SatyaSoma

Preface: This was given to me

The most important word is OM:

It has three parts:

ah ou m

The next most important word is: TRUTH

Truth is the thing that makes up the next word: LOVE

Truth and Love result in acceptance and then: DUTY

In Hindi these are:

TRUTH - SAT

LOVE - BHAKTI

DUTY - KARMA

OM is all of these and it is the sound that opens the door to what people call "The Self".

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The Self is you in full truth, love and performance of activities - Karma. The Self is God. When you become truthful loving and acting correctly, you become God.

When you do not do this, your Self is still God but you have stepped away from yourself.

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This is Maya - stepping away from God and yourself, you hide yourself and become an ego. This ego makes you act, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. But the ego is not bad, it too is a part of your self. Just as your hand is a part of your body; your body knows your hand but your hand does not know your body.

The purpose of Maya has been lost to most of the world. Some say it is so we can be free - to do right or wrong; some say it is to act only; some say it is for pleasure to enjoy. They are all wrong (incomplete).

It is not enough to be free. To be free is to have a road open. It is not the destination.

God does not hate us. Only a cruel God would give us a hell. Only a cruel God would tell us that if we don't behave for a wink of eternity we will be punished forever. God loves us. No one is condemned to hell. Even when we put ourselves in hell, we always get out.

We put ourselves in hell because we forget that this is Maya. We think this is the only reality.

We take pleasure in toys. All of our possessions are our toys. They are indeed for pleasure. But we are not just toys.

Maya is solely for the enjoyment of LOVE. It is an expression of LOVE, it is a manifestation of LOVE, it is LOVE manifest. Only in Maya can we truly learn to LOVE. In absolute oneness, Prajapati was alone and created. Polarity is the first duality, this manifests in Soma and Agni. Soma is the flow from Brahman, Agni is the flow to Brahman. Thus Maya unfolds.

The most important skill in the world of Maya is the ability to love. This requires simply two things:

Renunciation

Detachment

One renounces the desires and the results. This is quite difficult. On a simple level this means renounce the desire for toys. On a more difficult level one must renounce desire itself - even the desire for Truth, God, Love, etc.

One detaches from the actor and the action. On a simple level, again, this can be easy. When you dance and forget yourself, you dance well. When you love and forget yourself, you love well and have no benefit in the loving.

The combination of renunciation and detachment seem grim at first. But they reflect something deeper about Love itself. One must surrender oneself and accept life fully in order to love fully (forgiveness). If you desire something from Love you abuse (degrade) the loving. If you expect something then you do not love freely.

Because of this surrender, God is often the best - really the only - thing/person to be loved so. Children easily receive such love from their parents and thus God and children are loved in this way. Among adults there is often a failure of renunciation and detachment - in fact expected. Here love becomes qualified and less than the supreme love. But if one fully surrenders, the idea that your love will be abused is irrelevant; i.e. Gandhi, Buddha, Jesus, . . .

Love is Bhakti Yoga.

All of man's works are expressions of love. When we choose a job we are choosing how to express that love:

Doctor love through health

Priest love through spirit

Lawyer love through justice

Engineer love through creation

Teacher love through knowledge

Researcher love through revelation

and so on.

This also is true for those that seem to oppose us:

Thief love of self materially

Murderer love of self in dominance

Is there a difference between the "good" and "bad" group? - only in the aspect of empowering self vs. empowering others/all. Nobility is the expression of love guided at leading love to others. This is not selfless but self in complete mindfulness.

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In union with the skills of love one needs the ability to recognize truth. Truth is difficult to talk about because the word's meaning floats on the person speaking and the conditions under which they speak. There are a number of ways to reach truth:

Eastern Western Examples

Gyana Reason/theory math

Bhakti Faith/love religion

Karma Science/experiment physics/psychology

Rajas Method/passion logic/scientific method

This is not to say one way is better than another. Also, any single truth usually will satisfy all of these, not just one - in math one has definitions (imply faith), in religion God is said to be reasonable, in science if we don't know - guess. In method analysis we assume the method is adequate. All are entwined, they simply are ways of talking about approaches to the truth.

But you can recognize truth by some simple methods: There are two broad categories of truth - unconditional and conditional.

Unconditional truth is true regardless of where, when, by whom, etc. Commonly such truths are self-referent: Truth is. This statement must be true. Even if one were to say it was false, in being false it is therefore a truth. This is the reason why true atheism is not possible. When God is called Krishna, Jesus, etc. we qualify the meaning of truth and thus there can be dispute. But that ‘truth is’ can not be debated. Thus if our God is truth then God is.

