See the other side of something you want to hug

One day my Father took me to a forest where there were oak and pine trees. I had the habit of going and hugging huge trees to feel their strength and energy. In the forest near a little lake, I saw a big oak tree. I hurried to hug it, but my Father warned, “No, don’t do that.”

“Why not? I don’t understand.”

“Well, hold my hand, and let us walk to the tree.” We approached the tree and he said, “You see, this side of the tree is good, but let us look at the other side.”

We walked carefully to the other side of the huge oak tree and stood ten feet away from it. “What do you see there?”

“A big hole in the tree.”

“What else?”

“Daddy, what is that in the hole?”

“It’s a nest of rattlesnakes.”

I was terrified. My imagination ran wild... I was already hugging the tree and the snakes were running after me... I was squeezing the fingers of my Father’s hand and my body was sweaty. “This is a lesson for you,” he said, “to see the other side of something you want to hug...”

-Torkom Saraydarian

Education as Transformation vol.2

Toys and children

Our American children are loaded with toys and they are so very toy conscious and greedy for toys. They need to have new toys continuously in order to be satisfied and happy.

After holidays you see children visiting and playing with with each other and showing their toys with great pride – their machine-guns, rifles, hand guns, bombs, various war weapons, disfigured animals, dolls, and so on. And if new toys are not bought for them, they became resentful and unhappy for a long time.

In the communities I visited in Asia, they did not believe in such toys. There was no such shop that used to make or sell children’s toys.

I did not have a chance to make an inquiry about this, but throughout the years I observed children who had various roomfuls of toys and children without toys.

The children without toys made by others were more creative, artistic, sensitive, and had a spirit of gratitude – much more so than those who had plenty of toys.

The children without such toys were very social. They used to play with each other and create their own games to play with sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, and take part in all the labors at home. Children were also busy with their parents caring for the animals – the horses, donkeys, chickens, goats, cows, calves – or helped them in gardening, repairing, painting, building, working at home, or working with their fathers on vacation days from school.

Children without artificial toys had their toys too, but they made them.

Those who have toys made for them in some sense block their creativity, the spirit of adaptation and group work, and enter into a world of satisfaction, attachment, dependency, loneliness, and fantasy. Lazy boys, and those who used to wander on the streets, were looked at as failures and watched carefully by the authorities.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Autobiography

The most dangerous path is seeking pleasure in the spiritual bazaars

People think that spirituality is to run after every so-called teachers or so-called esoteric books and so-called channels and mediums. But real spirituality is not built by accumulating knowledge, opinions, information, but by a transformation of life. And a transformation of life cannot take place until one starts losing his self-interest and begins to serve a great human cause.

At the present we have millions of wanderers who go from one teacher to another, from one book to another, trying to find nourishment for their self-interest. The most dangerous path is seeking pleasure in the spiritual bazaars.

There are lots of so-called “esoteric” or “occult” literature on the market that try by all means to prevent people from devoting themselves to a worthy cause. Every book, teacher, and school for them is like a fashion model, continually presenting to the audience a “new” fashion. The audience enjoys the fashions and the girls, but these fashions do not create in them commitment, dedication to an ideal, and the searchers resemble window shoppers because they do not have any real interest in sacrificing for real objects. Eventually, their interest in spiritual work fades or petrifies, and a moment comes when they even hate any spiritual discussion. Their interest totally evaporates. Such people end their life in despair and depression.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Virtues & Values vol.1

Comedy, humor, jest and jokes

Comedy and humor are different. In comedy you reveal the most stupid or ugly parts of people and impress them on others. In humor you help people understand their own weaknesses or shortcomings and take care of them.

Comedy is ugly criticism. Through comedy you can destroy the best images and lead people to vulgarity.

Under the protection of comedy you say or do things that you would never be able to say or do otherwise.

Humor is based on pure observation and using that observation to help people uplift themselves.

Comedy and jest, when they reach the level of vulgarity, are as dangerous as drugs.

Comedy slanders people, principles, laws, and standards in making you laugh. Laughter makes the slander accepted. Laughter is used as a pass to enter into sacred places.

Comedy is used very efficiently also as a political tool to disgrace people or to exaggerate their weaknesses.

People like to laugh even if they realize that they often laugh at themselves. To see oneself as is, is an advantage. To see an exaggerated image of oneself is depressive or a misleading device.

Comedy prevents your mind from penetration into reality. It prevents you from using your mind freely.

People use comedy also to hide their ugliness, or they use comedy to make people accept their ugliness. The motive behind slander is the same. Slandering others hides one’s own ugliness by drawing attention to others.

