(The following excerpts were taken from an interview granted to a college student who was doing a research paper on Enlightenment.)
What religion are you affiliated with, if any?
BSP: I am affiliated with all religions. All religions were spawned from absolute Truth, through pure hearts who heard the word of God. I AM that Truth and I AM that word. Thus, who I am, and what I speak and teach, predates all religions, and, yet, includes the best of all of them.
What caused you to seek the path of Enlightenment?
BSP: What causes a drop of rain, when it falls from the sky, to return to the sea? I was born with an innate knowingness of God, and the hunger was there from birth. At some point, it became very clear that the trappings of the world offered no true satisfaction to Me. No matter which career I chose, what endeavor I did, there was always a piece missing. I knew that piece was God. And, eventually, that hunger took hold of Me in a way that I could not turn My back on anymore. In truth, I was not seeking Enlightenment, I was just seeking total union with God. I knew nothing about Enlightenment, nor did I think that I was eligible. But what I did know was that I was destined to merge in, and with, the heart of God. And I made a decision, around the age of thirty, to pursue that, at all costs to Myself. No matter what, I had to have it.
What does it mean to be enlightened?
BSP: Enlightenment is a point whereby individuals have transmuted and cleansed more than fifty percent of their karma. At that point, they are freed from the labyrinth of Separation, in which all humans live. It is then that they are God-realized or illumined (these are both synonyms for Enlightenment), and they live as one with God.
Another way of describing it is that an enlightened being has more than fifty percent of his or her consciousness as being love-based. One who is not enlightened has more than fifty percent of his or her consciousness that is still fear-based. A consciousness that is mostly fear-based is ruled by a force, a gravity, that holds you in fear. You may have moments of bliss, moments of ecstasy, moments of rapture, epiphanies and revelations—when you have experiences of profound love and ecstasy. But, because most of your consciousness is still fear-based, that ‘gravity’ eventually will pull you back into a life that is ruled by fear. If you were illumined, the exact opposite would be true. Because most of your consciousness would be love-based, there would be a gravity that would hold you in a love consciousness. In this scenario, you would still have moments—because you are in a human body, living in the world, and interacting with people—when anger would come up or fear would come up or sadness would come up. But, eventually, the gravity of pure love would pull you back into love without your having to really do anything, because you would have crossed that threshold. And that is the meaning of Enlightenment, as well as the differentiation between one who is enlightened and one who is unenlightened.
What does Enlightenment do for you?
BSP: A better question would be to ask, “What do you do for it?” Beings who are enlightened have one motivating factor in life, and that is to serve and help other people. The meaning of Life, itself, is to be in service to a Purpose which is greater than the self. All enlightened people know this and live this.
If someone is enlightened, does he or she retain it for the rest of that lifetime?
BSP: Yes. Enlightenment is a benchmark—a turning point—in the evolution of a soul, and it is the destiny of every soul in existence. All life, all creation, moves in one direction, and that is back unto the Creator. So, no, it cannot be undone, and it cannot fizzle or fade—absolutely not.
What happens to a person who is enlightened, after death?
BSP: The same thing that happens to an unenlightened person, after ‘death.’ First of all, there is no such thing as death, so that renders the question as being rather moot. The only thing that changes when you finish your incarnation is that you are no longer contained in a corporeal form. You are already immortal; you are already an eternal being—everyone is. And you are already part and parcel of the fabric of every cell of creation—every plant, every person, and every object (animate and inanimate, living and dead). When you finish your earthly embodiment, you simply drop that one form. But you are still part of everything, constantly evolving, growing and expanding into greater and greater love.
Does an enlightened person reach a certain state of being and then seek to help others become enlightened?
BSP: Yes. In fact, that is all enlightened people do. That is their vocation.
Do you believe that people have to go through chaos and destruction, or much pain and suffering, before they can seek the path of Enlightenment?
BSP: They do not have to go through chaos and destruction, pain and suffering. However, it just so happens that most everybody does. There have been very, very few exceptions to this, over the course of history. Look at it this way: Suppose you are a ball. And when God drops that ball, that is when you enter Creation. Now, if a ball is falling, when does that ball begin its ascent? The answer is simple: when it hits the ground. This explains the nature of human evolution on Earth. It is when you have hit rock bottom in your own selfish pursuits for sense gratification—for all the material goals and gains, at some point in a given lifetime (and it is not this lifetime for everyone)—that the ball begins its ascent. And in this third dimensional world of polarity, of duality, that does entail much chaos, destruction, pain, and suffering because all pain and suffering is caused by resistance to God’s will. Resistance to God is the sole source of pain and suffering. Therefore, one does beget the other.
Do you believe an enlightened person can tell if someone else is enlightened?
BSP: This is often, but not always, the case.