Unfortunately self-referent truths are not very helpful in elaborating other truths that are qualified. To say “God is” is meaningless to what God is.

The qualified or conditional truths are more debatable. These are true under certain conditions. In logic: If this is true then that is true.

The conditions of qualified truths often define the truths. The easiest example is math: In scalar addition 1 + 1 = 2. In vector addition (0,1) + (1,0) = √2 at π/4 radians. A more difficult example is: If God is benevolent, the creation must be good regardless of the pain we see.

Qualified truths can be studied in the following analysis:

Is it internally consistent? Commonly people say I love God and I love to hunt. Depending on one's beliefs this may be or may not be internally consistent - does it contradict itself.

Are the qualifications valid? If one says that the proof of Jesus being God is resurrection, it is not valid unless all the people resurrected in history are God.

Are the results correct? With a lot of reasons you can prove just about anything. You have to make sure not to get lost in the reasons.

Is the qualified truth relevant? To prove I exist because I said I exist in most systems of belief is irrelevant but the topic of much discourse.

What is the time course? Eventually just about anything can be true. Are you talking about now, one million years from now…?

Does it fit what others have said? This one is tough if the "others" you choose are wrong.

Does it ring true to your experience? Remember, your experience is limited; except in mysticism.

Does it ring true to your intuition? Remember, the source of intuition is unclear.

Does it fit with your understanding of the world. Watch out for misunderstandings / misconceptions (Maya).

Does it guide you or stop you.

Special Notes:

Usually when two people or groups strongly disagree they are both right.

In the world of experience, division will lead you to truth.

In the world of ideas, union will lead you to truth.

In the world of love, oneness will lead you to truth.

In God all things are true and being is the most important truth.

Truth is Gyana Yoga.

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Action is based on truth and love as it becomes manifest. This is most difficult to understand when truth and love are applied in the action of a disjointed one. Here action is often painful to others. This type of action, of love and truth, is easiest to understand in the actions of one who is fully united into the oneness of being. This is the Buddha, Gandhi, etc.

Outside of the extremes, the understanding of action is indeed difficult. Action itself is a self-referent truth. The word implies time, causality, existence, conscience, responsibility, etc. But the action is fundamentally a discriminative process: Choose one path over another. This action is based on judgment and freedom. These can only be present in the manifest world and do not transcend our experience. Action can not be unmanifest, nor can the unmanifest act. Thus is the unmanifest manifest – Soma and Agni again.

Ethics and morality, objects of very many discourses, are the guides in helping us with our actions. Karma Yoga is simply the focus on actions (express Soma). The focus on the manifest can head one to the unmanifest. Thus, Patanjali's Yoga, and others (Somas), teach us how to develop the faculty of choice and judgment within Maya to transcend it (Agni).

The methods of choosing actions are too variant, too conditional, to set down as edicts. Thus one can choose a set of principles but discard them when the truth and love principles warrant.

Like truth, action must be considered at different levels. Among God and man, among man and man, among man and self. Understand that man here means the manifest conscience in being: man, woman, child of appropriate age, and other beings with these qualities. Another realm is man to things. This is a branch of man-man, man-God, man-self if one believes in oneness of being. To one who does not, man-things is a different relationship.

Of man and God.

It is commonly held that man should not judge God. Such a statement is irrelevant. In God's realm man's judgment is itself a creation - willfully - of God. Thus, at best God’s desire, somewhat comedic, and thus the denial irrelevant. In man's world, all knowledge is based on experience (of materials, of ideas, of God). The experience of God is frequently called the mystic fire (Agni). Those who are guided to it have first hand experience of God and the experience is considered super-sensual.

The mystic fire has been described by many people. Common properties of the fire are: Allness, Loving, Truth, Immediate, both Transcendental and here. The fire property is variously described as burning, tingling, yearning, vibrant, living, expansive, orgasmic, heightened sensitivity, envelopment. These are followed by something like, "words can not explain it".

Two groups form in the interpretation of this event (with an interesting third). Eastern philosophies hold both (all 3) views and western religions hold the two(3)in contrast. One describes the experience as an "other" supreme being becoming manifest onto us. The other group describes the experience of simply the "one" supreme being and no otherness. Fundamentally, God is outside of us or we are with God.

Both are true.

We can experience God as a child, sibling, parent, idea, etc. All things we may experience as outside. To do so, though, we need to hold onto our sense of distinct self - in this case our ego. Thus, as soon as God is experienced as an "other", know this to mean that the ego is interpreting the event. The ego then molds the event into what we want it to be. The event is true but it is filtered.

When the ego, before God, is eliminated then the experience holds no place for an "other". There is only God in total surrender of the Maya born ego.

