Healing the Soul

The Essence of Ayurveda

Session 2 Part 1 Transcription

Babaji: We heard there were some comments, that "Why are you talking about God? We want to learn about Ayurveda." What that means is, those people didn't understand anything. What are they expecting? To hear about herbs and stuff? No; that's not the real value of Ayurveda. You can learn about herbs anyplace. In fact, you have a very good tradition of herbal healing right here in Mexico. One of the principles of Ayurveda is that you should use local-grown remedies; so whenever possible, use the herbs that grow in the place where you live. What's the use if I talk about all kinds of Indian herbs? Nobody knows what I'm talking about. But herbs are not really the point anyway.

Let's go over again the meaning of Ayurveda. Ayur means health; and what does Veda mean? 

Response: Knowledge.

Babaji: What kind of knowledge? 

Response: Absolute Truth about God.

Babaji: Absolute Truth! Right. Ayurveda means "health in the context of Absolute Truth." Remember the story about the black cat? What is the story? You can't see the black cat in the black room; you can only see it in the white room, because consciousness requires contrast: foreground and background, content and context. So we cannot understand optimum health in the context of material existence; we can only understand [it] in the context of spiritual existence. 

We're going to talk about very technical, very high knowledge; very difficult to understand--Einstein-level. So Ayurveda means, when a patient comes to you for healing, what are you dealing with? A piece of meat? No, there's something more: soul, consciousness, mind, emotion--so many subtle things, which are all symptoms of the soul. So without spiritual knowledge, how can you heal? And without a spiritual context, how can you understand the soul? 

It's the cat in the room again. In a material context we can understand the material body [to some extent], but we cannot understand the soul. This is why the scientists are baffled by consciousness. They're trying to understand consciousness as if it's something material; as if we can take consciousness, isolate it and put it in a bottle, and run some experiments in the lab. This is not possible. 

We have to understand consciousness as a symptom of the soul; then it makes sense. And the soul has to be understood in the context of spiritual knowledge; then it makes sense. Otherwise it's impossible [to understand]. 

What is consciousness? Consciousness is a very complex process. It involves a great deal of information and energy. So let's make a diagram that explains how consciousness functions. So first we have the material body. And the material body has senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, the feeling of motion [kinesthesia], and many, many more. For example, if our stomach is acidic, we feel a little indigestion; that's another kind of sense. Or if we didn't get enough rest, we feel tired; that's another kind of sense. [There are] many different senses. 

OK, what are the senses engaged with? This material world. Information is coming from the material world into the senses. The ears process sound; the eyes process light, form and color; the taste and smell process biochemical reactions like flavor; and so on and so on and so on. All this generates a great deal of energy--I'm sorry, a great deal of information. For example, if you've played around with computers, or video, this little video camera, it's not even a professional model, for one hour, generates 13 Gigabytes [of information]. So if this camera, which does not even duplicate the function of one eye, generates so much information in just one hour, how much information is generated by all the senses, all together, even in a single day? 

Now, how much information can we handle with our mind? How fast can you read? Or hear? Let's say if one person is talking to you, how much information is that? Well, an ordinary MP3 file is about one Megabyte per minute. One Megabyte per minute; that's just one ear. [But] we have two ears; we hear in stereo. Plus we have two eyes, and all these other senses going at the same time. And if more than one person is speaking, then our mind becomes overwhelmed and we become confused. 

So the actual capacity of the human mind is about one Megabyte per minute, because that's how much we can hear without becoming confused. But all the senses together generate much more than that. Maybe a thousand times, or ten thousand times that much information. So what happens to all that information? The answer is, we have to have something in between our senses and our mind. So here's our mind; there has to be something in between, because we can't process that much information. It's just not possible for us; we're not that intelligent. 

So what is this box [between the senses and the mind]? It's something like a computer. And this computer, what it does is, it recognizes patterns. In fact, we can call it "Pattern Recognition," [meaning] that the information which is coming in is reduced to patterns--and symbols. 