Is there anything beyond Enlightenment?
BSP: There are as many levels within the realm of Enlightenment as there are within the realm of Separation. Thus, when ones cross the threshold of Enlightenment, they still have an enormous amount of evolution to experience. In fact, long after you have become illumined (perhaps years and years later), when you have finished refining and purifying all the distortions in your consciousness, you just continue refining the refinements.
You can attain full God-realization, and still continue to expand because God is a quantity that is always increasing. Even though God is the consummation of all the love that exists in all of Creation, that God-head (the totality of God) is also constantly increasing because all of outer Creation (all the aspects or particles of the God-head) are also, each one, constantly ascending into higher vibrations of love, on their journey back into the God-head. Thus, at any moment—even one minute after the ‘Big Bang’—if you put it all back together again, God would be larger than its original mass, because each of those separate pieces would have increased. This is why, once you attain God-realization, you continue growing into greater Love, because so is God, Itself.
What are some of the qualities that an enlightened person possesses?
BSP: Unconditional love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, a deep level of acceptance, understanding, wisdom, insight, intuition, kindness, and caring... and the list goes on.
Is pain and suffering an individual perception that really has no relevance to our existence?
BSP: Well, it is an individual perception, but it has tremendous relevance to your existence. It is of vital and crucial importance in your life. Pain and suffering is a wonderful thing because it is the barometer that measures your level of resistance to God. Now, interestingly enough, when most people experience pain, they immediately try to numb it. They get pain killers and all kinds of medications. And, if it is emotional pain, they seek distraction. This is why human beings are totally consumed with the vocation of gratifying the senses: sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, prostitution—anything they can. It is to numb the pain of feeling separate from God.
It is better if you let yourself feel that pain of being separate from God, because it is that very pain that eventually creates the hunger for God. The hunger for God is what creates the Awakening, which creates the seeking, which creates the merging—and then the union—with God. Thus, as you can see, pain and suffering has tremendous relevance to your existence. It is one of the greatest gifts you can ever have—and ever know. Remember also: A heart at peace knows no suffering, regardless of circumstance.
How do we inform others about Enlightenment, if they know nothing? Should we inform others, or do they have to seek the path of Enlightenment on their own?
BSP: You are informing others right now. Now, should you inform others? ‘Should’ is a non-existing word. It is an illusion. ‘Should,’ ‘try’—those words do not exist; there is no such thing. What you ‘should’ do is just ‘Be Love.’
Do people have to seek the path of Enlightenment on their own? Absolutely. That is an individual journey. The return to God is wholly the responsibility of the individual. The awakening of the dormant, or slumbering, consciousness is like a time capsule in the heart and mind of every human being. And on that one given day, in one given moment, somewhere in the evolution of a soul, the bubble bursts and an individual becomes ‘the Seeker’.
Do you know what it means to be in a state of ‘Nirvana?’ If so, what does it mean?
BSP: I know what it means to be in a state of Nirvana, because that is the state in which I live. What it means, simply, is that no circumstance, no person, nor any event has the power or ability to move Me or tempt Me out of the space of unconditional love. I live in pure love and pure joy all the time. I still have certain feelings and moods. There are some things that I find distasteful, and there are certain behaviors in people that I may not like. But I have never stepped out of seeing someone as pure love, (out of) seeing through the eyes of pure love, or seeing the absolute, God-filled vibration of every cell of Creation in every single moment, period. In other words, you have cloudy days and sunny days, and you are affected by them as cloudy and sunny. Because I live in a state of Nirvana, when it is dark and cloudy and rainy, I still fully see the sun behind the clouds, and I experience the sun, even though I am experiencing the clouds and the rain along with you.
Do you believe chaos and destruction is caused by God, and why do we perceive it this way?
BSP: The only thing that is caused by God is love: the creation of love, the giving of love, the sharing of love, and the blessing of love. God is a river that is constantly flowing with pure, unconditional love. Why humans perceive God as the cause of chaos and destruction is because human beings live in the illusion of being separate from God. Thus, they have this natural chip on their shoulders, which speaks: “God, you abandoned me; God, you hurt me; God, you did this to me.” People live in victim consciousness, so they blame God for everything and give God credit for next to nothing. But that is one more testimonial of God’s unconditional love—that God keeps loving and giving anyway. Even for people who have renounced God, or say that they do not believe in God… Is not God still inflating their lungs after every exhalation, and do not their hearts continue to beat? Neither one of those has an ostensible power source. So it is the Creator that continues inflating the lungs and beating the hearts. There is no greater testimonial as to the level of God’s unconditional love for His children.
Do people have to reach Enlightenment before they receive the gift of eternal life?
