Don't Turn Gods Into Demons | Atisha's 7 Point Mind Training

Stay Positive. Stay Aware. Stay in Truth. That is the message of Atisha in this sutra of the day: Don't turn gods into demons. When you choose positivity in every situation of life, half the spiritual journey is already done. For the rest half, develop an awareness that allows you to override the mind. And at the peak of it, you see God everywhere, because there is nothing else than God.

Transcript

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily morning live meditation session with me,

Dhehansi.

Do you remember the last time when you had a quiet mind?

Do you remember the last time when the mind was not constantly trying to pull you in its direction and you had that open space to see,

To breathe,

To be?

A walk in the park,

Maybe a dip in the ocean or a hike on the mountains?

Maybe these are few moments when you had a quiet mind,

When the mind was absolutely silent,

Where the thoughts were not random,

Where the thoughts were not necessary,

Where they were not coming all the time in your way.

Meditation is a journey to have that quiet mind not just in few moments but throughout your daily life.

Not just in the practice,

Not just in the few minutes that you sit down,

But to have that quiet mind,

To have that mind which allows you to do something about things and not the mind always hijacking what you are trying to do,

What you are trying to feel,

What you are trying to see.

In these 30 minutes every morning,

We reinforce the practice,

We reinforce these moments for ourselves so that the strength of these moments,

The silence and the awareness of these moments they start spilling out from the practice to your daily life.

And comes a point when your 24-7 is quiet.

Everything else is going on,

The world is going on,

You are participating in the world,

You are participating in your daily routines,

But inside there is silence.

Inside there is quietness.

Out of that quietness there is inner peace,

There is happiness,

There is contentment in everything that you do,

There is satisfaction,

There is love,

There is compassion for others.

Current series is 7 points Mind Training by Atisha where we are on point number 6 which is establishing the discipline of mind training.

Atisha has given us a lot of pointers,

A lot of sutras when it comes to the discipline of mind training.

And the sutra I would like to share today is,

Don't turn gods into demons.

Let me repeat,

Don't turn gods into demons.

What is Atisha trying to say here?

There are so many interpretations you can make out of this.

In my view,

Meditators who are beginners who or have not yet started meditating really,

For them the message is very simple.

Then for those who are already meditating for a while and have tasted the meditation,

Tasted the silence,

For them the message is slightly deeper.

And for the ones who have been practicing meditation for a long period of time and yet are stuck somewhere,

Yet need the next push to go into the next level,

That's where there is another deepest meaning of this sutra,

Don't turn gods into demons.

I'll share all the three with you and then we'll sit in silence for the next 15 to 20 minutes.

The first,

For those who have never meditated or who are beginners,

Who are just still playing with the idea and sometimes sitting down,

Sometimes not,

For them what Atisha means by Don't turn gods into demons is,

Don't be negative.

Don't change the situation from positivity to negativity.

This is where he is very simple,

He is saying you have the choice of what side that you take,

Are you going to be positive about things or are you going to be negative about things.

When you think,

Think positively.

Don't always turn towards the negative side.

In situations which are allowing you to choose whether you want to stay positive or negative,

Don't choose the negative.

That is already a lot done in your journey towards happiness.

If you stay positive,

If you don't fall for the negative,

If you don't choose the negative.

A monk,

He joined new in a monastery.

The monastery was well renowned,

It was supposed to create great monks,

But the time frames were long,

The practices were long.

So this monk newly joined.

In this monastery,

There was one rule that the monks will not speak.

They will always remain quiet and every four years they will have a chance to say two words to their master who is supposed to watch out on their practice,

Who is supposed to guide them throughout these years of staying at the monastery.

The monk was given a room,

Very basic,

The room usually in a monastery would have almost nothing in it,

Just something to sleep and some place to sit down and meditate.

So the monk sat down,

The monk took the admission,

Went into the room,

Stayed with the practice four years,

He came out,

That was the first chance to,

After four years of not saying anything,

He came to his teacher,

His master,

The master proudly looked at the disciple,

The monk,

Gave him the opportunity with his nod to speak.

The monk said,

Broken bed.

The master was disappointed,

He said,

Go back,

You still haven't attained,

Go back to your practice.

The monk went back,

Again he practiced day in day out,

Four years,

Another four years passed by.

So after now eight years in total of meditating every day,

Practicing every day,

He had the chance again now to see his master.

Master was again very excited to see the disciple,

To see the progress.

Then the master nodded,

Gave his approval for the monk to speak.

The monk said,

Broken window.

The master again,

He got disappointed,

Again sent back,

He hit the monk with his stick and sent back with another four years of practice.

The monk practiced day in day out,

Meditated day in day out,

And then after four years,

In total 12 years of practice,

He came back.

This time the teacher,

He was fully convinced that after 12 years of all this practice,

The monk will be fully ready,

He will be now enlightened,

He will be completely ready to go back into the world.

The monk came,

The master gave a nod in approval for the monk to speak.

The monk said,

Tasteless food.

