On the path of discipleship there is a law to which many do not pay attention. This law states, "Whoever stops on a step of the ladder, he not only breaks the law but also violates the rights of other people to proceed."
People enjoy life with relationships, dreams, and activities on the same level they have achieved. They read books on the same level. They meditate with the same form of meditation and on the same level of the mind, and eventually their life becomes a fenced field in which they feel happy and make their followers happy.
There is a grave danger in such a form of life. The disciple must move forward in his contacts, level, and creative service, or else he can turn and become an obstacle for himself and others. Eventually he works against those who are progressing ahead.
There are people who enter into the portion of the path for which they are ready. They work and labor for a few years and then seek shallow waters to enjoy their tired personality. They remain wise people, but spiritually they retrogress and become a bad example for others.
Once you lose the conquered territories of your spiritual striving and walk back toward your former states of consciousness, for a long time you remain sliding backward on your path. If you are lucky, life leads you into crises and painful conditions to turn you toward the future. The lost territories cannot be regained with easy effort, and often the price you pay is enormous. It is at this stage that you lose your vision.
There are also some travelers who travel on the backs of others. These are the private secretaries, co-workers, or spouses of the leaders or teachers who, because of their closeness, assume that they know everything and do not follow the disciplines. They slowly are left behind in their evolution, and when the time comes to be called for advanced promotion, they cannot meet the challenge or accept the positions, being unable to meet the responsibilities.
It is important that close co-workers of leaders spend more effort to walk on the path of spiritual discipline because they are the ones who will carry the torch of the Teaching ahead when the leader withdraws from his labor.
It is vanity to think that when you are with advanced people you are advanced and you do not need proper discipline to surpass and transcend yourself.
There are also leaders who, after a few accomplishments, sink into satisfaction and do not pursue striving and discipline.
All spiritual work requires unceasing, continuous perseverance to surpass oneself and to create larger fields of service on higher and higher planes. This is why no leader must be satisfied with his progress and achievement because he slowly prepares the seeds of destruction, apathy, and inertia.
The path is found only by a moving light. Wherever the point of light stops moving toward a future achievement, a person turns in a short while into a point of darkness.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership Vol.5
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
Does our Inner Guide always answer our questions?
It is possible that the Inner Source seems to reject our questions, without answering them. It does not, but it appears so
a. when we are not worthy for the answer
b. when we are not ready to understand it
c. when our sky is too clouded with our "crimes" or karmic liabilities.
In such conditions the answer comes but instantaneously disappears. Such answers are not lost; they exist in space and help others with the same questions.
When you present your questions, the following points must be remembered:
1. You must have no doubt that you will get an answer.
2. Your question must not have strings tied to them.
You should not condition the forms of your answers by your desires or by your speculations. When you formulate your expected answers within the form of your questions, you do not receive pure answers. Your expectations create disturbances, both in the answering and the receiving process.
Sometimes we even attract a great amount of fear to our questions. Our fear prevents the answer from reaching us in its purity because we feel the answer will be destructive to us, prevent us from going in a certain direction, or demand a great amount of sacrifice from us.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Education as Transformation vol.1
a. when we are not worthy for the answer
b. when we are not ready to understand it
c. when our sky is too clouded with our "crimes" or karmic liabilities.
In such conditions the answer comes but instantaneously disappears. Such answers are not lost; they exist in space and help others with the same questions.
When you present your questions, the following points must be remembered:
1. You must have no doubt that you will get an answer.
2. Your question must not have strings tied to them.
You should not condition the forms of your answers by your desires or by your speculations. When you formulate your expected answers within the form of your questions, you do not receive pure answers. Your expectations create disturbances, both in the answering and the receiving process.
Sometimes we even attract a great amount of fear to our questions. Our fear prevents the answer from reaching us in its purity because we feel the answer will be destructive to us, prevent us from going in a certain direction, or demand a great amount of sacrifice from us.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Education as Transformation vol.1
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Start with being human, End up being divine
Conquer all your enemies,
With one weapon I have endowed you with,
Love! Love! Love!
Love rises above anger.
Love stalks over greed.
Love crushes away jealousy.
Love stamples over pride.
Love succeeds over hatred.
Love erases restlessness.
It is a sure winner over all other weapons.
Just have faith in My love for you,
And stay patient and await My arrival,
To pour all My divine love on you.
Fill yourself with it, emanate it to others.
Give up being a demon,
Give up being an animal.
Start with being human,
End up being divine.
-Sai Baba
(Sai Darshan, Part 2 - 4)
With one weapon I have endowed you with,
Love! Love! Love!
Love rises above anger.
Love stalks over greed.
Love crushes away jealousy.
Love stamples over pride.
Love succeeds over hatred.
Love erases restlessness.
It is a sure winner over all other weapons.
Just have faith in My love for you,
And stay patient and await My arrival,
To pour all My divine love on you.
Fill yourself with it, emanate it to others.
Give up being a demon,
Give up being an animal.
Start with being human,
End up being divine.
-Sai Baba
(Sai Darshan, Part 2 - 4)
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Givers and takers
People who are interested in receiving or taking go to those places where they receive physical, emotional, and mental elements. But when they are saturated, they withdraw because they think there is nothing more to take.
These kinds of people go from group to group, from one ideology to another to receive. But their ability to receive is limited by their mental or spiritual capacity. Once they reach the water mark of their evolution, no group or ideology is able to give them anything they search for. From this stage on they isolate themselves and live for their pleasures or for their worldly plans.
The secret is that they live as parasites, and their whole urge is to receive, not give. Those who do not give cannot grow and expand their consciousness. When they stop giving, they reject other sources of wisdom, because it does not make sense to them.
We often see that such people become members of a group until they are saturated. Then they stop being members of that group. Their relationship with the group deepens if they change the direction of their consciousness from receiving to giving.
Real spiritual growth starts the moment when people join a group to give rather than to receive. What they may give is their
-physical service
-labor
-emotional support
-enthusiasm
-knowledge
-experience
-wisdom
-money
The more they give, the more they expand their consciousness, and the more they see the importance of group labor, group discipline.
