QA182 QUESTION: I have a question related to the experiences I’ve had over the last month with a teacher from India and his capacity to transfer his energy to people around him so as to give his grace to them and affect them more directly. I’d like to know, firstly, what is the nature of this ability? How does it exist and what is the nature of it in the teacher as well as in our ability to receive it? And since I have, at certain points, been able to receive it and have felt it very directly and have closed up to it, how can I be more open to accepting this and using it?
ANSWER: First, I will answer the first part of your question: What brings about this energy? What is it all about? This energy is love and truth. And it is to be realized by every single entity eventually. For it is a myth that entities are separate beings. The reality is that you are all one. And he who has realized this has this immensely powerful energy at his disposal.
What stands in the way is, of course, well known. You know it, being involved in the Path. It is your own negativities, your misconceptions, your ignorance, your fears, your holding on to the little ego, to the apparent safeties, to the customary games of negativity and destructiveness, to the self-rejection that denies the ultimate power of even the destructive energy in you.
All of this, as well as the illusion of a separated mind that the separated mind must transcend – that it must transcend itself. And that requires a great deal of groping and searching and always and finally at each separate stage the courageous act of surrender, of building the faith that will only become a certainty when the believing in this power – the ultimate power of your innermost being – is risked, as it were. Now, this is the Path. This is the way. This is the realization – this is self-realization.
Self-realization means the immense power that comes from truth: from the truth of knowing all is one, from the truth of knowing that love is the key, and from the love that can be extended to the whole universe when courage and humility and self-surrender exist. That is what creates the power. Everyone who has ever accomplished this self-realization has had it, and everyone who will accomplish it will realize it.
Now to the second part: How can you be more receptive? The receptivity comes from precisely what I said before – overcoming that in you which obstructs it, and resolve the elements I mentioned. But the ultimate aim is really not to have to depend on receiving it from another person, but it comes from generating it within yourself. That must be the aim.
If you were at all able to accept it, receive it, it was partially because a willingness was there in you and partially because the power is very great in this person. But also the two must come together. It is possible that people have the power to affect others even when they are negative, but if on a special occasion there is a lifted spirit, it may penetrate the obstructions. Does that make it clear?
QUESTION: [Pause] Yes.
ANSWER: What is additional that you would like to know?
QUESTION: I was just curious, even with the negativity, say on my part, or on other people’s part, that this power is so strong that it can pierce it, even to a certain level.
ANSWER: Yes. Well, you see, this is what I was trying to say. It is partially the realized power in this person, but it is partially also the conditions – the conditions which were that a number of people came together with positive expectations and in a spirit of openness at that particular time, and that generated energy. There is always energy when more people are together, either negatively or positively.
This is why, for instance, in these meetings, both the breathing, the expressing, letting out negative feelings openly and candidly so as to make room for the positive energy to flow, and meditating and making yourself receptive will bring another kind of energy than when everybody sits here with their defenses on and their negativity and their negative thoughts and feelings and warding off and worrying about the other people and being very ego-oriented at the moment.
This will prohibit even the strongest energy to flow. But if everyone comes together with a real openness and open expectancy, what is given forth can be receptive. So the particular mood is a mutually feeding thing. The mood was there. Somehow the people who came had an attitude that was very open for it, very ready, very expectant. That brought forth more of this man’s energy, and that mutually became a benign energy circle that was exchanged.
So it must be always a two-way thing. And this is why in gatherings such as this, the spirit in which you come can contribute so much, the spirit in which you listen can contribute so much. And this is why when people take something for granted over and over again, the energy will abate, while if there is something very special, something can be generated. The attitude is very, very important here.
