The greatest challenge awaiting you is living and working in the world. Traditionally, seekers of the infinite light have renounced society and gone into places of solitude to meditate, pray, fast, practice various spiritual arts and to gain a sense of community, a fellowship with others who speak a kindred language.
If we look back at the history of spirituality, we see that the great, enlightened souls were often very reclusive. They lived on top of the high Himalayas, in caves and forests. Very few of them really entered into the world, or if they did live in somewhat of a societal setting, they had their students build monasteries, convents, ashrams — places where the students and the teacher could live together and associate with each other without having to deal with the world.
The reason they did this is certainly self-evident. Most people in this world are not interested in light and spiritual development at this stage in their evolution. They’re still playing their war games, their oppression games. They’re still trying to limit others in the name of their own happiness. As a matter of fact, after you have practiced meditation and spirituality for some time, you begin to get a sense that you’re on the wrong planet. There’s a feeling that you don’t belong here because when you look at the world, you look with eyes of love and joy and beauty. And when you enter into the nine-to-five world, the competitive business world, the world of freeways, nations, wars, political systems, families, ethnic groups, power groups — the world, as you know, is not a particularly attractive place, the world that men and women have created.
This Earth itself is nothing but beauty. But human beings have been a disease, from a certain point of view, a kind of a bacteria that has infected the Earth, that has destroyed the forests, the rivers, polluted the oceans, that is currently destroying the ozone layer. Human beings have not taken very good care of the resource that sustains them. They don’t seem to realize that if they destroy it, they destroy themselves. A most unusual species.
Yet taken individually, human beings are incredibly beautiful. If we look at any person, they have sensitivities, inner light. While they may be in a certain stage in their evolution where they’re a little confused, just as a third grader does not know everything, we can’t necessarily find fault with them for that. They’re doing the best they can with what they have. Indeed, what we should have is an attitude of tolerance, not of perdition. We should feel that all of humanity is our family — and I always think it’s a good idea to put as much distance between yourself and your family as possible [Rama laughs], unless, of course, you have an exceptionally enlightened family.
In today’s world it’s really impossible to get away from humanity. We live in a media jungle, what McLuhan called a global community. All of us are joined together by media — television, satellites, newspapers, magazines. Even if you live out in the far reaches — there are no longer far reaches — because in an instant, through the marvelous aid of electronics, you can be in touch with any part of the world. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty hard to avoid it.
The problem is that a great deal of the information that comes down the pike is not very good. The consciousness of most human beings has a certain focus. And while all people are good and many people think noble thoughts, by and large we live in a world that is interested in sensations. The news that greets us is in many ways very similar to the sights that greeted those who went to the Roman Coliseum to watch the games. There’s an urge within the human species for blood, for violence. People derive a strange pleasure from hearing about the misfortunes of others. This is the way the world is. To think badly of the world or of humanity for being this way is like condemning, again, all the second and third graders in the world. Tolerance is necessary.
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Living in a world of darkness. In other words, the dark ages have always been present, in a sense, from the spiritual point of view. Many spiritual communities have flocked off to the woods; they still do today. They live in seclusion and this is an interesting way to live. I think it’s as valid a way to live as any other. It just depends what your purposes are. I myself have always been a lover of society and nature at the same time — because I see God in the flowers and in the city streets as well. I don’t see that there’s essentially a difference. Sometimes it’s fun to be in one and sometimes it’s fun to be in the other.
It is my belief that you really can’t escape the vibratory energies of this world. That is to say, even a few hundred years ago the population of our planet was much smaller than it is today. Each person who lives on this Earth creates a vibratory energy and when the planet was not as populated, the energies were not as volatile. But as the population continues to escalate, the weave of the energies gets stronger and stronger and it has an effect on everyone who lives here. Even if you live on top of an isolated mountain, it can’t be isolated in terms of energy. As you meditate and you develop more sensitivity, or let’s say you just become more aware of the sensitivity that all human beings have potentially, you are affected strongly by these energies.
As far as I’m concerned, in terms of spiritual evolution, while it used to be that you could go live in the convent or the monastery and get away from it all — and in a sense you could, you could just put physical distance between yourself and the population masses, the unenlightened masses who were interested in their own pleasures and pastimes, which might not have been your pastimes — that’s really not possible today because even if you just go a few miles away, the energies are so volatile in the world that you really can’t get away from them.
Oh, there are some places where there’ll be less — Hawaii, a few other places, parts of Switzerland — where you can, to some extent, get away from it all. But even so, I don’t even think it’s necessarily good to try. Because if you’re interested in helping humanity, which is the hallmark of real spirituality, at least in my estimation, it’s pretty tough to help people when you’ve separated yourself from them. In other words, you can help a lot of squirrels out in the forest, but aside from an occasional ranger or park visitor there aren’t too many people you can be of service to.
