The way to achieve spiritual balance is without trying. Spiritual balance is something that all of us innately are. There are many different types of balance. Normally when we think of balance we have a preconceived notion of what balance is. That notion comes to some extent from our experience as physical beings in the physical world. For example, when we think of balance we think of a basic ratio and proportion, an equation, that permits life to exist—as in an ecosystem where balance is achieved through a symbiotic process in which one organism aids another organism in its survival.

Ultimately everything is always in a state of balance. We sometimes prefer though one form of balance to another. For example, you may feel that emotional balance is a state that you call happiness. Happiness is achieved for you in a specific way. Happiness may mean making enough money. Happiness may mean having people love you; feeling physically fit; sensing that the work you do is of value not only to yourself but to others; sexual fulfillment; infinite awareness or infinite consciousness; spiritual evolution and a sense that you are making progress, that you’re not just walking through the doorway of life again and again without anything occurring but there is a sense of movement or growth; prestige. Some of these are qualities that might fit into your equation of spiritual balance. Emotional balance and personal balance.

However, from my point of view spiritual balance is not so easy to achieve in an ultimate sense. There’s relative spiritual balance, the spiritual balance that you can achieve just by having a harmonious life. But life itself is transitory. It doesn’t really last. Each one of us is a reflection of an eternal process which is really something that cannot be fathomed or understood with the mind, although we can penetrate its mysteries and enter into and become one with its essence. Spiritual balance is a process that occurs over many, many lifetimes or incarnations. We could say that the process of reincarnation is a process of balance. In each lifetime there are certain formations within the cells that need to be worked on. Imagine that we have a piece of wood, and the piece of wood has a shape and a beauty all of its own. Perhaps it’s a limb from a tree and has a lot of nuances, formations, bark, different parts of it, each part having a special beauty. But suppose what we want to do is transform it, change it, reshape it. Let’s just say that that’s its destiny. Why? Who knows? None of us know why destiny is. We only know that we are destiny.

The piece of wood begins to transform in our hands. We take a bit of sandpaper and we decide to work on the roughest corner first, the most jagged edge, and we begin to sand it down. Then after a while we put the piece of wood down, and we’re tired and we go off and do something else. We come back and pick it up another day and work, perhaps on a different edge. Gradually, day after day we sand away until finally the bark is completely removed, all the rough edges are smooth.

Now, had we taken a photograph at the beginning of this process, and now at this stage of the process, we would see two really dissimilar forms. The form now that is in our hands really doesn’t resemble the initial tree. It’s smooth, and shaped somewhat differently and the bark is all gone — the spiritual transformation process. Now suppose we decide to take that piece of wood and we continue to sand it. Each day we sand further and further, until one day there’s nothing left. Spiritual balance.

Spiritual balance occurs through love. Love is the ultimate equation. There are different types of love, however, and not all of them are particularly harmonious. When most people love, there is a great deal of ego involved in their love. When you love, there’s a sense of trying to possess someone, to hold on to them. And even more than that, there’s just an intolerable identification with what I suppose we could call humanness. There’s a sense of being a fixed person or personality, in a fixed body, in a fixed continuum of space and time. And you as such have assigned a value to yourself, almost a numerical value and you are trying to affix or in some way interact with another mind body emotional complex in space and time. This is love. Extremely limited.

When you enter into the spiritual process, you change. Your rough edges are sanded away, your outer covering falls away. And you find that you’re not exactly a person any more. After many years of meditation and spiritual practice, you will discover rather, that you are a field of light, that you have no definite form or shape or color. While you can remember a past history of yourself to some extent — you can remember what you did when you were in fourth grade, or you were 15 or you were 20 — while there are certain recurrent memories, there is little or no association with that which you are now and those memories. Just as the butterfly as it flits from flower to flower may dimly remember its days as a caterpillar, still there appears to be no relation except through the function of memory between that which the butterfly is and that which the butterfly was as a caterpillar.

