Category: Uncategorized

How to get to know God ? Just spend some time with him.

This is a quote below which was so direct, it made me get up at 5am every day and spend 2 hours with God when I would not get interrupted. It took a bit of getting used to but now out of all the day, this is the time I look forward to most.

This is a quote from Upasni Maharaj a perfect Master from India.

“Out of the twenty four hours of the day, please offer me an hour or at least fifteen minutes. If you don’t like to offer this time to me, offer it to God.” Again you do not take back or utilize for your own purposes anything that you have gifted away to me. Likewise you should abstain from making use of the portion of the time of the day which you offered me or God for any of your worldly purposes. https://www.shirdisaibabakripa.org/2011/07/anusthan-discourse-by-upasani-maharaj_28.html

Even here one should reserve a specific corner for oneself so that others may not intrude upon it. That fixed time and place should be maintained under all circumstances. At the appointed hour one should seat himself in that fixed place with a clean mind and body, approximating to the purity of the Source. And suitable posture in which it will be comfortable to sit motionless and steady till the end of the prescribed period may be resorted to. Movements of all kinds should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

The particular mode of Anushthan fixed upon, whether it be the reading of a Scripture, repetition of a Mantra or Abhishekha or meditation, should be carried on throughout the period allotted for the purpose. You may ask “Baba, the mind begins to wander as soon as I sit for Anushthan, what then are we to do?” Let the mind wander where it will. It has become its nature to wander and what is natural cannot be stopped at once. For your part, you do not mind the wanderings of the mind but carry on your Anushthan with a fixity of purpose. Till the mind acquires perfect strength of purpose, it will have to face and overcome obstacles at every step. But these obstacles should be regarded as so many opportunities to strengthen your purpose and your Anushthan should be pushed on with a courage and fortitude that defy all adverse circumstances. Smaller obstacles may make room for greater ones but in the long run they too will be overcome. If one leaves off his Anushthan for fear of obstacles, it is an unmistakable indication of a weak purposed. Anushthan and strength of purpose are essentially identical. If the strength of purpose is perfected, the objective is achieved. Says Tukaram, “Strength of purpose is it’s own reward.”

This brings up an Interesting test of following God. You want to find God, but how much time do you spend thinking or working with god? How long do you spend socialising, on the phone, looking at the phone, listening to music, talking to friends, enjoying a hobby, working in a job, fitness & exersize etc.

The answer to the test is in this ratio of time spent with God divided by time spent on other things . You can’t spend every moment with god but you can spend less time on irrelevant things. More time on focus on god. More work on stilling the mind to allow God in.

All these worldly distractions as lovely as they are the opposite way to God, they are distractions in the way.

You can serve god through loving your fellow beings but not following them instead of god. Let god in and clear out the crowded room so you can see him more clearly.

A great remedy for annoying thought or overly critical thoughts is a quote from Upasni Maharaj

“Think of everyone as God” . This I have found to be a very transformational thought to help overcome some mind issues in particularly related to annoying parts of life or people.

If God is everything and one indivisible self then we all exist within this oneness according to many spiritual masters. Our Mind is what separates us from being one, both thinking and feeling minds, heart and mind. So by imagining everyone as God it instantly removes this separation caused by the troublesome mind. Try it and see what happens.

Its a simple process and one which is under rated. Much of society especially from our past animal instincts and the alpha male & female hierarchy is keyed into obtaining more for ourselves, paying people to help us, obtain a status so people may serve us.

When it comes to spirituality it’s the opposite. You can go one way or the other but not both. Aiming to increase wealth and possessions and dominance over others is the other way to spiritual growth. This doesn’t mean you can’t be wealthy or even in a position of power or even accrue wealth. If it comes naturally that is one thing but if it is your main aim in life then that’s different.

Being humble and spiritual is a sort of old fashioned monastic type vision of the humble monks and nuns. But it really isn’t like that. Look back and remember when you helped someone, what a great feeling that was, the release of energy, the joy. Honesty needs to be present but not greed. So a money exchange could be okay but not with a greedy motive.

As spiritual as I try to be I cannot help but hang onto my money and try to earn more. It’s built into us and hard wired. But an awareness of this is very helpful and a care not to overstep the mark and help where possible.

This is a great start but problems start to appear in that the currency of exchange for helping can be converted into other things. Like “you owe me one” or doing an exchange, obligation etc. There are lots of currencies to pay in.

