Rudi: Life at the Ashram

I don't do for you, I do for me, I am very grateful
to use you for my growth
and so, you owe me nothing.
Pain is not punishment it's only energy.
And you keep asking, and asking, and asking, and you...
feel your heart then begin to open and hurt
and then you ask again,
and then you feel it relax, and you ask again,
and you ask again,
and again, and again, and again
until you begin to feel the stupidity and the superficiality of yourself asking
and then you keep asking until you feel yourself drilling deeply within your soul
and you begin to feel the seriousness of what this wish should be
and finally, you can go no deeper
and then you feel this wish in you, like a grain of sand
that gathers around in a pearl
this wish goes in and can't go anymore and it slowly accumulates
in your being a wish that has substance that really has a quantity.
Every chakra in you has to extend beyond the physical
so that you reach beyond you
and take the energy which is around every human being
and you begin to take in your life force.
Spirituality is encompassing all forms of energy
all forms of matter and reducing them to energy
so that you can transcend them.
Fighting is rejection, you know
tension is rejection
and sitting and feeling sorry for yourself
and thinking your lot is more difficult than somebody else
is only justification for not doing the one essential thing
that you can do and that is to sit
and open and get above the situation.
And if you want your realization, if you want to grow spiritually
then you learn to take from everything
and you learn to take from everybody.
A stupid man needs special
a conscious man makes everything special.
I mean if I walked out here and I saw a dwarf, you know?
picking his nose with his foot, you know?
and I felt anything in him, he would be my teacher.
I don't need special
because I've secure in myself
to take from anybody or any situation.
You don't need special either. By wanting special you're just rejecting everything
because you say 'only that', or 'only this' it is everything that's there to help you.
Spirituality is eating in this force that is God
and accepting it gratefully and growing above one situation after another
there is nothing that you can encounter which is not for your good
because we're no different than any other thing that grows on the earth
you get strong living strong.
What in the world could you ever do
could you ever pay for, you know?
that would give you the consciousness that your own being attracts.
Spiritual force is a very rich and very real substance
and it does not have to be expressed in words
it does not even have to be expressed in deed
because it is a state of being
and that state of being is like the perfume coming out of a flower
goes in the air, and it goes to whoever can drink it in, and it does its own good.
Unfortunately so many times when people teach meditation
they always talk about the perfect breath and then you go floating off into the horizon
it doesn't work that way
because the thing of floating
the thing of sitting and meditating and being pure is also in your mind
because if you surrender that you come to the next level in yourself
that needs cleaning out
and it's endless, the Atman is endless, and so is the surrender.
And you can consciously be, you know
this child, you know, singing vitalay or singing Hare Krishna, you know?
and that's wonderful if you really are a child but if you're really...
acting and reacting for other people, then it's not true in yourself, and its not true for your nature
you're really not using the chanting to free you
and just to do it because other people are doing it and you feel you should do it
this is not really where it's at
of course the essence is really to sing and go right up with God
I mean, that's, to become... you sing Krishna, you become Krishna
you know, you have to try to feel that
Krishna was a beautiful person
I mean he really played, everything in him represented playing the flute and dancing
he had this kind of beauty
but if you're taking one percent of the chant and putting in there 99 percent in you
because you want to feel part of a group
you're not chanting to feel part of a group
you're there to have the sense of the group which is suppose to free you as an individual
so you are your Krishna.
Everybody who taught you is your teacher, you know?
The thing is you have to be secure within yourself
to make a life, and admit that you've used all of these people and all of these things
the ego in a man is that he doesn't need anybody, and reality is that you need everybody.
Consciousness is everyone because you say God is One, well this is the way God is One.
If you have a spiritual guide
and he doesn't produce what you want
you give him a note and tell him to go back up to God and send somebody else.
You do not have to accept anything in this world, spiritually, that does not satisfy your need.
The minute you accept it
and it isn't what you want you have accepted a limitation.
One man's teacher is another man's obstacle.
There's no such thing as a bad teacher
there's only a bad student
because you take what they have
and it works for you, that's fine
six months later you have grown, you know?
they've served you,
you pull away, it may be difficult pulling away
but what was given, was needed.
Everybody is a teacher, you know?
and everyone you relate to, and grow from, is your teacher, right?
True?