All time is eternally present. The timeless lies just around the corner. We experience the timeless in time. Spiritual balance cannot really occur in the world of time without an understanding of timelessness, because it is timelessness that gives meaning to time. Time has no value without eternity. You have an hour to accomplish something. You have to use that hour completely. If you don’t use the hour completely, then there’ll be nothing left over. What gives the hour value is the sense that it is an hour, it’s a defined, measured unit of time. What creates the unit is consciousness in a body. A sense that there is division and time. But ultimately what really allows that division is timelessness. A vast ocean stretches out endlessly, never beginning and never ending. We’re standing on the shore, and we see to the horizon, we quantify. There’s a sense of dimension. But dimensionality can only come and gain form from that which is dimensionless. This world only exists in your mind because it is within a void. By void I mean an endless ocean of nonexistence and existence that does not have a definite form, shape, or color. The background to that which you see is that which does not appear to be, or which is not. The vacuum of existence in which all things exist, from which things rise forth, which sustains and preserves, and to which things return, the ultimate spiritual balancing act is to have one foot in eternity and one foot in time and to not know which foot is which.

Spiritual balance comes about, to some extent, according to the foot that’s in this world, through self-effort. Self-effort is extremely important, yet self-effort is not something that can be commanded, or even in my belief, ultimately inspired. When I begin to instruct a new student who seeks enlightenment, I look at that person’s potential. I measure not what I see, but what I don’t see. I gain an intuitive sense and understanding of the level of aspiration of the individual — how much they want, how much they want God, how far in this life do they wish to be sanded down. Do they wish to go all the way down to that level of commonality, of voidness? Is this their final lifetime in which they seek completion? Or is this just another day when I’ll get out my sandpaper and sand away for a while and then after a few rough edges are completed, I’ll put the paper down and walk away. I can only do as much as I am allowed to do by an individual who is eternity. Ultimately, it is not I, but you who decide how far you will advance in any given lifetime. I am powerless to act, unless called upon to act by the inner being of an individual. It is necessary to sit alone, to be in a place where there are no others, there are no other people in your physical proximity, no other vibratory energies, to sit alone and meditate and as you meditate to feel eternity, your thoughts will run rampant back and forth through your brain, your emotions will be like storms, like squalls that come in across the ocean. One storm comes in and the blue sky of two minutes ago dissolves in darkness. Webs of rain fall down from the sky, the sea churns, then, in ten minutes the squall is gone, the air is clean. Twenty minutes later another squall comes by. They come again and again, in from the ocean. Emotions are turbulence. Sometimes turbulence is fun, sometimes turbulence is exhilarating, to go down to the beach when the squalls come in, to stand in the wind and let the rain pound against your body. Sometimes it’s good to stay inside, be absorbed, and let everything pass without noticing it. Different approaches. States of mind and states of existence. All the same, ultimately, yet for you as an individual in time, quite different.

The question of being has to arise at some point. What are we being, how are we being, who are we being? The question is only answered in meditation. When you sit quietly with no thought in your mind, when you push the squalls of emotion aside, when the thought storms go out to sea, a light will come. This light is existence in its pure form. You will recognize it, it is yourself. For lifetimes you have searched trying to find meaning and purpose, only to find that the only meaning and purpose is light itself. Meaning and purpose are meaningless and purposeless ideas when you are in that light, the transcendental light of existence. It is its own answer. It requires nothing, it costs nothing, it is the final completion. Float in that light for eternity because there is no time. In that light there is only eternity. We come from that light, we are that light, each one of us is a body of light. We forget though. We think that we’re physical, we think that we’re in time, in motion, when we are really a flux.

How is it that we came to believe this? How is it that we lose sight and everything appears to be so physical, so dense, so solid, when ultimately everything is the light, the energy. When you take a photograph, let’s say you have a Polaroid camera. Now, what do you do when you take a photograph — well, we get someone, let’s say we get someone who’s walking and we snap a picture of them. We have just frozen reality, just as we freeze a river. We take our Polaroid picture and watch it develop and what we see is frozen time. Time was in motion. It was fluid — someone was walking. We took their picture and stopped the action. The action didn’t start or stop with the picture, although the picture was certainly part of the action. The action continued smooth and formless. But our picture shows a stopped action — if you believe in pictures. The trick is to look at the picture and see the action continuing as the picture is an extension of the action.

But frozen time is a simile, a kind of a rough metaphor for the way you see life. When you look at a table, or a tree or a person or yourself in the mirror, when you think of an idea, when you probe existence you are fixed time. You are a photograph. Something inside you has taken a photograph and stopped the action. In meditation, we reverse the process. The photograph dissolves and everything becomes fluid and natural again.

We seek eternity, not knowing why. That which is our essence wants to return to its original formlessness. Perhaps so it can incarnate again in a new way. Perhaps just to rest in the lap of eternity forever.