What is a word? It's a symbol for something much more complex. If I say 'computer,' that's a very simple symbol; but a computer itself is something very complex. Or if I say "Ulises," Ulises is a symbol, but the reality is very complex; but it allows me to reason using simple human logic without becoming confused. So the value of symbols is that they're abstractions. Abstractions are simpler than the reality that they represent; they bring our experience within the limits of our intelligence. 

These symbols and abstractions are on different levels; some of them are very low-level, and some of them are on a very high level. For example, if I say "red," that' a very low-level abstraction. "That clock is red." It's a very simple thing. But if I say, "How are you doing?" and he says, "OK," that answer, "OK," is a very high level of abstraction, because it includes his entire situation--assuming he is being truthful. Oftentimes people are not truthful, and we have to read through their symbols and look at their body language and other symptoms to find out the truth. Because we have a social mechanism of lying to avoid complexity. We don't want to give people complexity; so when they say "Como esta," "O, bien."  He's laying in the hospital bed, in traction, huh? "Bien."  

So to find out the truth, we have to know how the patterns are being made into symbols. In other words, we have to understand the software in our own mind. What is this software? It's called ontology. Ontology means the algorithm or the calculation of how our mind makes symbols; and especially, how our mind creates the high-level symbols, such as situational awareness. 

If someone comes to you for healing, and you say "How do you feel?" you're asking for a high-level abstraction: "Oh, OK..." Or a person says, "Oh, I feel terrible." Or they may say so many different things; but then you have to tease that apart and understand the reality behind what they're saying. That's the biggest challenge for a healer; the problem is, most people are completely unaware of their ontology, because they picked it up in the course of everyday life, on the lap of their mother, and from their friends, and from their early experiences in life. And since then, they haven't really given it much thought. 

So when they say something like "I'm OK," or "I feel bad," or "I don't know," there can be a lot of information hidden behind that symbol, which they may not even know. So I think one of the assumptions that any healer makes is that the patient is lying, [at least] to some degree; or, they're unaware to some degree of their actual condition. This is because they are unconscious of their ontology. 

An ontology means a list of the things that are possible to exist; and then dividing those things into categories, and assigning values. For example, money; money is something that exists in everyone's ontology. But then, what kind of value do we assign to money? Some people assign tremendous value to money; other people are not so concerned about money. And which people are happier? What do you think?

Response: The ones that don't give it much value.

Babaji: Yes; right. You see this... We were just observing this in the car on the way to the class; the people begging at the traffic light looked happier than the people in the cars. And especially, the bigger the cars, the more unhappy the people [in them]. Really! We did a film called 2012, and there's a scene of a traffic jam; remember the traffic jam? And there's these people in this little bitty car, and they're like, "Hi" [waves happily]. And then there's another picture of this lady in a really nice SUV, and she's like [makes a sour face] wouldn't even look at us. 

So you can tell people who are too much involved in material values [because they] don't have time to be happy; they're too busy taking care of their stuff. So these people are much more likely to have symptoms sneak up on them, because they're not really aware of their body and mind. They're too much involved in symbols of wealth and status, and [are] pursuing these things with no real awareness of themselves. So if something goes wrong, it generally surprises them. Whereas more simple people, if they don't feel good, it's like "Oh, I'm not going to the farm today, I don't feel good." They take care of it; they fast for the day, or they take some herbs, or something. 

I've lived among people who are very poor, especially in India, and I was struck by the fact that they were willing to share their last bowl of rice--with a stranger. And this is extraordinary, because--and I've seen it again and again--the less material things a person owns, the more generous they are. I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, but that's been my experience. 

So anyway, this pattern recognition now is coming up with many different symbols: at the lowest level, sensations. For example, if I look at a tree, what is my sensation? 

Response: Freshness. 

Babaji: Yeah, or green, or the shape of a tree or something. That's a sensation; but then when my mind recognizes, "Oh, this is a tree," that's a different kind of recognition, which involves language: "That's a tree." See? Pattern recognition; then I assign value: "Oh, that's a fruit tree: very valuable."  Or, "That's just an ordinary tree: no value." Actually, everything has value; but that value that we assign is according to our... what?

Response: Consciousness. 

