Living in the consciousness of impermanence

I am going to talk to you this time about the ‘Tandava’ (the dance of Lord Shiva). The Tandava means, “I create to preserve, to destroy, to recreate.” A lot of people don’t want to look at this aspect of God. Purely and simply it worries them that there is dissolution. In Christianity God’s destruction is never talked about, it is always about creation. But look at life realistically. Don’t put blinkers on your eyes.

As the spring is beginning the summer will come but with the summer there is also autumn and winter. This spring is both autumn and winter. In this spring, we must have a consciousness, a mindfulness that in this Tandava, this creation, everything is changing. So is your mind, body, consciousness, and everything that surrounds you in your life. You must remember that this element of impermanence exists in all of life.

If you delude yourself, divine friends, that you are permanent, if you delude yourselves that all that surrounds you is permanent then you are going to be very disappointed in your life.

Live in that consciousness of impermanence. As God creates, he will preserve and give you opportunities, like all the little children that are born. The beginning of life is very, very exciting to see but with that birth come the changes that are going to occur in the lives of these little children.

Nothing is permanent. A baby isn’t going to be like that forever. The baby is going to grow up and in five years the mother will say, “Gosh, I didn’t realise, soon he is going to go to school.” By the time the child goes away to school, very soon the mother says, “Gosh, now I feel I’ve nothing to do, let’s have another baby,” and so it goes on. It is wonderful.

This is what the impermanence of life is. When you start your journey and get married, you talk of a family but you don’t realise that very soon that family is going to grow up and fly away from the nest. Every time you think about it you say, “No, no, no, I push it away. They are my little children. They will continue to be my little babies. Even at twenty-five years old or forty years old, they are still my babies.” 

This is the problem with mothers and fathers. They are all my babies. If you are surprised that they are mothers’ babies you are my babies as well. Because I see you growing up, born in this consciousness slowly developing yourself and I say to myself, “Ah, they are my babies and I want to see them fly out of this nest, protected so that they are identified with God.” This is a journey. The drama that is being enacted is an amazing journey that I am watching. This impermanence that you are involved in helps me to realise all the time we have a job to do so that in this life you will identify yourself with God, fearlessly. So that you will integrate with God and get the grace of God. 

Ask God to give you Shakti

How can you get the grace of God? That is why I am here. To help you get the grace of God, to get Shakti. Everything is Shakti. Shakti means energy, power. The embodiment of God is Shakti, the power that is within and without. The embodiment of God.

Even before the form of God existed there was Shakti. Shakti means energy. That power is the composition of the elements that you know and more. In other words, the Lord’s diadem is surrounded by a million suns. He absorbs all the energies from all the stars and mountains. Everything is registered in the Lord. When you begin your journey spiritually, divine friends, you begin to interact and get that Shakti and power from God and you will never be alone. That is the power that we pass to people when we give Shakti to them.

In other words, you must learn to concentrate and go straight to the Divine and say, “I want to pass this energy from You, through me to this person who needs grace.” That is what you must do. You should be able to meditate and concentrate.

The power of concentration enables you to transcend the demands of the physical body and the mind to go to God. This is the mastery of the person. Your job is to master and take control of your body. That is what your job is, to be the captain of your ship. You cannot be the captain of your ship if you are not conscious of what vibrations you set in motion on a minute-by-minute, day-by-day basis.

You must be positive to the point that you can say to the Lord, “Here I am, just as I am. I am not going to pretend to be anybody else. I am as I am and I need your grace. I need your strength, and Shakti so that I can overcome the obstacles that lay in my path towards my spiritual evolution.”

You have to come to terms with this consciousness. You can’t just gloss over and pretend. There are certain aberrations that you set in motion in your life that you don’t want to face. Face them. Look at them. Don’t worry. Do you think if you have eaten too much and suffered from indigestion that it is the last time you are going to do it? No way.

I shouldn’t have cream because I get fat but I always end up having cream because people will offer cream to me and I can’t resist it. It is the same with chocolates. My cupboards are full of chocolates, I love chocolates. But the fact of the matter is learning to master yourself is your job. It is the same with drinking alcohol, eating, and sex. You must master all of these things. I can’t live your life, nor can I tell you what to do. You must say to yourself, “No, this is not for me.” 

Okay, occasionally I will indulge. Maybe once a month. Start with once a month and then make it once every two months. I was about to say twice every month. But you are the best judge of it. Running Skanda Vale is not some fantasy. It is a real challenge to be able to work with the power of the Divine without being involved in materialism. 

People are amazed when they come to Skanda Vale. What is read in the holy scriptures is enacted in Skanda Vale as a monastery and has been so for over thirty-odd years. We have more food than when we began. We feed everybody for free. We care for them and at the end of it we have much more than we can handle. Why should Skanda Vale be the only place to benefit? To free yourself is what you have to learn. The miracles that Christ performed in his life were not illusions. They were real and were to show mankind [God’s power]. He said so. You can do the same and much more if you believe in God. “If you believe in me,” He said. Because through Him, through His example, through His discipline, you will realise your divinity. But don’t be fearful.

Learn what ‘Satyam’ means – truth. Inner truth. Absolute truth. Then you can starkly look at God and say, “Lord, you made me. You know my nature, you know my activities. But I need to master and perfect myself as I proceed on this journey. Please help me. I need your Shakti.”

This is what contemplation and meditation are about. Contemplate and master your lower nature. The lower nature means the senses that are making demands without mindfulness. That lower nature is going to tell you, “I need this, I need this, I need this, I need this.” Say, “Hey, hey, one minute. Let me examine your needs.”

Let your intellect play a part in this need that is arising out of you. Examine it. Find out for yourself and say to yourself, “Do I need this?” You go shopping and when you go shopping take your intellect with you. Don’t put him in a box at home, let him understand what your demands are.

Your eyes suddenly look at something in a shop window and then for no reason whatsoever you go into the shop. Originally you had no intention of even buying it, you just wanted to see it. But then when you see it, you don’t even realise you’ve bought it and you bring it home and it is one more object that is going to lay in the cupboard for a while.

You have spent money in the same way on electrical goods and gadgets. If you come to Skanda Vale you will be amazed, we have no gadgets. We have no television or any of the amazing gadgets people collect. You know, the other day someone gave me an electric gadget to burn sambrani.

This is amazing madness, to have an electrical gadget for incense. Instead of having some coal to put the sambrani on, you have an electrical gadget that you put the incense on.  I said, “I wouldn’t use it, we’ll just auction it. There must be some mad person who will buy this.”

Heightened awareness is what we have to begin to apply in our lives if we want to advance spiritually.

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