About
Sri Amma and Bhagavan

© 2007
Oneness
University
Loved...
by
millions,
Sri Amma
Bhagavan
are
avatars*
for
awakening
and God
realization.
They are
one
single
avataric
consciousness
in two
bodies.
They
represent
the
Divine
feminine
and the
Divine
masculine.
Together
Amma and
Bhagavan
power
the
process
of
awakening
of the
individual
seeker
as Yin
and
Yang,
stillness
and
movement,
Prakruti
and
Purusha.
They are like the spirit, all pervading
yet abiding in the deepest recesses of
one's Being. They are the silent
Presence powering the phenomenon of
Oneness Deeksha everywhere. Far removed
from the periphery of the various
activities of the movement they reside
at the Oneness temple. Oneness Deeksha
anywhere in the world draws its power
from the consciousness and the intent of
Sri Amma Bhagavan. They are the life
breath behind the any number of miracles
that are experienced by the seekers.
They manifest across space and time to
people when they seek their help. Their
consciousness not being limited to their
physical body, Amma Bhagavan's
manifestation even predates their birth.
What was hitherto possible for great
masters, Sri Amma Bhagavan are making it
possible for ordinary men and women.
This immense power of the avatars is
sourced in their compassion. To have a
glimpse into their nature, let us
reminisce one of those statements Sri
Bhagavan made in a darshan, "A humanity
that is already burdened by its struggle
for survival cannot be given the
additional responsibility of seeking its
own awakening. Man cannot make it on his
own, it has to be given to him". Sri
Amma Bhagavan do not belong to any one
people, one nation or one faith. They
are for all mankind. Their vision is not
a golden age for any one community or
country. It is a Global Golden age.
Seeker: What are you Bhagavan?
Sri Bhagavan: I am what you think I am.
*Understanding "Avatar"
Seeker:
"Please talk to me about God".
Sri Bhagavan:
"God could be spoken in three ways - the
Unmanifest , the Manifest and the
Incarnation. The Unmanifest is the
unknowable. By its very definition, the
Unmanifest cannot be seen, felt or
heard. It is attributeless and hence
cannot be known. Remember it is not the
unknown but the unknowable. What is
unknown today could be known tomorrow.
There is no way for you to understand
reality or God. It will forever be
unknowable. As far as you are concerned,
the Unmanifest is as good as
non-existent God is very much like the
unmanifest electricity that is
experienced only when it manifests as
light sound or sensation. God's manifest
form is all that is. The manifest God is
the higher sacred self or the Presence
you experience in your heart. This God
could also manifest externally as a form
or as the voice within. God also
manifests as love, awareness,
compassion, power and several other
sacred attributes. The Unmanifest
sometimes also manifests externally as a
form. When the unknowable reality limits
itself into a frame, it is an Avatar. An
Avatar is a being who is born with a
destiny to aid humanity into its next
phase of evolution.
Seeker:
Who is an Avatar?
Sri Bhagavan:
Dharma is the Eternal Cosmic Principle.
It is the Way. Dharma also means a set
of Laws that govern and uphold the
universe. The Hindus call Dharma 'Sanatana'
which means eternal. Dharma could be
compared to a train, which has a
beginningless beginning and an endless
end. It keeps moving but from nowhere to
nowhere. This train has had several
drivers, Rama, Krishna, Christ, Buddha,
Mohammad, Zarathushtra. Amma and I are
now driving the train. After us there
would be some other driver. It is the
Unmanifest Cosmic Consciousness that
manifests as the various drivers and the
passengers.
Seeker:
Are you the ultimate Avatar?
Sri Bhagavan:
Just as there cannot be an Ultimate
painting or an Ultimate dance, there
cannot be an Ultimate Avatar.
The Vision
'To set man free' is the sole passion
of Sri Amma Bhagavan. This vision runs
as the nerve current through every
activity of the Oneness Movement. The
origins of this passion are to be traced
back to the time when Sri Bhagavan was
three years old. In His experience the
whole universe was an extension of
Himself. His consciousness had always
been so. As Sri Bhagavan began to
experience people, He became cognizant
of the fact that people were not
experiencing the world the way He was
experiencing it. He saw they felt
separate from the rest of the world.
This sense of separate existence, he
discovered, was the edifice on which
stood human suffering. This was the very
first awakening that Sri Bhagavan had of
the human predicament that shaped His
future work. Sri Bhagavan felt that the
human consciousness was capable of a
much vaster and richer experience of
reality than it is experiencing today.
To restore man to the magnificence and
splendor of his natural state of being
became Sri Bhagavan's passion.
Thus the vision took its birth.
The nature of existence is bliss. It
is qualified by auspicious qualities
like love, compassion, connectedness and
silence. Man's consciousness is fettered
by concepts, ideas, conditionings and
mental constructions. Sri Bhagavan
observes, 'When consciousness is purged
of all its contamination what remains is
life, pure consciousness or God'. Hence
Sri Bhagavan defines Awakening or
Oneness as 'liberation of life itself'.