Secondly, there’s a real problem with separating yourself from humanity. While you will assert, and I will certainly agree, that humanity is not at a very high state in their evolutionary development — they’re currently inventing bigger and better bombs to blow themselves up with — the same silly stuff that’s been going on for thousands of years still goes on, the same repression. While we’ve developed an interesting technology, human beings really, in my estimation, have not evolved very far. We don’t have a much greater sense of humanity than the ancient Greeks did or the ancient Chinese. Still, when you start to separate yourself from humanity, a funny thing happens. When you feel that you are a spiritual seeker and you want to step back from the world, in many cases an egotism or an egotistical attitude begins to develop, and you see this, unfortunately, in many spiritual groups. It’s the “holier than thou” attitude.
The most important quality in self-discovery, in the so-called spiritual life, is humility. If you have all spiritual qualities and do not have humility, then all is lost from a spiritual perspective. If you have humility and nothing else, then don’t worry, all other spiritual qualities will follow humility. Persons who isolate themselves from the world, unless they’re truly humble, usually begin to develop this subtle sense of superiority which is very detrimental to their spiritual growth and development. The idea is that, “I can see more than humanity. I’m more advanced spiritually, therefore I’m better. I’m removing myself from the dirty world with its wicked people because I am superior, I am chosen.” This is not a very healthy attitude for people who claim to be interested in love. From my point of view as one who, again, teaches not so much the basics in spiritual discovery but the advanced aspects, the graduate school of spirituality, while I recognize that very often there is a common need in people in early spirituality to do this, it’s quite detrimental to persons who are interested in full enlightenment, God realization, liberation.
Sometimes it is necessary to put something down very heavily, even more than you might suppose. For example, many women who have been abused by men for thousands of years need to separate themselves for a while from men in order to form their own identities. In other words, their identities have been lost by living in a male-controlled world, where the males dictate what the image of a woman is. Naturally, you’re going to have to have some kind of reaction for a while to balance the scales. Women are going to, if they’re interested in enlightenment, have to stand back from men for a while and associate more with each other to develop a proper image. While some may view this as extreme or going overboard, it’s necessary. It’s a necessary reaction for a time. But then, after that new identity has been developed, there has to be a relocation in the world, a coming together. But for a while, sometimes, there needs to be separativity.
Someone who’s an alcoholic, for a while, might have to put down alcohol. In other words, it might be OK for someone to drink who can handle it properly — who uses but does not abuse. For that person, for a while, when they first break away, there may be a need in their being to just say to all who come within hearing distance that alcohol is the worst, that people who use it are foolish and so on. Now eventually, if that person really beats the problem, one day they will become more moderate and they will be able to accept that others may like it, but they simply don’t. But it’s foolish to think that people can go to that state right away.
In spiritual development, many people, after being inculcated in the world for a long period of time, have just gotten so locked up in worldly values and ideas that they really believe that what matters is owning a bigger car or having a happy family. They really think that their mortgage payments are important. They believe in a better facial tissue and that the right toothpaste can make your life perfect — the consumer mentality. For these persons it’s a good idea to step back from the world for a while because they’ve forgotten that they’re in the middle of eternity and that God is the source of all. And that while all things are good, one should not become so entangled in the world that you don’t see the world — not seeing the forest for the trees, in other words. If you’ve gotten so wrapped up in your relationships with other human beings, in your career, in your thoughts about yourself and your own introspection, if you’re too wrapped up in your own spiritual development and how well you’re doing or how poorly you’re doing and your self-image and what others think of you, then you’ve lost it.
You’ve forgotten something very important, my friend, and that’s that you’re only a visitor here. You will not be here long. You are here for 60, maybe 80 years, tops. That’s not very long, I assure you, when you measure that against eternity. Best to consider eternity and not to worry too much about the fact that somebody bumped into your car and you got a dent in it. Give value to the world — you are here, treat it well — be kind to those around you, but don’t get too attached to this place. This is just a motel that you’re staying in; it’s not your home. You’re just passing through.
For some people, when they begin to break out of the maya, there’s a need to reject the world and its strange value systems. In early states of spiritual development we have to recognize that some people will need to walk away from the world, to be by themselves more, to leave their families, their friends and perhaps seek out some solitude in nature, to draw into the self, to weave a cocoon. But then they shouldn’t stay in the cocoon. The butterfly should emerge from the cocoon after going through the metamorphosis and share its beauty with everyone and just fly, just enjoy the gift of flight.
In advanced spiritual practice, then, it is no longer necessary to run away from society or the world. As a matter of fact, it’s detrimental because one wants to be neither attracted nor repulsed. If you’re interested in being of service to the people of the world, it’s a good idea to be around them. And third, there’s a great danger in separating yourself from the world and from the people of the world and developing the subtle egotism which will defeat all of your other spiritual practices.
