feel comfortable unless we see how we fit within a larger scheme of things. And that’s a symptom of intelligence or a symptom of care, concern about oneself, or concern about the larger world around one, when one wishes to be integrated into the environment around one or into the situation that one exists. Now having said that, let’s go back to this ‘My mind is constantly working on problems in the background’. It’s like whatever is going on before me, it somehow relates to larger problems or larger issues that need to be resolved. And it’s very interesting that many people have spoken to me, have asked me, are concerned with this very broad issue of ‘Why am I here, in this existence? And what is the point of my life?’
This issue has been dealt with in books by Michael Newton. I suppose, ‘Conversations with God’ has addressed this to a certain extent. There are other books of other techniques, like hypnotic regression techniques or rebirthing techniques. All of which are meant to help clarify this very important point.
I’ve been thinking about how things I see fit within the big picture. For example, I have been through and most of us have been through situations in spiritual groups, religions, where there have been these problems with power, problems with structure, problems with the way, in which we, individuals, were dealt with, problems with caring for others, problems with that, which relates to the individual. We have seen how group issues have dominated, global issues in terms of saving the world, or even cosmic issues simply concerned with serving God or being connected with God, how these have dominated our lives.
If you look in the political arena, you will see how similar issues are addressed in the world today. National policies, how big large policies requiring large amounts of income, requiring large amounts of man power and resources, which don’t necessarily filter down to the individual, don’t necessarily help the individual, even media policies or communication policies, which have caused this modernization of society to facilitate a split in the family structures, so that the individuals become even more alienated. It causes a split, a division in the family, that individuals become alienated. Marriages are weaker, families even between parents and children become disturbed. People feel alone in ever increasing populations. You also see this economically, where large corporations are dominating, where the individual becomes less and less important, where the needs of a turnover of a large corporation become everything. And in all of this you see the symptoms, politically or in communications or in economics or whatever you want to speak about, of those who are leaders of this - this includes spiritual things - who are fulfilling the expectations of an organization, yet gaining for themselves power, or wealth, or position, or facilities, which fulfill personal desires, while others have difficulties.
We’ve seen this in the time of the kings, in previous times where the kings were simply living hedonistic lifestyles in the course of their political and economic work, and the individuals were not very significant, there were slaves, there were feudal systems with the serves, there were other forms of inappropriate actions towards people or class societies which were causing enormous, shall we say, difficulties for people who didn’t have facilities. Now I am not right now going to discuss all this other aspects of society, but I wanted to specifically talk about the root of all of this inequity, or the root of all of this disturbance.

And the reason why I’m so excited today to speak, as opposed to being, shall we say, somewhat hesitant to speak, is that today I’m seeing how this root, fundamental things are the reason for all the inequities we see in this world. Don’t forget we are talking about a time right now, actually starting in this month astronomically there is an enormous shift taking place. If you look in the Mayan calendar, if you look in the predictions of the transformations to take place, even if you look in the Vedic idea of Golden Age within so called Kali-yuga, you will see there is this idea of a predicted shift. I’m now seeing exactly what that shift is, what it will shift to, how it will shift there, how we, individuals, fit within that shift, how political, economic, social structures will be effected by that shift and how the fundamental spirituality of all living beings will be the cause; how that religion in its real sense, spirituality in its real sense will be the key, is the key to what is already happening and what will continue to happen more and more clearly. And because I see today for some reason it’s fitting in every single aspect of the society, but even more importantly I see how it fits with me. All of a sudden, I make sense. All of a sudden everything I’ve been doing, sometimes blindly reaching out for pushing the envelops of what is acceptable spirituality, sometimes pushing the envelops of what is philosophical understanding, pushing out beyond that, which ordinarily people could even begin to conceive of, to move beyond this and try to understand in ways which are not ordinarily looked at. And now it’s not blind anymore. It’s very clear in all respects. I’m very much of a perfectionist when it comes to these things, so if I can't see in even ten percent of what I’m doing I consider myself to be partially blind, but and that’s basically what it’s been ten percent, five percent.
Today I don’t feel that anymore, I don’t see the blind spots, of course, there are some, there always are. But I feel very clear about what actually is going on and I am very excited to share this with you.

