When one is really alive one is conscious of his true self, he is really living. Otherwise the body is a tomb that encases the soul and buried as if dead awaiting resurrection. The great masters and yogis are souls walking with a body (aware of their divine nature) and we are bodies walking with a soul. That makes a world of difference in the kind of perception we have around us. All men will someday be able to declare: “Once I knew myself only as a body; now I know myself as Spirit.”
The physically dead who have crossed over the abyss of death while losing their physical forms and lives cannot awaken themselves to the truth-teachings of the masters. The spiritually dead are to be more pitied than the physically dead. The master tells us the spiritually dead can hardly be pardoned or excused for making themselves deliberately comatose to the emancipating truth and life-giving message brought to them by the masters and prophets.
Just as the physically deceased are dead the spiritually dead are just as dead and don’t know it. Do you think a few minutes that are left in the evening which are meagerly set-aside to parrot up the Lord’s Prayer or ask for some desired advantage, act of grace or favor while the mind is desiring to sleep and longing to get this obligatory moment of devotion finished with as soon as possible is time spent really living? Oh Lord, could you please take care of my family and me; I do now have to go to sleep. Those few moments of time with God is practically nil. Yet these same people expect to at the time of their death to enter the everlasting heavenly life in the kingdom of God. Good luck.
How to prevent spiritual suicide for those who meditate and new to the spiritual path is meditating or walking with a bent spine. The lesser evil is meditating with your eyes looking downward or straight and not turned up at the point between the eyebrows. This is why so many node off when meditating or even falling asleep. The first hurdle in meditation is sitting absolutely still as if frozen.
Have you lived even one year during your life-span on earth? How many of you can say you have even lived at least one year so far in your lifespan no matter what your age. If we theorize a lifetime of seventy-five years, let’s assume it’s safe to say that thirty-seven of those years are spent in sleep, seeking bodily comforts and eating. Another eighteen years are committed to making a living and keeping the wolf from your door. Of the remaining twenty or so years it is not uncommon for those householders to waist two-thirds of that precious time in fruit-less activities, fraternizing, indulging in idle or frivolous pursuits and gossiping. Only eight or ten years of our lifetime may be left; how many do you think use that time to seek or think of God?
The rigidly unconvinced sense-oriented body-identified person is unwilling to forgo his known pleasure for the hidden joy of spirit. Before man is ready to use his free will to desire God over everything else, he must undergo many learning experiences. The schoolhouse called earth will in the meantime be the teacher until he passes all examinations in how to discriminate and decide between the liberating examples of God or the delusive examples of delusion.
Man’s days are fraught with life’s terrible uncertainties and one never knows when disease, financial failure, accident or other disaster may strike. In every person’s life sooner or later a time happens when a contact with that Higher Authority becomes necessary then all of a sudden and with the greatest urgency painful desperation brings him to his knees to worshipful devotion. What is the fate for this so-called too busy man who cannot bring himself to set aside even fifteen or twenty minutes to meditate out of the twenty-four hour day-even until death who with foolish pursuits is trying to satisfy unsatisfactory desires.
Such people should remember weekly to at least make their best effort in a place of worship to commune with God, but not merely dragging the body to church or services while the mind and heart are busy recycling the worries of the week, but with attentive sincerity giving one’s devotion to God with a quiet mind and a calm body.
With those who exclaim “I don’t have the time” but are able to arrange unlimited activities for themselves throughout the day and night but don’t have a few minutes for God should reevaluate their busyness. These people are not dealing with a scheduling conflict or a lack of time, but are suffering from an addiction to restlessness a spiritual disease where they try frantically to alleviate that bare restlessness by self-indulging in further restlessness trying to occupy themselves with worthless diversions to distract themselves mentally from their troubles to tolerate getting through the day.
Those who follow the wise guidance of a spiritual master or prophet are compared to sheep that innocently, humbly, obediently and with great faith follow their guide with these sheepish qualities without their animal stupidity!
The spiritual master’s tells us that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who meditate and seek a higher state of consciousness and those who do not; If you do not you will never be satisfied with the world. Those who keep themselves identified with the demands and comfort of the body, and who are reluctant to make the required spiritual labor in the struggle to sit and meditate, will eventually find at the end of life that the transitory happiness they sought after to defend and protect will be without realization and without riches left to them from worldly activities. Don’t be intimidated by the required effort and consequently give up and lose the great victory of conquering wrong habits and mental deficiencies.
It is why humanity is suffering from spiritual malnutrition. Millions of people in all countries are experiencing physical starvation, and millions more are suffering from spiritual starvation. America and other Western nations are the most well-off starving countries in the world. People are bewildered and have no understanding of the real meaning of life. They are unhappy and discontented because they don’t know the goal of life is to know truth. From the teachings of PY.
