Chapter 9

Namaste

What does this word mean, namaste?
It is one of two words, namaste and sammasati.
They go together.
Namaste means "I recognize the divine in you", sammasati means "remember the divine in yourself".
In India, the priests and mahatmas expect people to fold their hands when in their presence, to do namaste toward them.
Their disciples are to recognize and praise them for being so divine.

But my teacher, and other true teachers, did not do this.
Instead, they did namaste.
You perform namaste toward a false guru, and he gives you a blessing.
He feels happy because you are saying he is like a god, and he blesses you with good luck, so you feel satisfied.
It is a false relationship.
No one can bless you.
Only you can bless yourself.
A master will do namaste to you, because he wants you to see that you are divine.
He will tell you to perform sammasati.
This is the essence of the Buddha's teaching, "remember that you are a Buddha".
Do not worship gurus, but see in yourself what they have already seen in you.
When you are with a guru, it is always good to practice devotion to them, if it comes from your heart.
Not because you want a blessing, but because it is sammasati.
Only do namaste to them, only offer devotion to them, only care for them or honour them as a way to remind yourself, of who you are.
That you have seen in them a Buddha, and they have seen in you that you are a Buddha too.
So when you do devotion to them, you will remember you must also be a Buddha.

People recognize the divine in various forms.
And any form that allows for sammasati is correct.
There is no difference, they are only outer forms; if they serve to unite you to the divine, to remind you that you are a Buddha, then they are good.
For some, the divine is seen as dual.
As a yin and yang.
This is acceptable, at an early stage of awareness.
If it will help you to think of certain things as 'aware' and others as not, if it will help you develop a discipline.
But do not let it keep you away from enlightenment.
Duality has often been used as a way to separate yourself from the divine.
"The guru is enlightened, and I cannot be", "the spiritual is good, and the material bad, and I am material so I can never reach enlightenment", all of these are barriers.
The non-dual is a higher understanding of the divine.
To know that there is no difference, that the divine is in everything, even if not everything is aware of that divinity.
It is not that you are not yet a Buddha; you are, you are only not yet aware.
Some will see the divine as a oneness.
All is one, all comes down to one.
Others as an emptiness, all is nothingness.
Some will see it as an infinite diversity.
The divine as a multiplicity of forms, as many gods or many forces that can all be revered.

None of these are wrong views, all of them are correct all at once.
It is not a logical matter; it is not that, logically, only one can be correct.
How you view the divine must only be as a vehicle for sammasati.
If you can remember your Buddhahood by thinking of the divine as only one, or as none, or as all, or as infinite, or even as dual; then that is what you must do.
For the truest thing that can be said is that the divine is entirely ineffable.
How you view it is not important, the divine cannot be viewed, cannot be understood.
All of these understandings are true or false all at once.
The truth of the divine is something beyond words.
All that matters for you, is to see the divine, namaste, and to remember you are a part of it, sammasati.

The Celestial Realms

Often, people misunderstand what a master means when he talks of heaven.
In many cases, when a master speaks of a divine kingdom, the kingdom of god, or heaven, he isn't referring to a physical place at all, but to enlightenment.
But other times, he is referring to a state of being, of bliss.
These are two different things.
Often, people will confuse these two; bliss and enlightenment.
They think it is the same.
But in reality, they are not the same.
Bliss is a state, a state of consciousness.
Enlightenment is a higher path, it is beyond all definition, even bliss.
Thus, when Krishna or Buddha teach that there are certain methods by which you can reach heaven, they mean that you can perform techniques intended to reach bliss.
Bliss itself means more than happiness, it means a dissolving paradise, a joy beyond all conditions, where your individual consciousness seems to disappear.
Where you experience unity, becoming one, but not with awareness.

And you cannot reach enlightenment unless you have first experienced that bliss, unless you have first become dissolved in bliss.
The Alchemists taught that you must first be dissolved, then you will be restructured in a purer form, and only until you have done this, in some cases many times, will you be ready for the final purification into the alchemical gold of enlightenment.

So bliss is a necessary step, but it is not the last step.
It is worked toward, but it is not the final goal.
Heaven is described by mystics as a place where all your wishes are fulfilled, where there is no pain.
But it is also always emphasized that it is only a temporary state.
It is not the final state, that is beyond change.
It may last for a long time, when you reach bliss you may float in it for what might seem like an eternity, but eventually that will cease.
In the Gita it is said that one who reaches the celestial realms will be able to enjoy them until the positive momentum, the good karma that they have created, is exhausted.
And after that they will fall back to earth.