The third interpretation is that these experiences are steps to knowing the truth and just that. "Scientists" will interpret such events as releases of "happy" chemicals in the brain. Even earlier, the Buddhist advised these could be delusions and warned against attachment to the events. This too is true. The experience of the supreme being can be a psychosis and can lead one away from the truth. This is why man must judge God - to know God.

From man's viewpoint God must meet certain criteria:

Supreme Being (tat sat)- No truth beyond it.

Truthful (cit) - having sentience

Loving (anand)- with action

often materialized as:

Omnipotent

Omniscient

Infinite

Blissful/blessing

Creative/source of being/prime cause

Eternal/undying

Merciful/just

Beautiful

…

You will note that all others are derivatives of the first three.

If a powerful, supernatural being fails to have one of these properties it is said to be a demigod or angel which can then manifest incomplete goodness (godness) or be termed evil - demons.

Thus, as man must choose a God, these criteria are used.

Demigods have a place in this creation. They too are created by God. The experience of a demigod can be very like the experience of God but the demigod's finitude demands expression as an "other", not as a "one".

The Supreme God has been called numerous things: Brahman, YaHeVaHe, the Holy Ghost, the great father/spirit, the Buddha, truth. The supreme has no name, only we experience qualities. It is one and the same no matter how you get to It or That (Tat).

The demigods will demand supplication. This will be to a name. Over such names men will war, hate, lie, covet, etc. The "good" demigods lead us towards the supreme being. The "bad" ones lead us away. But both only end up revealing the truth and thus end up at the same place - the supreme. Note that even the "good" demigods will express themselves as names - the sign of egoism. Like good teachers, the lesson transcends them. Be particularly careful of texts brought to man by angels; they are prone to imperfection. But the self in you is prone to perfection for that is the oneness in God.

What of choice? The supreme choice we have is to express our ego in God. All faiths unite in this. It is, in fact, impossible to do otherwise. We can choose to pretend to oppose the supreme being, we can choose to pretend to ignore the supreme being, we can choose to pretend to work with the supreme being, or we can choose the surrender of "we" (or "I" or ego) and thus unite with the supreme being. Regardless of our perception of what "we do", it is the supreme being that chooses. "Thy will be done" can not be negated, it is indeed, all that is done.

Absolute Freedom, you will notice, is absent except for the supreme being. Our experience of our choices guides us to or away from the Brahman experience. Without the ego all of "our" choices are meaningless. With the ego "our" choices are reflections of incomplete unity with the one being - a dichotomy that demands there is something outside of God and therefore demands God is finite. This is acceptable to the secularist who personifies God; but not to the secularist that identifies God as truth which is, in turn, all encompassing including our sense of ego.

Choosing effectively is a search for the union of the Brahman bound mystic fire (Agni) and the mystic manbound river (Soma). These flow all around us, we have only to open the mystic eye. This is both easy and difficult. It should be attempted at least a few times in a lifetime - this is Raja Yoga.

Of Man to Man

The relationship of man to man is quite confounded. Conditions of time, space, knowledge, and others make specific statements fundamentally impossible. However it is the essence of humanity.

When man starts to develop, as a baby or as a species, man remains undifferentiated from the being. This is, of course, naive; but it is profound as that naiveté is the opening into being one and many. As man develops, the first other apprehended is its mother. Fertility is female. The fruit experiences this. This is a warmth of belonging peace, anandam in this other.

The next experience is biologic satisfaction - food, warmth, caressing, sensory stimuli, followed by the male function of power. The other that provides but is further out than the female function. Certainly for many societies this distinction is personified. Unfortunately, the distinction can become abstract only (family perspective - the roles become confused and identity with karma is lost). In history this is the process of developing society and then structuring it (evolutionary perspective - fertility of creative woman and the executive man combined).

Once the basic infrastructure is established the individual grows. The child explores. The infrastructure, however, limits the growth potential. The study of this focuses on the mind. The constructs of mind are many. The anatomy of the brain becomes more defined each day. The basic dualist description is internal vs. external. The boundaries debated. The compartmentalist divide by structural anatomy vs. functional physiology, boundaries also debated.

The brain reflects the development of the mind and vice versa. We do not evolve without the outside world, nor it without us. The structures and functions are interwoven. The brain and mind don't debate, they do. Societies are also ultimately pragmatic.

An individual is not a discrete entity. We are each made of components that flow through us and the collation of those become the individual. The major components are: spiritual, intellectual, intuitive, communicative, perceptive, effective, sustaining, creative, integrative.

