Posts
Awen : Hey Robster, for starters, thank you for joining me, and I'm actually thinking about recruiting you to be my full time coworker, hahaha...
Ram : That would be my pleasure, what will be my salary, haha ?
Awen : Since we are in a time of recession, all you can get is coffee.
Ram : Well it all depends on what kind of coffee it is haha.
Awen : Can we please be serious for a change hahaha?
Ram : Okay, let's get down to business, we can talk about the salary later hehe.
Awen : Since, we know each other for 10 years now, and I know that you passed a few initiations and you were practicing few different spiritual practices, today I wanna talk about that and how it is all connected to your current spiritual practice and hinduism.
Ram :Well, different from other people I was baptised when I was 14. So, unlike many people that was my choice, and not something forced upon me. Back then it was a way that my spirituality was expressed in the easiest way. When I look back now, I do realize, that, that was my first initiation. That was not something I cannot recall, something I received while I wasn't aware of the world around me. In that way, the beginning of my spiritual path, was my free choice.I do consider that a lucky thing.
Over the years, I was reading a lot, getting to know about different things, and I started to wonder...why would God, use only one form, to transmit his message to humanity? Why would God limit himself in one form, one book, one language, one person...one anything. Back then I was thinking about God as Him. In time, I got to know that God is not just a person or a being. God is an energy, law, nature, and so, so, so many other things. So, God is He, She, It in any imaginable form, but God is even more than that. All mystical practices are teaching us, that God is beyond any possible comprehension.
Now, I am practicing hinduism, a spiritual practice, which has no form, and has countless forms in the same time. To be a hindu, actually means to be a universal believer. To believe that our mind is not capable of understanding and imagining God. So, that means it needs a form, which helps your mind to somehow get closer to God. To be a hindu, actually means to work with energy, to see world as a body of God, all the energies inside it have a life force, which is circulating inside of that body, and to try to elevate our consciousness to the consciousness of God. So in a way God is everything around us, but in the same time we are God inside of everything.
Awen : So, how do hindu people see God?
Ram : In the West, there is a common misconception, that hindu people believe in many gods. Every single spiritual teacher, coming from India, that I have heard or read about, states the same thing : “ There is one God in many forms. “ So, first I have to say, that hindu people are talking about God and deities, and not God and gods.
In hindu religion, which actually isn't a religion, but a collection of many spiritual practices, God is seen as Father and a Mother at the same time. As a Father, God is omnipresent, omniscience, and all powerful Being. As a Mother, God is all prevading energy. Father, a consciouss Being, is empowered by Mother, a Universal power.
Father, is a doer, while Mother is his ability to do things.
There is one saying that says that there is as many yogas ( yoga = a way to God ), as there is people in the world. So, each one of us sees God in his own way. There are no rules, regulations, or pictures imposed by higher authority to us. Some of us, even see God as a formless idea. So, some of us also recognize God and his aspects in coloursy, sounds, rythms, planets, laws of nature, and so on. Even science says that all the physical laws are drawn from one universal law. In that way, even science says that there is God, in a form of one universal natural law.
Awen : Can you tell me how do you personally see God, you as someone who has no problem with any religion, and you as somebody who used to call himself a christian and now you call yourself a hindu?
Ram : Actually, I call myself a universal believer. Christianity and hinduism are just a stages of my path to God. Most of that path you walked with me, so I will try and explain for the others how do I see God.
In my spiritual practice, the easiest way I connect to God is on two different levels. As a Father, I connect to God by working on my level of consciousness. So as s Father I see God as a consciousness Being, who lives in all of us, and with whom we are one and the same. By all nature we are all consciousness beings in physical bodies. God as a Father is someone who we already all are, and on are spiritual journeys we are becoming aware of that. With God as a Father I am connecting through rituals and forms of worship, in that way, my consciousness is elevated to the consciousness of God, in which degree is another story.
