Macalester College, St. Paul, MN
Teachers Training Session, July2002
The very first word in thetradition of yoga is ahimsa, non-violence, non-injuriousesness,non-aggressiveness, non-negativity. It is not a solution to anyproblems. It is not an answer to any questions. It simply is forits own sake. If your new born child isan answer to some problems then you have no love. If you are lovingyour elders or you're your gratitude to the knowledge givers whichquality is increasingly absent in the modern civilization. If it isa solution to some problems then it will remain only so long as theproblems threaten. The path of meditation is not problem oriented. It is not solution oriented. It simply is. When you were sittinghere just now for twenty five minutes of meditation you were notsaying to yourself now this is the solution to the problem of mydisturbance because that thought itself becomes a problem, produces aproblem. In the traditions of yoga and meditation we speak of abeing, just being not becoming. Not conditions, not habituations,not qualifications. Experiencing your being. Lord what is Thy name? What shall I tell the children of Israel. Who sent thee? When theyask me what shall I say? And the Lord replies I am that I am. I amis my name. Tell the children of Israel I am has sent thee. Somillenniums later we hear Jesus say before Abraham was I am. That'sbad English. Somebody should start classes in language for theseprophets. They don't know past tense from the present tense. Or isit that besides the past tense, present tense and future tense thereis another tense we do not know. The eternal tense. I am that I amis not present tense. I am is my name. It's not present tense. Iam has sent thee that I am. Before Abraham was I am that I am. Itis not present tense. That is eternal tense. The tense of infinityout of which your past, your present, your future arise. In whichthey subsist and are experienced. Into which they submerge. Thatsub-stream of all being. That I am is the one experienced in thestate of true meditation. That alone is silence. He leads me by thequite waters. It is these quiet waters along which the mind is led. To make the mind into an even flowing stream of the waters of quietude.
What does all this have to do with the topic ofthe lecture announced? Peace is not a solution to the problem of waror battle or fight or quarrel or quibble. If peace were thesolution, were the solution to the problem of war then war would be apre-condition, a pre-requisite for another temporary condition calledpeace. Such a peace is not peace. Peace is not a state between twowars. Love is not a state between two thoughts of hatred. It eitheris in you, inside you or it is not. Peace is not a condition amongnations. It is not an international condition. It is not thesolution to the inter-religious strife. It is not a solution to theproblem of the husband and wife yelling each other. Peace is thatexperience of being, your being, within yourself in which there areno conflicting identities. I always say this as I travel through allthe different countries of the world, there are a million nations atwar inside your skull. Without reading a newspaper, withoutwatching the TV, without the benefit of the reporting conferred uponyou by all the news agencies, you have a million warriors at warinside your skull. When those conflicting identities inside you willbe seen as waves of a single stream you would see that the waves arenot at war with each other and your many identities that you assumefrom time to time, moment to moment are not in conflict with eachother. They are waves in an even flowing stream. The curator of amuseum treasures the sword the ownership is attributed to king Arthuror to Napoleon. Every now and then he has to take the sword out ofits sheath even and has to clean it and has to examine its conditionand has to sheath it back. That does not make him a solider. Thatdoes not make him a warrior. So that peace has nothing to do withdisarmament. Although it is by the disturbance of peace in our mindsthat the armament arises.
The word peace where does it begin? I know theperson from whom the word peace begins. You are probably expectingme to name some famous figure. Would you like to meet that person? Stand before the mirror. That person. Is there conflict in yourmind and if there is then there is a conflict among nations. Conflict in your mind becomes the conflict between husband and wife,between genders, between generations, between ethic groups, betweenreligions, sects and sub-sects. If this was not a world of nationstates and there was some other form of identifying the groups thatcontrol different pieces of land as in the olden times it was thekings and the royalty. The condition would be no different. Abolishthe nation states. The divisions in your mind will create some otherdivisions of our humanity and you will still be seeking solution tothe problem of war. There is something in your interior, in yourwill, in your volition. Your peace cannot be disturbed without ourvolition. Your peace cannot be disturbed without your volition. Noconflicts can be created in your mind without your volition.
