Meeting Mataji

Dear Friends,
    Recently I met Merrill and Mataji in White Plains, NY through a meditation Meet-Up group. After having dinner with them, I attended Mataji's class, and at the end, Maria, one of the students, offered to house me. At night, I tried to turn on Persistence, but she was dead. I had left the headlights on. So Maria called her husband, Harry, who immediately came to assist. He attached the jumper cables and after a few minutes, Persistence came to life. I followed them home and settled in my new room. Satsangs have been happening every day. Today I attended a meditation at the home of Mataji and Merrill. At the end, they asked me to hold kirtan (singing to Divinity). I had composed a song called "Mataji, Jai, Jai" which we all sang together. I had tears in my eyes. Mataji held her palms together and continued to express her namaste throughout the music. She is the expression of the Mother of the Universe. I bow to the Divine Mother which breathes life into our heart, mind, and body. She is the Creation itself, the life force of manifestation.  Oh, Divine Mother, bring us into Your arms and show us how to love You.

Always at Your service,
Brian

Dissolution of the World

Dear Friends,
    Consider your experience of the world. It is all based on thought, and all thoughts are passing feelings. None of them are permanent. Even the idea of "me." The sense of "me" changes as well as thoughts about others, the world and God. None of it is the Truth. All thought is a passing illusion made up in the mind. Therefore, our experience of reality is untrue. It is purely based in this illusion. When we believe firmly in the illusion - that there is a me and a separate world - we suffering according to this identification. Whatever happens to the "me" cause happiness or sadness. Thus, life is like living on a little boat in the ocean that can be capsized any moment by a big wave.

The purpose of Jnana Yoga is to contemplate on the reality that we have created out of the identification with the ego. Look at every thought and say, "not this, not this." This is not me, this is not me. And one by one, the belief in separate me dissolves and thus, the whole world disappears from the mind and one is left with the True Self, the Absolute Reality, That which is inconceivable and beyond the mind. Then there is no one left to suffer. The true Awakening is the awakening from the dream of thought, the identification with mind and body. We are so attached to thought and body that we truly believe we are these things. In other words, the more we indulge in the illusion of thought and desire and habitual patterns of life, the more we solidify the sense of me. The more solid the me, the deeper the suffering. The more we let go of the sense of me, its selfishness and desires, the less suffering occurs. Let us begin to question this separate sense of self. Who am I? As the ego dies, consciousness is freed from the person, and Truth is revealed - infinite, whole, complete...Purna

With love,
Brian

I am One, I want to be Many

Dear Friends,

I contemplate the statement, "I am One, I want to be many." How is it possible to explain this koan? If I am One, how can there be an individual and many objects? Yet it is happening. The One Divine Mind dreams itself into countless characters that play out their roles according to their programming or karma. Yet still there is only One Being that cannot be seen, cannot be touched and cannot be understood.

Consider a dream at night. I dream I am one character interacting with so many other characters and it seems so real that I may start to sweat or scream in my sleep. Indeed, I truly believe I am that character in a dream world. Yet when I wake up, I find that none of it actually happened. My mind created all the characters and played them so realistically that it became the reality. Yet now I find myself waking up as "me" again. The illusion of the dream was so real that I believed it to be true.

What if this reality now - the Brian character typing on a computer - is the exact same scenario. I must wake up one more time from the Brian-identification to find out that it was all a dream.  That it seemed so convincing that I took it seriously and suffered for it. When consciousness is "woken" from the dream, it becomes what it is. The Ultimate Truth. The Divine Mind. The Infinite Presence. The entire Brian-character was just a dream.

"I am One, I want to be Many." How is it possible?

With love,

Brian