The Basics

So, what do we believe in? This is the core questionwhat do we believe in?

What we believe in

is inside our hearts.

What we believe in is what makes us

feel comfortable with life.

What we believe in is what makes us

adore everything around us

and helps us to see

how beautiful and magnificent nature is.

Our whole universe,

our existence, our physical forms,

this whole mystery

this is what we believe in.

Through his wisdom Poonja-ji helped me to see these basic things. The conversations I had with him led me to see that, in fact, he had been through a lot of these experiences in his own life. I could actually see that I was being saved all kinds of heartache and many, many more years of worthless investigations. Without that I don’t know if I would be in the same place I am right now. I doubt it very much.

So once in awhile I think we get lucky and are given a short cut. What we have here is a short cut. It’s a short cut that makes us see that it’s a hopeless endeavor to go out and compare Christianity to Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc., etc. to try to find the right one when, in fact, the true essence of all of these agrees that the basics are love and kindness, peace, gratitude, and mystery.

Everything else is definitions and dogma and rules that have been put together by people to control others.

If we don’t want to be controlled

and we want to stay with just the basic concepts

that all these beautiful original teachers put together,

then we’ve got to embrace the basic teachings

love and kindness, peace, gratitude, and mystery.

You have to put the rules and regulations into perspective because, when you look at the rules and regulations, you start to see how hopeless they are. But there are times in one’s life when the rules and regulations are very important. At these times such things have to be followed because they give structure to life.

Without that structure then many, many times what I’m saying now about a more open structure would be a detriment to somebody. That’s why many times I find I say things that may be totally different to one person than I might say to another. There is a different set of circumstances at different times for each person. In the beginning I’d say to myself, “How can I do this? I’ve got to stay with the same story.” But we can’t stay with the same storybecause what good is it if people aren’t ready for it and it is not what they need to hear?

In the beginning I thanked you for coming here. I thank you for coming here for two reasons. First of all, I thank you because you came to see me. So, I thank you. But the second reason I thank you for coming here is because I know, from my own personal experience and from what has taken place in my life, that it takes a lot to come here.

It takes a lot to be able to stay in a place

where you are not asked to do anything

and where there is fundamentally

no difference between any of us.

There is nothing to do,

nobody to convert, nothing to preach.

I hope that eventually each and every one of you

will actually see and feel within yourselves

that there is no fundamental difference

between you and me.

Yes, I have done a lot of things, it is true. Maybe I studied more than you in some fields. I have to be given credit for some of this stuff because I have done a lot. But fundamentally we have mystery and no difference.

In that place of Mystery where I raise my hand up in Absolute Truth there is no rank of any kind. There is no senior teacher and all of the crowds. Because that place is a Mystery. We speak, but that place is unspoken.

Because I love that unspoken place, I try to talk about it. I can’t speak about it, but I love it and I do the best I can to speak about what I love.

The Mystery is unspoken.

It is unknowable.

It is not within the ability of anybody to say that they are going to know it because they are going to study it more than somebody else. It is unknowable!

It’s unknowable not because somebody says we haven’t applied ourselves, and if we were to study it another 55 thousand years, then we are going to know this mystery. It is unknowable!

We are not going to know it in this physical form.

No one is going to know it in this physical form.

The brain is not capable of knowing this, so leave the brain alone. Give it a rest!

While we are here, the Mystery has given us the gift of life which is complex. And this gift, which is given with no conditions and no attachments, must not be taken for granted.

Our Beloved is always to be thanked for the gift of life.

And when the time comes that this life is no longer given to us in this form, then we will rest in the hands of the Beloved for whatever else may await us.

In the meantime we do the best that we can

to be loving and kind and forgiving

and to live as fully as we can day after day.

Dear Beloved,

thank you

for all the blessings and gifts

you have given us.

We have many questions

as to all the whys in this life.

We know that it is normal

to have all these questions,

and that you have given us

the gift

of the ability

to ask these questions.

But we ask that underneath all these questions

you allow us to love you

to be with you

to taste you

and to someday

be one with you.