The illumination of life-clouds, part 1

Part I — Ignorance

Claim

Claim the darkness-shack.

Ignorance will immediately

Claim the Illumination-Palace.

You do not have to work for it;

Offer it to you.

Ignorance

Darkness tempts us by saying, "What I have is very sweet, very nice and most fascinating. I have come to offer it to you." Then we ask to try it and we see it, feel it and taste it. Then we are caught and we are doomed.

When light stands in front of us it says, "We are one. You and I are one. What I have inside me, you also have." Light says that it has Peace, Bliss, Delight and Power and tells us that if we look inside ourselves, then we will also find the same Peace, Bliss, Delight and Power. We are one. But our mind which lives in the limited consciousness would rather try to possess something outside of itself. It feels, "What is the use of having something I already possess?" So when darkness offers it something outside of itself in the form of temptation, it tries to grab it. It makes no difference whether it is good or bad. Just because it doesn’t have it, it wants it. That is why we are always fond of ignorance.

Why do we cherish ignorance? First of all, we cherish a thing because we feel that it is something which another person has and for this reason we want it. When we see someone is very rich, we immediately want to become rich too. When someone is happy, immediately we want to be happy. We are always looking around at what others are doing and then trying to imitate them. We feel that if we don’t have the thing that others have, then we are fools. Everybody has ignorance. We also have ignorance, but we think that if we do not have a large enough quantity of ignorance then we are inferior.

A child has a balloon. He feels that his balloon is the best thing on earth. But he does not want to remember that a balloon is always very short-lived and will soon burst. He only wants to remember that it is his possession and he does not want to part with it. Ignorance is like a balloon. We feel that if this little toy is taken away from us, then we will be totally lost and have nothing. But when we consciously enter into the spiritual life, we feel that ignorance is constantly tempting us and never fulfilling us. We feel that the more we play with the balloon the more we are being frustrated and destroyed. We have to know what we want: temptation or fulfilment. If fulfilment is our choice, then temptation has to be discarded from our life of aspiration.

In our ordinary day-to-day life ignorance is like a camel: while a camel is eating thorns its mouth bleeds, but it continues to eat thorns because it has formed the habit of eating thorns. When we are eight or nine years old, ignorance starts entering into us most powerfully. Before that time, ignorance knows that we are helpless and that at any moment it can attack us. But again, the power of the soul is very strong. When the soul enters into the body, for one, two, three, four, five or six years, it remains absolutely powerful because it has the capacity to remain in the fore. But gradually the child starts learning many wrong things from his parents, neighbours, friends and the outer atmosphere, and ignorance enters. When the child is growing up, he sees many shortcomings in his parents but he does not know that these are shortcomings. He thinks that these are things that he needs. He thinks that he needs them to stay on earth and to prove that he is also a real human being. So in this way he starts cherishing in his mind, vital or physical these ideas that come from the physical senses. When he starts using his physical senses without being inspired from the heart, darkness enters into his eyes and blinds them and falsehood enters into his ears and poisons them. All the undivine qualities enter into him as his life-boat sails.

There is nobody on earth from the age of thirteen on who can say that he or she does not know what ignorance is. Before that, when one is a child, one cannot differentiate light from ignorance. He can’t be blamed. But after the age of thirteen, our conscience tells us whether we are doing the right thing or not. Our conscience starts functioning even at the age of three or four or five, but at that time our conscience does not have enough power to regulate our life. When a child does something wrong he may be scolded and threatened, but he does not actually understand that his action is something that is going to create a dark spot in his own life. He does not realise that there is a tablet in his heart and if he does anything wrong that tablet will be full of spots. He feels that if he has done something wrong and his mother or father has scolded him, then it is over. But when we are thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen years old, we know that whenever we make a mistake we have to pay the penalty.

How can we overcome ignorance? In this world we know only two things: I want or I don’t want. We either accept or reject. In God’s cosmic Game there are only two things: Ignorance and knowledge. So we have to say, "I want knowledge, divine wisdom, and I don’t want ignorance."