A mother has four children. She is not inconflict as to shall I love this one or shall I love that one. Thelove is a wave that passes between all four and that is why sometimesyou see mothers calling one of her daughters, Sara…noJane…Mary. I am a but of jokes in my ashram because I do thesame with my sons, my spiritual sons. Hari Shankar…Ananta. Because the love is not divided by the names and the personality. The love has its own identity in which all the other identitiesmerge. One of the definitions of love can be given as merging ofidentities in one. So here within you a change has to occur. Theword ahimsa is derived from a Sanskrit verb root. If you have seenthe movie Gandhi you would have heard that word. It's derived from aSanskrit verb root which means not being inclined to cause hurt andharm. Not being inclined to cause hurt or harm. It is not, nothurting, not violating, not killing. It's not being inclined to, nothaving the will to do so. Not directing your volition to do so. Sothere has to be in your mind this volition to have your interiorpeace. Self pacification, self pacification. You see an urge tothrow a word stone at someone. You see that urge arising in you. You already created the post nuclear armament.
As this urge to throw a stone at someone youalready invented the post nuclear armament. You already produced thegeneration of weapons that will come after the nuclear weapons and weare all busy producing those weapons at this very time. Everyone ofus. No one is exempt because we have not undertaken the mostadjurors as well as the easiest. Because we have not undertaken themost adjurors as well as the easiest task of self pacification.
For the last thirty years at the Meditation CenterI have been repeating this lecture many, many times. The greatestgift you can give to the world. The most unselfish thing you can doin the world. The most unselfish thing you can do for the world isto be at peace within yourself. It is your state of mind that spillsthrough your eyes. Through the position of your shoulders. Throughthe tone of your voice. Through the aggressive or fearful stance ofyour spine. Through the tension curling in your toes. Through thehands becoming all tensed up and you already spilled into thereservoir of the universal mind. You have already spilled into thereservoir of universal mind the disturbance of your mind and youspill it and all the other members of your family spill it and theneighbors spill it and the cities do and within the cities the ethnicgroups do. You know the difference between religion and mythology? What I believe in is religion. What you believe in is mythology. IfI am on the Christian pulpit so if it is in the Bible it is religionand what those ignorant people of India have written that ismythology or what the Greeks believed, mythology and vise versa. Wecancel each other out. Untruths have a habit of canceling eachother out. Untruths have a habit, have a nature of canceling eachother out. Truths have the nature of supporting each other andmerging into one. Truths are not in conflict. Untruths are inconflict.
So understand this basic fact about conflict. Conflict is not between you and the other person. Conflict is inyour mind between you two identities and in the state of meditationall your identities merge into a single being which experiencesitself not even as a being. Simply without moods and tenses andnumbers be. The eternal tense and all the conflicting areas of themind merge and form a single pool from which the stream of harmonyfilled glance, stillness filled speech, silence filled physicalmovement streams out and may wash the stains of conflict from theminds around you. How do you know when you have mastered the art andscience of non-violence? The ancient yoga sutras of Patanjali saywhen in your presence no conflict arises even among the naturalenemies. That is the test of the mastery of non-violence when yourmere presence pacifies other minds. Be ambitious. We are creatingconflicts thorough our habitual aggressiveness. I'm infamous amongmy friends for not permitting any body to use my computer key board. Just yesterday or day before somebody was starting to type on mycomputer and I said you depart??) from using my computer, mykeyboard. You only need to touch the key you don't need to hit it. Why do you take out your aggression on the computer keys? It is aneasy electronic device. All they need is a touch and then after afew months of working on the computer, ah my shoulders hurt, mywrists don't work. I have to take time off work to get my healthcured. What has the poor computer done to you? All it needs is atouch. It doesn't need a hit. It has become part of language hitthe key. Why do you hit the key? Why do you hit? This kind ofaggression has become part of language. We don't examine it. Theprinciple which makes one nation attack another nature and theprinciple which makes you hit the key on the computer keyboard is oneand the same principle. They are phenomena of one and the same forceand your world wars begin with hitting that key You come home, youhave left your keys or your mirror or your valued possession or something some place. Hey who picked up my keys? How do you like thatvoice? Do you like it? Contrast it with the way I was speaking. How do you like that? Anyone knows where my keys might be. You knowI really need it. I have to open that box for that purpose. Oh comeon calm down you are obviously yelling. You are the one who yelledbecause you don't hear your own yelling. You do that with yourroommates. You do that with your family. You do that with yourneighbor. Nations do that with nations. People debate aboutreligions. I have written a little booklet on Unifying Streams ofReligion. People debate about religion. You know what they do? They pick out the best passages from their own scriptures and theypick out the worse ones from the other peoples scriptures and thencompare the two. It is normal. They take out the best episodes fromthe history of their own religion and pick out the most violentepisodes from the history of other religions and feed their ego onhow saintly we are and look at those infidels. You are alwaysyelling and when those people, people of those other religionswhichever those are. You know those false ones, ignorant ones whodon't know anything about real God. You familiar with them? Youever heard of them? And when they get their chance they do the samething. They do exactly the same thing. So they pick out the bestfrom their history and worst from yours and show how ignorant, howstupid, how violent, how aggressive you are.
