Baiji Satsang: Be Intentional, or the River Will Take You

At Sunday satsang, Gautum baiji also said:

"When in pain, do we remember to address the God within us?

Just as a candle flame always goes up no matter which way you tilt it, the same can be said for the spirit inside of us, no matter what is happening with us.

Always try to connect with the holy power.

And we must ask ourselves, 'What is our goal in life? Where am I going?'

Maybe the answer is 'I don't know. I don't think like that.'

If we don't know where we're going, we will certainly get to a place we didn't ask for.

The Princess and Her Necklace

During satsang today, Gautum Baiji said:

"You can purify your body with water. 

You can purify your mind with truth.

You can purify your intellect by knowledge.

You can purify your knowledge with understanding. And everything depends on our understanding.

Once there was a queen who enjoyed spending time in her garden. One day she returned to the palace to find that her necklace was missing from her neck. It must have broken and fallen in the garden.

The necklace was extremely valuable, and the queen knew the king would be angry if he knew it was missing, so she sent her maid to go find it.

But the maid came back empty-handed, so the queen knew she had to tell the king.

When the king heard the news, he wasted no time. He assembled all of his guards, his field workers, his kitchen staff and even some peasants to immediately go through the garden and search plant by plant, bush by bush for the necklace. 

But they searched all day and found nothing. So the king ordered everyone to look harder.

Finally a peasant saw something sparkly in a pond. He yelled to another peasant, 'I think that's the necklace!'

'Well go get it!' said the other peasant. So the first one waded into the water to retrieve it.

But for some reason, he's not able to grasp it, no matter what he does.

The king himself is summoned to the pond. He watches as more of his men go into the water and also fail to obtain the necklace they can all clearly see! They are perplexed and frustrated by this. 

An old wise man wandered by and learned of their dilemma. He thought for a moment and said:

'This reminds me of something that happened to me as a boy. I would go outside with my mother, look up at the moon and say "I want the moon! Can you give it to me?" She said yes, and brought me a bucket full of water. In it I could clearly see the moon reflected in the water.'

Then everyone looked down at the pond and realized they were looking at a reflection. They looked up and there, on a branch in a nearby tree, hung the beautiful necklace.

All scriptures are a reflection of truth, an indication. We tend to only chase the reflection.

If our body is a temple of God, and if we want to see the light, where else do we need to go than within? 

Someone who goes within, who meditates, might be asked by another, "Why go within? What's wrong with going to church or temple for wisdom and light? What's the difference between the inside vs. the outside?"

The answer is the difference between the reflection and the necklace, the map versus the treasure. An idea and the truth.

Taming the Ghost - A Baiji Story

The baiji (nun) said: "Once there was a man who was very angry because he had too much work to do at home, too many chores for just one person. He always fell behind and never got any help, and this made him very frustrated.

So one day, he prayed to the gods for help.

And his prayer was answered, but in a way he did not expect:

A ghost appeared, ready to do his bidding. He was a working ghost, because he asked, 'What should I do?'

'Clean my house," the man said, and the ghost cleaned the house. This pleased the man.

'What should I do now?' the ghost asked.

'Plow my field and plant my crops!'

So the ghost did that, and he was soon asking the man for his next duty.

'Milk the cows and feed all the animals.' On and on, the ghost asked and did as he was told.

Too well. Soon, there was nothing left to do, but the ghost kept coming.

'What should I do now?!'

'Um, clean the house again.' The ghost did that, and continued haunting the man night and day for more chores. He was unrelenting, and the man was being driven crazy.

So he ran to his guru for advice.

The guru nodded and gave his best counsel: 'In front of your house, tell him to build a larger pillar. When that is complete, tell the ghost to climb up and down the pillar.'

'For how long?'

'Until you give him new instructions.'

The man saw the genius in this and went right home to build the pillar, solving the problem of the nagging ghost.

The same is true with our minds. For us to get any true freedom, the mind and all of its energy and drive must be tamed and set to the side through simple meditation. It can be done with practice.

If we do not do this and allow our 'monkey mind' to rule - we will not know true peace. We will even think that we 'are' our minds when who we are is so much more vast.