Why should we let go?
Well, I really like the idea of letting go. There is a reason for it. I think most of the Mai-Tri people know this already; Mai-Tri practitioners can see the aura of a person. When you see a person, of course, you see the form, but apart from the form, you see the mountain of things they carry. It’s literally mountains; emotions, concepts, fears and phobias and a lot of things we carry. And a lot of it has to do with the terrestrial existence, the world outside. And we relate to the world outside through the eyes of what we carry.
So, if we are seeking only negativity in the world outside, that’s because we are carrying so much negativity inside. If we see anger outside, that means we are carrying anger inside. If we are seeing jealousy, discrimination, various aspects of existence, which are literally bogging us down outside, that means we are carrying it inside. A lot to do with this is is being in harmony with ourselves. So, all these practices are to bring harmony inside. This is the best gift you can give to yourself.
Why should we become free?
Because by nature, we are free. The whole universe is us. And we know it already. Then why do we not feel it? Because our mind does not allow it. The mind has made us narrow, narrow-minded. A narrow mind means ‘me and mine’. The mind dwells on me and mine, in other words, ownership. Ownership makes us limited, very small. So, we don’t really see that we are the universe, or we don’t experience we are the universe, but we are the universe. We know very well we are the universe, but we don’t feel it because the mind limits us, ego limits us, the intellect limits us.
Then we think, “Oh, this is what we are. My world is very small. My world is my family, children, job, work, and all those things.” The mind is telling that. It’s not true. Your whole scope is that you are the entire world, not this world, not the Earth. The Earth is a relatively new world, but we are much older than the Earth. The beginning of the Earth as a platform itself came later than our birth; we are much older. But we don’t understand that; we don’t recognise that; we don’t feel it because our limited mind connected to this incarnation made us feel small.
What do we need to do?
In this life, we must experience the vastness we are; we are really vast. We’re really big, vast; everything is within us. And everything you see around in this world has something to do with us, otherwise we won’t see it. Every relationship, every friendship, every connection, every experience has something to do with us. It’s us. So, we are very important. And ‘us’ does not mean me plus family, or me plus job, or me plus something else, a material like a car or something. No, it’s not that. You, as you. This is it. You are born alone, and you will die alone; you brought nothing here, you will carry nothing from here. So, as simple as that, as empty, as naked as real as you are, as you came, that way, we will go.
Then why do we have regrets, guilt, anger, hatred, jealousy? This is silly, right? It’s absolutely silly. We carry these unnecessary memories; we should be free, happy, relaxed. This we deserve. And sometimes we can’t do that because of ownership – my father, my mother, my child, my husband, my daughter, my brother. This ‘my’, ‘my’, ‘my’ is literally strangling us. But should we not take responsibility? Of course, you should take responsibility, but it doesn’t mean that you become limited because of your responsibility. I hope I’m making it clear. We cannot be limited. We are unlimited by birth, and we will remain unlimited, except that you take the mind off and see, see the truth. You are unlimited. You are indeed unlimited.
How to surrender?
So, I’ll explain surrender first. What is surrender? Surrender simply means that you have identified the source, and you have connected to the source. Surrender, there is nothing called surrender, as you say, from the mind. The mind cannot surrender. The mind is independent by nature. You cannot surrender the mind or from the mind. You cannot surrender to the mind because the mind belongs to you as a constitution. You cannot surrender by the mind or from the mind because the mind doesn’t allow any surrender, like forgiveness. We say, “I forgive”. But then if you don’t forget that thing, it is not forgiven. Like that, surrender by the mind is not surrender; it’s just an exercise or an intellectual or a mental thing.
What happens when we surrender?
I’m giving an example of a person who is self-realised, who has realised his self. What is the self? It’s simple. First and foremost, we recognise we have a body; of course, we have a body; it’s tangible. How do we know we have a body? When we wake up, we have hunger; we have thirst. We have all the things connected to the body; then we know we have a body. Then we have a mind, intellect and ego.
How do we know we have a mind, intellect and ego?
When we are processing emotions, when we become emotional, that is the mind at work. When we are processing information, when we analyse something or calculate, the intellect is at work. The mind is grosser; the intellect is the subtler aspect of the mind; it’s slightly more subtle. Then we have an ego; what is ego? The seat of your personality. The one who maintains ownership, me and mine, is owned by ego. So, we understand that the mind has three aspects. The mind is the seat of emotions, the intellect, the seat of information or the processor of information and ego, the processor of ownership, matters that we can feel.
The three states
We can also feel that there are three types of time that we handle each day: the waking state, the state when we are awake; when we have a world outside to interact with. We work with a world outside of us. That’s the waking state when we are awake. Then we shut down the waking state; then we go into a dream state, where we handle the matter we already collected from the world outside but stored inside. That’s the memories, concepts, and things we have collected from the world outside and stored. So the dream state handles that world, the world inside.
Then we have a deep sleep state where we shut down the outside world and the inside world; there are no worlds now. We are totally away from all these worlds. That’s the deep sleep state where we don’t know anything. Now there is a fourth state, which is watching all these three states, which we call the fourth state – Turiya. And beyond the fourth state, there is an energy that makes all these states work that we call the soul.
What is the soul?
It’s just like electricity. Electricity makes your refrigerator work. It makes your washing machine work. It makes your mixer, grinder, light; everything works because electricity goes through it. If there is no electricity, none of these things will work. So, we understand there is electricity inside us, which is functioning, the three states, the mind, intellect, ego processors, and the functions of the body. This electricity is the only truth. Minus the electricity, we call it a dead body. So, somebody who is totally connected to electricity, not the other aspects, is a self-realised man. Somebody who’s only connected to the electricity inside and not connected to the physical, emotional or times of existence is a self-realised man. When you connect to that kind of a man who is realised, then surrender is a byproduct.
You don’t have to surrender because that is the end of your aspiration; you want to reach that state of this man who is completely occupied with himself. He is occupied with the truth.
What is the truth?
You are not the changing times; you are not the changing body; you are not the changing mind. You are the unchanging electricity inside you, the self, the soul. That should be realised, not understood. I can tell you have a soul, but it is a belief if you do not experience it. The world is full of beliefs now; belief is something you thought exists, but you don’t know experientially. Unless you experience that thing, it’s not yours.
Self-realised man
So, when a person has experienced the soul inside and is fully settled in that experience, he’s a self-realised man. When he sees the same soul expanded in the whole world and sees the same soul in every being around him, he’s a God-realised man because the soul is the same everywhere in different bodies, just like electricity, when it is in the refrigerator, it functions differently than in a washing machine. But the electricity is the same. Like that, in an animal, the same electricity functions as that animal; a tiger behaves like a tiger, a lion behaves like a lion, and a deer behaves like a deer, and a human behaves like a human being, but it is the same electricity.
This is God-realization. That means you realise everything is who you are, an expression of you. This is God-realization. When we come in contact with such people, we call them Masters because they have crossed over the mind-matter. Automatically surrender happens; it is not surrender but it is a merger. It is a merger, which means you and your aspiration comes together. It’s a unification, a unity, and surrender is a word for that unity. This means that you found your home and you parked yourself.
This is surrender. Not that you choose with your mind. Okay, can I surrender this, or can I surrender that? That is not to surrender.
Transcibed by Ulla Bernholdt
Proofread by Ulla Bernholdt and Rekha Murali