About a year ago I was at a conference in New Yorkwhere some of the leading figures of the University of New York wereinvited in a small chamber to meet with me and I said the causes thatcreate conflict between husband and wife are exactly the same causesthat create conflict between religions. You want peace amongreligions have peace between husband and wife. Non-violence beginsfrom dropping the adversarial position. By not presenting two sidesof a picture as dichotomies. Not looking at two forces as antipathicto each other. Lot of times I do this with my audiences. What timeis it? She says quarter after nine. Would you mind asking me thequestion what time is it Swami? She is asking me what time is it. Swamiji: Where? I do that in all the countries. You say this isevening I say its morning. Whenever I am here and have to talk to myfriends and people and organization in India I have to call them atnight because that's when they are awake and I have to remember thatthat's their day and they have to remember this is my night. See theconflict? Now you can debate whether it's a day or it's a night andnever ask the question where and that is what we do with all pointsof conflict. All, all, everyone of them. In the most irreconcilablesituations there is a point of conciliation you have not discoveredit. You have not applied the incisiveness of your mind to find thatpoint. So that you say day is a day and night is a night well it'snot true and the night and the day are not antipathic to each otherwithout night here there would not be a day elsewhere. Without daythere it would not be night here. Two are complimentary,inter-dependent. Two parts of truth. Two sides of the coin. I havea little book entitled Sayings. I have I chapter which is called benaughty and you have two persons fighting over each other quarrelingover each other and you bend down and start looking for something onthe ground and you have penny in your hand. Oh, what are you lookingfor? Oh, I lost the other side of this penny. See there is onlythis side.
Once you have understood this principle that thereare no points of conflict in the universe. That there are noopposite forces, that all are complimentary, they complete each otherthen this side of the penny will not declare war against the otherside of the penny and all wars, all inter___ conflicts, allinternational conflicts are conflicts between two sides of truth andwe choose to possess only one side of the penny. That's where yoursolution is. That is where the conflict resolution is but conflictresolution will be there if there was a conflict. Was there aconflict between this side of the penny and that side of the penny? Is there conflict between there being night here and there being daythere? Is there a conflict between it being summer here and therebeing winter in New Zealand at this time? The only problem is thatpoor people in New Zealand have to celebrate their Christmas duringsummer. Uncivilized people. They don't know that Christmas has tobe snow time. So it is in the interior self that you will findsolutions. If it is a solution you are looking for but the purposeof the pursuit of peace and non-violence is not solution becausethere is not problem. Problems are assumptions, hypothesis, partialperceptions. Not the wholeness, not the completeness of the pictureof the universe and that is why you teach meditation. Selfpacification, re-integration of all the various assumed identitiesthat we carry within ourselves. The truth has to be for its ownself. It is not for serving your assumed purpose.
Now-a-days we read about these very noble,supposedly noble proposals which unfortunately are largely stillproposals like sustainable development, big thing these days. Sustainable development. I don't believe in sustainable development. In the last century or two the direction that the philosophy hastaken is radically different from the direction that the philosophersof the whole world in China, India, Greece, ever took. The truephilosophers of the Socratic stature never try to find excuses forhuman weakness. Never try to justify human selfishness. Theypresented what to most of us appears to be a lofty ideal, the idea ofaltruism. The entire philosophy and theology for all of thosemillenniums in all parts of the world has been a philosophy ofaltruism. Truth for its own sake, goodness for its own sake,sweetness for its own sake, you know. If you give someone a gift sothat he would do something for you in return that is not a gift. That is a bribe and the philosophers of utilitarianism justified thehuman selfishness and we are all participants in the application ofthose justifications. Because you were alone and you had no companyto talk to that is not practice of silence. Because you had nopartner that is not the practice of celibacy. Because you had no oneto kill therefore you did not kill that is not non-violence. Becauseyou did not have the courage that would take the consequences thatwould accrue if you did kill and therefore you refrain from killingthat is not non-violence but that is what we are doing.
