SYMPOSIUMS
LECTURE
No. 9 – MAKING A SUCCESS OF ONE’S LIFE MEANS BEING AT ONE WITH ALL THAT LIVES
MAKING A SUCCESS OF ONE’S LIFE MEANS BEING AT ONE WITH ALL THAT LIVES
SUMMARY
All human beings want to be happy. But how many accept the idea that their happiness depends on themselves and on the nature of their thoughts? Only a revolution in mentalities, one that makes room for the spiritual dimension of man, can limit the assaults of a blind materialism. The Teaching of His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH helps each person in a concrete way to overcome trials, to understand the meaning of life, to evolve and to develop their joy of living. Aumism offers constructive answers to the problems besetting humanity. The path towards planetary unity and solidarity, the foundation of the Golden Age, is essential to a gradual re-enchantment of life and of the world and to the conquest of lasting happiness for all human beings. Humanity is now facing up to its responsibilities. Each person must freely and consciously choose to transform themselves. History shows that nothing imposed from outside can last.
TALK
Following on from our previous Symposium on “The Evolution of Consciousness”, the 2004 Symposium was devoted to the means offered by the Aumist Religion for “Making a success of one’s life through the conquest of inner happiness”.
What would be the use of the evolution of consciousness through the vicissitudes of life if it did not lead to a life that is more conscious, more fulfilled and happier?
In this final lecture we will address the following points:
I – A REVOLUTION IN MENTALITIES IS ESSENTIAL
II – THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN
III – FORMS OF HAPPINESS OFFERED BY AUMISM
IV – THERE CAN BE NO HAPPINESS WITHOUT SOLIDARITY WITH ALL THAT LIVES
I – A REVOLUTION IN MENTALITIES IS ESSENTIAL
All human beings aspire to happiness, even if it remains an individual and subjective notion. The growing number of books and websites devoted to personal development and to ways of mobilising one’s inner resources in order to fulfil one’s personality and to win happiness and the joy of living shows:
1. That our contemporaries are questioning the true meaning of existence, success and the means of achieving happiness.
2. That mentalities are evolving towards a search for values and a quest for meaning which, in the recent past, might have been thought outdated and obsolete.
Even if a genuine awakening is still marginal, it is becoming more and more evident that consumer goods and material comfort alone cannot fill the inner emptiness felt by many of our contemporaries. Thus we see wealthy celebrities at the height of popularity and fame take their own lives in despair. Conversely, there are people of modest means who radiate the joy of living.
His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH points out that: “humanity has made great progress in every direction as regards mastery of the outer world, but as for the conquest of the inner universe, most beings are ignorant of the very ABC of climbing to the summits of their being”. (La Réintégration Divine par le Yoga, p. 142).
Materialism has ushered in a disenchanted world in which the young generations are trained mainly on the intellectual level and in which productivity and the competitive spirit are raised to the status of dogma. But the reign of egocentrism and its corollary, separativeness, “assaults the psyche”. Indeed, “Every effect has a cause; what man sows, he reaps”. (La Réintégration Divine par le Yoga, p. 124).
According to the recommendations of His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH, a complete and balanced human formation must include a spiritual education. Education is crucial. Of all living beings, man is the creature that is most helpless at birth. Despite their rich latent potential, human beings have to learn everything. They have to learn to walk, to speak, and so on. Spirituality is no exception to this rule. Without suitable training, a person may remain all their life unaware of what authentic spirituality brings to the fulfilment of the personality. The result: in Western societies, the void left by GOD is filled with substitutes. The gods of television, rock music, politics and sports stadiums have become the masters who tell the young generations how to think and behave. These new temporal and ephemeral idols are the object of an almost religious cult and veneration which unleashes passions to the point of provoking real scenes of collective hysteria at huge gatherings. In the most tragic cases, young people seek distractions and compensations for their emptiness and inner malaise in drugs, alcohol and gratuitous violence. Moreover, it is becoming more and more evident that a purely scientific and rational vision of the world can in no way replace a spiritual explanation of life.
For the Aumist religion: “Science will become a beacon of knowledge, joining with the spiritual intuition of the Sages to guide the Earth better on the path to a luminous future”. (Une Loi pour Détruire le Mal, p. 423). The testimonies handed down by the mystics of the different traditions lead us to think that the fascination exerted by a materialist science and the illusory cult of idols will never equal the fullness brought by fusion with the Supreme Self present in each of us.
II – THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN
As His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH teaches, the human being cannot be reduced to “a collection of flesh and bones in a bag of skin”. If we place the greatest sage and the most odious criminal side by side, their physical make-up is identical. What sets them apart lies in their state of mind and their level of consciousness, which determine their behaviour in life. As the lectures on the control of emotions and on positive thinking explained, the happiness or unhappiness of a human being depends essentially on the nature of their thoughts, that is to say on the state of mind maintained in the field of consciousness.