Spiritual balance is not something that is really achieved through self-effort. Spiritual balance occurs largely through being yourself. To be yourself is a most difficult process for most persons because they really have no idea who or what they are. To determine who and what you are you have to gain a sense of who and what you are not. By subtracting who and what you are not from everything else in existence and nonexistence and beyond both, you will definitely discover who and what you are.

When I speak of spiritual balance, I am suggesting a state that is not individualized or particularized in any way, shape or form. Even to say it is a state implies boundaries. Whereas I would suggest that spiritual balance is a flux, it is a way of being, being continuous being. The river is flowing. We walk down to its banks and we look at it. The water in the river is our life, it flows. We can place our hand in the river, our feet into the river, we can get into the river itself and float with it. Further down, we can get out of the river and come back on the land again. This is meditation. Spiritual balance is a river. It flows through us. Unhappiness is a form of spiritual balance. Frustration is a form of spiritual balance. Anger and depression, denial, doubt, guilt, self-pity, hate, all forms of spiritual balance.

There are different balances. And it is best not to seek any of them. One does not really pass through the bardo of existence without experiencing a little bit of everything. It’s kind of like going to a restaurant where they have a very, very vast menu. And you just have to try everything. In one lifetime you’ll try self-pity. In another hate, in another frustration, in another anger. Because you just have to try everything on the menu.

Dessert of course is different, the superconscious. To meld your consciousness with eternity — to be devoid of self-pity, anger, hate, frustration, even joy, love, and wonder — to go beyond everything and nothing. Spiritual balance. For the beginner, it’s difficult to reconcile the idea that hate can be a form of spiritual balance when it would seem that what we’re trying to do is to love, to be of service to others, to develop humility, purity and integrity, and I would agree, it’s difficult to understand, and I don’t think one should even try.

There are many conclusions that you can reach in your search for spiritual balance. And I think it’s good to reach as many as you like, as long as you remember that they’re only conclusions, they’re abstractions, they’re leaves blowing by you in the wind.

Humility and purity are my favorite fulcrums for balance. I have lots of students in this life and in other lives, in this time and in other times, who work with me. I bring them to balance. My favorite fulcrums are humility and purity. It amazes me how people underestimate the power of the force. They think that they can stop meditating and start meditating. They believe that they can avoid spiritual transformation. I assure you no one has that power. Eternity is the only power. It dictates all. You simply write it down in your stenographer’s pad of existence.

Spiritual balance really has a lot to do with being funny, I think. People tend to get so serious about something that they can’t control. I try to be funny. It seems to come kind of naturally. Self-giving is the best mantra I know. A lot of people ask me sometimes, they say, “Gosh, Rama, what’s the best mantra?” They all want the secret code word. It’s like when I was a kid and we had the Captain Video Decoder Rings to get the secret message that they’d flash on television. Everybody thinks that if they can get the right word or holy phrase down, the right meditation technique, that it will make all the difference. While that may make you feel better, it isn’t necessarily true. Or, I would suggest, the best mantra is self-giving, because as you repeat it again and again, you change. It’s the only one I know of that really works.

If you’re trying too hard, you’ll burn yourself out. I see this so often. People come into the spiritual life, they have high aspirations, hopes, and all of those things are really justified — everything you’ve ever wanted and much more will happen, I assure you, as you meditate and progress spiritually. You can’t imagine, at this stage, the ecstasy, the final consummation as you merge with eternity. It’s quite alright!

But some people try so hard to be good. And I admire that. I’d rather see that than the opposite. But they try so hard that they don’t have any fun! They think that they’re going to do this all in a day, a week, or a month, or a year — maybe even a lifetime! It takes a while, you know, and there’s really no rush. Let life dictate the speed. What you should just do is have fun, meditate, and enjoy it. Be with your spiritual friends, your teacher, or whomever life puts you with, and enjoy it. Enjoy everything that comes to you, enjoy everything that goes away. Try and hold on to nothing, because whenever you hold on to something, you hold yourself down. Be free with your time, your money, and your love. Be extremely conservative in everything you do. Danger is everywhere in the physical world, and in order to preserve the balance of your life, you must be conscious of that. Don’t waste your time, and don’t waste your money and don’t waste your love, don’t be foolish. The balance is right between your eyes. The balance is the step into nirvana. The dissolution of the frame of reference that you have which you call yourself into eternity. The balance is not something that can be taught, although it can be shown. Today I’m showing you about spiritual balance. Not so much in a structured lecture, I’ve forgotten how to do that, I think, at least today. Rather, today, we’re just sitting here, watching eternity go by, in strands of tape, frozen eternity melting and thawing into your being. The river of life flowing. Not exactly sure of where we are, but confident of where we’re not.

