Gorakshnath & Sitanath Discuss The Nature Of Life

Queso · April 24, 2007

This text is drawn from a much longer, partially channeled dialog between two Naths and Goraknath.

Shivanath. What I’m wondering is if the asskicking in any way, shape or form

correlates to expanded consciousness or enlightenment or if it’s more to do with

equipping people to make changes in manifest reality by spiritual means, purification

to wield power versus purification to get out of this mess. Could Ammachi just zap

somebody: “You, you’ll become happy now. You’ll stay happy. You’ll untangle your

karmas and become enlightened, but every step will be pleasant and joyful.” She’s

God so I have to assume the answer is Yes. It would seem easier that way...

Sitanath. That doesn’t seem especially likely.... you make it sound like She’d be putting

someone under a spell.....or the reverse.

Shivanath. “Reversal of reality is the job of Maya, reversal of the reversal is the job

of the Guru.” – Ganesh Baba. I’m literally asking, if (as we know) she can take a little

pot of jam and make it feed 500, why doesn’t she just immediately transform all of

her devotees’ karmas or instantly free them from all illusion? Clearly there’s some kind

of constraint: it doesn’t seem to work, or ever to have worked that way. But, whatever

that constraint is, it’s becoming important.

Sitanath. She’s said so many times that there are some karmas that can be taken

away, some that can be partially mitigated, and some that we just have to endure.

Shivanath. In your ordinary life or mine, if something good we want can’t happen,

there’s a limit somewhere. We don’t have the money, or the right training, or the class

is on the wrong side of town on the wrong night, or they just sold the last one and it’s

backordered. Our ability to get what we want is limited by circumstances. Amma or

Goraknath’s current form’s desire for people to be happy clearly isn’t limited by those

kinds of constraints. Even though we’re spared enormous trouble, we’re not spared all

trouble, yet it seems that’s what they’d want, doesn’t it? It seems like here’s some kind

of paradox, a more evolved version of “Can God make an object so heavy God can’t

lift it?” It sounds like a shallow question, and it is. But after a few years of serious work

it is an important shallow question! What’s the limit on divine action? Is it free will? Is

it that we’re only seeing a tiny snip of time, so they’re doing what’s best over eternity

and that turns out to be a lot of hard work now, and a lot of cool stuff much, much

later—either decades or lifetimes?

Sitanath. Sometimes it seems like our own readiness and capacity to receive it.

Shivanath. That always seems like the limit—but then, why don’t they just magically

redefine us to be more ready, like redefining the pot of jam? If my “identity” is limiting

how much they can help me, or whatever, I’m absolutely willing to have whatever that

bottleneck is cleared.

Sitanath. I wonder also about what we’re supposed to do in the world? If that kind of

magic in one place might detract in some other way.

Shivanath. There’s no “opposition”—no counterforce—that can stand up to the

Divine Will. Yet change seems slow and difficult.

Sitanath. Have you tried asking Goraknath’s current form about this one?

Shivanath. God no. Do I look crazy?

Sitanath. [Grin.] Yes.

Shivanath. OK, no, let’s give it a shot...?

[shivanath begins to meditate and make psychic contact with Goraknath.]

Shivanath. Oi. He says that the creation is, in certain places in the universe, essentially

out of control meaning, literally, that it cannot be controlled in total, even by him. It

could be erased or broken but, short of that, it can only be tweaked and redefined.

Goraknath. “Even divine beings step into such tar pits gracefully.”

Sitanath. [Grin.]

Shivanath. There’s some sort of notion of interwoven complexity like you can darn

holes in a blanket but you can’t just pull out the red threads and replace them with

green ones, or the Gordian Knot. It’s Pizza Hut!

Sitanath. ?!?

Shivanath. There might be planets a little like this one all over the galaxy. But none

of them have the particularity of Pizza Hut—the sea of forces which produce it—

cheap plastic—crass commercialism—garlic—the Italian-American cultural context.

It’s attachment. The reason they don’t simply evacuate the human population of the

planet and redistribute them to sane planets which got over war aeons ago is that there

are things here which people want, which are actually amazing experiences, but which

people can’t get anywhere else. So the trick, he’s telling me, is to try and fix the horribly

broken stuff, without killing Pizza Hut, or Burning Man, or the Sistine Chapel. If He

or Amma generated the thought of “all people eat healthy food and lose their taste

for unhealthy food” they could make it work, but it would be like trying to bleach the

blue out of a blanket. Earth without cheesecake wouldn’t quite be Earth. It’s like art

restoration and what I’m asking is basically “why don’t we just paint over that and put

up a nice NEW mural?” Yes, it’d be faster and easier but it’s not the point.

Sitanath. Exactly. Do you have a sense of what is the point?

Shivanath. The point seems to be that there are things which make Earth very special

but they’re embedded in a lot of crap and search-and-replace style miracle fixes tend

to horribly mar the good stuff or....

Goraknath. “Decontexualize it.”

Sitanath. Why is the context important?

Shivanath. Michaelangelo’s David wouldn’t be what it is if it had been produced by

a computer-controlled lathe. Part of what makes it what it is is that it was produced by

raw brute consciousness. The miracle is that it was done by a spirit and hands.

Goraknath. “Not the object, but the process. You like the David, don’t you? But would

you want to be in a place where any school kid can produce one by pure thought? What

makes it special is that it was done here, where it is hard. the object itself is nothing,

a rock. But Michaelangelo’s consciousness is everything, a jewel cutting against self-

chosen limits.”

Sitanath. Though [devil’s advocate]... if everyone/thing is enlightened/realized/

God... why does that matter?