Those who quit their group feel that they have nothing to give to the group. Actually they do not know about their feeling. It is subjective and unconscious. This feeling creates in them rejection and indifference toward the group, because they have reached a state of crystallization in which they have nothing to contribute. If they analyze their attitude – their crystalized or saturated level says to them that they no longer need the group.
All progress is based on givingness. Join a group. Be a friend to someone. Meet people ONLY as an opportunity to serve, to sacrifice, and to give. Then that group or person becomes a source of everlasting interest for you. To whatever you give, that becomes the object of your interest.
It is known that all those who create problems in a group, quit the group, or slander the group are those people who came to the group for their own personal interest or profit, on any form or level.
That is why in all mystery schools there was a rule not to admit those who were characterized as self-seekers, full of ego, selfish receivers – but to admit those who give and give on all possible levels, even themselves. Such people eventually transform their whole life.
One day my Teacher was talking with a new student. His questions to him were:
“Did you help your father, mother, or brothers and sisters in any way? Tell me all your stories about how, and when?”
“Did you help any man or woman in anyway, anywhere? Tell me stories.”
“Is there anyone who is very grateful to you?”
“Or anyone who owes things to you?”
“Did you give anything to anyone which was dear to you?”
“Did you share something with someone? What, how, where, how much?”
I was surprised at such questions, but my heart was in joy. Later, I approached my Teacher and asked, “Were these questions important?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “The nature of man can be known by such questions. We do not need those who are parasites, but those who are givers. Givers can walk the path. Receivers misuse the path. They become sources of troubles. The path is nothing else but giving.”
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.5
These kinds of people go from group to group, from one ideology to another to receive. But their ability to receive is limited by their mental or spiritual capacity. Once they reach the water mark of their evolution, no group or ideology is able to give them anything they search for. From this stage on they isolate themselves and live for their pleasures or for their worldly plans.
The secret is that they live as parasites, and their whole urge is to receive, not give. Those who do not give cannot grow and expand their consciousness. When they stop giving, they reject other sources of wisdom, because it does not make sense to them.
We often see that such people become members of a group until they are saturated. Then they stop being members of that group. Their relationship with the group deepens if they change the direction of their consciousness from receiving to giving.
Real spiritual growth starts the moment when people join a group to give rather than to receive. What they may give is their
-physical service
-labor
-emotional support
-enthusiasm
-knowledge
-experience
-wisdom
-money
The more they give, the more they expand their consciousness, and the more they see the importance of group labor, group discipline.
Those who quit their group feel that they have nothing to give to the group. Actually they do not know about their feeling. It is subjective and unconscious. This feeling creates in them rejection and indifference toward the group, because they have reached a state of crystallization in which they have nothing to contribute. If they analyze their attitude – their crystalized or saturated level says to them that they no longer need the group.
All progress is based on givingness. Join a group. Be a friend to someone. Meet people ONLY as an opportunity to serve, to sacrifice, and to give. Then that group or person becomes a source of everlasting interest for you. To whatever you give, that becomes the object of your interest.
It is known that all those who create problems in a group, quit the group, or slander the group are those people who came to the group for their own personal interest or profit, on any form or level.
That is why in all mystery schools there was a rule not to admit those who were characterized as self-seekers, full of ego, selfish receivers – but to admit those who give and give on all possible levels, even themselves. Such people eventually transform their whole life.
One day my Teacher was talking with a new student. His questions to him were:
“Did you help your father, mother, or brothers and sisters in any way? Tell me all your stories about how, and when?”
“Did you help any man or woman in anyway, anywhere? Tell me stories.”
“Is there anyone who is very grateful to you?”
“Or anyone who owes things to you?”
“Did you give anything to anyone which was dear to you?”
“Did you share something with someone? What, how, where, how much?”
I was surprised at such questions, but my heart was in joy. Later, I approached my Teacher and asked, “Were these questions important?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “The nature of man can be known by such questions. We do not need those who are parasites, but those who are givers. Givers can walk the path. Receivers misuse the path. They become sources of troubles. The path is nothing else but giving.”
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.5
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Privileged people
Are there no privileged people in the world? There are. But those people are not privileged by anybody, by anything, but by themselves. Their karma in the past, their service and labor in the past pushes them so much ahead of people that we call them privileged people.
Who are these people? These people are those who in the past exercised right thinking, right speech, right actions, right relationships, and in their successive incarnations occupied a privileged, moral state of consciousness, beingness, and higher positions where they worked, but they never tried to give privileges to others and make them privileged people around them or in the field of their service. Because of this fact, no one can make a person privileged, but only he himself with his honesty, nobility, purity, and merits.
One becomes privileged by his inner Self, not from anybody else. One can gain certain rights only by the blessings of his Self.
Any privilege given from anybody outside of himself is temporary and in the end it turns into a source of problems.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol. 5
Who are these people? These people are those who in the past exercised right thinking, right speech, right actions, right relationships, and in their successive incarnations occupied a privileged, moral state of consciousness, beingness, and higher positions where they worked, but they never tried to give privileges to others and make them privileged people around them or in the field of their service. Because of this fact, no one can make a person privileged, but only he himself with his honesty, nobility, purity, and merits.
One becomes privileged by his inner Self, not from anybody else. One can gain certain rights only by the blessings of his Self.
Any privilege given from anybody outside of himself is temporary and in the end it turns into a source of problems.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol. 5
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
What is your real worth?
Ask yourself, "What is my worth? What is my value? Is it my money? Is it my body? Is it my appearance?" They are very important. Don't think that I am not giving value to these things. Your money is important. Your richness is important. Your house is important. The health of your body is important. But what is your real worth, which means, when you leave the body, what remains? That is your worth.
What you have done to others is your worth. How much have you given yourself to people? It is not how much you have received but how much you gave to people, how much you have done for others.