When we enter deeply into the spiritual life we feel that ignorance is something that has to be overcome. It is binding us and is constantly offering us frustration. At that time we say, "I don’t want ignorance, I want light." At every moment one has to practise acceptance and rejection. Every thought is either composed of ignorance or of wisdom, of darkness or of light. There is nothing in between. Either darkness is filling the vessel or light is filling the vessel. This is why we have to allow the light to enter into the vessel. If we don’t allow light in, then naturally darkness will come and fill up the vessel.

As there is no limit to darkness, so also there is no limit to light. Now it is up to us to choose. We can live in darkness and ignorance or we can live in light. Today it is difficult for a human being to live in light. It is easier for him to live in darkness. But tomorrow that particular seeker will find it really difficult, extremely difficult to live in ignorance and darkness because he has begun to live in light.

Part II — Questions and answers

Question: What is ignorance? I don't understand what it is.

Question: When did ignorance first strike us?

Question: From the spiritual point of view what is the difference between stupidity and ignorance?

We cherish many stupid thoughts and ideas; in our day-to-day life we forget that we have an eternal life, an endless life, a divine reality within us. One of the most stupid thoughts or ideas that we cherish is the idea that we cannot realise the Infinite, that we cannot realise God. We think it is far beyond our capacity. This idea is based on stupidity. When we enter into the spiritual life we have to always feel consciously and constantly that God is inspiring us to realise Him. In our conscious inner cry for the Highest we will have our constant union with God. This is the only message that God wants to offer us in our life of aspiration.

Question: If a person has something like a brain defect and in this incarnation is like a vegetable, will he suffer even if he is not outwardly conscious or aware of his defect?

Precious

Each thought is precious

Of desire.

A precious thought blossoms

Of God’s gracious Light.

A precious will is born

Of God’s Intuition bright.

A precious surrender is born

Barter their precious treasures.

Man, his agelong ignorance-sea;

Part III — Pain and suffering

I have become Earth's advocate

I have seen the tears of sorrow,

I have become

Heaven’s consideration

God’s Compassion.

Physical pain and psychic pain

Physical pain, vital pain and mental pain have to be transformed into joy through our constant inner cry for something that will give us real and permanent satisfaction. In the spiritual life the best thing is to take pain as an experience which has to be transformed into an experience of joy. Joy is the only eternal reality, the only permanent and everlasting reality. But it is absolutely wrong to say that each time we suffer we go one step ahead towards our goal.

There are various roads to our destination. On one road we have thorns in the way; the other road is a sunlit path. When we can go on the sunlit path, why should we suffer from thorns or any other obstacle? Suppose you want to go to Manhattan. There are roads where the traffic is very bad, but there may be a road where there is no traffic. How fast we reach our destination depends on which road we take.

There are some people who feel that pain is indispensable, but it is not necessary to go through suffering before we can enter into the kingdom of Delight. Many people have realised God through love. The Father has love for the child and the child has love for the Father. This love takes us to our goal. Our philosophy emphasises the positive way of approaching Truth. We have limited light; now let us increase it. Let us progress from more light to abundant light to infinite Light.

Many human beings do not pray and meditate. They have material possessions and achievements and are leading a comfortable life. When the results of their own ignorance come to them, then they suffer. Some people also have gone through painful periods of doubt, fear, worry and anxiety in the spiritual life. This pain is worse than physical pain. Self-doubt or doubt of God is the worst possible pain. "I cannot do this," or, "God won’t do this for me. I cannot work for God." This kind of doubt is our worst torture. There can be no pain more bitter.