If you become so sensitive that you can’t bear the vibrations of the city street, then you have not been practicing your yoga and meditation correctly. While there will be a residual drain, naturally, when you enter an area where the energy is a little bit lower than your own cycle, spiritual practice should make you strong enough that you can go out and live and work in the world and deal with it, and then come back to your home, to be with your other friends who speak the same language you do, to go to your spiritual meditation meetings and so forth and recharge your batteries and then go on out for another adventure. Living and working in the world.
How do you deal with it? How do you deal with society with all of its incongruities? How do you deal with sitting in your office after you’ve just come back from the desert, where you’ve been meditating? You watch the room dissolve and fill up with light. You’re floating in another world, the sea of consciousness, and the guy at the desk next to you is too busy looking at the legs of the secretary, when maybe he should be thinking about his wife — or he’s busy looking at you.
How do you deal with a boss who tells you to produce more and more and to use pressure techniques to sell, when you’re interested in God and liberation? Where is that beautiful pine forest grove for meditation as you’re sitting on the 405 Freeway at 5:00 o’clock, and the traffic is definitely not moving? What do you do with the violence, when someone pulls a gun on you in the street, when someone breaks into your home and rips everything off? How do you deal with the incongruities of existence, of a world of people who are cruel to each other, sometimes without even realizing that they’re cruel? How do you deal with it? Very, very skillfully. Living and working in the world. It is necessary to be part of an organic fellowship. This is the advice of the I Ching, that ancient, venerable Chinese book of wisdom, to which I subscribe so heavily. The I Ching counsels us — the sages who wrote the I Ching a long, long time ago — that the wisdom of the self-taught is heavy and ponderous. While you may make a certain amount of spiritual progress on your own, it’s lacking in something. It’s heavy, it’s ponderous.
Something occurs in learning with others that’s marvelous. The edges of our egotism are slowly worn down. If you take a piece of glass and flip it into the ocean, after it’s been out in the ocean for a while its sharp edges will be worn away. When I was a child we called this harmless glass. We’d be down at the beach and we’d see these little pieces of glass washed up and you couldn’t cut yourself with them. It’s necessary for the ego to be worn down. It’s very easy to sit by yourself and think that you have no ego, but in your interactions with others you will begin to see where you really are. I always feel that you can judge the level of a person’s spiritual advancement by how they treat those around them in everyday situations. That’s the sign if you’re really living your spiritual practices.
It’s very good then to be a member of an organic fellowship of beings, a member of a spiritual community. But in my estimation that community does not have to separate itself from the world. That is to say, I think that you can maintain your own dwelling, your own apartment or house, condominium, tent, and live in a city or a town or a village or whatever in which many other people who are a member, perhaps, of the group that you’re involved with, that is to say, the persons you meditate with — all of you live in the same area but not all in the same house.
The problems with ashrams are many. They have their strong points. When you live in one building with a lot of other spiritual seekers, very often you will find it very difficult to be yourself. There will be a certain party line that everyone follows. In other words, there will be peer group pressure. Two-thirds of the people will act a certain way and they will expect that everyone else will act the same way. You may find yourself trying to speak like, or adopt the attitudes of those who are around you when they’re not really suitable for you.
Spirituality is individual. The most important thing in spiritual practice is to be yourself. Your self or your selves will change constantly. It’s very important in spiritual practice not to try to be like others. You can emulate the good qualities you see in others. If you see someone who has humility or purity or beauty, just your perception of that and love of that and admiration of that will cause that quality to start to grow, will foster its development in your own being. But be yourself, that’s the most important part.
In my estimation, in the current world, what is advisable is to band together with others who practice self-discovery, but to not necessarily live with them. Oh, you might share a house with a few people, those persons in the spiritual group who see as you do — because there may be people in the spiritual group who see very differently. Sometimes it’s fun to change that group every six months or every year, or you may enjoy living by yourself. Sometimes it’s fun to live by yourself for a while and then live with a group or live with one person. Two people are good together. Three, as the I Ching tells us, is a difficult number. Beyond four it gets kind of crowded. I personally like one, two, and four. Three is interesting, but usually one will feel left out. Two will be closer. And again, I think beyond four the energy web gets too confused, but do as suits you.
I think it’s good to spend a lot of money on where you live, as much as you can afford, probably a little more, because that is your place of power. While you’re going out into the world each day and picking up the energy and vibrations of the world, where you live should be very, very beautiful. I wouldn’t worry about saving money for the future. The future will take care of itself, which doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t save, if that’s your propensity. But I think that the best investment in yourself is yourself. Anyone who has ever made a great deal of money will tell you that their best investment was always in their own being, in their education, in their lifestyle. Because you are the product. If you don’t take good care of the product, then the product is not going to do well. If you’re not happy, you’re not going to succeed.