To be worthy means that you can be more useful in the hands of God. How much worth do you have? That much.... God can use it. It is your virtues, it is your talent, it is your genius, it is your dedication, it is your holiness, purity, it is your pure intentions, your creativity that are used by the big hand of Nature, that Great One.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Teachings of Christ, vol.1
What you have done to others is your worth. How much have you given yourself to people? It is not how much you have received but how much you gave to people, how much you have done for others.
To be worthy means that you can be more useful in the hands of God. How much worth do you have? That much.... God can use it. It is your virtues, it is your talent, it is your genius, it is your dedication, it is your holiness, purity, it is your pure intentions, your creativity that are used by the big hand of Nature, that Great One.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Teachings of Christ, vol.1
Monday, May 06, 2013
Sculpting our nature
Once a sculptor was working on a marble statue. He would start chiseling on
the stone early in the morning at sunrise and work until midnight, never
stopping to eat or rest. When someone asked him why he would not rest, the
sculptor replied, "Rest is not for a creative person. Only dead people
rest."
We must have this kind of attitude with ourselves in order to change
ourselves. We must constantly chisel our nature, working as hard as we can to
save ourselves. We must work so hard that the Great Ones notice us and say, "He
is working so hard to pass through transfiguration; let Us help him."
How do They help us? They create more troubles for us, give us more duties
and responsibilities, and put us in conditions where we become embarrassed with
ourselves; unless we see how ugly and ignorant we are, the door of
transformation will not open for us.
You must go to the bottom of the ladder and see where you are, then step by
step climb the ladder of perfection. Whenever you see something in your nature
that needs chiseling, you must be merciless. Unless you are merciless, you
cannot perfect your statue.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Education as Transformation vol.1
Saturday, May 04, 2013
Evil entities
How did these evil entities come into being in space? Some people living on this planet are criminals; they stay drunk on alcohol or use drugs day and night. They steal, they kill, they are traitors. They are enemies of human freedom. They are strongly pornographic. When these people die, they are exactly the same as when they were in the human body. It is not the human body that gives them their negative qualities but their emotional and mental bodies that urge them to act this way. Just because the physical body is left behind, does not mean that these people turn into angels. They have the same urges, drives, and appetites as before. But because they no longer have a physical body, they no longer have the vehicle through which they can come and do the same things they were doing before. The only method by which they can fulfill their urges and drives is to possess and obsess people. In this way they use the bodies of other people as the vehicles for their own sensations and pleasures.
This kind of evil is very strong and creates a tremendous amount of pollution. Once such an entity sticks to your aura, it enters like a drill and makes room for itself. The quality and condition of your aura determines where it will locate itself. For example, if the entity is sexually abusive, it will come and enter into your sexual aura, your sacral center, and activate it to such a degree that it becomes impossible for you to control your sex drive. Or, if its intention is to break up your marriage and establish disunity, it will make you impotent or totally reject sex. Both of these extremes are created by the same kind of entity. The dark ones are against normality. If they take your normality away from you, they succeed in their endeavor, because abnormality is against your own progress.
If your heart is acting evilly, it is possible that an evil entity has blocked the heart petals so that divine grace, beauty, and compassion cannot manifest. You become possessive, aggressive, and destructive. You bring destruction around yourself. Now the enemy can do whatever it likes. For example, if the dark forces want war, they enter your brain and make you a war monger. You begin thinking, “We want war! We want to destroy them!” But if you tell the enemy or its agents, “Come, we will take you to the front lines,” they will escape because such entities do not want the ones they possess to die, so that darkness can continue to spread its pollution. It is very tricky. If we could write a book about all the ways and means that the dark forces operate, it would be like an encyclopedia of sicknesses.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Battling Dark Forces
This kind of evil is very strong and creates a tremendous amount of pollution. Once such an entity sticks to your aura, it enters like a drill and makes room for itself. The quality and condition of your aura determines where it will locate itself. For example, if the entity is sexually abusive, it will come and enter into your sexual aura, your sacral center, and activate it to such a degree that it becomes impossible for you to control your sex drive. Or, if its intention is to break up your marriage and establish disunity, it will make you impotent or totally reject sex. Both of these extremes are created by the same kind of entity. The dark ones are against normality. If they take your normality away from you, they succeed in their endeavor, because abnormality is against your own progress.
If your heart is acting evilly, it is possible that an evil entity has blocked the heart petals so that divine grace, beauty, and compassion cannot manifest. You become possessive, aggressive, and destructive. You bring destruction around yourself. Now the enemy can do whatever it likes. For example, if the dark forces want war, they enter your brain and make you a war monger. You begin thinking, “We want war! We want to destroy them!” But if you tell the enemy or its agents, “Come, we will take you to the front lines,” they will escape because such entities do not want the ones they possess to die, so that darkness can continue to spread its pollution. It is very tricky. If we could write a book about all the ways and means that the dark forces operate, it would be like an encyclopedia of sicknesses.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Battling Dark Forces
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Is your creative work bringing more sanity, causing greater healing and cooperation? Is it enlightening the minds of the human race?
Go deeper into your creative experience. Ask yourself if your creative work is a personal satisfaction or psychological release, or a forced labor for material needs. Or is it planned creative action, through which you are trying to cooperate with the Great Nature to achieve its continuous birth, the continuous manifestation of its true Self. Through your creative work are you trying to release the imprisoned seeds caught in glamors, illusions, and maya, to free the hidden beauty in each living form?
Is your creative work bringing more sanity, causing greater healing and cooperation among people and nations? Is it enlightening the minds of the human race?
Is it helping to improve our political, economic, and social conditions; or is your “creative work” an expression of your inner wounds, depressions, obsessions, and a means of satisfying your greed, hatred, fear, and pride?
A creative artist has a compassionate heart – full of wisdom and the spirit of sacrifice. The heart of a true artist is in tune with the hearts of all manifested lives.
-Torkom Saraydarian
The Flame of Beauty, Culture, Love, Joy
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Do you remember why you were born?
When does the real leadership start? We are told in the Teaching, and some people have this experience, that the leadership vision or revelation is given to you in every life before incarnation. Before incarnation your Solar Angel reveals the whole revelation and purpose in one second and then closes it. According to your development and awakening of consciousness, the time limit becomes half a minute, half an hour or one second.