Babaji: Consciousness, or our ontology, specifically. All these things are components of our consciousness; but our values are specifically from our ontology. An ontology can come from a religion, or it can come from a scientific viewpoint, it can come from experience, or by hearing from teachers; it can come from our own reason, or it can come from examples that we see in other people's lives. But very few people take the trouble to create their ontology deliberately. The Vedas invite us to do exactly this, because the Vedas are consciously created to explain reality. Not just the physical reality; physical and spiritual reality, both matter and life, body and spirit. 

So without understanding all these things, how can we know what to do when we have a patient? Without understanding the relationship between the spirit and the body, how can we translate what the patient tells us, and know how to treat him? Nobody becomes sick in a vacuum; they're experiencing the result of their activities in the past. This is called karma. So we also have to understand the Law of Karma. And we're going to go into that in great detail [in] next week's session. This session I want to talk specifically about the science of consciousness; so let's go on. 

Now the mind is receiving all these symbols, abstractions that describe our experience. And what happens in the mind? In the mind we have a conversation; the conversation goes like this: "Well, I'm feeling OK but I wish I had something to eat, and I'm really tires of listening to this guy talk because I don't really think he knows what he's talking about, but I'm going to stay here because my friends are here, and blah blah blah, and I don't want to get embarrassed..." [laughter] Huh? Oh, sorry for reading somebody's mind. [laughter] 

In the mind there is always a conversation going. Blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah... You cannot stop this conversation, unless your attention is on the senses. For example if you're doing something athletic that requires your full energy, your full attention, or if you're in the middle of making some beautiful art, or something that absorbs your full attention, maybe then the mind will stop. But most of the time the mind will still be off in the corner going, "Well, I don;t like that color green that you're using on that painting; I really think you ought to make it a little brighter..." See? That's the mind. 

The mind is based on "I like--I don't like," depending on our senses. If our senses are pleased by something, we say "I like it." If our senses aren't pleased, then we don't like it. Accepting and rejecting based on the senses: this is the function of the mind. But is that the only thing that's going on? Or is there more? 

Response: More. 

Babaji: Above the mind is the intelligence. The intelligence... the function of the intelligence is discrimination and making plans. So the intelligence is like a supervisor watching the mind, saying, "Mind, you know, this really doesn't help our plans; you really should do something else." Or, "OK mind, you're really on the right track; you need to do more of this." This is a higher level of intelligence than mind. Most people spend most of their time in the mental consciousness. But higher-intelligent people spend most of their time in intelligence consciousness, looking at strategies. What are going to be the consequences? 

The essence of strategy is time. The mind is unaware of time. The mind is like a child; always in the present. "I like it; I don't like it. I want it; I don't want it. It's good; it's bad." But the intelligence sees things in perspective. "Well, if I do this now, then that will happen; and then so-and-so is going to do this, and then if I do that, then I'll get [whatever I want]." OK? So this is the intelligence. The intelligence is always evaluating what is happening now, and trying to extrapolate what is going to happen in the future. This is the intelligence. 

And above the intelligence is soul. And what is the function of the soul? To desire: "I want...[whatever]." Now according to the quality of our desire, this determines our future. Not what we desire; but the quality of what we desire. You notice, I'm always adding another layer of abstraction; higher and higher layers of abstraction. And the higher we go, the closer we come to spiritual things. We started out with just gross matter, then the living body; then the processing of the nervous system; and then pattern recognition; and then the conversation of the mind and the strategy of the intelligence; but all of them serve the desire of the soul.

Now, everybody that will come to you for healing may have different conditions, but they all suffer from the same root disease, which is: they desire to be separate from God. They want to enjoy independently of God. They want to enjoy heaven without the presence of God. Look at the advertisements, television, the radio, the magazines; people want to enjoy like... as if they're in heaven.  But without any God in control. They want to be in control. 

So this is the root disease of the cause of material existence. Everybody you will meet as a patient, and most everybody else also, has got this disease. This is why we are subject to the Law of Karma; the Law of Karma is there because we want to enjoy the fruits of our activity. We are working for our own personal benefits, and because of this, we have to take responsibility for all the results of our actions. 