BSP: No. Everyone is already eternal and immortal. When you attain Enlightenment, what changes is that you now have the experience of your own inherent divinity and immortality. Couple that with the knowing that it is the dharma and destiny of your soul—you have no ultimate say in this process or outcome; it is going to happen anyway, because of you and/or in spite of you—and you, like most, would immediately come to the realization of, “Why not just do it now?”
What happens to those who have not achieved Enlightenment before they die? Do they have to come back to this world?
BSP: You only have one true, full incarnation on Earth, and that is the one in which you are now living. What you understand to be your past lives are lives that your soul experiences vicariously through others, to prepare itself for its one journey on Earth. Furthermore, if you do not realize God in your one lifetime on Earth, you continue vicariously through (what you understand as) future lifetimes, assuming and absorbing the experiences of others as part of your evolution. The journey to God-realization has to be achieved on Earth and through human incarnations. In other words, if it is not done in your lifetime, you still have to work through the human factor to realize God.
Now that poses an interesting subject, because many people find great comfort in believing “Well, I can just come back and finish.” If you truly knew you only had one chance, you would really make the most of it. People waste a lot of their lives. They either glorify themselves over all these wonderful things they did in the past, or they procrastinate by saying, “Well, I can just do it in my next life.” Luxuriating and indulging in past lives and future lives are excuses people give themselves for not making the most of their one, true life on Earth—the one in which they are now living.
Why, might you ask, does what I just said seem to contradict what has been taught by other Masters, mystics, sages—and even some religions—with regard to past lives and reincarnation? There really is no conflict. The world was not ready (until now) to hear of this one, Higher Truth. Humanity needed to see and experience the cost of laziness, procrastination, lack of caring, and trying to pass the responsibility onto others. The state of this world now shows it.
It is only by your adopting full responsibility for all of Creation—knowing that you are God, and that everything and everyone on this planet is you—that the Miracle of miracles can happen, both in your life and in this world. “It’s all up to me” must become your life mantra. Act as if you are the only person on this planet—because you are—fragmented into seven billion pieces (people), as well as all the plants, animals, objects, and events. It is all you. All it takes is one. Jesus proved this. Gandhi proved this. That one is you.
It is only by truly knowing and believing that this life is all you have, that you will finally know and experience the precious sacredness of life, appreciate the gift that it is, and then act accordingly in treating it with love and respect.
If a person has achieved Enlightenment, does that mean he or she does not have any karmic debts left to pay? And do karmic debts have to be paid in order to achieve Enlightenment?
BSP: Karmic debts do have to be paid in order to attain Enlightenment. That is the journey and the process—the purification of the self. You are made as Pure Love, in the image of Pure Love, and you came into the world with a promise to be only love, to learn of love, and to spread love. Furthermore, you are responsible and accountable for every single creation of yours (and there are four levels of creation—thought, feeling, word, and action). And you promised that all four levels of your creation, in every moment, would be of pure love. So, for any time that you create anything that is less than pure love, your soul already had a promise that it would clean it up and restore it to pure love. Now, if you do not take responsibility and accountability, and make restitution and clean up your mess, then the universe acts on your behalf, with your promise and agreement, to do that for you. And that is the understanding of the Law of Karma. The Law of Karma is the Law of Balance. The universe is always in perfect balance, in every moment. If you are fully accountable and responsible, you can balance the karma yourself and not have to have things happen to you. You see, the physical plane is the densest plane of Creation, and the last place anything appears.
Any time you step out of love, you automatically know it—everyone knows it. The heart is the seat of the soul, which is the seat of your own divinity, which is the seat of your own omniscience. The truth is that the heart knows everything in every moment, and, when you think, feel, say, or act anything outside of pure love, you know it. In the private and still of your night, you know. And you have a choice to go rectify that situation and restore it to love, or to be a victim, and then have the universe do it for you. And that is the understanding of why karmic things happen to people, because they do not want to be responsible to sew only seeds of love.
If a person has achieved Enlightenment, yes, he still may have karmic debts to pay. I said, earlier, that attaining Enlightenment is when you cross the fifty-yard line, when you have transmuted and purified more than fifty percent of your consciousness back into unconditional love—the vibration of God. So, theoretically, one may still have up to forty-nine percent remaining to transmute, to purify.
If that is the case, then what about the karma that we are healing from past lives and this lifetime?
BSP: I have already spoken about past lives. There is just you—the totality of you. The principle is the same. Karma is karma. You acquire that which you need as part of the journey to God-realization. Past, present, future—it is all the same. You are created by God as pure love. You enter into the illusion of Separation. And the purpose of every soul’s journey on Earth is to reunite and merge with the Creator, as Pure Love. It is to discover love, remember love, purify into love, become love, and spread love that you were born.
- Bhagavan Sri Pranananda
No comments:
Post a Comment