What is in that revelation which is given to you? In that revelation your duties and responsibilities are given to you in the name of dharma. Dharma is given to you before you take birth, and when you have birth, according to your evolution, either you remember one percent or one hundred percent of that revelation, or you totally mix it with your glamors, illusions, and pleasures and forget about it. But if you remember, you have that wind in your sails. You always have that energy coming into your sails, and your boat is going toward the ocean. You have that energy. No matter what happens to you, you reach your destination through the waves of the oceans, sleet, rain, showers. You have that powerful energy behind you.
What is that energy? It is a one second revelation of your dharma that you remember. Do you remember why you were born? Not many people do. If you remember one little piece, you have that energy with you because that revelation is a source of engagement with a great voltage.
If you do not have that memory, you are lost. In what you are lost? You are lost in your personal life, family life, business life, social life. You are lost.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.4
Monday, April 15, 2013
What is an artist?
The word "artist" is not usually defined in a proper way. An artist is a person who brings the Plan and Purpose of the Great Life into objectivity, thus building a bridge between humanity and its Source.
In this sense a politician can be a great artist when he tries to rule and to lead humanity to its highest good.
An educator can be a great artist when he tries to bring to birth the divine potentials in his students.
A philosopher can be a great artist when he tries to bring into our life the meaning and purpose of existence.
A scientist can be a great artist in the sense that all his discoveries are the laws and principles by which the Great Artist of the universe works. Science reveals the architecture within the beauty.
A religious man can be a great artist by trying to reveal the love and virtues of the Soul, and by building a ladder of ascent towards the ideal.
An economist can be a great artist in creating those ways and means by which the wealth of the planet can be enjoyed by all, and the standard of living can be raised to a new dimension for all.
-Torkom Saraydarian
The Flame of Beauty, Culture, Love, Joy
In this sense a politician can be a great artist when he tries to rule and to lead humanity to its highest good.
An educator can be a great artist when he tries to bring to birth the divine potentials in his students.
A philosopher can be a great artist when he tries to bring into our life the meaning and purpose of existence.
A scientist can be a great artist in the sense that all his discoveries are the laws and principles by which the Great Artist of the universe works. Science reveals the architecture within the beauty.
A religious man can be a great artist by trying to reveal the love and virtues of the Soul, and by building a ladder of ascent towards the ideal.
An economist can be a great artist in creating those ways and means by which the wealth of the planet can be enjoyed by all, and the standard of living can be raised to a new dimension for all.
-Torkom Saraydarian
The Flame of Beauty, Culture, Love, Joy
Saturday, April 13, 2013
To spread beauty is a heroic task
To spread beauty is a heroic task. The army of ugliness is powerful. This army is composed of those who are in the trap of their maya, glamors, and illusions and are heavily loaded with karma. It is composed of those also who are consciously and unconsciously serving the involutionary forces, the dark brotherhood, whose intention is to retard the evolution of humanity. This army is well organized and has a powerful influence on money, politics, justice, and commerce. They use all possible means to fight against any organized beauty that is intended to lift up humanity as one race.
Their ugliness is expressed through literature, movies, nightclubs, houses of prostitution, gambling, drugs, acid and rock music, through many paintings, drawings, and illustrations.
Beauty opposes all these and indirectly hurts the business of the army of ugliness.
Ugliness fights:
-against purity
-against law and order
-against human rights
-against unity
-against culture and true education.
Whenever you see the distortion of beauty-stay away-because ugliness is malignant and it degenerates your system, your symphony.
-Torkom Saraydarian
The Flame of Beauty, Culture, Love, Joy
Their ugliness is expressed through literature, movies, nightclubs, houses of prostitution, gambling, drugs, acid and rock music, through many paintings, drawings, and illustrations.
Beauty opposes all these and indirectly hurts the business of the army of ugliness.
Ugliness fights:
-against purity
-against law and order
-against human rights
-against unity
-against culture and true education.
Whenever you see the distortion of beauty-stay away-because ugliness is malignant and it degenerates your system, your symphony.
-Torkom Saraydarian
The Flame of Beauty, Culture, Love, Joy
Sunday, April 07, 2013
Personality leadership
When people are placed in or elected to a higher position to exercise leadership, they create many complicated situations if they were not trained in the leadership of their own personality.
Our personality is a group of three elementals who are inclined toward the involutionary path. The human soul has to shift the tendency toward the evolutionary path. This is the leadership related to personality.
The physical body has the tendency toward inertia, apathy, laziness, automation, or mechanicalness and habit.
The emotional body has the tendency to fall into agitation, excitement, into fear, anger, hate, jealousy, and to exercise slander, malice, and treason.
The mental body has the tendency toward fanaticism, greed, ego, vanity, and separatism, which manifest through many unpleasant thoughtforms and actions.
Now the human soul has to shift these tendencies and, as a leader, direct the elementals toward his own light, love, and power.
If a person is not trained in such a leadership, whenever he is put into a position of family, group, national, or global leadership he creates immense problems in his field because the vices and involutionary inclinations rule him and use his position to bring greater damage and distortion in the field in which he is working.
A person’s vices and involutional inclinations become more disturbing and devastating elements as he carries them with him into higher positions and larger fields of responsibilities. That is why before one is trusted to a leadership position he must be graduated from the school of personality leadership.
When you are not ready for the position you are in, that position does not bring joy and fulfillment into your life. You feel inside of you that you do not fit, and this situation brings tension and irritation into your life. You complain and fight with people around you, put pressure on them so that you prove your failing leadership.
In true leadership you must feel fulfillment, joy, and happiness. A true leader is a manifestation of higher principles and plans, intelligently adapted to the level of people around him.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.4
Our personality is a group of three elementals who are inclined toward the involutionary path. The human soul has to shift the tendency toward the evolutionary path. This is the leadership related to personality.
The physical body has the tendency toward inertia, apathy, laziness, automation, or mechanicalness and habit.
