Divine Path

A lecture given by Maitreya on, "How The Practices We Do Help Us In Our Path To Become Divine, And How They Help Us To Follow The Eternal Divine Path."
 
03/30/1991 Satsang (Discourse) With

Maitreya

Question: When you say the Divine Path in the collective meditation, it says, "The thoughts, love, and peace of God will arise in those who perform meditation and/or The Reminder twice a day or more regularly." I know that the way we do it here, we always do the meditation and The Reminder twice a day. Does that mean that for some people who are just beginning, it is OK if they might want to do just The Reminder, that they don't have to do both of them twice a day?

Maitreya: It would be good if we could reach a point where everyone would wake up in time to do The Reminder, do the Kirtan, read THOTH, meditate, and so wrap themselves up into all the practices that we have been given.

Not all of the practices that we have been given appeal to everyone. If they would do them they would see the benefits. They would like them. They would love them and they would benefit from them.

But not everyone has the time. Not everyone has the inclination to do all of these practices. So we made it a little more flexible for those who don't have time to meditate, whose inclination is not in such a way that they would like to sit half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon, and meditate.

The least they can do is to do The Reminder. If it's an emergency, or they are in a place where they can't do the postures with The Reminder, they can even say it to themselves while they are driving, or while they are doing something else.

So it's kind of giving flexibility here, that you bring your mind back to God without being rigid about it. Of course, the more you direct your thoughts to God, and the more you direct your mind away from the world to the higher things, the more you become like a lotus.

You just float on the top of the world and it doesn't touch you. It doesn't matter what happens down there in the world, you are in the boat of God and you are happy. You can even stay in the boat, now it's a submarine. Then water will go over you. You can go deep, to the depths of the sea and not even be disturbed by the turbulent waves at the top of the water.

We give this flexibility with the understanding that the more you do the techniques that have been given (some people call them rituals. I didn't want to call them rituals because that word has a bad connotation. A ritual seems like something you do very automatically. The techniques given here should be done with a great feeling of being committed), the more focused your mind will be toward God.

None of these techniques should be done automatically. If you don't feel like meditating and you are struggling with it, probably you could just do The Reminder. If you don't feel like doing The Reminder,just dance and do the Kirtan. There are so many different ways of getting back into the mood of directing your mind to God instead of being drawn into the world.

That's why it says, "...meditate and/or do the Reminder,.." or do both, twice a day or more. So it's giving you a lot of options. The recommendation is to at least do The Reminder twice a day, and do it with the accompanying postures. But if you cannot do that, then do it without the postures while you are doing other things.

The best way is to do the whole thing, read THOTH, do the Kirtan, do The Reminder, meditate, sing Samgacchadvam, and say the Divine Path all together. That is the best way to do it. But in a sense we are giving them a little flexibility there.

Comment: Sounds like the objective approach with subjective adjustment. Then when the Kingdom of Heaven comes they can always do the meditation and The Reminder twice a day or more.

Maitreya: That is the idea. Right now, we are a very small group in a society that is so cluttered with activities and work, and everyone is running around. They just don't have any time to direct their minds to God at all. Even for only two hours a week on Sundays, very few people attend church. The number of people going to church has even been falling since the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's.

So we can see that the society is very busy. We have given them an option to just adjust themselves now. When the communities are created and we reach the point that the earth is calm, the environment is clean, and the people are loving and understanding, instead of their minds being cluttered with all the propaganda and all this Maya which is presented to them, then they will want and make the time to do more of these techniques.

That Maya is very strong, very powerful. The Maya on earth right now is keeping people from directing their minds toward God. But when the Communities of Light come, and when the Kingdom comes to earth, people will be much calmer, much more loving.

Then going into meditation will be very easy. We will just close our eyes and be right there with Him. There will be no crime or disturbing thoughts around us that keep us from being there.

In that environment it will be very easy to wake up early in the morning and read THOTH, read the Koran, read the Bible, read the Upanishads, read all those Scriptures and get in a very good meditative mood. Then you can just dance the dance of joy, meditate, do your Reminder, feel great, and come out and share whatever you realize with the community.