Class Notes from Babaji's Fall Visit

Saturday, October 25, 2008
Kali Puja Day - Teachings on the Divine Mother

Babaji presented the following charts:
Waves in the Ocean of Mature Universalism
The Purusharthas - the Four Fruits of Life

There are two distinctive features of Sri Ramakrishna's advent. He was a paragon of universality. He practiced all the religious systems of India, Christianity, and Islam. This had never been done before, at least not in the full view of humanity. Sri Ramakrishna once said to someone, "I have practiced the disciplines of all paths, each for a few days. Otherwise I would have had no peace of mind. I respect the Shaktas, the Vaishnavas, the Vedantists, and also the modern Brahmajnanis. Therefore, people of all sects come to me. And every one of them think that I belong to his school." - Sri Ramarkrishna

The other important feature was his worship and realization of the Divine Mother of the universe, Mother Kali. Her appearance is black, thus She contains all. Space is black. It is the unexplored link between matter and the subtle realms. It cannot be dislocated. Like space, Mother can't be moved. Thus, She is all-pervasive and transcendent of space and time. Then what about all these changing things? These are due to the superimpositions of Her Maya. Maya is name and form in time and space. Mahamaya is the all-pervasive Presence in everything, and the wielder of Maya. Something is animating this body, energy, mind, senses, etc. The ancient rishis called It Brahman. Many of these were shaktas. Sri Ramakrishna realized that Brahman and Kali are one.

All the great sages, from Vedic times to now, know that separation from matter, not identification with matter, brings bliss. When one is detached from the changing, one gets bliss. Renouncing the changeful points you in the direction of recognizing and realizing the only "thing" that can fulfill you.

The first thing the children of the rishis learned was "I am not the body,'" not only not the physical body, but also not the mental (subtle) body - and especially not the ego, which is like a "line drawn on water." Will, ego, personality - these are just one lifetime long. But the real you has been overseeing the entire series of lifetimes! You are the one that permeates all those sheaths (of body, energy, mind, intellect, ego).

You have to be conscious of Consciousness; aware of Awareness. Otherwise your world is narrowly fixated on senses and objects. You become stuck in the bhutakasha (space of objects) without recognizing the other and more subtle akashas.

All religions have their conventional side: Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam. Conventional religion is just shopkeeping religion where God is used as a door mat.

Universalism is Ma Kali's atmosphere.

We take objects for granted. We don't think of how we perceive objects; we haven't made the connection between the object, its meaning, and the intelligence that perceives it.

Krishna, Buddha, and Holy Mother are the best exemplars of the middle way in each era.

It may sound funny, and it's ironic, but intellectualism is stupid: here, one uses the intellect to try to comprehend things that don't exist. The Buddhists recognized that everything is empty. Now science has shown that objects are empty - they are simply a mass of particles changing every millionth of a second. But no one gives them up. Conventional religion and science both encourage souls to seek outwardly for things that don't exist.

Mother Kali watches people spinning webs and getting stuck in them: Someone wants to create a business in space and time to make money. Sure, fine - but don't get stuck there. The wise choose God first. "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else will be added unto thee."

A seer is one who has stopped all processes by being the witness of them. I am the Self - the Seer - and all else is the seen. The Seer withdraws into the pristine refuge of complete Peace. There he finds the chittakasha (the space of thought) and the jnanakasha (the space of Intelligence), where one leaves discursive knowledge behind, where names and forms begin to dissolve. He gets into bliss, leaves even that behind, and then encounters all-pervasive Awareness.

People, when they die, generally go to the realm of the ancestors because they can't imagine anything other than objects and families. But today's imagination can foster tomorrow's visualizations, and these lead to meditation. So think beyond the box....

Westerners have to realize that everything is inside. This material realm is as far out as you can go.....and it's not very "far out." It is fraught with birth, sickness, decay, death, the six passions, the eight fetters, the three gunas, etc., etc. Given all these, how wonderful can it be?