The emotional body has the tendency to fall into agitation, excitement, into fear, anger, hate, jealousy, and to exercise slander, malice, and treason.
The mental body has the tendency toward fanaticism, greed, ego, vanity, and separatism, which manifest through many unpleasant thoughtforms and actions.
Now the human soul has to shift these tendencies and, as a leader, direct the elementals toward his own light, love, and power.
If a person is not trained in such a leadership, whenever he is put into a position of family, group, national, or global leadership he creates immense problems in his field because the vices and involutionary inclinations rule him and use his position to bring greater damage and distortion in the field in which he is working.
A person’s vices and involutional inclinations become more disturbing and devastating elements as he carries them with him into higher positions and larger fields of responsibilities. That is why before one is trusted to a leadership position he must be graduated from the school of personality leadership.
When you are not ready for the position you are in, that position does not bring joy and fulfillment into your life. You feel inside of you that you do not fit, and this situation brings tension and irritation into your life. You complain and fight with people around you, put pressure on them so that you prove your failing leadership.
In true leadership you must feel fulfillment, joy, and happiness. A true leader is a manifestation of higher principles and plans, intelligently adapted to the level of people around him.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.4
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Financial security and meditation
It is difficult when you are in bad shape financially, but it is ironic to know that lack of financial security is the result of uncoordinated, chaotic thinking, or lack of thinking. Regular meditation, even during financial crises, is the only source of impelling energy which keeps your mind in balance, forward looking, courageous, and discriminative. With persistent meditation practice, one paves the way for his financial security.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.4
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.4
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Purposeless People
Purposeless people are those who have many goals, but they do not adhere to any of them, for example:
1. They do not have the power of concentration.
2. They themselves are not impressed by the right purpose.
3. They are told about their goals by various entities, each presenting a different tasty goal.
4. They jump from one “purpose to another “purpose,” wasting their energy, time, and life.
Let us take each of these statements and try to understand it.
1. They do not have the power of concentration. The power of concentration is the ability of the mind to hold itself in a specific direction or a goal until that goal is accomplished.
When this ability is lacking, it is because the person has no mental discipline. He may also have a karma by which he is led from one goal to another without the accomplishment of any one goal. Or it could be that this individual goal was harshly criticized and another goal was presented to him.
One of my Teachers used to say that it is better to accomplish one small goal than to hallucinate about many fantastic goals.
Changing goals too rapidly, without serious reason, creates a mental dizziness, and the mind develops a habit of not staying with any goal. In the Ageless Wisdom such people are called “butterflies.”
2. They themselves are not impressed by the right purpose. The reason that people do not have stable goals is because they have not yet sensed the permanent purpose in their intention, or they do not have a powerful intention in their life.
If you have no intention to go to New York, you do not have to have any preparation or any goal to go to New York. And if you have in your mind intentions to go to many cities, but you cannot decide which one you want first, you create an unstable condition in your mind. Instability of mind is lack of purpose or goals.
If you sense the purpose of your life, you create a plan and set goals and systematically work to achieve your purpose.
If you do not sense your life’s purpose, create one and work for it as hard as possible. Do this not only to achieve your purpose, but also to discipline your mind in concentration and to develop perseverance.
Without a purpose you drift here and there without projecting roots, and your life becomes very superficial, a life running on the surface without depth.
3. They are told about their goals by various entities, each presenting a different tasty goal. This is sometimes unconscious and sometimes “conscious.”
There was a very talented woman who could have done great service for humanity, but she became the football of various entities, each of them kicking her in different directions. The curious thing is that these entities were cooperating with each other to prevent her from any focus or concentration in any direction and by permanently changing her goals with very subtle and palatable reasons.
Every time this poor woman visits me, she presents fantastic plans and fantastic goals with great enthusiasm. But a few months later, before she starts working on her goals, her goals change.
In the next visit she gives gigantic reasons why the former goals and plans were not going to work, and why these new goals and new plans are the right ones which are going to bring her lots of money and opportunities for service. This has been going on for ten years, and she has not done anything completely and she has no money in the bank.
One feels sorry for such a talented and charming girl, seeing her drifting from one goal to another to obey so-called “spirits” or her nonexistent “intuition.”
“By the fruits of them you will know...”
4. They jump from one “purpose” to another “purpose,” wasting their energy, time, and life. The important thing is to see how much time and energy are wasted for so many years without any accomplishment.
A real purpose is just like a magnet which brings together all your efforts and challenges you to achieve your purpose. Confusion, hesitation, and vacillation are symptoms of a decaying brain.
Frustration is a method used by entities to try to lead a person into failure. Frustration is caused by permanently changing a person’s goals, or by presenting him with goals for which he is not ready. Imposing goals on people for which they are not ready makes them frustrated, or it develops a tendency in them to run after many goals in order to have security from their frustration.
The following are rules that can be applied to create concentration and focus. They are simple but far reaching in their effects.
1. Whatever you do, do it with all your heart and concentration, and try to complete it before you start doing something else.
This needs discipline, and it is often very beneficial to go and work for a boss and follow his instruction to create a “sense of continuity” in you.
2. Do your own duty instead of trying to do the duties of others.
If you do not focus yourself on your own duties but try to be interested in the duties of others and interfere in them, you soon lose the opportunity to have roots. You become rootless. You see many rootless plants carried here and there by the wind.
Doing your own duty creates roots. What are roots?...Stability, focus, concentration, sense of responsibility.
3. Create a purpose and three goals to achieve that purpose. Write about your goals and know them as factually as possible.
Set the steps to reach your goals, and do all that is possible to fulfill your goals.
After fulfilling your goals, see how close you are to your purpose.
Once you accomplish your three goals and achieve your “purpose,” you will feel very strong, self-confident, focused, and concentrated.
Now you can create another “purpose” and do the same thing. After achieving these “purposes,” you are a man or woman who can be successful in the world.
During the period of working with your goals to try to achieve your set “purpose",” you will have intuitive moments in which you will be conscious about a Purpose which transcends all your so-called “purposes,” but such a flash will be so fast that the next moment you will lose it.