That was the introduction to all this and than I am going give another introduction about how this is going to work and then I’m going to get into the need of this thing.
Why don’t people like governance? Why do people have problems when they go into religious groups or spiritual groups? Why do people have problems when they are in large corporations? Well, it’s very clear why. Because ultimately we all want to know what’s in it for us, how do I benefit, how is it that, what I’m sharing to built, has a place for me. In other words, my labor, my mind, my work is helping to built this society, this political action or arena, this company, this family, whatever. My work, my labor is reaching out for a goal of accomplishing something broad. Therefore, I expect that that, which I’m supporting, shall support me. Usually when you’re working in a big company or whatever, that support is seen in terms of being paid for what you do. So, therefore, the idea has come I give you my labor, I give you my mind, I give you my time and you give me money. But that doesn’t really work in society. Like in a political arrangement - you want more than money. You give taxes, you are working, so you’re giving taxes, you’re giving support, you’re following. That’s a work, too, to follow what you’re supposed to do in a political society. Yet you may be placed in the situation where you are not safer, you are not more secure, your health needs are not taken care of, especially in America, your social environment is deteriorating, you may be surrounded by fearful situations of crime or identity theft, or all kinds of theft, or whatever. So, you may be placed in a situation where your country is spending all its money in war for no reason. You may be being exploited by corporations, who simply want to make more money of you, yet are raping the environment or raping the stability by making people dependant on other things. As in the drug industry, or cigarette industry, or alcohol industry, or even media communications, or music, or whatever they do to addict us to spending more, consuming more. So, we are upset when we do not get, we do not feel we are receiving according to our work or according to our effort, or even just according to our expectations.
The same thing is there in religion, in spirituality. If you are in a group, you are working, you are sweating, you are slaving, you give so much, you actually expect something. In religion that, which is given to you, is usually in terms of ‘you do this work, you give this money, you surrender your life, you go to heaven or some derivative of that’, it’s always that point, that goal is later on. ‘You be good now, do this now, later on you get that.’ It doesn’t matter whether the heaven is something you are going to attain now, or in ten years, or forty years, in this lifetime, in terms of bliss or happiness, or it will happen next lifetime, or it will happen a hundred lifetimes, you are investing, and that’s a very important point, you are investing in a future result. You are working now to get a result later. And because most don’t get that result and they know it deeply inside, there is a problem. Now let’s discuss this problem. We already did this last week and I want to discuss it in terms of this shift. It’s the big topic, so you’ve got to stay with me, piece by piece; I’ll try to be as logical and clear as I can.

Last week we talked about the topic of ‘Not good enough’. We are in this world because we don’t feel good enough and we wish to be as good as God. We wish to be as good as God. And that is our goal. And because we do not feel as good as God, we feel there is a lacking within us, a lacking in our consciousness, a lacking in our capacity to love, a lacking in our capacity to reciprocate, a lacking in our capacity of confidence. We lack confidence, we lack because we feel we are not good enough. We are in this realm, which challenges us continually, so we can get stronger and stronger and develop more and more and become good enough.
Spiritual groups, religions have not given this idea. They have given the idea, that we are ‘envious of god’, that we are sinful because we have desired forbidden fruits, things we should not have. Think of this extraordinary concept in political terms - and when I talk about politics I don’t just mean the politics of a nation state, I mean the politics of a church or the politics of a sect, whatever group it may be, this idea that we are here because of envy, we are here because of wanting to have the forbidden fruits is a very handy idea politically. Why? Because it makes us feel that we should be humble. Because first of all we are very low, we should not try to stand up as an individual because we should lack confidence due to our lusty desires and our sinful desires. We should always be blaming ourselves for being bad and we should never expect to enjoy, we should never expect to have any capacity or strength to control because this is only for God and God’s representatives. God is that personality. The church, the religion of any kind - we are talking about Hare Krishna’s, we are talking about Christians, Catholics, Jews, anybody, the church is the representative of God. These books are the laws of god. These people who represent the church and the books are the representatives of god. And we follow either them, in a political context, which means you do what they say or you work for them, or in a spiritual context, that you listen to what they say and you accept it and you learn it, or in an emotional context of dependency on such persons. And it’s very good to be thinking you are low, fallen and sinful and envious, because that keeps you very nicely in such a system, in such a political structure of dependency on such people.
So, the idea of this envious and so on is very good for political and social structures of the past. You look at all of them, without exception, they are based on this point. If you look at the works of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, you will find that there was this ideal to break away from such a structure, to bring things towards people, both politically and economically. It was a good idea, but it could not manifest while people were still in the ethic, in the tradition of thinking they were here because of sinfulness, here because of being fallen, and so on. It’s something very deep in everybody’s mind. Therefore, they tried to destroy religion, because they thought religion was the root of all the evil there was in the world. That was a pretty smart thing to think because in one sense it could be, but not because of what the reason they thought ultimately. Because if you just transform the axiomatic foundations of religion or spirituality, all the economic principles, all the social principles and all the political principles of this world transform equally and transform in a way that will be just beneficial for the individual, which was after all the goal of the Communist ideal.

