Talks at Sorrento – 1982
Sorrento is a suburb of Perth along the north coast of Western Australia. It was a sleepy holiday destination and the Beacon Hill ashram used to organise weekend and week long camps there at a youth centre. As with all the videos recordings made in Austraila in 1982, they are a record of his last recorded messages to us all.
Sorrento Part 1 Towards Glimpsing The Reality
“That which veils the reality, and therefore creates an split in it, apparently, this split is the first split. That there is an idea that something is real and something is not real. We don’t even bother to look at the expression, merely on the semantic level “Something is unreal”. It doesn’t make sense! Unreal is not. That is the definition of unreal. To say that something is unreal is a contradiction in terms. But that is where the whole mischief starts.”
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“So what is called evil arises from this division, this split, the split that one imagines (…) between the real and the unreal. It is of that split that all the evils that plague our lives are born. Desire, craving, hate, greed, these are all born of this evil which is veil misspelled; the veiling of the reality which creates the division between the real and the unreal, as if an unreal thing can exist. ”
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“Suddenly the evil becomes a reality when one is unable to find an answer this question “How could there be a veil in that which is supreme light?” (…) Until one finds an answer to this question, the question cannot be answered by anything that is within the purview of the veil itself. The mind is subject to this veil; the intellect is subject to this veil; reason is subject to this veil, and therefore these things cannot possibly unravel this mystery and bring about clarity. So paradoxically, again, the problem of evil can only be resolved when God is seen, and God cannot be seen (laughs) unless the veil is torn.”
“Now where are we? We are trapped, completely trapped. Therefore these great ones, the guru or the incarnation, or the avatar emphasizes the need to renounce, to cultivate the spirit of renunciation to turn away from darkness and move towards light. Vasistha puts it very beautifully, unambiguously: “Do not investigate the unreal because such an investigation gives it the stature of reality. Investigate what is real!”
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“So whether you are a religious person or you lead what is known as a secular life, (…) a constant re-examination of that spirit of renunciation is extremely important. Is renunciation possible? Yes, (but) not without faith. And faith is not possible without … a glimpse of the reality.”