Periodically the flash of the ultimate Purpose of your life will visit you until your brain one day catches it for a few seconds.
Your glory will start from that moment of realization of your Purpose, and you will enter into the path of success.
An unstable mind and an unstable life are a great waste. They are sources of confusion and instability for others.
People who change their goals often and run after new goals without accomplishing their former goals and achieving their “purpose” eventually turn their back on their purpose. They often hate it and become enemies of those who have a similar purpose. Those who are frustrated become the traitors of those who show signs of having a similar purpose to their own.
A person who was changing his church every year eventually told me that all churches were useless. Another person who was changing his political ideology every six months came to the conclusion that all ideologies were nonsense. Another person who was reading every kind of book eventually gave away all his two thousand books. Another person complained that all branches of the Ageless Wisdom had no substance, and he became a materialist.
The reason for all this is that such people have never touched the essence of the things they tried, or they were not ready yet for studies which they wanted to master.
Too much undigested food makes the stomach reject all kinds of food.
There are a few Teachers who know the rules of the Path, and they like to train students to practice focus, concentration, perseverance, and stability.
Daily we can exercise these virtues in the smallest of our deeds, developing them bit by bit, and eventually turn into stable persons.
It is not an error to study many branches of one subject, but if it is done superficially and without dedicating enough time and interest, you remain on the surface and one day lose your life under a great wave of the unmastered subject.
There are also some people who pretend that they have higher goals so that they can function in groups dedicated to certain high goals. Such a pretension is based on a selfish or personal goal. When these people achieve the goal, they quit their growth, and take themselves away from the path of discipline.
For example, there was a man who joined a certain group. Eventually, he acquainted himself with a pretty girl who was very modest and careful. He carefully discovered what she liked and tried to show her that he liked the same thing. He bought for himself the books that she liked. He began to tell her about his meditations which she had done for years. He spoke about his evening review and how it helped him to shape his life.
Eventually he started dating her. At first they would occasionally be absent from classes. Eventually they disappeared.
Years later I met her in a shopping center. She looked like a witch – unclean and with improper dress. We had a talk. “What happened to you?” I asked. “I thought he was a human being with the same goals. We got married. But he left me without money and with children to support.”
I have seen this happen again and again.
When people pretend to have goals, they attract those who have goals. Later, if they are unstable, they cheat them and make them forsake their goals.
My Father used to call such people, “Coyotes who steal chickens.”
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.4
1. They do not have the power of concentration.
2. They themselves are not impressed by the right purpose.
3. They are told about their goals by various entities, each presenting a different tasty goal.
4. They jump from one “purpose to another “purpose,” wasting their energy, time, and life.
Let us take each of these statements and try to understand it.
1. They do not have the power of concentration. The power of concentration is the ability of the mind to hold itself in a specific direction or a goal until that goal is accomplished.
When this ability is lacking, it is because the person has no mental discipline. He may also have a karma by which he is led from one goal to another without the accomplishment of any one goal. Or it could be that this individual goal was harshly criticized and another goal was presented to him.
One of my Teachers used to say that it is better to accomplish one small goal than to hallucinate about many fantastic goals.
Changing goals too rapidly, without serious reason, creates a mental dizziness, and the mind develops a habit of not staying with any goal. In the Ageless Wisdom such people are called “butterflies.”
2. They themselves are not impressed by the right purpose. The reason that people do not have stable goals is because they have not yet sensed the permanent purpose in their intention, or they do not have a powerful intention in their life.
If you have no intention to go to New York, you do not have to have any preparation or any goal to go to New York. And if you have in your mind intentions to go to many cities, but you cannot decide which one you want first, you create an unstable condition in your mind. Instability of mind is lack of purpose or goals.
If you sense the purpose of your life, you create a plan and set goals and systematically work to achieve your purpose.
If you do not sense your life’s purpose, create one and work for it as hard as possible. Do this not only to achieve your purpose, but also to discipline your mind in concentration and to develop perseverance.
Without a purpose you drift here and there without projecting roots, and your life becomes very superficial, a life running on the surface without depth.
3. They are told about their goals by various entities, each presenting a different tasty goal. This is sometimes unconscious and sometimes “conscious.”
There was a very talented woman who could have done great service for humanity, but she became the football of various entities, each of them kicking her in different directions. The curious thing is that these entities were cooperating with each other to prevent her from any focus or concentration in any direction and by permanently changing her goals with very subtle and palatable reasons.
Every time this poor woman visits me, she presents fantastic plans and fantastic goals with great enthusiasm. But a few months later, before she starts working on her goals, her goals change.
In the next visit she gives gigantic reasons why the former goals and plans were not going to work, and why these new goals and new plans are the right ones which are going to bring her lots of money and opportunities for service. This has been going on for ten years, and she has not done anything completely and she has no money in the bank.
One feels sorry for such a talented and charming girl, seeing her drifting from one goal to another to obey so-called “spirits” or her nonexistent “intuition.”
“By the fruits of them you will know...”
4. They jump from one “purpose” to another “purpose,” wasting their energy, time, and life. The important thing is to see how much time and energy are wasted for so many years without any accomplishment.
A real purpose is just like a magnet which brings together all your efforts and challenges you to achieve your purpose. Confusion, hesitation, and vacillation are symptoms of a decaying brain.
Frustration is a method used by entities to try to lead a person into failure. Frustration is caused by permanently changing a person’s goals, or by presenting him with goals for which he is not ready. Imposing goals on people for which they are not ready makes them frustrated, or it develops a tendency in them to run after many goals in order to have security from their frustration.
The following are rules that can be applied to create concentration and focus. They are simple but far reaching in their effects.
1. Whatever you do, do it with all your heart and concentration, and try to complete it before you start doing something else.
This needs discipline, and it is often very beneficial to go and work for a boss and follow his instruction to create a “sense of continuity” in you.
2. Do your own duty instead of trying to do the duties of others.
If you do not focus yourself on your own duties but try to be interested in the duties of others and interfere in them, you soon lose the opportunity to have roots. You become rootless. You see many rootless plants carried here and there by the wind.
