Life is a war, Fraters & Sorors. And everyday, every moment of our lives we are engaged in some form of war, one way or another. It may be intense, it may be cold. It may be actual combat, it may be psychological one. It may be against our fellow man, it may be against abstract structures or ideals.

For life in its entirety is matter of survival. It is a game of chance, where the only thing certain is our eventual death. 

Wars, according to a Taoist sage, begin in the minds of men. To win the wars we are embroiled in, we must thus attack where it began: the MIND. Has it not been said that our own mind - our own self -- is our worst enemy?

Sun Tzu, ancient Chinese general, in his book the Art of War, perfectly counseled:
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

These words from a true warrior, who practically knows every nook and cranny of war, tell us that our principal strategy in winning our own wars is to KNOW OURSELF first and all the rest will just become like a walk in park. One who knows himself will naturally be the CONQUEROR of all. This is because to know the SELF is to practically wield the GREATEST POWER -- not only here on earth but in the entire universe as well. The universe is at the palm of the illumined soul. No bullet, no sword can pierce him unless he himself let it be so.

Like every authentic mystical brotherhoods, the lofty aim of our noble Order is to enable each of the chelas to awaken their chakras and kundalini shakti so that they may realize their own divine essence - the hidden grandeur of their own Self.

As members of this Order, we have the opportunity thus to become true WARRIORS of light. To become perfect vehicles so that the light and the teachings of the Masters will be propagated and transmitted forward to the succeeding generations. We strengthen our skills as warriors, as vehicles of the Light through the daily meditations we perform in which we attune to the Godforce.

For all we know, constantly meditating and praying to God would oftentimes be dull and boring. Why don't we just join our neighbor or our classmates in their nightly carouse? Do we have much choice? Certainly none except that we all know for a fact that those hang-overs would lead us to nowhere. Time races against us. Would you prefer another 12 years of drinking or carefree life to 12 years of dull and tedious meditation?

Which would lead to which? We know the answer very well. We are responsible for whatever may come about in our practices. We may just simply watch the tide roll over us. We could even hasten the dissipation of our life force through indiscriminate living. Or we could make that choice to conserve our energies and perform meditative practices to transform them into purer form. Just like in Jesus' Parable of the Talents, the guy that buried the money his master gave him was punished for his act of cowardice and indolence, while the guy who gambled his chance and invested it in some profitable pursuit was doubly rewarded by his master.     

Mystical success doesn't come overnight. Birth into this world may happen in a few hours, but how to manifest our divine birthright would take us a lifetime. Entrance into an Order such as ours is a great opportunity for self-advancement. Unlike people on the outside, we have the knowledge to transform our raw energy into purer form. We can attract cosmic vibrations to manifest our desires. We can invoke the Name of God to shield us from danger.

Like any other study, mystical practice entails discipline, diligence, and hard work. Without these three we can't go no farther than where we are now. Add to that, we need DEVOTION. We have to constantly awaken our longing, our yearning for God. For only through this can we overcome the dullness in our meditation. We have to become both bhakta and jnani - for when Self-realization dawns every jnani becomes a bhakta, every bhakta becomes a jnani. Love of truth, and love of God - these two are inseparable as salt from seawater, as the ajna from the muladhara. You cannot awaken the ajna without enough reserve energy in the muladhara. Just as it is useless to conserve energy in the muladhara without raising it to the ajna. For our work is not simply to conserve but to TRANSFORM energy. Herein lies our work, herein lies our destiny. 

This endeavor, this work may seem monotonous, trivial, and bereft of any challenge; but at the end of the day, we know the answer better.

If ever we have to declare war, we have to wage it against our own indolence, avarice, lust, jealousy, vanity, and pride. And if we have to love, we have to love each second we invoke the Name of God. JAI RA!

This ends our satsang fraters and sorors.

Greetings Fraters & Sorors:

The story of little Mary illustrates one way in which change brings growth.  One day in Sunday school she was asked, "Who made you?"

After a moment's reflection, the little girl replied, "Well, God made a part of me?"
"Part of you?"  The teacher was startled.
"God made me very little," she explained, "and I grew the rest myself."



Like little Mary, every one of us must see that we are responsible for our own growth. That's elementary. We need no PhD degree to realize that. God takes care of everything that's true. But what is our role then? To be taken cared of? If God would take care of all 4 billion people on earth -- with all their different woes and whims in life -- He'd simply grow crazy in a minute or two. Of course, nothing is impossible to Him. You could always say that. But who then is to be blamed for every calamity and misery that befall a man's life? God? Who is to be accounted for every man's success? God? Or, as the saying goes, a woman? And for every man's failure? God again? Maybe another woman.