Shivanath. Art. People like looking at the pretty planets. Make some worlds. Make

some beings to enjoy them. SimGod. That’s textbook Vedic Hinduism right there, just

updated with modern metaphors.

Sitanath. So, even if we’re all enlightened, the lila continues...

Shivanath. He’s only got one comment on that.

Goraknath. [shows a picture of Almora Baba here. He appears as an unnaturally

gorgeous young man of around twenty-five wearing a turban and a leopard skin jacket.

He looks like sex on legs.]

Sitanath. [Laughing hysterically!!!!] HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!! [Grin.] That was so

perfect!!!! ... Is there a reason why the lotus is continually sprouting from the navel of

Brahman?

Goraknath. “I took that body because people enjoy it. If you were all knowing, all

powerful, all seeing, all being, all knowing to the point where all futures were open to

you, what would you choose? I chose to have a good time. To party in the creation, to

teach yoga to the kids, to play in the sun on beaches as an anonymous surfer, to fly in

the clouds as a condor, to grow in the grove as a tree. But many others choose simply

not to exist, to fade into the infinite bliss/desire/wholeness of the uncreation, to serve

as raw material for other’s dreams. The greatest creations induce forgetting. Masks so perfect they hide god completely, leaving only Shiva or Amma. Or Frank or Harry or

George. The real reason we do not simply redefine you to be happy is that you already

are, and wear this mask because you choose to. It’s none of our business.”

Sitanath. Ha!

Goraknath. “What do you think it means when we say that ‘we are inside every

person’—the Atman inside me, or Ammachi, my ‘sister,’ is exactly as the Atman inside

of you or Shivanath. You have exactly the same powers and choices we have but we

remained awake outside of the game, while you played it endlessly. Little children

will endlessly cry ‘almost finished’ when they are no such thing, so you only know the

game is over when they come inside. We come when we hear crying, great suffering

or torture—as a mother knows the difference between a hide-and-seek yell and a dog-

bit-John yell. But we don’t interfere in the games, and they are all games, apart from a

few out-of-control worlds and, even on those, only a few out-of-control corners. God’s

business is not to patrol God, not to control God, but to simply observe and enjoy. We

enjoy the company of our peers and equals greatly, and voyage through the universe

for our own pleasure. Those who have finished the game may choose to join us, or

play again, or dissolve.”

Sitanath. Why does the game arise?

Goraknath. “The game arises out of many, many possible activities for God.

Contemplation, meditation, silent pondering of the void, sex, etc. all produce very

little form and little illusion of time or space. The Game of Life, this part of reality

where there is breeding and life and death and experience, where things matter and

beings forget, it is very dense, very hard, very durable. Once it arises, beings are drawn

to it because it is so different from the uncreated state or ‘seed consciousness’—the

awareness of the individuated Atman without a being or a body to experience matter/

time through. Many beings look at Life and simply slide straight by it. Others play

and play and play and play until Brahman itself reabsorbs the entire playing field.

But this is an aesthetic, not a moral preference. No soul is bound here, but the rules

of the game strongly suggest that players should complete a round before leaving, for

the benefit of the other players. Otherwise positive karmas accumulate in the system,

gradually causing the illusion of matter and material being to fade out, as it did at

the end of the Mahabarata when all parties involved simply swam into a river of light

never to return. Mass readiness to exit occurs at great crescendos, but otherwise beings

typically wile away their time in very pleasant places, paradise planets of the upper

astral realms. Hard matter, like your conception of Earth (which actually contains

many planes, of which yours is one of the lower material ones) is like hard drugs. A

game for the young and the strong and the brave, with horrific casualties. But how do

you stop a brave young girl from doing methamphetamines in a biker bar?”

Sitanath. !!!

Goraknath. “How can you deny the Soul the Easy Rider experience if it wishes to

see the facet of the jewel represented by a physical body, a lot of speed and a large

motorbike? The Atman is indestructible and all else is a child’s crayon drawings for its

own amusement. Watch children play and discover how much fun their experiences of

monsters are. So comes war, and soldiers, and dragons and other entities—games of

Hide and Seek where a player becomes Smaug for the other players’ Hobbits.”

Shivanath. (Yes, he’s using metaphors easy to find in my brain. Sorry.)

Goraknath. “There is no sense of non-equal in the creation as we understand it, any

more than an actor’s shoe size is changed by the roles they have played on the screen.

The Atman is unaffected by the experiences of this great game.”

Goraknath. “‘But it sucks,’ you say! ‘Argh, ow, stop eating my leg!’”

Goraknath. “But there is no leg. From an outsider’s perspective it seems as curious

and quaint as somebody sitting over a computer game sobbing for the fate of their

space invader. ‘You guys are nuts’ is basically how we view it.”

Sitanath. Do we know before we enter that we’ll forget who we are? and is the

forgetting of importance to sustain the game? Is there a way to truly remember who

we are and stay in the game?

Goraknath. “Those of us who re-enter the creation from time to time to perform

housekeeping experiences for the other players are gods. Outside and above karma,

beyond the system. But we do not create and destroy at will because we are here to

improve the game, not to end it. Players who are done can leave at any time, and

exits are clearly marked—anybody, at any time, can choose incarnation on a series of

planets which will rapidly result in their reaching “enlightenment”—the full experience

of Atman is Brahman—experiences for the other players are Gods. Outside and

above karma, beyond the system. But we do not create and destroy at will because

we are here to improve the game, not to end it. Players who are done can leave at

any time, and exits are clearly marked—anybody, at any time, can choose incarnation

on a series of planets which will rapidly result in their reaching “enlightenment”—

the full experience of Atman is Brahman. Yukteswaraji, for example, has an open game for the young and the strong and the brave, with horrific casualties. But how do