Doing your own duty creates roots. What are roots?...Stability, focus, concentration, sense of responsibility.
3. Create a purpose and three goals to achieve that purpose. Write about your goals and know them as factually as possible.
Set the steps to reach your goals, and do all that is possible to fulfill your goals.
After fulfilling your goals, see how close you are to your purpose.
Once you accomplish your three goals and achieve your “purpose,” you will feel very strong, self-confident, focused, and concentrated.
Now you can create another “purpose” and do the same thing. After achieving these “purposes,” you are a man or woman who can be successful in the world.
During the period of working with your goals to try to achieve your set “purpose",” you will have intuitive moments in which you will be conscious about a Purpose which transcends all your so-called “purposes,” but such a flash will be so fast that the next moment you will lose it.
Periodically the flash of the ultimate Purpose of your life will visit you until your brain one day catches it for a few seconds.
Your glory will start from that moment of realization of your Purpose, and you will enter into the path of success.
An unstable mind and an unstable life are a great waste. They are sources of confusion and instability for others.
People who change their goals often and run after new goals without accomplishing their former goals and achieving their “purpose” eventually turn their back on their purpose. They often hate it and become enemies of those who have a similar purpose. Those who are frustrated become the traitors of those who show signs of having a similar purpose to their own.
A person who was changing his church every year eventually told me that all churches were useless. Another person who was changing his political ideology every six months came to the conclusion that all ideologies were nonsense. Another person who was reading every kind of book eventually gave away all his two thousand books. Another person complained that all branches of the Ageless Wisdom had no substance, and he became a materialist.
The reason for all this is that such people have never touched the essence of the things they tried, or they were not ready yet for studies which they wanted to master.
Too much undigested food makes the stomach reject all kinds of food.
There are a few Teachers who know the rules of the Path, and they like to train students to practice focus, concentration, perseverance, and stability.
Daily we can exercise these virtues in the smallest of our deeds, developing them bit by bit, and eventually turn into stable persons.
It is not an error to study many branches of one subject, but if it is done superficially and without dedicating enough time and interest, you remain on the surface and one day lose your life under a great wave of the unmastered subject.
There are also some people who pretend that they have higher goals so that they can function in groups dedicated to certain high goals. Such a pretension is based on a selfish or personal goal. When these people achieve the goal, they quit their growth, and take themselves away from the path of discipline.
For example, there was a man who joined a certain group. Eventually, he acquainted himself with a pretty girl who was very modest and careful. He carefully discovered what she liked and tried to show her that he liked the same thing. He bought for himself the books that she liked. He began to tell her about his meditations which she had done for years. He spoke about his evening review and how it helped him to shape his life.
Eventually he started dating her. At first they would occasionally be absent from classes. Eventually they disappeared.
Years later I met her in a shopping center. She looked like a witch – unclean and with improper dress. We had a talk. “What happened to you?” I asked. “I thought he was a human being with the same goals. We got married. But he left me without money and with children to support.”
I have seen this happen again and again.
When people pretend to have goals, they attract those who have goals. Later, if they are unstable, they cheat them and make them forsake their goals.
My Father used to call such people, “Coyotes who steal chickens.”
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.4
Friday, February 22, 2013
Drugs damage the mechanism of "translation"
Question: Some people say that if they use a certain amount of marijuana or some drugs, they understand the future and Infinity better than those who have never experienced marijuana and drugs. What is your answer?
Answer: The future problem of people who use drugs is that they will have some access to astral and higher mental planes, from which they will receive emotional, astral energy and certain beams of light from the higher mental plane. This in itself does not present a problem except when the drug user has burned certain centers in his brain and mind. Then he will not be able to handle the energy coming from the emotional plane or correctly translate and use the light coming from his higher mind.
What will happen is that common sense, laws, and the moral principles of daily life will not mean anything to him because the light will prove them not valid from the viewpoint of the abstract mind. He will not be able to make right use of energy, but with it will reject violently all imposition put upon him from the environment regarding laws, principles, rules, moral guidelines, etc. In such a mind, the higher concepts are rejected by the lower mind as hallucinations and the lower, realistic concepts are rejected by the higher light as nonsense. As a result, drug users will hate to follow the rules of life for their environment and they will break the laws when it seems safe to them to do that.
They also confuse themselves by taking a simple rule and stretching it to higher dimensions until it makes no sense to them, or by taking an abstract concept and trying to make it tangible to such a degree that the abstract concept is totally lost.
In the mental plane there is a mechanism which is called translation. Translation relates the abstract and concrete minds, and makes the concrete concepts meaningful to the abstract mind and the abstract concepts meaningful to the concrete mind. Also, it makes one see the abstract indications of a concrete thought, and tangible and practical applications of an abstract thought.
Drug users damage their mechanism and lose their balance between their two minds. The continuity of circulation of meaning from one mechanism to another is disturbed, and the person acts in extremes. Often he is abstracted, and other times he is identified with material values – which a minute later do not make sense to him.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership. vol.4
Answer: The future problem of people who use drugs is that they will have some access to astral and higher mental planes, from which they will receive emotional, astral energy and certain beams of light from the higher mental plane. This in itself does not present a problem except when the drug user has burned certain centers in his brain and mind. Then he will not be able to handle the energy coming from the emotional plane or correctly translate and use the light coming from his higher mind.
What will happen is that common sense, laws, and the moral principles of daily life will not mean anything to him because the light will prove them not valid from the viewpoint of the abstract mind. He will not be able to make right use of energy, but with it will reject violently all imposition put upon him from the environment regarding laws, principles, rules, moral guidelines, etc. In such a mind, the higher concepts are rejected by the lower mind as hallucinations and the lower, realistic concepts are rejected by the higher light as nonsense. As a result, drug users will hate to follow the rules of life for their environment and they will break the laws when it seems safe to them to do that.
They also confuse themselves by taking a simple rule and stretching it to higher dimensions until it makes no sense to them, or by taking an abstract concept and trying to make it tangible to such a degree that the abstract concept is totally lost.