Many of these philosophers say you and I havesigned a contract with each other. If you don't kill me I won't killyou and that's why we have peace. Forget it. For millenniums thisplanet earth was preserved by people who believed in the sanctity offorests, sanctity a divine spirit imbued in nature and maintaining aforest was an act of worship not sustainable development. It was forit's own sake. Please examine this. In the cultures of Africa aboutwhich nobody here cares. All you hear from your newspapers is somestrange countries always at war with each other. That's all you aretold about it. We recently established some very close connectionswith African spirituality and African spiritual traditions andmanaged to wipe out some of my own ignorance. In the cultures ofAfrica anybody polluting was severely punished by the villagecouncil, by the council of elders whose wisdom was honored andrespected and this was so all over the world. You may have hear ofthe….ok before I continue with that sentence. People think ofnon-violence as species specific. When you think of non-violence andpeace you are only thinking of one particular species that inhabitsthis earth because that species for its own sake, for the sake of itsown pleasures and mental comfort has chosen to call itself as thesupreme superior beings. So you think preservation of mankind is ofparamount importance. Why? Why? What good are the human beingsdoing for this earth? They are only burdens, sapping the earth,destroying the earth, killing the earth and what will you do whennothing is left to destroy. What will you do when the whole planethas become a desert? There is nothing specific, nothing ofparticular importance for saving human species. Peace is not peaceamong human nations. Peace is integral or there is no peace. Pleaseremember this. Either you grant peace to the cow and the monkey andchimpanzee and the gorilla and the tree of the forest or you willhave no peace. Let this be understood the peace is integral.
You may have heard of the chipko movement. Thosewho are in the environment movement you have heard of this wordchipko. How many people here have heard that word? One, two, three,four, five. Well ok half a dozen. That's still comforting. Theword chipko is Hindi language. Imperative mood. Simply means cling. So when the timber traders from the plains of India started going tothe forests of the Himalayan mountains and cutting all the trees theproblem arises that it's a tradition of the mountain people to behospitable and you know that these people are coming to destroy thevery basis of your existence and carting away the logs. So theelders in all the different villages and the leaders sat down andagreed among themselves. We shall not transgress our tradition ofhospitality. The come to our villages we will treat them as guests. Because in those villages up until very recent times it was and insome places still the custom that any stranger coming walking intothe village is welcome, can stay somebody's house somewhere. Theydon't have hotels. So they welcomed the people because you cannotachieve good by resorting to bad. You save your forest but youdestroy your hospitality. You cannot do. You cannot be adversarialin order to establish peace. This is the most important part ofGandhian philosophy. That you oppose the injustice not the unjust. Not the person, not the nation. Let it change the situation. Startthat with your husband, with your wife, with your child, with yourparent. People assume conflict but there is no conflict. Peopleassume conflict where there is no conflict. There is always a thirdbetween the two. What time is it? Where? We don't think of that.
Someone comes to me and says Swamiji I have aproblem with my mother. Everybody has problem with mother exceptmothers who have problem with daughters. Who had the problem withwhom and I always tell people if you have a problem with someonemeans that person has a problem with you also and any interpersonalproblems you have the problem the other person also has the problem. That person is your problem and you are that person's problem. I saysolve the problem the other person has with you. Try that. Solvethe problem has with you but I am such a nice person. How couldanybody have problem with me? Look all the nice things, good thingsI have done for that ungrateful wretch. So a person comes to me andsays Swamiji I have a problem. I have a problem with my mother. What's the problem? Well, she wants me to go to church and like tocome to the Meditation Center. I see. Which evening does theMeditation Center have its meetings, meditations? Oh, on Thursdaynights, Thursday nights yes. When is the church? Oh on Sundaymornings. Well what's the problem? You've created the problem. Youhave assumed the problem. There was no problem. Sunday morning gowith her. Thursday evening come to the Meditation Center. Oh Inever thought of that. So the question came between hospitality andpreservation of the forest. We shall be hospitable. We'll acceptthem but when they go to cut our forests every man, woman and childwill walk out of the village and everyone will hold the trees theyare cutting. We will cling and that's the word chipko, cling andthat's how they saved lot of forests. Became a chipko movementthroughout the Himalayas. Welcome the loggers in your homes. Feedthem for the night. Let them rest for the night. When they go outto cut where their saw is going to cut hold on to the tree. Well youhave to cut me with it. This is nothing new.
