How to Take Refuge with the Source

It is the fulfillment of that commandment of God, to love the Lord wholeheartedly with all one’s soul, one’s strength, and one’s attention, to give oneself, body, mind, and heart, to God, that makes one into a liberated being, and an angel of light, and a server, a bodhisattva, and one whose own suffering has been released, because of the grace of becoming a server, rather than a taker—which the ego is—rather than someone who longs for approval and validation from the phenomenal plane; it is independence from any need of the validation of the other, and any need of even extending the illusion of existence in the phenomenal plane, because one has reached that level of the Real that is eternal life.

And it is only with this realization that there is the sufficient courage required to face the challenges ahead in this spiritual emergency, that everyone on the planet is now facing—or will soon have to face. And so those who are still in denial will soon be out of it, if not because of their own personal awakening voluntarily, by the force of circumstance. And those who are awakened and transmitting peace will be very important assistants in helping to bring calm in the midst of the chaos, that is exponentially increasing in the world. And so the more yogis there are, the more that this transition from the end of one age to the beginning of the next, much higher, more beautiful age, will be able to be achieved in that state of grace, for all who seek to be free of the anxiety, and the terror, that will otherwise engulf their consciousness.

So I hope everyone who is listening and who is meditating will choose the graceful path of Self-liberation, and not be distracted by illusory, dead-end enjoyments that will soon disappear from the world. There is no other security than the Supreme Real.

To the Sat Yogi who has achieved realization of the truth, it is a matter of indifference whether the world is “ending”, because there really is no world; it’s only a dream. That question disappears from the mind, and only the unchanging Self, the luminous Presence, the Absolute consciousness, remains, and there is no enmeshment in the events that seem to unfold on the phenomenal plane—one is a witness, an observer, and a transmitter of peace in the world only through the bodily vehicle, but not of it, and with a consciousness free of any identification with anything or anyone, who is a mere appearance. And the ego itself is a mere temporary mental appearance, without substance, without reality. And so the yogi lets go of all that is unreal, beginning with the ego itself, and then all of the other unrealities that are the cause of suffering also fall away spontaneously.

So our function is to complete that task as quickly as possible, so that we are available to be of service within the frame of reference of duality, rather than needing help ourselves, to be able to offer that help, and to offer it selflessly, egolessly, without needing credit, or needing approval, or affirmation, or wanting anything—but simply emanating the grace that has been given, and sharing that with all the manifestations of the one Self. May we all recognize that this is the Dharma, this is the Law of God to be fulfilled, and to execute that law by terminating the illusion of the ego, without delay.

So that’s the message for this evening. It’s very simple, and it’s very easy to achieve when the will is wholehearted and not divided, when all the other conflicting intentions have been diverted again back to the Source, from externalized objects of desire to the one yearning for liberation, and then swaha, in that very instant of surrender, and burning the tendencies of the ego-mind, liberation is realized.

This is the subject of the next retreat—so I think that retreat has been explained—but I will have to say that there is a higher level than what I have just expressed, because the next retreat that we are having soon is referred to as The Journey to Jivan Mukti, meaning liberation in life, but if Sri Ramana were to come and sit on the couch, he would say there is no Jivan Mukti, because there’s no jiva and there’s no mukti! Jiva meaning the bodily ego-mind—it never was real, you were never born, there was never a creation, we never left the state of liberation! So we don’t need to be liberated because we were never in bondage. And so even to speak of Jivan Mukti is again part of the inadequacy of language to express the Real, in which the timeless truth is ever-present, and the changeful differences that make up language are incapable of containing or transmitting that truth. But we must do the best we can with that instrument, given the addiction to language that consciousness has fallen under in the end of Kali Yuga.

Audio File: How to Take Refuge with the Lord – Audio File.mp3