How Can I Tell if the Deekshas Are Working?

Dasaji Radhakrishna from the Oneness University in Golden City, India was asked, "After receiving deeksha, is there anything to look for in our everyday life that marks how we are progressing in our growth?"

These are some excerpts from his reply (which I edited for clarity and brevity):

The way to see how you are growing is to notice how you are experiencing everyday life as it is--in relationships with your parents, your partners, in the things that you do in your day-to-day, mundane life. See how much you are experiencing the Presence as you are doing them, and how you are experiencing things as they are.

If someone is shouting at you, what is your experience of it? Your response to the shouting doesn't matter. If it upsets you that's fine, but are you comfortable with that upset? If it makes you angry, are you comfortable being angry? The evolution of consciousness is not becoming free of everything, but being with everything. Maybe you're angry, but you can still feel comfortable with the anger.

Divine Presence flows into you through deeksha, and as the Presence grows within you, naturally you see that every experience you have in your life--whether it's anger, a fight, or any other conflict--it is all projected and being experienced as the background of this Presence. As it is being experienced from the background of the Presence, this same anger, fight or conflict is beautiful as it is. This is how you have changed.

And I can tell you that if you are touched with the Presence this change will naturally happen. It can happen rapidly like shift, shift, shift, shift, or it could be a gradual shift. Whatever is happening to you, watch for this shift. It is one important way that you can check whether you are growing.

I recently experienced a perfect example of what Radha-krishna is referring to above. An incident manifested recently in my life that created a great deal of anger within me. It doesn't happen too often anymore, but yes, it does happen.

It's a mistaken notion that once someone reaches a certain degree of enlightenment they never feel anger, grief, doubts, etc. Not true. Remember, Bhagavan says that humanity will have a fully functional enlightenment. For that we need at least some degree of personality to help carry on our every-day lives.

The anger I experienced this time was different, and it can best be described as pure anger. Just as when I experienced pure laughter for the first time (see Evolution of Joy), this was the first time I truly experienced anger in its pure form.

Normally when people feel anger, it's always clouded with other emotions such as guilt, frustration, disgust, hate, etc., all of which makes you feel even worse in the depths of the anger. But with Divine Presence holding the backdrop, anger can be experienced and expressed in its pure form.

Without the murkiness of all the other emotions mentioned above, pure anger is quite different. I found the pure form to be exhilarating. One minute I would be very, very angry--purely angry--and the next minute I was laughing at its beauty. This vacillation continued for a short while, and then there was no more anger. There was no residue, no guilt, no self-recrimination, just joy in the experience. I was angry--so what?? My day continued.

P. J.
March, 2006

back to the Articles Directory

back to the top

Site Map

Sacred Lotus of Enlightenment