This 'total and unconditional
freedom' Sri Bhagavan speaks about is
elucidated in the following verse on
awakening.
'Moksho nama jeevasya vimukthihi
ethasmath
.....iti satyam satyameva stayam'
Awakening
Is
Liberation of life
Is
Liberation of the senses
Is
Liberation from the self
Is
Liberation from the mind
Is
Liberation from knowledge
Is
Liberation from conditioning
Is
Liberation from society
Is
Liberation from work
This is truth.
- Sri Bhagavan
Liberation of life
Awakening at a very fundamental level
is to 'live life'. The scriptures define
an awakened man as someone who is able
to hold his senses under control.
According to Sri Bhagavan, awakening on
the other hand, is liberation 'of' the
senses or freeing the senses from the
clutches of the mind. The mind with its
judgments and commentaries interferes
with every sensory perception, making it
stale and lifeless. If not for this
interference of the mind, the human
nervous system is capable of generating
bliss through every sensory experience,
be it seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting
or touch irrespective of the object of
the experience. Thus one whose senses
are liberated transcends the life of the
mind and experiences the life of the
senses.
Liberation from the self
Self is the sense of separate
existence. Whenever there is the 'me'
and the 'other', the result is fear -
fear of what the other would do to me.
Out of fear, struggle for survival,
comparison, jealousy, hatred, all the
rest are born. Sri Bhagavan says 'Self
is only a concept'. A concept by
definition is something that does not
exist in reality. It is an illusion.
Liberation from the mind
The popular notion about freedom from
the mind is either cessation of the mind
where you enter a state of
'thoughtlessness' or transformation of
the mind where the mind experiences
greater freedom and peace within itself.
The liberation Sri Bhagavan speaks about
is neither of these. It is the cessation
of the effort to stop or change the
mind. Then you are free 'with' the mind.
The mind with its contents exists
independently only to aid you with
practical issues of life but does not
interfere with the experience of life
itself.
Liberation from knowledge
When Sri Bhagavan speaks about
liberation from knowledge, it is
liberation from the bondage of knowledge
and not knowledge itself. When knowledge
is not translated into an experience it
becomes a hindrance to the very
experience that you have set out to
achieve. Knowledge that is an obstacle
to the experience of life is a burden
and a bondage. Hence has to drop.
Liberation from conditioning
The ideas of communism, capitalism,
equality, nationality, religion etc.,
have been developed by man over
millennia. These ideas and concepts have
a life of their own. They are making use
of your life for their survival. They
enter you as a 'thought-bug' and color
every experience of life. Liberation
from conditioning is not to be devoid of
any idea or concept but to be free to
choose them in functional matters of
life.
Liberation from society
Ultimately man is bound by the
concept of 'freedom' itself. He thinks
freedom is achieved by going against the
existing system and the norms of the
society. 'Freedom' is essentially an
internal state of existence where you no
more arise from fear. Hence there is no
suffocation or resistance against any
structure, law or value that 'society'
stands for. Freedom is not a revolt
against something. It is a state of
consciousness that has no opposites.
Liberation from work
Sri Bhagavan differentiates activity
from action. Activity is an escape from
inner void or pain of existence. It is
done as a means to an end. You work,
drive, cook, clean, pray because you
have a psychological need behind all
these that you want to fulfill. Action
is where the destination or the purpose
exists in a physical sense but not in a
psychological sense. The experience is
an end in itself. It arises from an
inner state of joy and freedom. While
the awakened man also works, he is free
from the tyranny of work.
Message from the
Founders
A Message from Sri Amma and Sri
Bhagavan
In a world where mankind feels
threatened by social upheavals, over
population, wars, terrifying violence,
callousness, each human being is more
than ever concerned with his own
survival.
Survival has implied living sanely,
happily without great pressure or
strain. Each one of us translates
survival according to his own particular
concept. The idealist projects a way of
life which is not the actual; the
theoreticians, whether Marxist,
religious, or of any other particular
persuasion have laid down patterns for
survival; the nationalists consider
survival possible only in a particular
group or community. These ideological
differences, ideals and faiths are the
roots of a division that is preventing
human survival.
Men want to survive in a particular
way, according to their narrow
responses, according to their immediate
pleasures, according to some faith. All
these can in no way bring security, for
in themselves they are divisive,
exclusive, limited. To live in the hope
of survival according to tradition,
however ancient or modern, has no
meaning. Partial solutions of any kind -
scientific, religious, political,
economic- can no longer assure mankind,
its survival. Man has been concerned
with his own individual survival, with
his family, with his group, his nation
and because all this is divisive it
threatens his actual survival.