There are even methods, techniques, that have nothing to do with enlightenment; but are instead techniques specifically to reach that bliss.
These techniques are a waste of effort; they can seem to have very good results but in the end you go back to where you began with nothing to show for it, and much time lost.
It says in the Gita that some practitioners will drink soma juice, they will take certain drugs, and these will lead you to the heaven realms.
Drugs are one example of these methods that are not really methods.
It can lead to bliss, but never to enlightenment.
And remember, the bliss is not eternal, it is not permanent.
There are other methods too, disciplines of the body or mind, that can create certain reactions in your body or in your mind, and these produce bliss.
But the result is the same.
These are not worthwhile methods in the end.

But a mystic who does not use these methods will still experience bliss, inevitably.
It will happen even if they are not seeking it, that in time they will reach, as a result of their regular meditations, to a taste of bliss.
It is very pleasant, and necessary, because if understood and used properly, this bliss state will wipe away a great deal of what is false about you.
It will open you up, transform you and leave you ready to reach deeper awareness.
But in and of itself this state is not awareness, nor are you aware in it.
And if you mistake bliss for enlightenment you will find a great disappointment when it passes, as inevitably it will.
Instead, enjoy it, allow it, but do not cling to it.
When it passes, do not go back.
Some become addicted to bliss like a drug.
They will look for it again and again, thinking it is the way to enlightenment.
Then you will become stuck on that step.
Let it happen when it is there, when it is done, let yourself move on.
It will have served its purpose.

Instant Karma

Karma is not a process of 'crime and punishment', nor is it an eventual process.
It is an immediate process of consequences.
What do I mean by this?
It is not crime and punishment; it does not mean that you will have good things happen because you try to be good, you try to be moral.
True morality is to be natural, and this is its own reward.
Any other kind of 'morality' is actually a conditioning, it is false.
Karma is not an individual process; it is not something that will 'catch up with you'.
False religionists have always used this as a method to oppress.
"Be a good boy or you won't go to heaven"; you must obey now or be punished later.
Also, you must suffer now, and will be rewarded later.
Neither of these are true.
In reality, Karma is an immediate process, what you see is what you get.
The consequences of natural action are immediate; the consequences of unnatural action are likewise immediate.
You might be so repressed that you will ignore those consequences, but they will be there, and they will be internal.

Krishna says, 'those who worship the gods will go to the gods, those who worship ancestors will go to ancestors. Those who worship ghosts will go to ghosts, and my devotees will go to me'.
What does this mean?
It is the most direct explanation of Karma.

If you worship gods, if you are devoted to an archetype, whether it is money, or knowledge, or sex, or nationalism, or politics or religion, then this is what you will get.
When Krishna says 'go to' he does not mean eventually, it is immediate.
Worship money, and money will be your entire life.
It will be your consummation.
In some cases it will bring you temporary pleasure, other times temporary suffering, but this will be all that has meaning to you.

Worship the ancestors, your family lines, and that will be your reward.
You live for your family; its past and its future.
You may find some joy in family, or some suffering.
But that will be all there is.

Worship ghosts, live in the past; and that will be all there is.
You will not taste of the here and now, you will only have the past.
It will torment you.
The Buddha added to this term, he called them 'hungry ghosts', because the ghosts, the spirits of the past, are always of longing.
You will give up the nourishment of what you can have now, in exchange for longing over what was.
And that will be all there is.

But become a devotee, and that will be all there is.
If you are a devotee, then you seek union with the divine, with Krishna, with the guru, with God.
Then you are not worshiping; please notice that there is a great difference.
You are not worshiping, you are uniting.
And then everything can open to become union.
You will see the divine in everything, you will be in the moment, and no matter what you have or do it will be for the divine.
Krishna says that a leaf, flower, fruit or even water is a good enough offering.
In his time there were religionists saying that if you 'gave' great sums of money, or built great temples, or sponsored the priests, you will gain good karma and go to heaven.
Krishna was saying that what you give doesn't matter.
Just give what you are, give what you have, in the sense that by seeking devotion you will live your life seeing this union.
Seek and you shall find was what Jesus said.
If you center yourself in devotion, then that which you seek will immediately be found all around you.
Whatever you give, whatever you did, it will fulfill.