Oblates of Shantivanam

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE AND LIFE IN THE WORLD

taken from The Four O’Clock Talks – Discussions with Br. Martin compiled by Carrie Lock P213 & P214

Can people live an ordinary life if they have had an experience of union with God?’

We can see how Christ realized the eternal or true self and his oneness with God. As Christ showed, the more I empty myself the higher I go. If I empty my Individual Consciousness, I go into the Collective Consciousness; if I empty my Collective Consciousness, I go into the Universal Consciousness; if I empty the Universal Consciousness, I go into the Unitary Consciousness. That is what it means to say, as the Hindus do, ‘I am Brahman’; or in the Christian language to say, ‘I am’ or ‘I and the Father are one’. The Unitary Consciousness transcends time and space. Christ showed this progression through the different levels of consciousness in his life.

You have to live an ordinary life otherwise you are cut off from others. The higher you go the humbler you become and the more you are united with others. In the Individual Consciousness, you think that you are better than the others.Then when you are in the Collective Consciousness, you think that your Collective Consciousness is better than that of the others. Again, there is a superiority complex. But in the Universal Consciousness there is no one to whom you are superior. You are there and everyone is in you. That takes away your pride and makes you humble because whatever you are doing you are doing to yourself. When you enter into the Unitary Consciousness, you become still more humble because it is only God and God is in everybody. You are in no way better than the others because the same truth is present in everybody.

’At that ultimate stage of realizing oneness with God, some people go into caves and live a solitary life though, rather than living an ordinary life.’

At the point of realizing oneness with God, we are really living because God is living in us. Yes, you can go into the forest or a cave if that is God’s will, but personally, I feel that that sense of union with the Divine is the beginning of our life. We are rooted in the Divine and then our levels of consciousness, all our memories and knowledge and our physical body, all become the instruments of God. God is using the body in order to manifest in our human relationships. We have the ascending aspect, the love of God, but we also have the descending aspect, the love or neighbour. I think the will of God is to come back from these experiences and to be available to help others to move into the original truth. We have to make this journey.