Change is inevitable. And so is growth. But do we not retrogress when we have done malevolent acts?

In the ladder of evolution, even failures propel us towards growth. Win some, lose some. If you were a rich man who has no money now, you may have lost your money, but you surely have gained wisdom - at least knowledge of how it is feels to be a poor man. A sufi master once said, "When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the spirit laughs for what it has found." Change however is oftentimes awful. And only when the benefits of that change are ultimately realized that we welcome such change in our lives.

Change only becomes painful because of our ATTACHMENT to the status quo, to the past, to the future or to some ideal which did not or is yet to materialize. An Egyptian sage had said: "Life is a bridge, never build a house upon it." We're just crossing this bridge called Life. It is not our home. It is just a way to reach our home. Sooner or later judgment for ejection will be served against us. 



Thus, a man of knowledge perfectly sees the temporal nature of everything and hence, shuns attachment. However, we all know for a fact that some of us in the mystical path mistake that attachment is the result of our dealing with material or sensual objects. It maybe money, wine, women, song or fame. Of course, this should not be the case. A diamond even mixed with rotten tomatoes shall never become rotten. In much the same way, a person who has realized his own buddha-nature moves into this world untouched by its impurities.

Thus, the mere fact that we are not married or not actually engaged in sexual relations does not necessarily mean that we have become UNATTACHED for attachment exists in the mind. It will follow us even if we leave our home, our kids, our wife, our job, our money - because it is within "us."

It may be true that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, as Jesus said. But it is erstwhile true that there is no other sector in this whole wide world who thinks more of money than the poor - the poor can' think of nothing else, at least according to Mark Twain.

In reality, pursuing meditative practices nor attaining the kingdom of God does not depend on whether we are rich or we are poor. Or we are celibate or married. Or we are meat-eater or vegetarian. A friend of mine said it's better to be humanitarian than vegetarian. Well true. We can be celibate all our life, we can be vegetarian all our life, we can be ascetic all our life but that mere fact alone will not make us holy. "Holiness" exists in the mind. A cow dung is just as holy as Mecca or Bethlehem or the Bo tree. Isn't it true that God is EVERYTHING and is IN everything? So anything can be as holy as anything depending upon each man's perception and valuation. This is because each person has his own concept of `holiness' which may be totally absurd to another.   

It is our thoughts which we have to control. No less than the proponent of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin, remarked: "The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts."

It is useless to go to the mountains or go into reclusion with the thinking that that means we are no longer attached. That we are a changed man now. That this is the only true path to holiness. In Zen, there is a saying that "the truth you'll find in the mountain is the truth that you bring there."

Thus, the only real change worth asking for is when in actuality we can see the universe in a grain of sand. To actually behold eternity in that single second. We may not be as poetic as William Blake, but that change, that shift in our consciousness, that transformation in our perception can only be brought about by becoming aware of our thoughts. By controlling our mind, our breath, our emotions - and focusing them on the indwelling Godforce resident in every cell of our body.

By doing so, we need not go to the mountains to effect a transformation within us. Or to meet some hermit who will initiate us. The masters are always ready to initiate us, but are we, ourselves, ready?

It is related that there came to the Indian saint, Sri Ramakrsna, a man who wanted to get initiated. He was tearfully begging Ramakrsna to show him God as his life is useless, meaningless and he has no other desire but to see God alone. Somewhat moved by the man's pleading, Ramakrsna then told the man: "Ok, I will show you God, follow me." They came to a river whereupon Ramakrsna told the man: "I will now show you God." In that instant Ramakrsna got hold of the man's head and submerged it underwater. A minute did not pass that the man struggled very hard to free from Ramakrsna's grasping hands. When he successfully freed himself from Ramakrsna's hold, he told him, "You'll have me killed!" To which Ramakrsna replied, "I thought you want to see God? What happened now to your God?"

Like that man, which is dearer to us: our life or God? But of course, somewhere in the course of our reading we also come across with the admonition "if you see the buddha, kill the buddha!" And in another, there is likewise said that the loss of man's seminal fluid is tantamount to killing the buddha! Neophytes are ordinarily confused by these seemingly contradictory statements. The first one of course talks about our delusional mind which can create anything; while the other talks about the importance of a man's sexual energy to his spiritual progress.

Thus, we must do both: we have to kill the buddha and at the same time nurture, awaken the buddha in us. And suddenly - we are a changed man.