We know physical pain, vital pain and mental pain. But there is also psychic pain. On the ordinary human level, we get psychic pain when someone whom we are attached to deserts us. But on the spiritual level, psychic pain is an inner pain, a sense of supreme loss, the feeling that our Beloved Supreme, for whom we are crying, is still far away. Once upon a time we had infinite wealth, but we have lost it. We are like a traveller whose money drops from his pocket on the road. Here we are travelling in the world of ignorance, and we have lost our inner wealth. This kind of psychic pain is extremely significant. This pain is like a hunger, an inner urge to reach the Highest. One kind of hunger is for name, fame and earthly achievements, but inner hunger is different. Psychic pain comes from eternal hunger, which is absolutely necessary in the spiritual life. Without eternal hunger we will not be able to reach the highest, ultimate Goal. In the spiritual life dissatisfaction with finite achievements will not be like ordinary dissatisfaction. In ordinary dissatisfaction when we don’t get something we want, immediately we revolt and we stop praying for it. It is like sour grapes. But in the spiritual life, dissatisfaction is very sweet. We have something and we feel that this is not enough. We came from the Supreme, who is infinite, eternal, immortal. How can we be satisfied with the achievement of the finite, knowing that we are chosen children of the Supreme? It is our soul that is bringing to the fore the message that nothing finite can satisfy us. Only the Infinite, the Eternal can satisfy us.

Part IV — Questions and answers

Question: Why do we have to pass through sad experiences such as suffering and sorrow?

But there is another way of looking at the truth. This way says that God is all Love, all Compassion. Why should we need suffering in order to think of Him? If He is really all Love, if His very nature is all Love and we pray to Him to give us suffering so that we can think of Him, then we are approaching the truth in the wrong way.

Why do we experience suffering? In this world we are always consciously or unconsciously making mistakes. When we consciously make mistakes, we are quite aware of it. But unfortunately, we do not see the millions of things that we are doing wrong unconsciously. These unconscious mistakes manifest themselves in the physical world and the results come to us as suffering. In the case of ordinary unaspiring human beings, after tremendous suffering, sincerity dawns and the soul leads them to knowledge and wisdom. If people who repeatedly make mistakes have sincere aspiration and want to know why they are suffering, then the soul’s light comes to the fore and tells them. If we are spiritual people, consciously we will not do anything wrong, but unconsciously we do many things wrong. We can prevent unconscious mistakes only through our aspiration, prayer and meditation. If we aspire, then God’s Grace and Compassion protect us.

There is something else that we have to know about what we call suffering. Often we think of God, pray to God and meditate on God and then we see that all sorts of problems arise in our life. Some disciples have said to me, "I was very happy until I entered the spiritual path. I thought when entering into the spiritual path that I would have more happiness, more joy, more bliss. Now what is all this? I am getting more suffering, more frustration!" I tell them, "You created God according to your own fancy. You imagined that God should be this or that." If we are really sincere, we should go deep within and see whether we had these difficulties before or not. We did have the same difficulties before we accepted spirituality, but we were not aware of them before. Spirituality is the path of awareness and consciousness. After we accept spirituality we become aware of every thought, while before we accepted the spiritual path, we were not aware of our thoughts. Previously, many things were happening to us, but we were like a solid wall and were unaware of these things. But now, as seekers, we are affected whenever a good or bad thought enters into our mind. If it is a divine thought we are happy. If it is a wrong thought we are frustrated and disappointed. This is the result of our spiritual awareness. If we are sincere with ourselves, we come to realise that we have always had the same difficulties, the same sufferings, but previously we were not conscious of them. We were stupid and we did not know. Now we have become wise. We have become conscious and we know what is happening.

Again, we have to know that when we enter the spiritual life, the hostile forces attack us. Before, when we lived in ignorance and were a slave to ignorance, ignorance let us sleep. As long as it had us under its control, as long as we were wallowing inside it, it did not disturb us. But when we enter the spiritual life and try to escape from ignorance, at that time ignorance tries to hold us down. So sometimes the seeker will find he is having some difficulties at the beginning of his spiritual journey that he did not have before, but as he progresses, these difficulties fall away.

God does not want suffering for human beings. He is our Father of Love. When we go to our Father, we don't have to cut our arms or our throat. We will go with all our love because He is waiting for us with His Love. If we say that we have to suffer in order to go to our Father, that is stupidity. God, our Father, does not want our suffering.