Rather than worrying about how much money you’re spending on where you live, I’d consider ways to make a little more money, to upgrade your lifestyle because in the world, with all its strangeness and convoluted vibrations, you need a safe place, a safe house, where you can come and that’s your retreat. In other words, your retreat doesn’t have to be out in the forest, it can be right in the middle of the world.
I think it’s nice to pick a community that’s beautiful, physically. Physical beauty is very important. If you’re living in the middle of the ghetto it’s pretty tough to deal with. You can do it, but it’s harder. Why give yourself a hard time? The ghetto shouldn’t exist. The world should be a garden; every home should be beautiful. If people were enlightened, it would be this way, but they’re not. Why should you live in a place that just reflects the bad consciousness of humanity? No, move to a beautiful place, a community that you feel is balanced.
It’s always good, if you can, to live near the ocean or at least a body of water — the vibratory energy is much better. If you find such a place, live there, and live in a very nice place, the next step is to fix your house up beautifully. The house should be beautiful. Some people, in spiritual practice, are very austere. It comes from their past lives, I think. They live in these very primitive settings. They might even rent a nice house and then they’ll just have a mattress in their room, a complete lack of beauty.
While I enjoy simplicity, still there’s nothing wrong with having some furniture in your room and some pretty pictures and nice curtains. If making your room a world of light and beauty upsets you, then I have to tell you, you’re very attached. Spirituality doesn’t come by getting rid of your furniture. Spiritual refinement, however, is making your home a beautiful place because it will renew you, as beauty renews us, and its higher psychic energy will add to your spiritual advancement.
My suggestion then, for the person who lives in the modern world, is to join a spiritual community that you feel happy to be in. A spiritual community will usually have a head, one individual who is the most spiritually advanced in the group, who will try and aid others to help the community run smoothly, but yet will let everyone live their own lives.
I think it’s a great mistake to join a spiritual community and give them all your money and sign over your property, you know, sort of the cult mentality. I understand that for some people it can be a big spiritual step forward, a great self-giving, but I think that in the modern world it’s good to maintain your own identity. I don’t think it’s necessary to live that way. That won’t give you enlightenment. Enlightenment will come through service to others, but in order to serve others well you need a base. Those spiritual teachers who say, “Follow me, give everything to me,” I don’t know, they must have pretty large size bank accounts [Rama laughs]. While I’m sure there are rationalizations and justifications for it in their minds, and we’ll let them go their way and feel that they’re doing their best, from my limited point of view, if you’re interested in enlightenment, that’s not necessary. Independence, a little Emersonian independence, is healthy.
Once you’ve found a nice place to live, settled in, either by yourself or with some others in your spiritual group — because you meditate together or you’re all vegetarians, you speak the same language — it’s fun to live together, you renew each other. If you’re living in a community, of course, with others, who are doing the same thing, it’s fun. You’ll go downtown and you’ll see some other people who are glowing on the sidewalk as they walk by. You build a web of energy in the community, in other words. A lot of you live together, but not all in the same residence, each maintaining your own domicile or small groups doing that.
Then it’s necessary, of course, to work out the relationships, which never exactly work out, between those of you who live together. If you live by yourself you don’t need to worry about this particular part of the tape. However, if you live with others, it’s necessary to care for them deeply yet be extremely unattached. Living with others is a great experience. It teaches you a lot about yourself and it gives you the opportunity to grow through service to others. But you have to always be very tolerant and realize that nobody’s perfect, that everybody goes up and down and will, constantly. You’re always going up and down in your cycle, whatever your level of evolution is, as is everyone else, and that will not change.
Living with people is just like keeping up with anything else in life. It’s like keeping your house clean. You may clean the house on Saturday, but next Saturday you have to clean it again. With people, every single day you have to bring something, which is love, to your relationships with them. Yet you have to give each other enough room.
People who are engaged in spiritual practices and advanced meditation are very different than other people. Their changes are much more volatile. Their emotions go up and down like the winds because, if they’re on the short path, they’re going through hundreds of lifetimes in one life. When you first move in together you may get along just fine. Five months later, or even three months later, it’s all changed. Because you’ve changed. Don’t feel the necessity to make it work when it doesn’t work. Feel free to separate, to re-form with new groups, to move to a new place. While this may be taxing on your landlord, don’t worry about it, be unattached. At most you’ll lose your security deposit.
In other words, realize that the people you live with are never going to suit you. They’re not supposed to, nor are you supposed to suit them. What you’re trying to do is help each other, have fun with each other and leave each other alone. Don’t feel that you’re supposed to bring each other to spiritual liberation or salvation, but rather to ask each other each day, “How was your day at work?” Be kind, but don’t be the master spiritual guide. Let everybody be themselves. Let everybody make their own mistakes and learn from them.