There is also a form of joking used to remove the sacredness of certain objects, ideas, and beliefs. It is the most subtle way to make people repulse certain sacred objects, ideas, and beliefs. Through certain jokes many sacred principles are destroyed.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Cosmic Questions vol.3

Coarseness

The closer you approach to your Divine Self, the more concern you demonstrate for others, and you try to relate with them in such a way that you lead others toward their Self instead of stimulating and challenging their animal interests.

Failure of feeling others as part of yourself is the failure of refinement, of being and living as your True Self. If you are unable to feel others as parts of your Self, your thoughts, emotions, words, and actions follow the path of coarseness. You become insensitive to people’s needs, to their dreams and visions, to their rights and values.

Coarseness is the result of lack of control over your animal nature, your ego, vanity, and ignorance. Coarseness is lack of control over obsessing and possessing entities. Coarseness is the result of the activity of dark forces through you.

Coarseness expresses itself in hypocrisy, in language full of blasphemy and curses, hurting jokes, mockery, in unpleasant gestures, voice and manner. But all these are the result of the coarseness of consciousness that is still not emancipated from self-worship, dictatorship, or from the attitude of imposing on others.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Cosmic Questions vol.3

Children and coarseness

Children must be taught from childhood how to be refined and graceful, and in the meantime decisive, firm and enduring. The modern world seems to run on the path of coarseness. The movies are the biggest source of coarseness, and our children day and night are fed by them.

Many children are born with refined hearts, but because of their environment they develop a second nature of coarseness to protect their dignity and rights. Education not only must teach the disciplines of refinement but also try to discover such noble children who are forced to be coarse and bring them back to their original nature.

-Torkom Saraydarian

Cosmic Questions vol.3

Coarseness in art

Coarseness can manifest not only through our thoughts, emotions, and actions but also through so called art, dances, songs, and music.

What is the common coarseness in art? It is any expression that stimulates your lower emotions so that you lose control over them or you experience a depressing conflict within yourself. Your striving, studies, and meditation weaken even in such a degree that eventually you abandon your path.

Coarseness is imposed upon humanity almost against their will, for example, through many publications and radio and television advertisements, movies, and theatrical performances.

The carriers of coarseness are smart enough to start with a very small dosage, and they gradually increase it to avoid confrontation and conflict. They know how to spread coarseness, dressing it in the most beautiful words, clothes, and mannerisms, even in heroism, so that you accept them. They are like medical pills that are obnoxious in taste but coated with sugar and chocolate so that you do not touch the essence as you swallow them.

Coarseness prevents discipline, striving, and efforts to clean and control your body of its urges and drives. Once you are dominated by coarseness, you do not want to go through the discipline to control your manners, your emotions, your words and thoughts. You do not want to go through refining your body, emotions, and thoughts, but you let your thoughts, emotions, and body control you. Usually coarse people are slaves of obsession, subconscious and hypnotic suggestions, or slaves of examples.

Go to a modern dance party and you will not see any design of refined movement. All move the way they want to move, mostly expressing sex energy and emotional complexes.

Go to a ballet and you will see the difference between the two dances. One is the result of striving, understanding, philosophy, plan, and meaning. The other is the result of carelessness behind which there is no aspiration, striving or refinement.

Refined dances are like messages of nobility, philosophy, ideas, and visions. Coarse dances have no message. There is irresponsibility and careless in them, and you do not need training and discipline to dance. Just jump into the crowd and move your body the way you want.

Crime, murder, and violence are spreading everywhere because people are teaching them systematically and by all possible means to lead humanity toward coarseness.

Watch a movie and hear the words that they were not able to use fifty years ago but now are common and accepted. Acceptance of coarseness show how successful are those who are leading this movement toward coarseness.

In old films we used to see striving toward refinement. Love was holy, but now almost in every film you see scenes of sexual intercourse. Very soon the most obnoxious expressions will be accepted as normal expressions of life.

Refinement inspires striving, and striving leads you to your life’s purpose. You grow, bloom, and unfold with your higher potentials. Coarseness leads you toward degeneration and disintegration.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Cosmic Questions vol.3

The limiting conditions of life cannot be annihilated by cursing them

The limiting conditions of life cannot be annihilated by cursing the conditions or burying yourself in sadness and anger but by using the conditions in such a way that you make them the instrument to annihilate them.

One day my Father said that those who do not fight against the conditions in which they live, but gratefully try to improve them and appreciate the opportunity given to them, they live longer and happier lives.