Let’s talk about what is the shift. Let’s talk about it from the basis of thinking ‘The reason we are here is because we think we are not good enough. And we are here as a challenge. We are here as a means to develop ourselves, to get better, stronger, more powerful, more capable, more loving, more caring, more healing, as to be as good as God, as our goal.’
Let’s call this just for a moment, just as a, shall we say, starting point of a debate ‘a religion of men’. Previously we had ‘a religion of god’. As I have already explained, it wasn’t really a religion of god, it was a religion that said it was of god, but actually was a religion of structure, a great hierarchical structure which weight upon the individual enormously. So, it called itself a religion of god but it wasn’t. Because nobody in his right mind will think that God is enjoying when man is suffering or not evolving. But the beauty of man is that you can not stop man - as a category, not as a sex, ‘human beings’, you can not stop man’s capacity to develop, to evolve, to grow, because that is inherited, that’s built into the wires of the spirit.
When Lord Caitanya appeared, his appearance was not just for some Indians, it had cosmic repercussions. That energy spread everywhere, it exploded in terms of the Renaissance, it exploded all of a sudden in terms of the creativity of man, it exploded in terms of the transformation away from monarchies, the transformation away from monarchal religion, it created enormous shifts, and those shifts are still happening today. We are still dealing with the reverberation of what Lord Caitanya initiated. This complete transformation of the entire way of which everything was thought of, everything was dealt with, everything became understood and structured. And as that’s turning into its advanced stages of now, I don’t know where the end is, it’s getting us to the point were we have ‘religion of man’. And just as ‘religion of god’ was not religion of god, ‘religion of man’ is not really religion of man. But let’s use that terms as a starting point where man becomes the focus. That makes perfect sense. Here in our world, here, where we see, where we work, where we act, where we feel, we feel that man is very important. And of all man, we are very important. There is nothing wrong with this. We are not talking here about hedonism, we are not talking here about materialism, we are talking about where me, the spiritual being, the spiritual energy, that, which is part of the divine beings, the supreme beings, that, which is the foundations of my existence, I AM the most important thing in my life. And when I understand that, in confidence, in fearlessness and in knowledge of why I’m here, because I’m trying to evolve to be as good as god - that doesn’t mean I’m trying to be god - I’m trying to be as good as god and I’m developing, and I am evolving. And just because I’m not now as good as god, doesn’t mean I’m any less. I'm fine as I am, I accept myself as I am, and I am moving forward, I’m evolving. And because I’m trying to be as good as god, I’m moving towards that Divine in communion, in union with the Divine, with the Supreme, in deep connection, because the spirit is that energy, which is the energy of god. I don’t have to qualify that statement, ‘Oh, a little bit of energy, an insignificant bit of energy,’, forget these ideas.
I am the energy of god. I am the energy of god. I am the energy of god. I am nothing less. I am the energy of god. This is the religion of man. It doesn’t separate us from god. It brings us in communion, because I am the energy of god. And in that statement the ‘I am’ says it all. Therefore it’s the religion of me. Not me, all of us, religion of us. There is only one of us also. So we are all in it together. Yet there is only one of us and I am the energy of god. I am the energy of god and I am here because I’m feeling not good enough and I want to be as good as god. And because I see this in the proper balance, I can allow Radha and Krishna into my life, without worrying about being lusty, without worrying about other aspects of inappropriateness, because I am the energy of god.

