Perfection Is in UsPerfection is in us. Completeness does not come from outside. To find that inner perfection you have to tune into it, then you can experience and enjoy the harmony inside. If completeness comes from outside, it is borrowed, It is not yours and will not last; it will not remain permanently, perpetually, eternally. Only that which is yours will remain permanently. That is the universal law.
You have to bring out your perfection; to do so you have to be aware of your energy. You have to use it to move in the right direction. To turn on the radio. You get up and turn the proper switch. If you stay seated in your chair and just think of turning it on, it is not going to start, In life also, we must move to brig out what is in us. Through meditation you are seeking to turn on you own radio so that me your inner power can come out. Your personal, music will be heard and amplified.
Take the analogy of the diamond. No jeweler can give it the quality to sparkle. By being polished, each facet reflects light. Then the rough diamond begins to look like a real gem and everyone appreciates it. If you put a rough diamond in a ring. No one will believe that it is a diamond. They will wonder why you have put a common stone in your ring.
We are all like rough diamonds. If you polish a diamond and bring its Nanto quality out, it shines. If you polish your soul and remove all its impurities, gradually its innate quality of light is revealed and that light becomes a guide for further light. One door opens another door, and that door opens another.
Today we are going to meditate on completeness and fulfillment and the wholeness of life. What is completeness? Let us think of what we want in this life. Have you any thoughts about it? If your have, please share your ideas, your dreams with everyone.
(The audience responded with these comments: “To be happy.” “To be free.” “Contribute to the evolution of man and build a new society.” “Fearlessness.” “Love.”)
Let us examine your thoughts. You say “to be happy.” Everyone wants to be happy. Have you ever heard anyone say that he wants to be unhappy? Even those who afe a tendency to feel unhappy are also seeking happiness in their unhappiness. In psychology, it is called masochism: to become unhappy in order to be happy. Even here, the goal is happiness in a way.
You say, “to be free”. How can you be happy unless you are free? If you are not free you are not in a condition to enjoy happiness. A slave cannot enjoy happiness because of the restrictions on him. In order to be happy, you have to be liberated. You want freedom, but if you have fear, how can you become free? See how all these desires are connected with each other. You say different words, but there is a common source underneath. In order to happy, we have to be free, and when we are free from fear, then we may enjoy freedom.
How can you have freedom unless the society you live in is healthy? In a narrow, unhealthy society, people around you are negative. Their standers are low in all aspects—commercially, physically, financially, intellectually and spiritually. You cannot remain aloof, so you have to do your part to change the society. In a healthy society you have freedom, you have fearlessness, you have happiness. And to build that society you need love.
If you don’t have love, you can’t work for somebody. What you do solely for money isn’t real work. At you office. You wait for the clock to show “five” and you hurry out. Here there is only a financial binding, no love. The mother does not tell the child she will not change his diaper past a certain hour of the day. No one pays her a salary. The relationship between a mother and child is one of love. She would remain hungry to feed her child. She would not care for herself; she would lose her sleep, everything, in order to make her baby happy.
Have we a mother’s heart for the whole world, and do we work with the same zeal, the same feeling, the same love? If you can give this love, you will not criticize someone behind his back; you will lovingly try to correct mistakes. We need this kind of love in our life. This love is not only intellectual, but it is a feeling on the spiritual level. I call this love “faith in action.” We have to understand how we can radiate this kind of love toward the society in which we live. We must not think, “I’m happy, why should I worry for the world?” We must know that if the society is not a happy one, we will not be happy. Sooner or later, the prevailing unhappiness is going to affect us all.
You might have heard the story of a lonely woman who was ill with an infection. A physician warned the village sheriff that if when were not treated with medicine, village sheriff that if she were not treated with medicine, the disease would spread. No one took the doctor’s advice or cared for her and gradually her body became so infected that she died. By now the germs which had killed her had spread all over the neighborhood. An epidemic broke out. In each household, someone contracted the disease. When In each household, someone contracted the disease. When the woman was alive, she was despised and ignored, but when she died, all the townspeople became her partners and shareholders in the illness! The story warns us that if you don’t help a person in distress, ultimately are going to fall victim to the same problem.
We meditate and know how we can become happy, free, fearless, loving, and how we can rebuild society. The first thing we have to know is where happiness comes from. Do you think happiness comes from the accumulation of wealth or a whirl of social activities or from name and fame? If inside there is sadness, if inside there is burning, if inside you are upset, you may move among society’s elite, have name and fame and riches, but you won’t be happy. You must get to the core of the problem. You are starting from the outside, but really you must start from the inside. If you are happy within, you won’t care for name, fame and other extravagant things. If they come let the, come; if they don’t, let it be. I’ve seen happy people with few possessions, and I have seen people with a lot of possessions always dejected, brooding, and worrying about their problems. People who are happy are in touch with themselves. First of all, we have to have a connection with our own selves. That is the main thing. In this materialistic society., the most lonely and forlorn person is the materialist himself, because he does not have insight into spiritual life or inner power. He does not have a sense of these inner values. He has limited himself and lives in a narrow world. When you go inside and make the connection with your own self, you are happy even with happiness if you have inner awareness. But if you don’t have inner awareness, your material things can pile up and still there will be a void, an emptiness. The material things will fail to bring you joy.
We see here how to have the inside touch. When you sit for meditation, concentrate on your energy. Feel each part of your body. “These are fingers, these are arms, this is my head, here the whole body is vibrant.” Because of “something,” all these limbs are active. Go on concentrating and observing to see what this “something” is. “My body touches, my tongue tastes, my nose smells, my eyes see, my ears hear and my brain thinks.” Why is it that sometimes eyes are there but don’t see, ears are there but does not feel, and brain is there but can’t think? With this inductive affirmative and deductive negative questioning, you will go inside and come to one conclusion: that it is your soul that makes your body work, and because of it your senses, your limbs movie and you communicate. And when the soul leaves, the body starts to decay. Then the corpse becomes an object of fear. It is the same body, which was loved, hut when the soul has left, no one wants to be alone with it even for one night. It is now only a lifeless corpse and no one wants to have contact with a dead thing. Without the soul, we don’t want the body.
When you are connected with your soul, bad thoughts and negative feelings won’t arise. Your soul will remind you and tell you something is wrong. When you get that kind of advice you won’t think of doing the same thing again. Your soul is your best friend. A spiritual person is always aware of his thinking. Worthless thoughts are not part of the composition of his life. Being in tune with everything, we can make our life a garden. We cannot live without thoughts, but we must be selective. If you want to make a beautiful garden, We cannot live without thoughts, but we must be selective. If you want to make a beautiful garden, you have to select seeds, flowers and bushes and arrange them thoughtfully. In the same way. Let you mind select the thoughts you want. Once someone told me he did not have control over his thoughts. I asked him f he owned his brain or someone else’s brain. If it is your apartment, do any worthless people enter without your permission? If it is your brain, how can unwanted thoughts come into your head without your remission? You have to realize this Tell yourself, “I will not let any thoughts come in without my permission because I am the master of my mind, my brain.”