Now the problem is, our intelligence is very limited. That's why we have to have this abstraction machine, because we could never process all this information. So part of the information that we can't process is, for example, all the laws of physics, or all the laws of cause and effect. So everything we do creates unintended consequences, and this is called karma. How many times have we started out to do one thing, and then wound up doing something else? How many times have we done something to be happy, and it wound up causing us sadness instead? Everyone has this experience over and over and over again in this life. That's because our intelligence is limited. 

So we keep doing things so that we can enjoy, not realizing that the laws of the universe automatically punish this kind of behavior. Why? Who created this material world? 

Response: God. 

Babaji: So who owns this material world?

Response: God. 

Babaji: So who should get to say what happens in this material world?

Response: God. 

Babaji: Right. "Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."  His will is done in this world. The thing is, we keep fighting with Him: "No, I don't want to take Your plan, I want to do my own plan." For example, do we think that God is an irresponsible Creator? [That] He's created so many people and so many living beings, so is there any reason why anybody should be hungry? 

Response: No. 

Babaji: So God provides food for all the living beings that He creates. But due to our mismanagement, due to desire for profit, we artificially restrict the supply, raising the prices and putting the food out of reach of the poorer people. This is the result of greed. It's not God's fault; it's our fault for mismanaging because of greed, because of desire for profit. So we're conditioned to think that we have to work for our own benefit; but actually, our real duty is to work for God's benefit. When we do this, we are excused from the Law of Karma. 

So if we really want to be free from sickness, and from all kinds of illness, psychological illness and dis-ease--meaning feeling uneasy, anxiety and like that--then we should work for God according to His plan. This is all part of Ayurveda. Ayur means health, and Veda means spiritual wisdom. So without spiritual health, how can the body be healthy? If we have a spiritual disease, how can we attain physical health? Because the root disease is always going to cause other symptoms. 

It's just like if a person has some metabolic imbalance. So one day they come to you with a cold and you cure that. And then the next week they come to you with indigestion, and then you cure that. And the next time they come back with something else, aches and pains. Because you're not addressing the root disease, imbalance of the endocrine system or something like that, it manifests in many different kinds of symptoms. And until you correct the deep cause, the symptoms will keep coming back. 

Similarly, the soul is the cause of the body. When the soul enters the egg at the time of conception, then growth begins. And when the soul leaves the body, death is immediate. So the soul is the cause of the material body. If the soul has a spiritual disease, how can the body be healthy? 

OK, so the next step is... Let's go through the whole chain again, so you understand. The material world gives information to our senses. The senses produce pattern which are turned into symbols. Then the mind reviews all those, and decides whether "I like" or "I don't like," according to the plan created by the intelligence to serve the desire of the soul. So then the soul looks at all this and says, "It's going OK," or "It's not going OK." And then the soul submits a prayer to God or the Supersoul. 

The Supersoul lives in the heart of every living being. We don;t think about His presence, but He's always there. He knows every thought; He hears every prayer. I mean, who keeps our heart beating at night when we're asleep? We don't even think about it, but it's going on by the will of God. Who digests our food, a very complex biochemical process? But do we even think about it? No. The intelligence to regulate the endocrine system or the nervous system, or any of the complex systems--the autonomic nervous system--all this comes from God. 

So God is present in the body, and is literally completely involved in every action of the body. Think about it: the soul is spiritual, and the body is material. What does the soul have to do with the body? How can we even perceive the body? Because the body is a fundamentally different existence than the soul. It happens through the power of the Supersoul. 

So the soul is making prayers or requests to the Supersoul, and the Supersoul is giving memory, dreams [and] inspiration to the mind. Did you ever try to remember somebody's name, and you can't quite? You can see his face, but you just can't [remember his name]; no matter how how hard you try, it's doesn't come. Because memory is not under our control; memory is under God's control. If God had no other way of controlling us, He could completely run our lives just by controlling our memory. Nothing else is necessary. 

But in fact, He actually operates the body. If I think, "I want to put my hand up," then He puts the hand up for me. Because the soul has nothing to do with the body. It's only by the extraordinary potency of God that the soul even becomes related to the body. Because we want to live in a world where God is apparently not present, He says "OK" [and puts us in the material world]. Just see the unconditional love of God. Because we desire [separation from Him], He says "OK, I'll put you in a world where apparently I'm not present." And He disappears from our ordinary vision. 