Many people eat away their own life in hating the life they live, without taking positive and intelligent steps to improve or change it. Negative, remorseful, and hateful attitudes toward conditions create poison in our system and prevent us from seeing the ways to change the conditions.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Virtues & Values vol.1

How can we use joy to solve problems in relationships?

Question: How can we use joy to solve problems in relationships?

Answer: Just continue to be joyful and the problems will melt away. Don’t even talk. When you try to clean the mess of others, you can fall into it. The harder you try, the deeper you fall if someone is really depressed, sad, or always negative, do not mind it and you will see that he or she will no longer use these tools because they don’t work. With joy you can make their negative tools worthless. A husband might say, “I am going to divorce you.” And the wife says, “Oh, please don’t. I will be your slave.” The man will continue that behavior until the day she says, “I don’t care.” I am referring to divine carelessness.

A person once said, “From now on, I am not going to come to your classes.” “How nice. You will respect me with your absence,” I said. It is you that increases the devils by hanging onto them. Don’t hang on people’s devils.

Never decide to do anything important unless you are in joy. Your decisions will fail if they come from a negative attitude of mind. Joy is the victory of spirit over matter.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Happiness, Joy & Bliss

How to eradicate the damage done to Nature

Humanity committed an unparalleled crime against Nature by destroying the balance of Nature through its scientific experiments and so-called discoveries. Science will not eliminate all that it did to the planet. Science started to improve our life and to make life pleasant to live on the planet but fell into greed and stupidity by interfering with the natural order in life. The same thing will continue to happen, even if a chance is given to science to eradicate the damage that it caused.

The damage is beyond the power of science to eliminate. There must be something beyond science to eradicate the growing damage already done.

What would that be?

Beyond science is the power of renunciation from all the poisons and luxury that science gave us and a return to Nature, if any Nature is left to return to!

Without such a drastic shift, no power on earth can save us from the destruction that is already on the way.

The first blow to our destructive trends must be given to greed and luxury. People must be re-educated to be satisfied with simple foods, simple clothes, and simple dwelling places. To manage the population growth, for at least fifty years, married couples should not have more than one child. Unmarried people should not have children.

We must refrain from eating meat, fish, or chicken. Auto traffic must be cut by seventy-five percent and air traffic by eighty percent.

If we take these steps we will survive. If not, Nature will try to impose these restrictions on us very suddenly and when it is too late.

Appealing to the fields of science, religion, education, finance, art, politics, or philosophy will not help. All these branches of human endeavor as they are now will slowly show their bankruptcy. The only wisdom that will help global humanity is the actualization of the values of renunciation, love, and sacrificial service.

We must turn to Nature and eliminate all that was artificially manufactured to poison humanity and the planet. This can be done through the path of renunciation. This is the only way to salvation.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Cosmic Questions vol.3, p.12

The endless song

One day Satan and man became friends. They worked all day to cultivate a field, and at dusk they were ready to make the five mile walk home. Satan said to the man, “I see that you are tired. You can sit on my back and sing a song, and as you sing I will carry you home. But when your song is over you must climb down, and I will jump on your back and sing my song. Then when I am through, you will take your turn, and so on.” The man agreed, jumped on Satan’s back and began to sing. But after half a mile his song was over, and so he had to let Satan ride. Satan jumped on his back and began to sing. The man walked one mile, two miles, three miles, and Satan was still singing. “I am tired,” said the man. “Please finish your song.” “What are you talking about?” Satan asked. “We have an agreement. I will not climb down until my song is finished. You have no right to interrupt me.” The man carried him for another mile and then fell to his death.

This is the story of materialism. The materialists have a song that will never finish until its carrier is killed. The problem is how to control the earthbound intellect.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Battling Dark Forces

Joy always increases when your ego and self-interest decrease

Joy always increases when your ego and self-interest decrease. Some people will ask, “What kind of philosophy is that? Are you saying that I will decrease and joy will increase?” Actually, in your essence you are joy. You as the joy increase. It is the most limiting elements in you that decrease.

Why have a joyful heart? A joyful heart emanates an energy called psychic energy. Psychic energy is the energy of your soul, your spirit. When you are joyful, it radiates outward. When you are not joyful, psychic energy dies. Psychic energy is the healer of your body, emotions, and mind. Psychic energy increases your energy potentials and your immune system. The immune system fails when humanity is not joyful.

Joy cleanses you. It takes the dust and rust from your heart, which cause sickness in your psyche. When you are joyful, you love people. When you don't have joy, you criticize and belittle others.