Question: I feel unhappy when I think of the suffering that is going on in the world, that children are starving and things like that.

It is like a game. Suppose one of your team’s players has been attacked by your opponents and is badly injured. Naturally you will feel sorry that you have lost a player from your team. But if you constantly think of the player who is suffering, how will you be able to play the game? God wants you to play your own game. You have lost a partner in the game, but you must also remember that in this game, your team needs you badly.

What your side needs is your joy. Your cheerfulness is like the strength of a lion, the strength of an elephant. When you identify yourself with suffering humanity, your heart may be big, but your cheerfulness is lost. It is true that your team-mate has fallen, that humanity is weak. But when your own cheerfulness goes away, then you become weak in a different way. You cannot make your own progress. If you are dwelling on the thought that people are sick, or people are poor, then while they are weak in one way, you become weak in another way by losing your own joy. So instead of one weak soldier, now there are two.

Again, there are many people who feel sorry for the suffering of others and it is right to feel sorry for others. But in some cases the after-effect is often a kind of inner revolt. We ask, "What kind of God is He who cannot take care of His children?" Instead of accepting God’s Will and surrendering to it with the knowledge that He knows what is best for all of His children, we blame God and criticise Him.

When we see suffering, we must immediately throw unhappiness from our minds and make our minds clear. We must feel that this is an experience God is having in and through those people and that when the time comes, when the hour strikes, those people also will be given material wealth. You may sympathise for a second, but you must maintain your cheerfulness; you must make your own progress. Your progress means your joy. When you make your own progress, you will have joy that you will be able to spread all over the world.

Question: Is there any spiritual significance to the energy crises, wars and other problems the world is having now?

There is no spiritual significance in the world upheaval in the sense that from this something very spiritual, divine or magnificent will come about. It is we who are creating that kind of suffering. Sometimes on rare occasions suffering helps us in purifying our life. But the present problems are being created by silly, undeveloped, obscure, impure people. We are suffering and we shall suffer more because of our own ignorance.

It is true that we can take everything as spiritual; everything as God’s Will. If we are seekers, then we can console ourselves in this way. But why should it be God’s Will for us to quarrel and fight and kill each other? This is not God’s Will, it is our will, and He is just tolerating us.

Question: When I read the newspapers and see all the suffering and violence in the world, it upsets me.

There are people who read newspapers and they are not affected. I read The New York Times occasionally. I am not affected because I see it as an experience. I know that whatever has happened has been recorded in the cosmos, in the universe. Of course, I sympathise. While I am reading, I sympathise with the sufferer. But if I cherish or harbour that person’s suffering, then my meditation will be useless. So when I meditate I don’t think of how someone has shot someone else; I do not allow any force like this to enter.

You have to know how much capacity you have. You have to accept and reject the world according to your capacity. If you do not have the capacity to accept the experience as an experience, then it is not necessary to read the newspaper at all. Things that stand in the way of your inner life must be discarded like a dirty, filthy rag. You should constantly deal only with the things that inspire you. If the newspaper stands as an obstacle in your way, if it destroys your inner poise, which is your real wealth, then you don’t have to read it. But just because you see something in front of you, out of curiosity you want to touch it. If you see a flame and touch it out of curiosity, naturally you will be burnt.

Question: Often when I know I am coming to meditation, I develop a swollen gland or a headache. Is there a connection between this and my looking forward to this occasion?

When you want to come here you become a victim to the hostile attacks. These attacks come primarily for two reasons. The first reason is that the physical is mercilessly opposed to the heart’s psychic aspiration. Your inner aspiration is running much faster than your physical capacity or necessity. The physical is constantly playing the part of a robber. The soul is gaining something for you and the physical is robbing it and squandering it. When we receive something from the soul, we should feed our aspiration with the soul’s light. Instead, when we receive light from the soul, the physical throws it all away without utilising it for its own illumination.

Question: Why does a God-realised Yogi suffer?