Naturally, if someone is having a hard time, try to cheer them up. If you see something they don’t, gently point it out, but there’s a way to do these things. I recommend that all of my students read a very marvelous book called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, to read it several times. Mr. Carnegie was a master at human relations. There is a way to get your point across so that it will be very productive and help people, and there’s a way to not do that.
Give some thought to your household. It’s very, very important because if things are not going well in your household, it’s very hard to deal with the world. If things are going well in the household, then you can go out into the world and feel good. But if you are upset at home and then you have to go into an upsetting world, two minuses create a real problem.
Set up a social contract with the people who you live with. That is to say, decide what’s happening. Who’s doing the dishes and so on. Make sure that everybody keeps the house spotlessly clean. If somebody doesn’t, then you should talk to them. If it doesn’t work out, rather than berate them every day and become enemies, move. Live alone or just live with one person, which I think is ideal, actually, in most cases. It’s easier to deal with just one person and their changes.
Experiment with your life, but be up front about it all. Don’t just sit there and get angry because somebody leaves their dirty shoes in the wrong place. The last thing you need is to worry about things like that, and also expect that it’s going to take a great deal of responsibility on your part and don’t wait for other people to be responsible. You go ahead and be responsible and you make sure everything gets done right. Don’t be afraid of working four hours longer than anyone else. It doesn’t have to be equal. Who said it should be? Each one of you is independent, and you’re making spiritual progress by doing the best that you can, not by waiting around for others to act.
Be kind and be generous, but don’t be foolish. Help others, but if they become leeches, if all they do is want is economic help and support past what is necessary, then just let them go their own way. You have to be unattached because sometimes you think you’re helping people and you’re hurting them. Sometimes you can help and give somebody a new start and a helping hand, but there are people who just, unfortunately, sponge off of others and when you let them do that, either emotionally or financially or in any way, you’re not helping them. It’s better to let them go out and make it on their own.
Advanced spirituality is not for people who have difficulty with living their life. It’s for people who are getting their careers together, their lives together, their physical consciousness together, who are mobile, who have succeeded, in other words, in the world. It’s not for people who just want to run away from responsibility and society and their families. Rather, it’s for people who have already succeeded or are quickly learning how to succeed at the game of life.
What I teach is not for people who still have basic personality problems. It’s for people who have mastered life, who are successful and now want to become successful at something else. While we do a certain amount of remedial work with people and try and help you restructure your life and give you some new input on jobs and community and things like that, the point is you’re already supposed to be very successful or, if not, moving quickly in that direction. The last thing we want to worry about is the physical. What you’re here to learn about is the other side of your being. You should have your job together, your career, your education, your lifestyle, all of these things should be improving constantly. You should be getting better at it and not having major problems again and again.
Economics is a very important consideration of living and working in the world, for several reasons. First of all, it’s been my experience that money is a marvelous thing. Money enables you to aid others. You can have all the great intentions in the world but if you don’t have the money to go behind the intention, you can do very little for people in the modern world. I think money is great. I also don’t think it means very much. It’s just paper, but if you use it properly you can do a lot with it.
A lot of spiritual seekers, for some reason, suddenly want to reject money and the world. They think that being spiritual entails being poor, and I think that demonstrates a definite lack of power. While I know that many people who practice spirituality have an aversion to money because perhaps in their past lives they made mistakes with money, it dragged them down — remember, be neither attracted nor repulsed. Money is neither good nor bad. Oh, we’ve seen how it’s been abused in this world, maybe now we can see how it can be used.
I think money is great if you use it and channel it to aid others properly. And I don’t think that you should be afraid of making money. As a matter of fact, I think that you should think of all the ways that you can make money, and you should make as much money as you can. Because if you really love humanity, then you want to do something for humanity. If you want to do something for humanity, honestly, just between you and I, I can tell you next year or next month how many people I will be able to be of service to based strictly upon budget.
In other words, I have a given number of years to live in this world as an enlightened person. During that period of time I will come in contact with a certain amount of people. If I can double that amount of people, then many people would have better lives. I’m a resource, but the resource is strictly limited by finances. We try and use what we have as cleverly as we can, but at the same time, it’s strictly economic.
I’ve been teaching meditation in this life, as of this tape, for about 14 years. I’ve been doing this out in the world and I’ve run monasteries in other lifetimes and ashrams and all kinds of things, Zen centers. One thing that I’ve learned is that economics is important, that the fear of money is as great an attachment as the love of it. I think you should be very impartial. But if you do love others, if you are interested in the welfare of others, then I think it’s perfectly healthy to feel that you should make as much money as you can. Because what you can do is live as nicely as you want, have everything you feel you need and take anything else and give it to a spiritual cause, to your spiritual organization, whereby you can see that money create miracles in people’s lives, as it has in yours.