There is a particular religion in India evenpeople here from India may not have heard of that religion. It'scalled Bishnoi. Anyone has heard of Bishnois? You have. OK goodtwo and the word is derived from twenty nine. There are twenty nineprecepts in their religion and the founder was a absolute illiterate. Sat on a desert mound and had his awakening and people startedcoming to him and he taught. He taught or rather re-established theprinciple of not permitting any living being to be hurt or harmed. Now please let me explain to you in the Hindu Buddhist countries wespeak of living beings we talk of everything from plant kingdom tothe human beings. The entire spectrum is a continuum of life forceand this business of becoming vegetarian because your afraid of footand mouth disease I don't understand. That's not vegetarian. Out offear? That's not non-violence. So the teaching of this religion isnot to hurt or harm any living being. In the whole deserts ofRajastan it is the villages of these people who are green. Havealways preserved these patches of forests and they always from everyhome they take out some food every day and place it on the borders onthe village where the wild creatures may come and eat and outside thevillage they always built little ponds of water where the wildcreatures may come and drink and about two and a half centuries agowhen the king of Josipur (??) sent out his soldiers to cut logs tobuild a palace for himself and men where away at work, two and a halfcenturies ago, three hundred women and children, women and childrenwent and clung to the trees and were actually cut down. They choseto be cut down along with the tree and after that no government hasdared to cut a tree in their village. Now imagine the mind set ofthose people. How does it spill over into their other conflictresolution. All you need is one seed of non-violence and from thateverything will spill over. It will spill over into other areas oflife. Take one simple principle.
I can go on. I have a terrible habit of bringingbooks along to explain and read and I never. Going to read somethingfor you. So I hope what I've said carries in your mind. Think aboutthese points. Don't take opposite position. See the position youhold and the position I hold and see where the two positions actuallymeet somewhere. There is a place. OK and look in your personal lifeat your fear of death. Confront that fear. Don't run away from itby putting your dead in beautified boxes. So that some people canmake a multi billion dollar living out of the dead. Confront yourfear of dying. Why are you afraid of dying?
You are afraid of dying because your unconsciousmind and your conscious is aware of the death you have visited uponother living being. Small death is death. Hurling that word stone,that aggressive stare where a loving glance would have brought morepositive results and response but you just never experimented withit. That word stone, that hard stare is the death you have visitedupon others and see others of life. I am guilty. I am not innocent. I am wearing this silk shawl. How many thousand worms, silk wormswere boiled alive to produce this silk shawl I am wearing? Look atall the areas of your life where you are visiting death upon otherliving beings. For that pearl necklace with a hundred pearls in it ahundred creatures were pried open with a knife. If someone were topry open your hand because you have a jewel hidden inside what thestate of your mind would be and the state of the mind of that shellcreature whose body is pried open for that precious pearl. The stateof mind of that being is the same, no different.
No different from the state of mind of a victimfrom the Nazis from whose mouth a gold filling is taken. We are allNazis on a massive scale. Begin with self examination then you willknow where we are responsible for evoking violence against ourselves. Sometimes I seem to be a little harsh. I don't mean to be. Justunderstand it as being emphatic rather than harsh because I know I amguilty.
Go home, start examining your life and startreducing. You can not do it overnight. In some areas of life yousimply can not do it. Then there are expiations for that.
In some areas of life you can start. Where am Iguilty of visiting death upon others?
And when you stop those acts of thought, word andbody, when you will stop those acts of thought, word and body, thepeace of mind that you will experience will not be artificial, willnot be temporary. It will give you a satisfaction and your own fearof death will be reduced I assure you of that and one sure fire wayto go into the subtleties of ones being, back to the same oldrefrain, same old broken record I always play, come back to thepractice of meditation in which all dichotomies are merged. If youhave questions and you want to challenge what I have said please gohome and see what I have to say is really opposite of what I havesaid or is it something that completes it. Find that line where thetwo are sewn together. OK?
Bring your awareness only to the place where youare sitting.
Be aware only of the space that your body isoccupying.
Relax your mind. Relax your forehead.
Feel the flow and the touch of the breath in yournostrils.
Breath gently, slowly, smoothly.
No jerk in your breathing.
Take your mantra or sacred word from your owntradition.
Exhale thinking that sacred thought.
Inhale thinking the same thought. Non-verbally,ok, only in the mind.
Observe the transition from one breath to thenext.
Permit no pause between the breaths.
Feel the sensation of the breath flow and a serenesentiment.
Observe how the breath, the mind and the word areflowing together as a single stream.
Your entire mind becomes an even flowing streamand without breaking the awareness of the flow gently open your eyesbut let your consciousness yet remain in your flowing stream.
God bless you.