Welcome friends to this monthly meeting that we are having now in the Chicago area. As I explained last time the idea of these meetings is to continuously renew our passion and enthusiasm on the spiritual path. Bullah Shah explains not difficult to find just put your attention from outside to inside. The truth is simple but we have made it difficult due to our own mind…it spins around theoretical concepts of what is meant by going within and doesn’t understand what is ourselves. We all know we have a self…why should it be difficult to see so obvious. If we start asking ourselves is this shirt me or somebody else? Is the jacket or I am somebody else? We are wearing certain types of bodies and we are bothered if those customers are us or not. Where is that persistent thought coming that there is something that will not die…and yet we focus on the covering upon us…if we can understand covering is not us we will make the spiritual path a very simple one. The mind keeps making this mistake as it regards it as experience not reality… an experience taking place outside ourselves. We are living and that is why experience is taking place yet we take that as reality and not the experiencer who is experiencing that. We have experienced right now here…we sleep we forget outside. We dream and dream becomes real. Mind is taking us on big ride outside and not the experiencer within. These external experiences are generated beautifully as they look so real. I remember a story of a benevolent king who wanted his subjects to be taken care of. One day he found a man lives in forest who live under tree and has no money to buy clothes and he has a group of followers in same state. King state I want to help him personally. He packed up a lot of gold in a suitcase and took it to the forget. Man got up and said what brings you to the forest. King said I have come to help you with suitcase of gold. I have brought it to you so you can get house and food and live happily. Holy man sat down and asked can I serve you something…I have an apple and give you that. King said alright. He saw 8 people sitting there and cut apple in 8 pieces…before he could give another group of 10-12 people came up and cut those pieces into smaller pieces…and gave to each one. When he tasted it was so fulfilling…he told holyman you gave me such a small piece. This apple was good for 1000 people! King said I want to give this gift to you. He said king wait a minute…let me accept your gift…thank you your majesty…now I want to give you a gift. I want give you what you value..here is the suitcase of gold..holyman said you never gave it to me I can do whatever I like with it. It has a lot of value…wait king….he told his followers go and dig near tree and pulled out a chest and it was full of gold. This is a lot more gold next to me…if gold could give me something I would have pulled it out long ago…therefore you cannot give happiness through gold…it has no value. King, you measure too much…how much it is…most problems arise when you measure too much. If you forget to count and you will never be unhappy. We in our mind measure so much…so much reality by km, kg…that is why measurement gives us a sense of reality. There are things here that create attachment make things real. We are using one sense perception with another to define reality…if in dream I did the same thing…it will be same touch but when I wake up none was real. How can we use one sense perception with another and define reality by that? All our consistency is based on it. That is why we are lost in this game of projected universe of the experiencer coming from the inside. If this was not so finding God and reality would be easy.

16min- We are always watching the show from a single point inside us. It does not matter what form we have. The point where we exist which never moves…that constant point where we belong is always inside us and what we think is our form is always around and outside of it. 83% of our experience of the universe is visual and 13% is listening and the remaining are all other sense perceptions combined. We see with these eyes and hear from ears…most of our 97% experience of the world is taking place in the small area where ears and eyes are. Obviously where w are working from where we are experiencing this universe from. It becomes obvious…behind the eyes at a single spot. You are sitting in the middle of your head…realisation is not difficult to get. Once we know where we are we should be able to find out who we are. You can feel, and experience that you are in the centre of the head where you operate…the whole body is around you and everything happening (thoughts, feelings, conversation) takes place from there. We have a very good starting point to know who we are and eventually who is our creator and totality. People tell me they meditate but couldn’t locate that spot. If somebody has lost something inside and looking for it he will always look away from it. But when you know where you are you don’t look for it. We move our attention away from our own self.

22min- Very first step to knowing who we are is to know where you are which is so obvious..you are behind the eyes between the ears. Master Ji talked about the pineal gland where if we shine laser light on it a conscious man will become unconscious. Knowing that can you say that…imagine you are not a body just this much…who am I. Close your eyes and ears and ask this question and you will notice you are speaking with thoughts in your head. My mind seems to be speaking it is myself…where am I thinking from? If I can think there can I also see? Can I turn my head without physically turning my head…there is something inside that is definitely operating inside this physical body. Can I also sit and stand inside…you can perform all functions you thought can be performed with the physical body. Is that more real or physical self is more real? Here I have to pause and talk about a little bit about imagination. Imagination is not as imaginary as we think- to an extent it will give us the real nature of the imagination. Suppose you withdraw you’re attention from physical reality…imagination becomes more real than physical reality. That imaginary thing will become more real than outside. It’s a question of realising what imagination is. Walt Disney said if you can imagine something you can have it and called imagination such a powerful thing. We assume that the physical reality is the only reality but if we use imagination successfully- if you can imagine that you are sitting inside a hollow body a house of yours…you imagine you living in it you can have an experience of imagination becoming more real than this.

32min- Divison of attention…how much attention you put on something makes it real. That’s the power of attention… Consciousness means you have the ability to have an experience. It is merely a generic term to show you have the power to generate awareness. What you are aware of is a part of it. Attention is a little probe of awareness which we can move anywhere we like. If you focus your attention on something that thing becomes more clear than other things. Wherever we concentrate our attention we can create a reality of that experience. We can put the attention on ourselves. These are great features we have. If we were to put attention on ourselves we know we are operating from, what have been term the 3rd eye center. Where are two images being watched by eyes combining to see one image…its right behind the eyes at the same point! We are using our 3rd eye day and night…its merely a notional point where we combine images of the two eyes. We can now start finding out who is it that thinks, and ask questions without using the body. What is the big purpose of this? What could be purpose of creating pain and suffering? What kind of creative power has been used and say its a great creative power? People criticise God for this. All things are created by the same creator. But there is a very good purpose of creating all this i.e. nature of consciousness is such that it examines things for comparison.