Keep everything you need, have everything you should have. If you want a Ferrari, get a Ferrari. But once you have what you want, or even on the way, ask yourself, “How much do I not need?” And use that for the welfare of others. That’s self-giving.
I know of nothing that hurts a person spiritually more than being poor. If you’re always trying to think about how you’re going to pay the bills, if you’re living in a place that has a lower vibration because you can’t afford a better one, if you’re worried about money, it’s living hell. You may not have experienced this, but if you have, you understand what I’m saying, and you can’t meditate or make good spiritual progress if you’re all wrapped emotionally because of a lack of money.
What I would suggest is to make as much money as you can in a career that you like. Now if you have picked out some career that you just simply love and adore and it doesn’t pay much, that’s fine, go follow your career. But it seems to me that if you’re going to put in eight hours or seven hours a day, and if they’ll pay you $15.00 for one skill and $5.00 for another, you might as well make the $15.00. Because remember, when they’re paying you, it can’t be too good. In other words, every profession offers you something, but at the same time you’re not doing it for free — the idea being that if you could just do as you wanted and had all the money you needed, then you wouldn’t be doing your job. You’d be doing something else. They’re paying you for your time. They’re buying your life, they’re buying your days, they’re buying most of your waking life or at least half of it — five days out of the week and sometimes more. They’re paying you for something that will never come again. I think they should pay you well because you should feel that your time is very valuable.
When you work, you should do a superlative job. When you work, you should do it with excellence because whenever you work with excellence, that adds to your consciousness. Whenever you don’t, that detracts from it. Even if it’s a simple filing job, typing, computer programming, being a doctor, lawyer, student, whatever it may be, you should succeed. Success is a sign of a good spiritual consciousness. You don’t have to be success oriented, you should just do it. You should do everything perfectly and keep working at it. Because if you feel that your work is part of your yoga and you do that eight hours a day, all the energy you put into it will advance your consciousness, your meditation, and everything else. In other words, there’s nothing holier than work. Nothing’s better for you than working. I work from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep. I wouldn’t know what else to do.
Selfless service gives you tremendous spiritual advancement, and working at the local plant, computer programming, whatever it may be, is as spiritual as teaching people how to meditate. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s why. If you’re working every day to define your consciousness, to maintain yourself in the world so you can practice spirituality and so that you can make extra money to help your spiritual group grow, to touch more lives, to bring more light into people’s lives who want that light, not into people’s lives who don’t, then your work is the holiest thing that you do.
You should feel that there are many, many people who are just waiting in the world, as you, perhaps, once were, for someone to touch their lives. There are many people who aren’t interested in spirituality but some are, and you could make the difference in their life. If you don’t think so, you’re wrong. I see lives change and transform constantly, and it’s people who help out economically who make that happen, as well as those who work in other ways. But in this world, money is power. In the inner world, light is all. In the outer world, economics allows light to travel.
As you may know, I have a favorite profession and that’s computer science. I feel that the computer world is a fine place for spiritual seekers to be because the mindset that it takes to use computer technology is the Zen mind. It’s very similar. In other words, as you meditate your mind changes in specific ways and those ways are perfect for people who program computers and work in the computer field. It’s very similar. Also, computers — you know, we’re just seeing their advent in the world — but the introduction of computer technology is very much like the introduction of writing. There was a time when almost all of the planet was illiterate and then writing came along. Very few people could write, and the change in our society that writing brought about, which was incredible, is smaller than the change that the computer revolution will bring about. Technology, like money, is a very good thing, in my opinion. We’ve seen the abuse of technology, but the use of technology we have still to see. We’ve seen it in medicine and a few other places: contact lenses, birth control, electric typewriters, hair dryers.
A lot of so-called spiritual people are scared of technology. I really don’t understand it. They’re under the assumption that somehow technology is associated with the establishment and the establishment is bad. This is a very pedestrian way to see the world. Technology is fantastic. What fun! I’m not quite sure where computers got such a bad name among certain circles. I don’t know, people have the idea that they’re these big, dark, gray metal machines that bring about impersonality and the lack of emotion, and I certainly don’t understand. There are few more challenging or fun experiences than to do a computer program because you use your total mind. It’s very jnana yoga, it’s marvelous. Within not many years, in the primary grades, every child will be learning programming. In other words, if you’re not interested in computers, you are part of a species that is about to become extinct. Pretty soon languages like COBOL and Fortran and Pascal will be spoken as fluently as English and French and Japanese and German. In other words, with the spiritual vision that I have, I see that the change is so radical and so good from this technology, that those who run away from it are like the Stone Age tribes who ran away from fire. Those tribes who had fire succeeded. It’s foolish not to accept God in any form.
I think that computer programming, for a person who lives and works in the world, is ideal — or many other professions, medicine, law, whatever you prefer — but it helps you develop your mind, is what I’m suggesting, in a way that’s very similar to the way that we develop the mind in meditation — clear and precise logic. At the same time you get to work on your own and not necessarily interact with too many people. It’s a fascinating field for many reasons.