When you meditate, try to feel your heart. The heart is the love. Don’t worry about physical location. Bring together your higher emotions. We have darker emotions and lighter emotions. The lighter emotions make us happy. As you sit and meditate, as you’re trying to figure out “what to do,” bring together your higher emotions and sit there and just bask in love. Think about something that makes you happy. Feel some joy.

Then, ignore your thoughts. Then, stop your thoughts. Push them all aside. Then, drop that which was pushing them aside. Then, un-then. Dissolve then. With that thin layer of perception that remains, the blanket that covers existence, become so motionless and so still that your own motionless and stillness no longer is or is not. Blend. No questions about balance and identity — please.

Humility — I keep coming back to it. I suppose it’s the one thing that everybody forgets about. It is really the thing that liberates you. You see, humility means a lack of self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is ego. Ego is that which destroys spiritual balance, or, we could say, ego is the fulcrum of spiritual imbalance. Humility is its opposite. Humility and ego, you dance between the two in life. Humility means waiting. Waiting and waiting. You’re called into God’s office, and God has you wait. After an hour or two you begin to get impatient. You read all the magazines that are there, the old, outdated Newsweek’s and Life’s and Time’s, there’s nothing left to do and you begin to get angry. “Why is God keeping me waiting? I’ve been waiting for so long, what, does God think I have nothing better to do than sit around and wait for Her? Huh!”

Humility means learning how to use your time to sit and look out the window forever, to go beyond time and to not be so concerned with you. You trap yourself in your own self-importance. You think you’re important. Perhaps to yourself you are. Perhaps to a few others you are. But God will keep you waiting as long as you think you’re important. Finally, one day, when you give up being important, She’ll show up and talk to you for a while. Until then you’ll have to wait. Sorry.

The spiritual transformation process takes a while. And when you come to a spiritual teacher, you should come knowing that you are going to be shown how to change every single imperfection in your being. To do this, you have to be ready to go through every part of yourself and reorder it. There is no success in this process. And if you feel you want to succeed and do better than others, then you’re definitely going to have a hard time. It doesn’t mean you’ll fail, but it’s going to be tough for you. If you feel that you’re going to enter into the spiritual community and climb up the level of the organization and become president and that that means success, then you’re going to have a very tough time. If you are able to come into a spiritual organization with an enlightened teacher, and just see the teacher occasionally, and meditate, if you never did anything special or had a special conversation with the teacher outwardly, but you were just delighted to be there and to learn and listen and grow, then you would be a good student. You would have the humility and you would grow. But those persons who want attention only add straw to the fire of their ego, making it burn brighter. You should come with willingness. You should want to serve eternity. When you want to serve eternity, if that is your real motive, a happy motive, or if you’ve come just to become absorbed in existence itself, then you are ready to study and grow. But if you think you’re going to make a place for yourself, in other words, if you are going to receive goods, commodities and things that will help you to establish yourself in some kind of position of power, then you should go out and go into a business, you’ll do very well there. And several lifetimes from now, when you’ve steadied yourself down, and you want to learn about selflessness, you want to find out how to be humble and pure and you’re content to wait and be patient and let eternity do it in its own way, then at that time, come back to me. Come back to the inner life. Then you’ll be ready. As long as you’d like to play in the world, that’s spiritual balance. You can play and play and have all the fun you want and all the sorrow you want. You can think you’re right, and perhaps in your own way you are. And you will work out your karma on your own.

But when the time comes, when you can no longer fight the light, then you will come to us. You will not be able to stay away, for I am eternity talking to you, and as eternity I can tell you, there’s nothing to avoid, there’s nothing to seek, there’s nothing to find, except your own eternal light, your own eternal formlessness. And there will be no real lasting happiness or completion, until you give up, until you stop fighting God. Fight as long as you like, it’s your privilege. As long as you wish to remain separate, you can. But when the time has come to come home, to fuse yourself back with that which you really are, to remember, and overcome your amnesia, then you will return. Spiritual balance is returning. It’s remembering what we are. It’s blending back with the source. Beyond all cognition, beyond all emotions and feelings, to that absolute oneness of immortal existence. that’s self-realization, that’s spiritual balance. And it coexists in everything and with everything, in any form and any world. There is nothing that it is not. The dream of life fades and wakefulness occurs.