As a mother, God in my life entered through chanting and mantras. The most powerful form of energy that I ever experienced is a sound. So, for me mantra is the most sacred thing. Through proper prounouncation of mantras, I can feel the universal energy in the space around me and the one surrounding me, But, mantra also reveals to me that divine energy also resides in all of us. People very often ask me why is it very important to say a mantra in sanskrit, and why are there so many mantras? Every mantra is an expression of one aspect of divine energy. Since divine energy has countless aspects, there has to be many mantras.
Awen : Since you mentioned sounds...even with my scarce knowledge about hinduism, I still recall my first experience in meditating on the sanskrit word Om. Even though I connect more to other spiritual practices, while meditating, it was so easy to feel the energy that the sound contained in itself. I was ignorant of the room and people around me, but at the same time I was very much aware and focused.
Ram : In India Om is known as the primordial sound. It has no translation to other languages. Vedic seers were capable of hearing the real nature of Universe. That real nature, universal energy, or God, expressed as a sound is Om.
When we say Om properly that makes our mind to vibrate on the closest frequency of that universal energy. That is why your mind was focused, and you were more aware of things around you, but in the same time, you were ignorant of shallow things around you.Om awakened your real nature and made you aware of a deeper and real nature of things around you.
Awen : I agree, the closest sounds or chantings that can usually put me in this state is when I chant to my celtic deities. Now I wanna talk about Ganesh. From all the hindu pantheon of deities He is the only one that I feel very connected to. Can you say a little about Him?
Ram : Ganesh is also known as Gananayaka and Vigneshwara. Gananayaka means Lord Of All Living Beings, and Vigneshwara means Remover And A Lord Of Obstacles. In mythology, Ganesh is a son of Shiva and Parvati. He is conceveid as a result of Shiva's attempt to bring order into Universe. In that way, Ganesh is a personification of a universal law of Karma. His main duty, is to keep Universe in balance, to do that he puts or removes obstacles in our ways, leading us to final self-realization. In India people pray to Ganesh before undertaking any activity.
One of my favourite mantras of Ganesh is Om Gam Gana Pataye Namah. Repeating this mantra is actually saluting Lord Ganesh and letting Him guide us through our everyday life. This mantra is not just removing obstacles in our outer/physical life, but also removes obstcales in our mind. Energy of this mantra, elevates our mind and fills it with Ganesh's energy, which can remove all obstacles in our spiritual way.
Awen : Gotta love Ganesh, when I was visiting Garden Of Peace in Portugal, I was refusing to leave that place untill I found the statue of Ganesh among hundreds of other statues, I was climbing and fighting my way to get to Him * smile*
Ram : Well in a way, that was a beginning of a new stage on your spiritual path. That was your way of praying to Ganesh, to show you the way how to reach Him, and His divine Father and Mother ( God ). Which reminds me, God is only God when He and She are joined together. So, in a way, that was your path of praying to Him. I just hope that people will realize that spiritual path always includes male and female energies, male and female actions, Father and Mother. Discovering God means discovering and reconciling our male and female aspects. That is why people should always pray to God, as Father in any form they prefer ( Jesus, Alah, Buddha, Krishna ) and Mother ( Holy Mary, Brigid, Shakti, Isis ).
Awen : I just have a new idea for our next chit chat, I think it would be great if we talked about praying, chanting, rituals, or any other way in which we physicaly express our relationship with God, I wanna say to people that they shouldn't be constrained by rules and regulations when it comes to praying.
Ram : Oh, I will gladly help you with that, but you do realize that, there is a price for that, and guess what? That price has just risen. I just realized that people in India don't drink coffee, they drink tea.
Awen : Hahaha, very funny and amusing. But...unfortunately, we are not in India Dorothy...
Ram : We are not in Kansas either.
Awen : Yeah, yeah...right...okay, let's continue our convo tomorrow...
Ram : Fine with me *he pokes my arm*
Awen : *and I poked him back * ;)