I have a program for people, which I suggest sometimes, who want to change their jobs. It’s amazing — again, this may not apply to you — but I meet a lot of “spiritual types” who don’t really have it very together in the world. They’re very nice people. They meditate nicely, but they have trouble succeeding in the world. They just don’t have a skill or they don’t like their job. I have a little program I suggest to people. You may have a better program. I just find this one works for a lot of people, and that’s that if you don’t have a skill, learn to type. Everyone should learn to type. Get yourself a used electric typewriter and a little book and sit down and teach yourself. Once you’ve learned to type, which you can do in about two or three weeks using one of these little self-taught courses or taking a little typing course at a night school or something, then get a job typing. Start with a temporary agency, then learn word processing. Take a word processing course at a community college. Word processing is absolutely fun. I have a word processor and it’s just a fancy typewriter, but you work with a screen and they’re really neat. It’s like playing an electronic game. They’re very practical; they enable you to text edit and do all kinds of things. Also, you’ll make a little more money, about twice as much.
Then investigate the world of computers, if that’s your interest. Take some courses. Begin to find out what it’s all about. Now, you may be at a point where the last thing you need to do is get involved with computers. I’m not suggesting that everyone should go do that. But what I’m saying is, if your life is in a state of change, and you’re at the point where you are considering a career for many, many years, I think from a spiritual point of view it’s a very interesting career to examine. Or whatever suits you. You follow your own heart in the matter. That’s always the best. But I see something spiritually, is what I’m trying to say, about this particular field. It also allows you to make a tremendous amount of money with which you can buy space around yourself.
You see, in the world, as the society and the population gets denser and denser and it gets darker out there, which it’s definitely doing — we’re moving into a lower cycle now, there’s a new dark age coming in — money buys you space. It buys you protection in a world gone mad. You need to find something that will give you enough money to make you independent. If you have an old car and it breaks down on the freeway in the middle of the night, you never know who’s going to come along — you don’t want that sort of thing to happen. We live in the world of violence. There’s an astounding crime rate and you need to be able to buy a little space around yourself so you can lead a more refined life and keep yourself in good shape so you can then do more for others. You work it out in any way that you think is best.
When you work, when you’re out in the world, when you’re not in the little, beautiful environment that you’ve created for yourself in your home, when you’re going to the movies, which I suggest is the best form of spiritual recreation I know, you need to adopt a certain attitude when you’re out there, when you’re dealing with people. Again, for work, rather than for me to spend two or three hours explaining how to deal with people at work, I think Mr. Carnegie has said it as well as I could in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and I would suggest that you read it, not just once, but a few times or maybe once a year.
You know, it’s interesting, there are many men in business, heads of Fortune 500 corporations, who attribute a great deal of their success to that little, tiny book. They read it about four times a year; it’s kind of their Bible. Now, I don’t think it has to be your Bible, particularly, but the points I would bring across about how to deal with people at work, how to be inaccessible and so on, all these different things, he brings across in his own way. How to deal with the business world is what his book is all about and I think it’s rather good. Let him say it instead, perhaps.
What I would suggest is that it’s necessary when you deal with the world or with your university or whatever it is, to adopt a certain attitude. And that’s to be very unattached, to work very hard for those around you, but to keep your distance. Don’t feel that you have to fit in, it’s not necessary. If your work is good and if you’re pleasant, that’s enough.
Some people who are spiritual seekers, when they work in the office, they make themselves targets. They make themselves very accessible because they withdraw so much or they dress so differently that they become a center of attention and all you do is pick up bad energy, alienate yourself and then you have to deal again perhaps with the possibility of that egotism that I suggested. You think that you’re better than the people there and actually you’re not. No human being is better than another human being. All are equal.
So, blend. That’s the key word. Blend. Be pleasant, be nice, do your best for all. If people don’t speak the same language you do inwardly, respect them, but don’t feel that you have to necessarily become close to them. Be close to those who you naturally feel drawn to, in other words, but don’t feel obligated to go to the office party. Or, if you do, go to the office party but then after an hour, politely leave. Follow your intuition, in other words. If you follow the crowd, you end up where the crowd goes. If you wish to enter into the world of light and life, you have to walk to the beat of a different drummer.
The only other item I would mention is violence. It’s necessary for you to be very security conscious. A lot of spiritual seekers for some reason seem to think that because they meditate if they walk down the street at night that they will not be vulnerable to attacks like other people are, and this is foolishness. The protective force that you’re given as a spiritual seeker is to have the insight to see where you shouldn’t be and where you shouldn’t go and how you shouldn’t act. Be very conscious of danger. It’s everywhere, which doesn’t mean that one should be paranoid. One should be alert and aware. If you come out of a meditation and you leave your house, while you may have been in a lovely consciousness, don’t assume that the rest of the world is. As soon as you hit the street, in other words, switch into a different mode. You need to be able to shift levels of consciousness like you can shift gears on your car. Immediately adopt the caretaker personality of the warrior, which I discuss in the “Caretaker Personality” tape, when dealing with the world.