Since science will never be able to dissect a human consciousness under a microscope, the exploration of the human mind will long remain the privilege of spirituality.
“Only consciousness can study consciousness”. The role of religions and of spirituality is to provide answers about the invisible side of man and of the world, the meaning and purpose of life, and the fate that awaits us after death. These notions shed a different light on human life. The moral, cultural and spiritual values that societies need “were born historically in religions”. The great civilisations and traditional societies regarded spirituality as a natural phenomenon inseparable from daily life. Through rites, the sacred was meant to preserve the cosmic harmony that is the source of life.
Contrary to the claims of some of our contemporaries, and to the activism of anti-religious extremists and certain materialists, true spirituality is not dangerous for the mental health of citizens, for democracy or for secularism. Authentic spirituality is rooted in man; it does not lead to the mystification and alienation of the individual. Religion is not “the opium of the people”. Materialist ideologies and the economic pressures of a “savage” globalisation and of an invasive consumer society give rise to many human tragedies. To offset the negative side of an exacerbated materialism, the contribution of spirituality is essential for humanity.
III – FORMS OF HAPPINESS OFFERED BY AUMISM
Even though human beings are subject to a degree of determinism, conditioning and genetic inheritance, there is no such thing as fate. “Man is free in essence; it is the mental attitude adopted in the course of life that imprisons him (…) Driven by the fundamental Law of Evolution, humanity tends, in spite of itself, to perfect itself. However, as everything must be earned, the division is made between those who let themselves be dragged along and those who take their destiny in hand” (La Réintégration Divine par le Yoga, p. 302).
As Erasmus observed, “one is not born a man, one becomes one”.
Some contemporary philosophers speak of “the humanisation of the divine”. Lord HAMSAH MANARAH proposes the divinisation of man: “Become the God that you are in potential”, He teaches forcefully.
In the Psalms (Psalm 82:6) and in the Gospel of Saint John (John 10:34), where Christ quotes it, we read: “I said, you are gods”.
The Aumist Religion considers that this divinisation of man is the purpose of life and makes it possible to reach true happiness. This divinisation of man consists in achieving “Unity with the Supreme Self” present in each of us. Placed at the summit of the Evolutionary Pyramid, all human beings are Gods, Christs and Buddhas in potential. This is in no way a sacrilegious or fanciful pretension. It is a matter of restoring the ultimate Essence of our being to its rightful place. But this divinisation, like “the celestial delicacies that accompany it”, is not granted spontaneously. It is the fruit of effort.
As the “Initiatic Journey” of Lord HAMSAH MANARAH shows, one must work with determination to win Divinisation. Within the scope of this talk it is impossible to cover this vast subject. By way of example, we will give an overview of the proposals made by Lord HAMSAH MANARAH for serenely accomplishing this sovereign metamorphosis of human nature.
In his book La Réintégration Divine par le Yoga, Deviens le Dieu que tu es (pp. 167 to 208), His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH offers the seeker of happiness “Seventeen Keys” for winning Spiritual Liberation and Divine Reintegration. To discover the true meaning of life hidden behind the illusory veil of the visible, there is no need to burden oneself with theology or with a “dogmatic representation of the divinity”. As the lectures given during this Symposium explained, in practice we must:
– police our thoughts, cultivate the highest aspirations, work for inner harmony and strive towards the highest wisdom,
– sweep away the obstacles formed by thoughts of fear, dread and anguish buried in the unconscious, which hold back our spiritual evolution,
– dispel the immoderate attraction of the phenomenal world, which feeds the illusions of our little egocentric self,
– eliminate the human imperfections and “negative imprints” that alter and pollute our personality,
– strive to conform more and more to the promptings of the “Light Consciousness” and of the eternally free “Supreme Self” that dwell at the heart of every being.
The Aumist Religion and the Monastery of MANDAROM SHAMBHASALEM offer souls committed to the path of Spiritual Liberation a teaching, a practice and a setting suited to their spiritual journey. The sage is one who knows how to be present in the world while practising the cardinal rule of detachment, which enables him to overcome emotional attachment and the torments of life, birth, old age, sickness and death. From a certain degree of awakening onwards, “nothing negative can reach” the seeker of truth any longer, who “settles into peace, calm, serenity and inner happiness”. This Bliss of the Sage does not prevent compassion for the sufferings of the world, nor the ability to work, without outside constraint, for the spiritual evolution of humanity.
The Aumist Religion invites each person to exercise their responsibilities in the world and to face with realism, courage and determination the inevitable problems that daily life brings. Here we find the Sufi wisdom that teaches: “Live for this world as if you were to live in it forever, and for the hereafter as if you were to die tomorrow”. In his great respect for the human person, His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH imposes nothing. He grants those who set out on the path of awakening complete freedom of choice and the possibility of going at their own pace.
To give concrete form to this freedom of choice, during this Symposium we have broadly distinguished two great paths of Spiritual Realisation offered by the Aumist Religion.