The psychic energy of joy also cleans our dark, harmful thoughts. Millions of such thoughts develop in our minds daily. We say, "My thoughts are not hurting people because I am not verbalizing them, and I am not acting or feeling under their power." But such thoughts are termites. Eventually you will see that the "the two by fours" of your brain are eaten.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Happiness, Joy & Bliss

A joyful child is the flower and fruit of certain conditions

A joyful child is the flower and fruit of certain conditions:

1. He or she did not inherit any diseases from his parents.
2. His father and mother did not pollute his nature with irritation, fights, divorce, and negative emotions.
3. He was nourished properly.
4. He had a joyful environment.
5. Proper clothing was provided.
6. There was love at home, understanding, and harmony.
7. He was not a victim of various attacks, genocides, wars, famine, earthquakes, or other natural calamities.
8. He was not raised in fanaticism and with ideas of separatism and hatred.
9. He was not exposed to examples of violence and murder.
10. He was not doped and drugged and raped.
11. No mental pressures were put on his brain beyond his capacity to carry them, nor was he subjected to hypnotism.
12. He was not forced to give fruits before he sprouted.
13. He was not exposed to contemporary movies of violence, murder, and sex.
14. His parents, teachers, heroes, and friends were not humiliated in front of him.

To have a joyful child is to have the best future for humanity.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Happiness, Joy & Bliss

Advice regarding psychism

Great Teachers give the following advice regarding psychism:

1. Do not force yourself to be a psychic but let your powers flourish naturally.
2. Never manipulate your centers and never concentrate upon them.
3. Find a wise Teacher when you feel that you are ready for instruction.
4. Never use your powers to satisfy the curious or selfish interests of others. Study the Upanishads, The Bhagavad Gita, The New Testament, the works of H. P. Blavatsky, Alice A. Bailey, Helena Roerich, and other such literature.
5. Learn how to meditate.
6. Observe your moral life, and do not be trapped in sex, vanity, greed, hatred, and fear. Such elements destroy the communication line between you and your Solar Angel.
7. Try to live in the light of your Solar Angel.
8. Do not talk about your own spiritual striving and discoveries with average people.
9. Any psychic experience must be reported to your Teacher and no one else.
10. Any psychic order revealed from the subjective realms must not be obeyed until your Teacher’s advice is sought.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Breakthrough to Higher Psychism, pp.92-92

If knowledge increases without beingess, all knowledge is used for egotistical and destructive ends

Graduates of colleges and universities must exemplify a life of Nobility, Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom and not greed, hatred, fear, anger, and the spirit of materialism and exploitation in various forms.

You can find criminals in the slums of the world, but you can also find similar criminals in high positions with more subtle techniques and with a greater range of destruction and harm. The cause of all this is knowledge. If knowledge increases without beingess, all knowledge is used for egotistical and destructive ends. Knowledge without change in beingness causes the person to express his lower desires, urges and drives more powerfully and with greater success, increasing his glamors and illusions – and you have chaos.

-Torkom Saraydarian

The Creative Fire

All space is full of living entities

Scientists of the world think that if any life form exists on any globe in the Universe, it should be tangible and visible. This is not true. Globes, stars, and galaxies exist in different systems. For example, there are etheric beings, there are astral beings, there are mental beings, and even intuitional beings and more. Their bodies are different.

Many years ago we could not see what we are seeing now without our microscopes and telescopes. Hundreds of years later we will see so much more that our present telescopes and microscopes will become obsolete devices to us.

All space is full of living entities, microscopic and telescopic – but the present scientists have closed their imaginations.


-Torkom Saraydarian
 Initiation

Methods of unfolding the chakras

Each chakra is related to one of the levels of consciousness. As flowers bloom when the spring comes, so the chakras bloom when the light of the consciousness expands.

We see that in every age people tried to introduce methods to unfold the chakras

1. by artificial means
2. by meditating upon them
3. through the process of meditation, purification, and expansion of consciousness
4. through initiations

The first two methods are considered very dangerous by certain Teachers. The third method is the safest method. The fourth method is exercised only by the Great Master, to meet certain planetary crises and prepare a certain number of people to handle the danger accumulating upon the planet.

The third, safest method is recommended in Ashrams and in true esoteric schools.

The artificial methods are hatha yoga, breathing exercises, certain exercises of will, and concentration upon the chakras. In far eastern countries, these are exercised with only failing results; but in western countries, because of our chaotic and polluted environment, such methods have very destructive effects.

Those who want to develop their chakras safely must lay a good foundation. When one carefully lives according to such a foundation, the rest will be easy. This foundation is build by

1. purity of life – physical, moral, and mental
2. sacrificial service – service to spread Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, and Freedom
3. fearlessness – which is a state of consciousness not identified with material values
4. striving toward perfection – with one’s deeds, words, expressions, creativity, thought, and communication.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Education as Transformation vol.1, p.98

How do you know when you are in joy?