40min- I remember doing a study in Harvard University. Master Ji shared his discussion with his teacher on happiness. I took the names of 1000 people living in Great Boston Area and prepared a questionnaire on what makes you happy and unhappy. Most said the same thing about happiness and unhappiness. I took the money part first as there was an ex-professor who was a CEO of a company who’s net worth was more than $10M. So I met him and I said let’s talk value of money of happiness…he said not at all! I taught as a professor in Harvard and spent years to reach where I am and then become CEO of this company. Look at the bloke next door who had $20M…so his happiness is what his neighbour had! We are always comparing opposites! 🙂 Value of principles of the pairs of opposites. If there was no darkness we won’t know the value of light. The same goes for good health and being unhealthy. Therefore, we really want to appreciate the state of bliss, how can we appreciate it if there is nothing to compare it with. By creating an unreal universe of unhappiness…we come back to our own reality we have real happiness gives us a greater appreciation of our true state.

45min- Greek philopshere Aristotle was a disciple of Plato who was a disciple of Socrates. Socrates believed in truth lying inside us. Plato was more intellectual but then comes Aristotle who said we need to take outside world as real to have inner expereices. Why do we go and see dramas? You can create comedy (laugh) where actors behave silly, or tragedy where actors fall tragically and thirdly history where life is presented as it is. In a tragedy drama you associate yourself with it…you forget these are mere actors but for the time being you make it real. You remove your own emotions that time…purgation of access emotions…what he called…The willing suspension of disbelief….that’s what we do today. The creation is made look like reality and we will appreciate our reality our true home more and know what we have got otherwise we don’t what we have got. Master Ji talked about Anurag Sagar where we have huns and buns. We are all huns sitting here and when we go back we are so happy of our own state and they wonder what happens to us. Seeing the opposite especially which is not real is best way to create greater appreciation of your ownself. We make world of duality the opposite of our real world the non-duality. Is it not worth to have this kind of awareness this is the purpose of this creation. This is a grand play going on….doesn’t look like it.Here, we don’t go home…if we go home it would look like a movie. Where are you? In the physical body behind the eyes between the ears. To put your attention there is the secret of discovering the reality of your own self. When we try to go within…the mind runs riots…takes us all experiences outside. It does not let us put our attention there. We have scattered our attention and we try to gather our attention and spend a lifetime with it. When we find so much distraction to our attention, we have attachments, desires continuously pull us out. If you have a lot of attachments and fall in love with one person…the pull of true love it automatically takes away all the attention of everything else.

56min- When we are so attracted to world desires if something falls in love it makes us forget these attachments outside. The pull of unconditional love is so strong. These great mystics and scientific meditators told us to withdraw our attention. The answer to this problem is not looking for means avoiding distractions but to be loved by somebody inside so powerful it pulls you and you can’t remember anything else. What kind of love exists inside us that can pull us? This is where we have to discover new reality…our own self has the capacity to love within our own self. We don’t know ourselves. Something inside that appears outside with whom we can identify with. Our ownself inside which has true pure unconditional love and is distracted by the mind when that inner self cannot be experienced by us it must be able to experience outside ourselves. You can…a human being like ourself outside but he is actually inside you. You would experience the same unconditional love and such a human being we call perfect living master.

1hr- True master that can pull you with his unconditional love but you cannot see him inside but only outside. Projection to make your own universe to project your totality in form of another human being. Our own inner self which is our true guide take us to our own totality becomes a human being outside. When we come across such a human being we experience same love…such a person therefore a PLM has not come to teach us anything (we do like to be taught as mind loves it). His role is when we are tired of experiences here ….we have had enough…he should appear with a pre-arrangement. When we get tired we should be able to go back home. Part of our true self should appear in our experience and a PLM in form of human being appears and experience unconditional love. It is pulled frrom outside and gradually pulled from inside. What does that PLM tell us? He says go inside and find me there…you will find my real-self within you…therefore he brings up back to the same track behind the eyes where he is sitting there. He makes it more formal and organised as our mind likes that. We start a journey to totality and where we find we were always the same. I want to make it clear that people ask me about methods of meditation…I don’t give much importance to that. My own master never game importance and secret is love and devotion. It is not that these ritual outside will help…remember the basic thing is…love flows from the soul and connects us to our true home.

1hr6min- Meditation is not a ritual. Spiritual practice is go and find the beloved…have experience of beloved outside and inside. You will discover nothing can be created outside unless it’s first created inside. Therefore, inside and outside are the same but with only lack of vision we are unable to find anything inside. Whatever you are imagining becomes real outside and it will become more real inside. The truth is that only love and devotion can pull you to your true self. The need to be loved is spiritual and is always there therefore we are trying to find in the wrong place outside which belongs inside. These are the teachings I got from my own master Sawan Singh Ji. I am not going to comment upon any master teachings except one master who’s teaching worked for me successfully. Its a tested thing therefore I can vouch for its accuracy and its truth. Its not my role nor my mandate to comment on so many masters in this world. Somebody from CA prepared a list of masters from Swami Shiv Dayal..and my own master came from the same line. Its not my role to comment on these masters…you want to know the truth what I learnt from my master. He promised and he delivered. Proof of the pudding lies in the eating. I am meeting you once a month mainly to share my experiences with the GM and to say it is not as difficult you think…if you are interested and tired of this world and discover yourself within. This is a path of love and devotion and wherever that pull comes, you follow. I am very happy you could come and join me today.

Seeking is the secret…if you seek for more you will get more.

Ishwar Puri Ji