The major axes of assessing and using the components are temporal, spatial, essential, complexity, filtering, focusing, pragmatic, on/off, and impedance.

Some believe that individuals are mortal, others immortal. Some believe in reincarnation or resurrection. These are concerns of ego prone individuals. The appearance of ego is the sum of the components with various weighting along the axes. The sum is variable within the limits of these properties. The components etc. transcend the ego form. The ego form is both mortal and immortal, it is reincarnated and resurrected. But it is variable across experience. That variation is at times felt as birth, death, life, after life, pre-life, etc. but all of these events are processes innate and a consequence of these components/axes.

Understanding this is easier in life than in words. In practical life we segregate these components into fields of study. The broad splits are religious, physical sciences, social sciences, humanities, mathematics, and trade skills. Education becomes the development of these components within us allowing us to explore ourselves and our world. It is important to understand that all individuals synthesize this education in daily life normally. Academically we like to keep them apart because they have variant methods and foci. All attain to the same thing and none is "superior" to the other.

A person chooses a path in one of these because they feel comfortable in it - their individual ego is attracted to it. The ego effect on these is based on three qualities or meta-axes: truth, action, discipline (Satwa, Tamas, Rajas).

Trade skills, mathematics and physical sciences are quite nicely defined, and, when appropriate, redefined in our cultures. These fields though, give one a strength that should not be underestimated and thus should be pursued vigorously.

Religion, social sciences and humanities are, on purpose, less well defined. They have ambiguous boundaries and rules and enjoy interacting with each other. All deal with the fuzzy side of the human interpretive.

Religion is the process by which man identifies with the divine. Divinity is variably defined. Religions fall into three types: The divinity is a demigod, the divinity is an idea, the divine is the supreme being. This is an awareness not a context (or construct).

Examples of religions that are of demigods are all religions committed to a named entity: Vaishnavism, Shaivanism, Durga worship, Mazda worship, christianity as Jesus worship, Allah worship (as opposed to God worship) some forms of “holy book” worship, etc. This form of religion believes in a specific physical manifestation of God and thus idolizes images of it. This form of religion is powerful because people like to have concrete pragmatic beliefs. It is weak because it depends entirely on the ego interpretation of the idol and is thus prone to significant error. The classic error of such religions is persecution of other religions. As the discriminative mind attaches to a particular form it devalues other forms. All religions that have favored this approach have persecuted others. Although our current world sees muhammedenism doing this most often, the single religion to do this the most thus far in history is christianity. The historical record is reinterpreted to make it appear not so, but a sincere look will confirm this.

Examples of religions where the divinity is an idea are secularism, Confucianism, theosophism, qualified dualism. Here a worshipper demands greatness in depth in essence of the idol. Bounding the idol is the weakness of this form, its strength is the liberation of the individual. Note historically that this form of religion arises particularly when the first class of religions has turned bright humanity into a dark age. Here is the human demand that God is not a dead idol/lump of clay or gold, but a being as a living idea. Here is also, often, the claim that there is nothing more than what we see if we see deeply enough.

Examples of the third class of religions are mysticism, Vedanta, Buddhism, Taoism, and various religions of native peoples scattered throughout the world. The weakness of these religions is a supreme demand on all faculties of the worshipper - belief, logic, mind, body. This is difficult for many. Thus this form has only few true worshippers. All idolized beings are worshippers of this form of religion. The rest lag behind. The strength of this form is that it is true - and finally it simply is.

Humanities and the social sciences are secular branches of religions often in the second form. The humanities attempt an approximation of the third form. Politics is the transition of power (poor to rich, rich to poor, weak to strong,…). Economics is one form of power and a process of valuation. Culture is the expression of these forms.

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Our history has been a process of liberating the individual from the bounds of our ego. This battle began unformed and naive, it expressed the fertility and power of being, it empowered a few, it enslaved many. The many cut off the limb that called itself "God's hand" (mysticism), then the many took the power of the kings (democracy). Now the many eagerly liberate from the bonds of fiscal lords (self employment, etc), and finally, as we understand our minds, we will liberate from our egos (developmental neuropsychology).

This history is called the Udgita - a song of oneness and the highest song sung by the demigods to declare the being of the supreme being. The instruments of the Udgita are the qualities satwa, tamas, rajas. The words of the Udgita are ours. The themes are truth, love and action.

If you, or anybody, chants the AUM you will hear the Udgita in your body. Focus the chant that the vibrations may be felt in your abdomen, heart, and head, then try moving it to the face, neck, chest, and limbs.

Thus will you open to the supreme.

Thus will you step to the supreme.

This is Yoga

OM

Shanti, shanti, shantih.