Question: How do you know when you are in joy?

Answer: If you are in joy, you have physical energy. If you have joy, you always tend to be harmonious and cooperative. If you are in joy, you are creative. If these three signs are not present, you don’t have joy. When you do not have joy, you don’t have the spirit of creativity. Joy makes you fearless. If you have fears, you don’t have joy. This is very practical, not philosophical or psychological. If you have fear, you don’t have joy. When joy comes, all fear disappears. Practically observe yourself and you will discover whether or not you have joy.

For example, tape a paper with a few sentences on a wall and then try to read them from as far away as possible. When you are in joy, you can read the words from a greater distance than when you are hateful, miserable, or depressed. This means that joy affects even our organs and senses. Why not dwell on these facts and create a great science instead of creating nuclear weapons? Such a science would be far more powerful than any nuclear weapon.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Happiness, Joy & Bliss, p.313

"The pill that I recommend is gratitude"

Without gratitude, one cannot have joy. When you see people who are depressed, negative, and destructive, you find that they do not have gratitude in their heart. Gratitude to what? Gratitude to everything! Be grateful even to those who are harming you, slandering, and gossiping about you. They are revealing those spots in your nature that need improvement. They are doing a great service free of charge.

Be grateful for your wife, your husband, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your group, your Teaching, your vision, life, trees, and mountains.

When you are angry, hateful, jealous, or revengeful, sit for a few minutes and think about gratitude and be grateful. You will see that all the negative clouds will disappear.

I once visited a man in a hospital. He was very sick and psychologically sour. He said that he hated everything including the sun. I asked myself, “How can this person be healed?” I spoke with psychiatrists and other physicians, asking them what was really bothering him. They said, “We don’t know, but we are trying to heal him.”

I spoke with the man for half an hour, telling him, “There is one pill that I can give you that will help.” “Give it, give it”, he said. “It is easy to give, but it is very difficult to swallow. Your illness is called lack of gratitude. The pill that I recommend is gratitude. Is there someone or something in your life that you can feel gratitude for?” “To hell with all of this,” he said.

See how his sickness was reacting? Finally, I found a few ways in which he could feel grateful in gradually larger and larger ways, until we came to his sickness. He was also going to be grateful for his sickness. “Well, that is going to be difficult,” he said. The next day, he was dismissed from the hospital because he had recovered.

Gratitude puts fuel in the most healing substance within you, which his joy.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Happiness, Joy & Bliss

What is evening review?

Evening review is like going over your thoughts, emotions, words, and actions and retaping points that were not acceptable to your soul.

 

A musician records his music and goes over it and corrects the tape. He casts away all that is not proper in the music and thus cleans the tape of all defects. This is what evening review does. It cleans your recording and does not let anything unacceptable stay there to contaminate the rest.

 

What is evening review? Every night seclude yourself for fifteen to thirty minutes and review your life during the day, starting from the moment you awakened. You progress minute by minute, checking your thoughts, words, emotions, and actions in a progressive way until you reach the moment of your review. Then you retape or record, eliminating all that is not acceptable by the light of your soul and replacing it with thoughts, emotions, actions, or words that are acceptable in the light of your soul. Thus you clean the chain of events from your recording.

 

For example, you acted in an angry, illogical, and rude manner at 10:00 am. Change the recoding. In your evening review, act in a very pleasant manner, with logic and reasoning. Be graceful. Now you have a new recording, and you will not take with you the old tape when you go to sleep. Instead you will have with you the newly edited tape. This will not only invigorate your nadis but will also destroy the seeds of future complications.

 

Suppose you were acting in vanity and ego and deceived someone. Now, at the evening review, you react and act without vanity, without ego, without deception, but are noble and honest in that event. During these times you prepare a bright future for yourself and cat out causes that will damage your nadis.

 

Sometimes you will see situations that make you hate yourself. This is not necessary. Approach the day’s events with indifference and correct them. In the evening review if you are totally satisfied with yourself you are blind or afraid. See deep into yourself. See motives, see intentions, and bring them out and change them.

 

Accepting yourself as you are leads you to future oral and spiritual bankruptcy.

 

With this method you become your own guide, and your soul light increases in your consciousness and makes you ever alert.

 

Knowledge, degrees, and positions destroy your future if you do not guide yourself with the light of your reason and logic and by the light of your soul.

 

-Torkom Saraydarian

Esoteric Science of Healing