In the mental plane there is a mechanism which is called translation. Translation relates the abstract and concrete minds, and makes the concrete concepts meaningful to the abstract mind and the abstract concepts meaningful to the concrete mind. Also, it makes one see the abstract indications of a concrete thought, and tangible and practical applications of an abstract thought.
Drug users damage their mechanism and lose their balance between their two minds. The continuity of circulation of meaning from one mechanism to another is disturbed, and the person acts in extremes. Often he is abstracted, and other times he is identified with material values – which a minute later do not make sense to him.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership. vol.4
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Flattery
Do not flatter others. Flattery is forbidden in the Teaching of Great Ones. Flattery and bribery create deep cleavages in human relations. Right human relations cannot be built on a false foundation.
Flattery creates personality reactions. Flattered people do things which otherwise they would not do. They feel this fact eventually and try to reject the will of the flatterer. This is the moment that the flatterer loses his prestige and his dignity in the eyes of the one whom he tried to flatter.
Flattery is an effort to control other people and use them for selfish interests. Do not flatter your friends. Tell them you respect and love them, that you stand by them, but do not flatter them. Bribery and flattery sometimes imprison many souls in their net of selfish interest for a long time. But when the fact is seen the relations end.
One day a girl asked me, “Do you think that there is a girl in the world prettier than I am?”
“I think,“ I said, “that you proved that you are ugly because you want to be flattered.Flattered children are the most dangerous children. They cannot adapt themselves neither to school nor to society. They become addicted to flattery, and if no one flatters them, they become sick or crazy.
From the beginning, parents must try not to flatter their children if they want them to be sane and successful. If children do something good, their parents must tell them, “That was good.” If they do bad things, their parents must tell them, “That was bad.” Flattery builds an unreal, artificial personality that later takes ages to break and clear away.
Do not tell your children that they are great talents or that they are going to be great and important persons. This is the wrong way to talk. Tell them that there are great potentials in them, as in other human beings, and if they strive and work hard, they can awaken their potentials and become prominent members of society. Let them know that they must achieve through their own efforts. You cannot create right human relations with your children through flattering them. Many children even hate the things they want to do when they see that they were flattered into doing them.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Education as Transformation vol.1
Flattery creates personality reactions. Flattered people do things which otherwise they would not do. They feel this fact eventually and try to reject the will of the flatterer. This is the moment that the flatterer loses his prestige and his dignity in the eyes of the one whom he tried to flatter.
Flattery is an effort to control other people and use them for selfish interests. Do not flatter your friends. Tell them you respect and love them, that you stand by them, but do not flatter them. Bribery and flattery sometimes imprison many souls in their net of selfish interest for a long time. But when the fact is seen the relations end.
One day a girl asked me, “Do you think that there is a girl in the world prettier than I am?”
“I think,“ I said, “that you proved that you are ugly because you want to be flattered.Flattered children are the most dangerous children. They cannot adapt themselves neither to school nor to society. They become addicted to flattery, and if no one flatters them, they become sick or crazy.
From the beginning, parents must try not to flatter their children if they want them to be sane and successful. If children do something good, their parents must tell them, “That was good.” If they do bad things, their parents must tell them, “That was bad.” Flattery builds an unreal, artificial personality that later takes ages to break and clear away.
Do not tell your children that they are great talents or that they are going to be great and important persons. This is the wrong way to talk. Tell them that there are great potentials in them, as in other human beings, and if they strive and work hard, they can awaken their potentials and become prominent members of society. Let them know that they must achieve through their own efforts. You cannot create right human relations with your children through flattering them. Many children even hate the things they want to do when they see that they were flattered into doing them.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Education as Transformation vol.1
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Victory and success
Victory and success must not be measured by the reactions or responses of the public. You are successful
Self-abnegation
Self-sacrifice
Success is the expansion of consciousness and actualization of your beingness, and of course it is measured also by the abundance, freedom, and wisdom you have on your path.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.4
- If you have more control over your personality
- If you can help more people
- If your plans are under construction
- If you are able to destroy more glamors, illusions, vanity, separatism, and greed
- If you are manipulated less by life
- If you always strive to the future
- If you have hope
Self-abnegation
Self-sacrifice
Success is the expansion of consciousness and actualization of your beingness, and of course it is measured also by the abundance, freedom, and wisdom you have on your path.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Leadership vol.4
Thursday, February 07, 2013
Liberation crisis
There was a game played in Asia in which twenty people would surround a person standing in the center of a circle. The person in the center would try to run out of the circle. The people surrounding him could do nothing until he moved to escape. Immediately upon moving, they would "attack" him. He would have to move in such a way that the circle would open and he could run away.
This is how crises work. Unless you decide to free or liberate yourself from your limitations, crises do not threaten violence. But when you make a move to liberate yourself, all kinds of forces attack you and in that moment of attack, you will have to find a chance to escape through the opposition that surrounds you.
-Torkom Saraydarian
Cosmic Shocks
The blue flame of baptism
When you are baptized, in your heart center a blue flame starts to be lit. That is why baptism is so important. It is a Holy Mystery. Before Christ, they used to baptize to connect the man with the Hierarch. At baptism the heart center is lit with a blue flame. M. M. says that the blue flame in the heart is the connecting link with Christ. Whether the baby knows it or not, at the time of baptism when you are reading these beautiful prayers and you are using the signs of power, the flame is lit in the heart center. A clairvoyant can see it.
I was swimming in a lake with a boy when four horses came and drank from that lake. Then we got out and we were playing nearby. Two other boys came who were not baptized. Other horses came to drink, but they just smelled the water and they didn’t drink. I went to my Teacher and told him about it. He said, “Yes, it is different because those who are baptized in the name of Christ radiate a different smell and different lights. That is why all churches are very anxious to baptize people. Even when they don’t know, even when it is sometimes automatic, mechanical, there is some reality behind it. If people are really baptized in His name, they have that link.”
-Torkom Saraydarian
Teachings of Christ vol.1
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)