Now let’s talk about life in terms of this shift of spirituality. If I am the energy of god and I am trying to be as good as god, what do I have to do? What do I have to do? Do I have to work this way, or that way, or the other way? Do I have to preach? Do I have to make a project? Do I have to go to church or temple at certain times? What do I actually have to do? Is there anything I have to do? In this understanding there is nothing you have to do. It’s a question of being. When you be, when you are aware of what you are, that’s all that’s needed. If you know you are the energy of god and another energy of god approaches you, does that not instantaneously dictate how you shall relate? Does that not instantaneously dictate how you shall think, feel or act? Does that not instantaneously dictate how your value structure shall be created? Does that not tell you how to create, therefore, political structures, economic structures, social structures, spiritual structures, families, marriages, parenthood? Does that not explain? Does that not give the parameters of every aspect of life? When you see from that point of view, everything becomes clear. How can you act hatefully towards others in that mood, in that feeling? If you are convinced you are bad, you are low, you are fallen, you are sinful, you have an expectation of yourself. And in that expectation of yourself, it programs your mind how to act towards others. Because this is the way you’re acting towards yourself. Even if you believe you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you, you are thinking yourself bad, so you unconsciously think you should be punished for it. Think about that. And when you’re dealing with others, you assume deeply, they are also bad, fallen, sinful, envious. You see what’s happening? Because you’re programmed this way. You feel - I’m talking about me, too, when I m talking about ‘you’, I mean ‘us’ - we feel that others are similarly so. So, we immediately deal with others with fear. Because we deal with others with fear, when we come in contact with others, everybody shields themselves as best they can and hides behind this idea that we are very ok. We are really OK. You see? We don’t act honestly towards each other, we’re hiding, we’re avoiding. This is because we are afraid of dealing with others, because we are afraid of ourselves. And we know what we can do, so we also know what others could do. So, what we do is we deal with others as what we feel we are. And if you know that you are the energy of god, and if you know what you are, if you know why you are here: simply to evolve, this idea of acting towards others transforms entirely. And if you are a parent, or if you are a mother or father in that sense, or if you are in a marriage, or if you are a greater family, or you are a political leader, or a spiritual leader, or whatever you are, economic leader - you deal with everything differently, the structure you create reflects your consciousness, reflects this new value of others. It reflects the fact, that this energy of god is meeting that energy of god, and if I want to be as good as god, I have to think like god, which is ‘what’s the best for all these energies of god’.

These ideas you will find, to some extent, in every religion. But because they are based in this idea of us being bad, and, believe me, even if you follow all kinds of principles, it doesn’t change that way you feel about yourself deeply inside, if you are honest, and many are not; many take shelter in the fact, that they are taking shelter in somebody who is that perfect being, who has taking shelter in god and, therefore, they are OK; but if you are honest with yourself - you know you’ve got this problem deeply inside you as to what you think you are and why you are here. And if you understand that you are the energy of god, all structures everywhere change. Period.

Now, why am I so excited about this and what does this have to do with me? Because many times I have been giving lectures about us: how we think, how we feel, how we act towards others, how we feel about ourselves, - and sometimes I didn’t talk about god, sometimes I didn’t talk about spirituality in the sense that we know it or were used to it being, sometimes I didn’t speak about things which even touched about spirituality sometimes and I felt bad too. I felt, ‘Ah, gee, this is not good. I want do this other stuff.’ But still I felt I should do it, I must do it, because we need to discuss it, these are our common problems. And when we, as an individual, can transform one by one, by one, we can transform this whole chain of relationships everywhere. And now I see why. Because this is part of the religion of man. The transformation of man by getting rid of all these ideas, which have created a value structure, which has nothing to do with god, has nothing to do with spirituality, has nothing to do with religion, which is basically something created in a very unenlightened time to justify not very enlightened ideals. So, I think this is the shift that is happening and this is the, in context, complete explanation - my feeling - of how I fit into it, and how we all fit into it.

And I would like to thank all those divine beings who have been part of helping me reach this conclusion. Basically it’s ten years and coming or more of course. And on that note I’m going to end for this week. I think I don’t want to ruin it, how I feel, anyway, because I feel very good about this. And I hope that I have shared with you sufficiently to assist you in being that perfect energy of god you are, who is perfect just as you are, and will become more and more evolved, as that spiritual energy of god you are in your endeavor to be as good as god. And I thank you very much and I know it’s a short lecture, but we don’t measure these things in terms of time. We’re not charging you in terms of time, we don’t charge you at all and I wish you well and good-bye.