Then there is another suffering that is a more subtle suffering: divine suffering. In divine suffering you see the vision of the ultimate Truth, but you see that the world is not accepting it. The world is rejecting it. The world needs the vision of the ultimate Truth, but it does not care for it, it feels that it does not need it.

You will ask, "How is this possible? If you see the Truth, if you are really dedicated and devoted to the Supreme, then why should you suffer?" A realised soul suffers in spite of seeing the Truth because the world not only refuses to accept Light, but actually stands in the way of Light. A realised soul has come into the world to offer Light, and the Supreme wants him to offer Light, but the world stands against him. It is for the world that he has come, but the world will not accept him; it rejects him at every moment. This suffering takes place on a divine level where the Reality itself is crying to fulfil itself. A realised soul is a channel for the Reality, but the ignorance-world does not want that Reality to manifest itself here on earth.

God has created this world. God is Love, God is Law. He has created the world, but now the world, His own creation, is not consciously trying to fulfil Him. He has created the instrument, but the instrument consciously and deliberately does not want to be played upon by the Creator.

A realised soul does not suffer in his highest Self. But he suffers just because he lives in his dearest ones, who still cling to the suffering world. He has two levels of consciousness. One level is his divine, limitless Consciousness, the other is his finite, limited consciousness. He has to have the finite consciousness; otherwise, it is simply impossible for him to enter into his disciples or for his disciples to enter into him. His limitless Consciousness flows through the finite in him to the finite in the individual seeker. Similarly, the individual seeker enters through his finite consciousness into his infinite Consciousness. During this period, when he has to separate his infinite Consciousness from his finite consciousness to play the cosmic Game properly, he is partially caught. Then he suffers.

Suffering can purify the heart. When does suffering purify the heart? When we aspire for the Beyond, when we cry for infinite Peace, Light and Bliss, then the suffering that comes to us as an experience along the way purifies our heart. In the ordinary human life, if someone suffers because a son or a close friend has died, this suffering is not going to purify him. But in the spiritual life, suffering comes to us as an experience to widen our consciousness, to expand our inner reality. At that time suffering purifies our heart.

If suffering comes, what suffers? The body suffers, the vital suffers, our worldly existence suffers. When the body suffers, when our worldly existence suffers, at that time we have to feel that we are not going to carry these things through Eternity. These are perishable things. In the physical world, suffering is a reality.

Question: How can we understand the suffering of Jesus on the Cross when he said, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

While he was making his supreme sacrifice for the world, he became totally one with the vast ignorance of the world. When he said, "O God, why have You forsaken me?" it was the physical in him which had come to the fore. At his last moment, he became totally one with the physical world. It was first his acceptance, and then finally his oneness with the world that made him feel this great sorrow.

Question: Why do I feel a kind of pain when I create something?

Your sadness immeasurable

“Lord, Your sadness

How can I relieve?”

Think that I suffer,

Love humanity as I do.

Lo, half of My suffering-night

With its Reality-height.

Part V — Negative forces

My choice

Whom am I going to choose: God?

Chosen me, my all.

Whom am I going to choose: Ignorance?

Chosen her, her brooding

Bondage-eye,

Destruction-arms.

Question: What are negative forces?

Question: If we are nice to others, won't they be nice to us?

Question: Do wars result from the fact that we have not been able to reconcile our lives to our souls?

What are we fighting against in the inner world? We are fighting against ignorance. This ignorance has to be nipped in the bud. As long as ignorance remains in our being, we will feel that the world is not ours. We will feel that it is something totally different from us which we have to possess. The moment we are freed from the grip of ignorance, we will feel the world deep within us. At that time, there is no need to possess it, since it is already ours.

Now we are fighting because we feel that a particular plot of land or country is not ours and we want to possess it. But when we are freed from ignorance, in our inner existence we will feel that the whole world is ours. It is not something to be fought for because deep within us it is already our possession.

Question: Where are the hostile forces located?

Question: Under what circumstances are the hostile forces most likely to attack us?

Editor's introduction to the first edition