And the master gave him another whip on the head and said,

No,

Go back to the practice.

If there is negativity in you,

It will stay there no matter what you do about it,

No matter what meditations you do.

That has to be uprooted first from the mind to take all this negativity out and to make this choice to remain positive.

When you remain positive,

Half of the journey is already done.

Your mind is already half befriended.

That's for beginners,

That's for those who are not meditating regularly.

It does apply for the advanced and the intermediate meditators,

But I'm assuming that they have gone through that phase,

They have already established positivity in their life.

If not,

Take note of this point that unless you bring positivity in your life,

No meditation will help.

Now for those who have been meditating for a while,

For a couple of years,

Have built a practice for themselves,

What does it mean?

Don't turn gods into demons.

What this means is now you have tasted awareness.

Now you have tasted what is no mind.

What does it mean to not always constantly be in the mind?

There are moments in your practice,

There are moments in your life when you know that you're functioning out of awareness.

Those moments of flow,

Those moments of pure awareness,

Pure consciousness,

The intelligence that you demonstrate,

That you experience in those moments,

You know are arising out of your awareness and not always out of your mind.

The mind is only bringing a set of thoughts.

So you have tasted both these worlds of the thought of the mind,

Of the awareness of the no mind.

What Atisha is saying,

Don't always go back to the mind.

Stay in this world of awareness,

Stay in this world of spontaneous intelligence,

Of consciousness,

Of being aware and direct with the entire experience of life and not with falling back into the mind,

Into the thought,

Into the patterns,

Questioning everything,

Trying to figure everything out with logic,

Trying to convince the mind of what's happening.

If you continue to try to convince the mind and logically satisfy yourself about life,

You will never be satisfied.

This is what Atisha means by turning gods into demons,

That you turn something that is already satisfying into dissatisfaction.

You have tasted it,

You have this chance,

This choice,

This experience,

Stay with awareness,

Stay with spontaneity,

Stay with consciousness.

And for those who are experienced meditators,

Who have gone deep in their silence,

Deep in the truth of things,

There is still a message when Atisha says,

Don't turn gods into demons.

Then you know that everything is God.

Then you know that the entire life is God.

Then you know that there is nothing else other than God.

Then you know that wherever you see,

You only see God.

Don't fall from that.

Don't let anything from this world make you fall from where you see God in everything.

That's the last push Atisha is trying to give you.

Yes,

This experience of everything being God,

Godly,

Pure consciousness,

And everything manifesting out of that pure consciousness,

Out of that one source in different shades,

In different forms,

In different manifestations,

You have experienced it,

You have tasted it,

You know it.

Go along with it.

Don't look back.

Don't look back at the demons.

Don't look back at the illusions.

Don't look back at the mind.

Stay and continue this journey when you see everything as God,

Everything as one consciousness.

With that message,

Let us close our eyes and move into silence,

Move into meditation,

And bring this message of remaining positive,

Remaining in awareness,

In godliness,

To our practice and take this from our practice to our daily lives.

Please close your eyes,

Hands in your lap,

Your posture upright,

Body relaxed,

And your body relaxed.

Just turning inwards with every breath,

Feeling the flow of your breath,

And allowing your body,

Your mind to settle with every breath.

A few moments.

Imagine that there is a source of light in the middle of your chest,

And from that source,

Light is radiating,

Filling your entire body.

Just a sense of light arising out of yourself from the middle of your chest,

And filling your entire body with light,

From your legs to your hands to your back,

Chest,

Throat,

Head,

Your entire body filled with white light.

Your entire body radiating.

Radiating with white light,

With brightness spreading outwards,

Light radiating from your entire body outwards.

With every breath,

Allow this imagination.

To become stronger.

Feeling the light becoming brighter.

Remain aware of this bright light.

Radiating outwards from your body into the whole world.

With every breath,

Allow this imagination.

With every breath,

Allow this imagination.

You,

Full of light.

Full of light inside radiating outwards into the world.

With every breath,

Allow this imagination.

Let go of this imagination.

Let the brightness stay if it stays.

If it fades away,

Let it be.

You turn inwards.

Stay silent.

Stay aware.

You,

Full of light.

.

Stay in the awareness,

Don't fall for your mind.

Stay in stillness,

Don't fall for the movement.

Stay in the awareness,

Don't fall for the movement.

Stay in silence.

In these silent moments,

Everything is positive.

Everything is God.

Everything manifests out of pure consciousness.

Maintain this taste of pure awareness,

Silence,

Centeredness,

Stillness.

If you wish to continue from here,

Let go of everything,

Go deep in your silence,

As long as it takes,

As long as you like,

Keeping your eyes closed.

Or very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes.

Noticing the brightness,

The light that comes along with this awareness and silence.

Take this to your daily life and while you go through your day to day,

Make sure that you choose positive,

That you choose awareness,

That you choose God.

I will see you tomorrow at 7 am Central European Time.

Namaste.

Reviews

Thank you 🙏🙏🙏

That was so serene and calming, I have never experienced anything like that before. Thank you for your guidance.