[continued from previous message]   
      
   Baba often asked me to speak on devotion. In His presence I used to mouth like   
   a parrot about madhurbháva or Radhabháva, but I never knew what it was like.   
      
   Then, in 1985, on one of these occasions, He took His stick and gave me a blow   
   on the head. Instantly there was a flash of bliss. It was inexplicable. In   
   those few seconds I realized how exquisite is the intensity of this spiritual   
   love. This helped me    
   understand how a truly loving husband and wife can be so devoted to one   
   another. I became like a dumb person for months and could not do serious work   
   because of my internal preoccupation. (From that day, Baba never again asked   
   me to deliver lectures on    
   devotion!)   
      
   Sádhakas understand that love and bliss are one and the same thing. The   
   pleasures derived from the tanmatras of sound, touch, form, smell and taste   
   are different. Yet in loving your mother, father, child, and others close to   
   you, you feel a kind of    
   happiness. In the Mahabharata, Vidura says that everyone waits anxiously for   
   the arrival of a saintly person who is devoid of egotism. In deep spiritual   
   love, one feels a subtle kind of intoxication. In worldly love the intensity   
   of this intoxication is    
   less. Spiritual intoxication is due to Brahmarandhra, the pineal body, which   
   secretes a nectarial hormone. Baba explained that the pineal gland of every   
   human being secretes three drops a month; but if crude thoughts surround the   
   pituitary region, the    
   nectar evaporates and one cannot enjoy the bliss of divine intoxication. A   
   person who does regular meditation enjoys three drops of this nectar daily;   
   when it touches the pituitary gland, the sádhaka feels great bliss. When it   
   filters through to the    
   lower parts of the body all the glands are strengthened.[19]   
      
   Rama Prasad, the famous mystic of Bengal, sang:   
      
   Surapan korini ami sudha khay jai kalibole.   
   I did not drink wine but tasted the nectar and shouted "Victory to Goddess   
   Kali"! Worldly people think I drank wine and got intoxicated, which is not   
   true.   
      
   I believe that the human body must be very much developed through sádhaná,   
   asanas and other yogic practices before it can enjoy the pineal nectar. Before   
   one can experience the bliss of spiritual love, all the plexi, glands and   
   subglands must be capable    
   of absorbing it.   
      
   What is this love? Love and bliss are one and the same thing. The more the   
   capacity to love, the more the capacity to enjoy bliss. Love is soft, yet so   
   strong and strenuous that it calms and inspires the mind during great trials   
   and tribulations. Love    
   gives a perpetual feeling of bliss and happiness. For an aspirant, a   
   spiritually realized Guru becomes the object of ideation, because the physical   
   medium of the Guru becomes the Impersonal (God) personified.   
      
   The Sufi Amir Khushru understood this great importance of Guru. His fellow   
   Muslims condemned him for his worship of his Guru. They accused him of being   
   unfaithful to Islam, of being a Hindu (who use a sacred thread) and of   
   idolatry. He replied:   
      
   Quafir-e-ishkam   
   musalmani mara darkar ne ast,   
   Har-rege man tar-gest hajate junnar ne-ast   
   Khalk me goed ki khushro buth parastii mi kunad   
   Arei arei mi kunad khalko alamkar ne-ast. [Persian]   
   I am a non-believer, lost in love.   
   I am intoxicated from head to foot With the love of my Master, Nezamudin   
   Aoulia.   
   I don't have anything to do with Islam.   
   Every vein of my body is intoxicated With divine love for God,   
   Therefore I don't need the sacred thread either.   
   Worldly people call me an idolater.   
   What reply can I give? I have only this to say,   
   "Yes, yes, I am an idolater."   
   What do these worldly people know of my idolatry!   
      
   When parabhakti (absolute devotion) is granted, there is a risk that the   
   devotee can suffer from a special ideation called mahimna bodha. This causes   
   the aspirant to feel so petty, so small, so insignificant that he or she feels   
   unworthy of the endless,    
   vast, incomprehensible Guru who is the personification of the impersonal   
   Brahma. This type of inferiority is an impediment in the path of realization.   
      
   A Persian story illustrates this feeling and its dissolution. A lover knocked   
   at the door of his beloved. "Who is there?" she called and he replied with his   
   name. "Go away! I don't know you!" she replied.   
      
   He knocked again and the same thing happened three times. The fourth time,   
   however, when she asked who was there, he said, "I am you, O beloved,   
   therefore open yourself to me!" And the door opened.   
      
   In September 1970 in Ranchi, Acarya Karunanandaji and I sang and danced a   
   special type of kiirtana in front of Baba. During this devotional singing,   
   Dada repeated two lines from the poet saint Miira:   
      
   Jo mein aisi janti preet karei dukh hoi Nagar dandora piititi preet na kareo   
   koi.   
   If I knew before that loving You causes such bitter pain, I would have   
   proclaimed everywhere with the beat of drums, "Beware, don't love Him!"   
      
   Later, Baba summoned Dada and me and said, "I was going to give you 100   
   percent marks for your kiirtana. But I cut 60 percent because of that couplet.   
   It contains the expression of ego. The duty of a devotee is only to please the   
   Lord and not to    
   challenge Him." Sufis embrace this concept of suppressed mental agony which   
   they call gila in Persian and abhiman in Bengali. Baba never liked this   
   approach. Later, when He composed Prabhát Sam 'giita songs, He sublimated this   
   sentiment into six stages:    
   viraha (longing), milan (encounter with the beloved), a'vedan (earnest desire   
   to stay close), nivedan (surrender), stuti (praises) and visarjan (shedding of   
   the unit identity by merging with the Lord).   
      
   Swami Vivekananda said that love is like a triangle. The first vertex   
   represents the truth that love knows no fear. The second that love is not a   
   business transaction, it is unconditional giving. The third that love is   
   surrender - total trust. The result    
   of all three is complete abandonment in love.   
      
   After much inquiry along these lines, I understood very well that faith in   
   Sadguru is the Guru's grace (krpa), and its depth is His compassion. Here I   
   use the word "compassion" for ahaetluki krpa – grace which the recipient does   
   not merit by his or her    
   service, but which He generously bestows in abundance.   
      
   What is the relation between sex and love? Sex can be of four types: physical,   
   psychic, psycho-spiritual, or purely spiritual. For ardent spiritual aspirants   
   and sannyásiis, psycho-spiritual and spiritual sex are allowed. The intense   
   longing of the    
   mystic poet Miira for Krs'n'a is an example of psycho-spiritual sex. There was   
   nothing physical in it. Savikalpa samádhi, the union of jiiva and Shiva, is a   
   type of spiritual sex. This is a separate subject of discussion, about which I   
   will write in the    
   future.   
      
   The sadripu or the six enemies (lust, anger, avarice, infatuation, vainglory   
   and competitive urge in the material sphere) can never be vanquished, they can   
   only be sublimated since all six have their origin in the mind.   
      
   The first Indian swamis who visited the West used the term super-consciousness   
   to describe the state of samádhi. Absorption is the more appropriate English   
   word to describe it. Baba uses the phrase "trance of determinate absorption"   
   as a translation for    
   savikalpa samádhi. Vikalpa was defined by Maharishi Patanjali as:   
      
   Shabdájinánanupati vastushunyo vikalpa.   
   If a meaning is not accurately or fully conveyed by the words used to explain   
   it, that is vikalpa.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)