The modern divisions of
nationalities, of color, of culture, of
religion are the causes of man's
uncertainty of survival. In the turmoil
of today's world, uncertainty has made
man turn to authority - to the
political, religious or economic expert.
The specialist is inevitably a danger
because his response must always be
partial, limited. Man is no longer
individual, separate. What affects the
few, affects all mankind. There is no
escape or avoidance of the problem. You
can no longer withdraw from the totality
of the human predicament.
We cannot possibly survive if we are
concerned with our own survival. All
human beings the world over are
interrelated today. What happens in one
country affects the others. Man
considers himself an individual,
separate from others but psychologically
a human being is inseparable from the
whole of mankind.
There is no such thing as
psychological survival. When there is
this desire to survive or to fulfill you
are psychologically creating a situation
which not only separates but which is
totally unreal. Psychologically you
cannot be separate from another and this
desire to be separate psychologically is
the very source of danger and
destruction. Each person asserting
himself threatens his own existence.
This assertion of separateness
destroys our capacity to work together;
to work together with nature, the living
things of the earth and also with other
human beings. As social beings we exist
for ourselves. Our laws, our
governments, our religions all emphasize
the separateness of man - which during
the centuries has developed into man
against man. It is becoming more and
more important, if we are to survive,
that there be a spirit of cooperation
with the universe, with all the things
of the sea and earth.
One can see in all social structures
the destructive effect of fragmentation
taking place - nation against nation,
one group against another group, one
family against another family, one
individual against another, religiously,
socially, and economically. Each one is
striving for himself, for his class or
his particular interest in the
community. This division of beliefs,
ideals, conclusions and prejudices is
preventing the spirit of cooperation
from flowering. We are human beings, not
tribal identities, exclusive, separate.
We are human beings caught in
conclusions, theories, faiths. We are
living creatures, not labels. It is our
human circumstance that makes us search
for food, clothes and shelter at the
expense of others. Our very thinking is
separative, and all actions springing
from this limited self, must prevent
cooperation. The economic and social
structure, as it is now, including
organized religions, intensifies
exclusiveness, and separateness. This
lack of cooperation ultimately brings
about wars and the destruction of man.
It is only during crises or disasters,
that we seem to come together and when
they are over we are back to our old
condition. We seem to be incapable of
living and working together
harmoniously.
Is it because our brain, which is the
centre of our thought, our feeling, has
from ancient days become through
necessity so conditioned to seek its own
personal survival, that this isolating,
aggressive process has come about? Is it
because this isolating process
identifies itself with the family, with
the tribe, and becomes glorified
nationalism? Is not all isolation linked
to a need for identification and
fulfillment? Has not the importance of
the self been cultivated through
evolution by the opposition of the 'me'
and 'you', the 'we' and 'they'? Have not
all religions emphasized personal
salvation, personal awakening, personal
achievement, both religiously and in the
world? Has cooperation become impossible
because we have given such importance to
this sense of separateness? Is it
because human cooperation has centered
on some kind of authority of Government
or religion around some ideology or
conclusion, which then inevitably brings
about its own destructive opposite?
What does it mean to cooperate - not
the word but the spirit of it? You
cannot possibly cooperate with another,
with the earth and its waters, unless
you in yourself are harmonious, not
broken up, non contradictory; you cannot
cooperate if you yourself are under
strain, pressure, conflict. How can you
cooperate with the universe if you are
concerned with yourself, your problems
and your ambitions? There can be no
cooperation if all your activities are
self centered and you are occupied with
your own selfishness, with your own
secret desires and pleasures. As long as
the intellect with its thoughts
dominates all your actions, obviously
there can be no cooperation, for
self-centered thought is partial, narrow
and everlastingly divisive. Cooperation
demands great honesty. Honesty has no
motive. Honesty is not some ideal, some
faith. Honesty is clarity - the clear
perception of things as they are.
Perception is attention. That very
attention throws light with all its
energy on that which is being observed.
This light of perception brings about a
transformation of the thing observed.
There is no system through which you
learn to cooperate. It is not to be
structured and classified. Its very
nature demands that there be love and
that love is not measurable, for when
you compare - which is the essence of
measurement - self has entered. Where
self is, love is not.
When the truth of all this is seen
and understood man's responsibility
undergoes a radical change not only
towards his immediate environment but
also towards all living things. This
total responsibility is love. This love
acts through intelligence. This
intelligence is not partial, individual
separate. Love is never partial. Love is
the sacredness of all living things.
We have stated the problem, the cause
and now we must find the solution.
Through no effort of his, could man
possibly make it. All this is possible
only when your heart is filled with the
Presence. The Presence flows into you
through Oneness Deeksha.
Oneness Deeksha would thus help
create a new generation of human beings,
with a new outlook, with a new sense of
being citizens of the world, concerned
with all the living things of the earth.
It is your grave responsibility to help
bring about this Oneness. |