Last night I said something regarding the potentiality of the human ectoplasmic faculty, and of the cognitive faculty, in the expressed material world. That is, there were so many potentialities in the quinquelemental factors. Now this was the stage of introversion for the Supreme Cognition, that is, man is created in the phase of introversion, coming back. Coming back for whom? For the Supreme Cognition. Regarding man, what should be the process of his movement?

First, what is matter? Matter is bottled-up energy. And, what is mind? Mind is when matter gets powdered down, then it is mind.

Suppose you are to undergo hard physical labour; in that case your physical body will become – what? It will be tired. But suppose you did not undergo any physical labour, you did intellectual labour, say for ten or twelve hours continuously. In that case also, you will feel tired, and that tiredness will be not only of the mind but of the body also. Is it not a fact?

So the human body is not only a material body, but a psychic body and also a spiritual body. But actually there cannot be any spiritual body. There is the physical body, the quinquelemental body of human beings; and there is the psychic body, and the psychic body has several layers – crude psychic, subtle psychic, supra-psychic and so many layers. But in the spiritual realm there cannot be any body. Spirituality is the witnessing factor. It is not a body.

But it is attached to the body. Whatever the physical body is doing, your spirit, that is, the cognitive faculty, remains attached to it, and knows and sees and witnesses what it is doing. Similarly, your spirit is the witnessing factor of your psychic bodies, of what your mind is doing. It is the witnessing faculty, it is not a body.

And when this witnessing faculty remains attached to a particular individual, we say it is the individual witnessing faculty, or jiivátmá, or unit spirit. And when it knows everything, anything and everything of this Universe, it is the Supreme Cognition, Supreme Cognitive Faculty. When the spirit knows only what this little boy is doing, then it is called jiivátmá or “unit cognitive faculty”, and when that very entity knows everything of this Universe, it is the Cosmic or Supreme Cognitive Faculty. So the Supreme Cognitive Faculty is Parama Puruśa, is Parama Pitá, and the unit cognitive faculty is the jiivátmá, unit spirit.

Now here lies the difference between the Cosmic and the unit. The unit knows what the unit mind and unit body are doing. Suppose a gentleman is undergoing fasting, and secretly in a closed room, he takes chocolate. [laughter] “No one will know, nobody will know.” But it is not so. His unit cognition will know that he has taken chocolate. And similarly, the Cosmic Father will know that in a particular room one unit body took chocolate very secretly, and that unit body is still thinking that the fact that he took chocolate on a fast day is not known to anybody. It is known to everybody. Nothing is a secret.

“Now on this night I won’t join General Darshana and I will sing Bábá náma kevalam just on the footpath.” Suppose person A is thinking this. But A’s thought-waves will be known to the Supreme Father also. The Supreme Father will say, “Hmm, A is thinking this. Issue a banning order! A won’t be allowed to attend any General Darshanas.” Nothing is a secret.

Now what is spiritual practice? Spiritual practice is just the conversion of the unit objectivity into Cosmic objectivity.

Let me be more clear. Suppose, there is some unit thing. It is some unit thing because it has the bondage of – what? Boundary lines are there. Boundary lines mean the static force. Anything having a boundary line is within the scope of the three fundamental faculties, sattvaguńa, rajoguńa and tamoguńa; the sentient principle, the mutative principle and the static principle. When the thing is something limited, something small – when the object is small – in that case the subject, the subjective counterpart, is the unit consciousness.

Whenever something is done, there are two main entities, the object and the subject. And there is also the link between subject and object. The seen is the object, the seer is the subject, and then there is the action of seeing that links the subject with the object. Three entities.

Now where the object is limited, restricted, small, then the subject is the jiiva, that is, the unit consciousness. This is an ordinary being. And when the object becomes infinite, is converted into the Infinite, then the subject becomes Cosmic. The subject no longer remains something limited, something unit.

Now spiritual practice, occult practice, is the conversion of that small object into that infinite object. When you think, “This small body is mine,” you are unit consciousness. And when you think, “This vast universal body is mine,” you are Parama Puruśa. When this unit body is yours, you know all the secrets of this unit physical body, unit psychic body; and when this vast Cosmos is your object, you will know everything of this infinite space. And that is the difference, and your spiritual practice is just a practice of conversion, conversion of small into big.

Now, this process of conversion makes the man universal. And his very existence goes beyond the scope of time, space and person. And at that time what happens? He becomes not only omnipotent, but also omniscient. He knows everything without going through any books.

But when the unit wants to [[earn]] any knowledge, acquire any knowledge, the unit will have to go through several practical experiences, and also learn through books and through other people. And another thing you should know is that in the case of the unit there are so many worries and anxieties, so many pessimisms and optimisms, so many clashes and cohesions.

But in the case of the Supreme, there is no complex of pessimism or optimism,⁽¹⁾ there is no question of clashes or cohesions, because in the case of the Cosmic everything is internal, nothing is external. Everything is within and nothing is without. The entire Universe comes within the range of His mind, within the range of His mental faculty, so there remains no second entity, no second individual; so the question of any clash doesn’t arise.

When one wants to get peace, what is one to do? One is to convert one’s small objectivity into infinite objectivity; and that is the only way to get peace. There is no alternative. Just simply preaching the gospels of peace will not give you any peace. You are to convert yourself from small into big. There is no alternative.

The spiritual practice, or actually the occult practice, is a practice of increasing one’s own psychic radius. When one increases one’s radius, it becomes bigger and bigger and the range of mind is bigger. And when by increasing in this way, the radius becomes infinite, the aspirant becomes one with the Supreme. So the aspirant becomes one with Parama Puruśa.

This becoming one with Parama Puruśa, [[this]] supreme union with the Supreme Faculty, and is called salvation or emancipation. Emancipation in this case is liberation of permanent nature. Salvation is something of permanent nature. When once acquired, acquired forever, [[retained]] forever, and that is the [[stage]] of supreme composure. Each and every spiritual aspirant should know it and be infinite.⁽²⁾

Footnotes

(1) The words “so many worries and and anxieties” and “or optimism” in the forgoing two sentences have been transcribed from the original tape for this edition and incorporated here. –Eds.

(2) The words “occult”, “composure” and “infinite” in the forgoing two paragraphs have been transcribed from the original tape for this edition and incorporated here. –Eds.