Lets get even more complicated once you start looking into karma and the ego, You could become a super generous person but of course this would have the counter effect of inflating the ego and promoting yourself to the best do-gooder which while being good also floats the ego and may not assist greatly with spiritual growth.

Oh now its getting messy so the mind is starting to get involved and the doing good is fueling the ego. As you head towards the spiritual so the good and the bad start to move closer together. Good is better to do than bad but each has consequences spiritually.

The folly of this is the mind and so the upper mind helps to monitor what is going on with a sense of discernment, but if you get lucky enough and come into the orbit of a REAL spiritual master then that would be doing true good. But that is easier said than done. How do you know you have found a real one and then how to follow him ?

Spiritual Life is an upside down life. It makes no sense. Follow this and follow that. If you are fortunate or unfortunate enough to engage with a master or Avatar you will find out.

Fortunate enough to find a master but unfortunate enough to discover a different life, the opposite of the one you want.

One of the most stark, blunt and disturbing aspects of this new Spiritual life is readjusting life’s pleasures. We seek through min and heart all of life’s pleasures to make a happy, joyful and meaningful life through the mind and heart mind by satisfying thoughts, feelings and wants.

To find the true spiritual life, a pure beautiful light, then all this wanting needs to be cleared out and you get what you get – what happens is what you get.

Eventually your want is an only want to find God and feelings are an only one of feeling the bliss and love of God. But on the way you have to loose the infinite number of wants and wants of my and mine.

So the external life is to become second to the inner life. All the thoughts and feelings of accomplishment, success family friends aren’t necessarily dispensed with but the want to maintain these aspects has to change. Its a difficult one because all of our lives are built on achieving and doing to flatter out ego, to embellish our standing, fill out wallets or just showing what you can do, good or bad.

We all want a certain life depending on our wants, upbringing and circumstances, its a relative assessment of life to assess what has been achieved or not.

But if you really want to delve into the spiritual you have to bit by bit let go of the control over the outer life, the aims and satisfactions of achievement and bring focus into the spiritual and allow life to truly flow without command from the lower minds. This has to be done in stages, bit by bit as it is so perplexing. The reality of discovering that you are all of your wants and needs and that is forming you added on top of the wants & needs of your parents and their parents going back and back generations to form your life today. To float above this is a beautiful thing but almost impossible to truly float and be detached. The upper discerning mind can help distinguish what is happening and see the minds and their influence but its a deep never ending hole to look into ever shifting.

Above the upper mind connects through various channels to God encountering Bliss, peace and stillness of mind on the path. Above the upper mind avatars (God in human form) can do their work. They work on places below God.

Spiritual Masters if you are lucky enough to find one also work through aspects of God and can provide sometimes a more direct but challenging direction.

God in his formless infinite state, I have found very difficult to meditate with. The vastness and formlessness of this place makes it impossible to grasp with no footholds or rungs on the ladder just an expanse. So I have found the Avatar of this age, Meher Baba most helpful as a point of direction and I was later guided to a perfect Master Sai Baba who is my main master.

In my experience the Avatars work at a point lower than the masters and this is the point they chose to do their main work for the masses. And through this link you can be guided further to God. Even though they work at different points they maintain a pure connection through to God.

Depression can come from many directions but for me it is merely a lack of light and once I can see cause I can use my energy sprays (Similar to flower essences) to clear it. The effect can be instant but I find that I do need to keep working on to prevent it coming back. It can be your own energy block or event causing this or something in the wider environment or picking up energy from friends and family which can be the cause. Its hard to find out the source and its not easy to be certain but you can try and narrow it down especially by seeing what makes it clear and when does it come back.

Usually its a block in the heart or an over active mind, or over focus away from yourself on something / someone who lacks the light. This blocks out the light coming in from above the crown. It can be many things but they are the most obvious causes.

This is a new spiritual sunset painting from my art studio near the beach in North Devon UK.

Its physical form is inspired by the beautiful beaches and Ocean light of the coasts by my studio which sits just 2 fields away from a huge landscape of sand dunes and beyond the beaches and wonderful light of the West Coast of England.

The Energetics of the painting are grounded in my Spiritual Energy Paintings from India. The amazing light of these paintings draws you in and the sunset gives off a wonderful feeling.

The Light is beautifully captured and the real Gold Leaf creates a wonderful effect which changes with the light of the day reflecting the light back to you in an ever changing form.

You can buy this painting from my Sunset Art website but it is quite large so its expensive. There are other sunset paintings which are cheaper and smaller

Sunset Paintings by Pete Caswell

or a much cheaper option Sunset Prints by Pete Caswell