The physical realm dissolves back into energy; energy dissolves into the space of thought ("The world is just thought made manifest." - Holy Mother). The world of thought dissolves into Intelligence. This Intelligence shines and refracts into these grosser and grosser realms - these are all particles of higher Intelligence. All this is Brahman in Its trickle-down form.

The wholistic community these days caters only to the body; all they think about is food, exercise, and physical health. Whereas these are important, this is certainly not "wholism." The greatest healers, like Patanjali and Vasishtha, were not only catering to the other aspects of your being and existence - like mind, intelligence, and soul - they were also busy making sure you knew the true Self, Atman. There can be no wholism without That.

The 24 Cosmic Principles fit in the Five Akashas. Meditate on these as Om and dissolve them back into Om.
[The five akashas, or atmospheres exist simultaneously, and only in the first, the bhutakasha, are there dimensions like up, down, thick, thin, near, far, etc. All the others are increasingly subtle and do not have dimension in that way, and yet they exist, the more subtle ones being the cause of the grosser. These akashas are as follows from gross to subtle:
Bhutakasha: the space of objects (the physical realm)
Pranakasha: the space of vital force
Manakasha or chittakasha: the space of thought
Jnanakasha: the space of Intelligence
Chidakasha: the space of Pure Consciousness that is indivisible, the substratum of the other four akashas.]

Mother Kali is the Vak Devi, the Goddess of the Word. Her teachings are not so much about the Real and unreal, but more about how far from the Source one has gravitated - right down to the attachment to and obsession with the gross physical realm. Then beings forget Her! Then, like the buddha, She is forced to "speak."

You should satisfy dharma (requisites of a spiritual life) before trying to satisfy your desires (kama and artha).

You can open any other scriptures of the world and you will not find what is in Buddhism and Vedanta. You'll read about heavenly existence, morals, sinners - but you won't read about liberation. There's a difference between salvation and liberation.

Mao Tse Tung, Hitler, and other beings of that ilk come from time and time and killed thousands of beings. But, revealingly, this has not changed Brahman one iota. These are waves rising and falling on the eternal and limitless ocean of Brahman. If you fixate on the waves, you won't see the ocean.

Nature is a form-and-name making machine. And what is that Reality that named nature and formed nature's forms? which permeates everything, including Hitlers and Maos? Ma Kali is this all-pervasive Reality.

Karma Yoga: non-ownership and non-agency will lead you to non-separation.

The whole thing (the universe) comes out of you. You are the support. The magician creates a world, forgets that he is the creator, and then gets stuck there. But if he uses his wand, he can make it stop. This adept stoppage is the assertion, "I am That." "I and my Mother are One." Advaita is the thread running through the pearls; it is Consciousness running through everything. The human mind is the mirror that reflects Consciousness. We have to get a hold of Prakasha Shakti, the revelatory power. She will give us insight into the Mahashakti who grants liberation.

Sunday, October 26, 2008
Teachings on Mother Kali

Babaji presented the following charts:
Six Proofs of Purusha
Mother Kali the Adyashakti
Klishta and Aklishta vrttis

Constancy is the backbone of spiritual life.

Electric and kinetic energy rest in the bhutakasha. Prana, vital force, is in the pranakasha. This latter energy can't be seen; we can only see the effect. You can move your arm, but no one can tell you how you do it.

My own guru used to say, "Man does not live to eat, he eats to live." If you live to eat, you are a materialist. It is only when you begin to look for causes, and then subtler causes, that you become a metaphysician.

It isn't enough to just hear the truth. The purpose of one's life is to realize the Truth and live in It.

The desire for freedom implies an ever-free state. Even the thief steals due to the desire for freedom.

If renunciation scares you, then look at it this way: science has proven that objects are empty. They are just swirling particles.

Your peace of mind has to be based upon yoga (union/oneness), not on relativity. Loss of job, of loved ones - these should not rob you of peace of mind.