– The first is for all those who have family responsibilities and are engaged in social and professional life while pursuing their spiritual ascent.
– The second is the monastic path. It is meant for the heroes of spirituality who are able to renounce the world in the footsteps of the Messiah and to devote themselves to the accelerated divinisation of their being and to helping humanity. But the work to be done on oneself and the goal to be reached remain the same: mastery of the emotions and thoughts, and assiduous practice of meditations, ascetic disciplines and spiritual exercises.
IV – THERE CAN BE NO HAPPINESS WITHOUT SOLIDARITY WITH ALL THAT LIVES
Setting out on the path of Spiritual Liberation in order to become the God that each of us is in potential inevitably leads to an awareness of Unity and Solidarity with the Whole, perceived and lived as a reality.
While some religions speak of the “communion of Saints”, Aumism broadens this notion by emphasising the close unity that exists between humanity, nature and the whole of Creation. This fundamental principle is illustrated by the Aumist symbol of the Evolutionary Pyramid of the Kingdoms of Nature.
The Unity advocated by the Aumist Religion in no way means uniformity. It is a Unity in complementarity between the various components of the Universe. For the Aumist Religion, the Universe is comparable to a vast body in which living beings and the various components of Creation interact with one another to form a Whole. This notion of the Universe perceived as a living being is neither fortuitous nor arbitrary. It corresponds to the highest Tradition, which regards the human body as the microcosm resembling the universe, the macrocosm, or the Purusha of the Eastern Tradition. Hence the injunction “Know thyself and thou shalt know the universe and the Gods”, engraved on the pediment of the Temple of Delphi. Hence also the teachings of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, which proclaims: “That which is below is like that which is above (…) to accomplish the miracle of the one thing”. To ensure the harmonious functioning of the whole, each element of this totality must respect the Laws of Life. From this harmony emerge intelligence, the consciousness of being and the joy of living.
Each human being must therefore regard themselves as a responsible actor within Nature and the Universe. True globalisation must not be limited to the useful disappearance of borders or to the ease of economic and commercial transactions and exchanges. It must also include respect and duties towards others and towards the environment, as well as the fair distribution of goods and wealth.
The path towards planetary and universal unity, which Aumism calls the “Golden Age”, takes the form of a gradual “re-enchantment” of life and of the world. Without this peaceful revolution in mentalities, there can be no true and lasting joy of living or happiness on Earth. To win this Golden Age mentality, the secret is to go beyond the personal and finite self in order to reach the Supreme Self, impersonal and infinite. Humanity bears a heavy responsibility.
A break with the Laws of Life and of the Cosmos, selfish behaviour centred solely on personal interests, and a lack of compassion and respect towards others and towards nature give rise to disturbances that seriously upset cosmic and planetary harmony and could lead to a fatal outcome.
As Lord HAMSAH MANARAH reminds us: “Any species that destroys its environment destroys itself”.
In conclusion:
To reach lasting happiness, the first rule of wisdom to observe is to live in the present moment, according to the formula “here and now”.
To establish a Golden Age society founded on the joy of living and on happiness, a revolution in mentalities is essential. The happiness, progress and well-being of humanity depend on the state of mind and the behaviour of each individual. To save the world from distress and misfortune, we must first of all transform ourselves by practising a healthy individual ecology. This resolution must be consciously and freely accepted; any other method would be illusory. History shows that nothing imposed from outside by force can last.
His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH tells us:
“What we must achieve is a planetary awakening, both as regards the environment and as regards the excesses of science, which must be channelled towards a high moral and unitist aspiration”. (Une Loi pour Détruire le Mal, p. 197)
“THE FATE OF THE WORLD IS IN YOUR HANDS” (Une Loi pour Détruire le Mal, p. 279)
Bibliography (works in French):
– The 22 books of His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH, Éditions du MANDAROM,
- Dieu des fourmis, Dieu des étoiles, Rémy CHAUVIN, France Loisirs, Sept. 1989.
- L’Homme-Dieu ou le sens de la vie, Luc FERRY, Grasset, 1996.
- Qu’est-ce qu’une vie réussie ?, Luc FERRY, Grasset, Nov. 2002.
- Dieu ?, Albert JACQUARD, Stock/Bayard, Jan. 2003.
- Vers une écologie, Question de no. 127, Albin Michel, April 2002.
- Qu’est-ce que la religion ? La transcendance des sociologues, Shmuel TRIGANO, Flammarion, Oct. 2001.
- Mystères au cœur de la science, Jean MOISSET, JMC, Collection Plénitude.
- A-t-on encore besoin d’une religion ?, André COMTE-SPONVILLE, Bernard FEILLET, Alain RÉMOND, Éditions de l’Atelier, Sept. 2003.
- Pourquoi « Dieu » ne disparaîtra jamais, A. NEWBERG, E. d’AQUILI, V. RAUSE, Sully, Sept. 2003.