But it's only through this kind of spiritual knowledge that we can see His presence with our intelligence. So when the intelligence is properly situated in transcendental knowledge, then we realize, "Oh, God has created everything; God is the owner of everything, including this body. So my responsibility is to use this body in His service." And when we do that, then we find such a great source of energy, and happiness, and wonder, and love; our whole consciousness becomes transformed. 

I mean, you can understand if God is so intimately involved in the functioning of our body, mind and consciousness, then our relationship with God is critical to our well-being. And if we're trying to fight against God, or push our own plan instead of His, what's going to be the result? "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Didn't Jesus say that? What is he talking about? Politics? Come on, give Jesus more credit than that. But small-minded people misinterpret everything. Actually Jesus is always talking about spiritual things. But he's talking on such a high level that most people don't understand; it goes right over their heads. 

So we're living in the same house with God. The house of God is this body; the temple of God is the heart. So when Jesus says, "Go in your house and shut the door and pray," what does he mean, go in your bedroom? [laughs] No, he says "Go within your heart." He says "The Kingdom of heaven is within you." It's not up there someplace in the sky, [laughs] it's within you. OK, so this [diagram] is the secret meaning of all these sayings, explained as a software information flow. 

Actually, God also operates the body and the senses. Oh and by the way, He also operates the material world, the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry, the laws of genetics. He's doing everything, He's within every atom, personally present. So a person who thinks, "I'm separate from God, I don't have anything to do with God, I don't have any relationship with God," is suffering from a form of insanity, and this is causing them so much distress and discomfort, anxiety [and] uncertainty. 

For example, if I didn't understand that when I drop something, it's going to fall down [drops keys], I would be very upset every time I try to put something away [in the air] and it doesn't stay there. If I didn't understand [that] there's a law of physics, I would be very confused at how the world works. And actually that would be a form of insanity. But yet we see so many people [who] don't understand that God is intimately involved in the affairs of the world, intimately involved in the operation of their body and mind, so even if they have a good understanding of how external things work, they're completely clueless as far as how their own body and mind work.

So the lesson of Ayurveda is [that] without understanding God, you can't really understand anything; we're ignorant. Somebody got very upset with Ulises last week, because he said--remember that?--that from the perspective of a God-conscious person, the materialist is ignorant. And the guy wanted to argue. Well they may know so many things; you know, I don't know how to build a submarine, or something like that. You may know more than me about the material world, but somebody who doesn't know this [spiritual knowledge] doesn't even know their real self. So how can they say that they know anything? 

We may know how to build atomic weapons and missiles and stuff like that; but as a culture we're completely ignorant of the ways of God and of the spiritual science. Now the funny thing is, this knowledge is well-known in India. But we have been educated to believe that the Indians are very primitive, and their religion is "mythology." And who started that story? People who wanted to control us  by keeping us weak and ignorant. 

So the point is here--I want to wrap this [topic] up in about five minutes, and then we'll go on. The point here is, if we want people to be strong and healthy, sane, we all have a responsibility to educate them in spiritual knowledge, to share with them spiritual values, and to show by example that we're working for the benefit of God, not for the benefit of ourselves. Then if we do that, we contribute more to their health than if we give them a bunch of herbs and medicine or bodywork, and solve their immediate symptoms. 

Just like, if you teach somebody to cook, you give them more benefit than if you just feed them a meal. So our approach is [that] the most valuable treatment is spiritual education. That's why we make these videos available; you can show them to your patients--or even copy them, we don't care--and make them aware of spiritual values. Help them to understand the real situation. It causes us so much stress to fight against God; it's much easier to just learn this system and follow along with His plan. 

I think in every religion the aim of life is given as love of God. I don't think I've seen any scripture where this is not the case. So if we develop love of God ourselves and share it with the people in our lives, we become a force for their spiritual growth. That's what we're trying to induce everyone to do, because that's the best thing for us individually, and as a group, as a human family. If society becomes God-centered, then because of that common center, it forms a basis for cooperation that's far more powerful than individual enterprise. 

So that's my lecture for today. Now do we have any questions?

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