Be alert. When you’re walking down the street always know who’s around you, who’s behind you. Carry mace. There are a lot of crazy people out there. Don’t make yourself a target. Be inaccessible. Don’t stand out in a crowd. Be very, very security conscious. You will see a continual erosion in terms of violence in our society for many, many years still. It’s going to get worse. I think a self-defense course is marvelous, for men and women particularly, a basic course where you learn what to do in an emergency situation. I think that there’s nothing wrong with keeping a gun in your home or apartment. I think you should always be conscious when you pull into your house if there’s someone behind you. Look in your rear view mirror.
We had an unfortunate event occur recently. It didn’t turn out too badly, but one of the women in the meditation center was on her lunch break and she was sitting in her car. She was reading a book by Paramahansa Yogananda at the time, Metaphysical Meditations. She works in a nice neighborhood; she didn’t expect a problem. Suddenly there was a gentleman at the car window who put a gun to her head and asked for her money and her purse. He was absolutely a gentleman because he then walked away instead of raping her or killing her, as may have occurred. What she should have done was taken a little money and gone to a restaurant, a nice restaurant, a café, and read there. She was trying to save a few dollars. How silly. Even if she wasn’t hungry, she could have sat in a nice café, ordered a piece of pie and ignored it if she didn’t want to eat it, but sat there and read.
In other words, you have to think about where you’re putting your body. You’ve got to feel every situation out constantly, with your meditative awareness. I’ve been planning to go to a movie, let’s say. I’m planning to go see a new movie on Friday night. But if ten minutes before going I get the feeling that the people there are not going to be the people I want to be with, if I feel that intuitively, I should be able to switch to another movie. Never be a slave to convenience. You have to be alert and aware constantly. You have to be constantly vigilant when dealing in the world because it’s a world of life and death; it is a jungle. While we are happy souls, happy birds flying through the sky, still, when we land, we have to deal with the fact that there are tigers down there, and it behooves you to be very wise when dealing with the world.
Again, you don’t want to go to extremes. You don’t want to be afraid of the world, that’s foolish. We’re warriors. The best warrior is the one who never fights because they don’t have to, they avoided the fight. Use your meditative awareness to look around you. Be conscious. Don’t be so caught up in yourself that you don’t see who’s next to you or who’s behind you. Be sensitive. You should be looking out. Don’t always be introspective and looking in. Look at this marvelous world — that’s when you’ll see the beauty, you see. When you turn your field of attention to the world, not only will you see potential problems but you’ll see potential opportunities.
What I’m suggesting is a tone for living and working in the world. I’ve given you some reasons why I think it’s good to live in the world, as opposed to withdraw from it, which doesn’t mean that withdrawal might not be fun sometimes for a few years. I might do it myself, sometime. But I think it’s very healthy to live in society. While Thoreau went and lived at Walden Pond for two and a half years, after two and a half years at the pond he went back to the world. It was a neat phase, he learned a lot and then he went back to apply what he had learned to society.
What I’m suggesting is that it’s very healthy to live in a spiritual community; to maintain your own residence, a little democracy in action here; to participate in society but not get caught up in it; to live in and work in the world; to not be afraid of money; to live in a nice place, in a healthy environment; to bring your physical life together, your career together; to realize that those who you live and work with are imperfect, as are you; to not become a spiritual elitist; to have fun with life; to go to movies, nice restaurants; to enjoy this world; to not separate yourself from it because where is God, if not in the world and the people of this world? Living and working in the world can be great fun.
But also reserve time for solitude. I don’t think you have to go backpacking for two weeks in the mountains. If you’re on the fast path, on the short path, you can spend one day, one afternoon hiking in the woods. That day is eternity and you can get all the spiritual release and renewal you need. You can go to the beach at sunset for half an hour, meditate, and release all of that built-up energy.
Meditate, associate in your free time with your spiritual friends and make friends wherever you go — at the dry cleaners, the laundromat, wherever it is — there are nice people and you can smile and not necessarily talk to people about spirituality. They don’t want to hear about yoga and meditation but you can say “Hi” and just be a nice person.
Be very wary and remember that there are many people who might appear to be nice who are not. Use the discrimination and the spiritual vision you’re gaining from your meditative study to see beyond the surface and look deeply within people, to not become a victim but to be a victor, to adopt that mentality, to be a road warrior in a world gone mad, to do all these things simultaneously. It’s a great challenge. It’s great fun, and you can do a lot more for people.
This is one approach, one way.