WHAT IS THE MYSTERY OF A PILGRIMAGE / TIRTHA?PART-01

WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF PILGRIMAGE?-

11 FACTS;- 1-The word tirtha means a sort of jumping board from where one can take a dive into the infinite ocean. The Jaina word tirthankara means a creator of a tirtha, of a place of pilgrimage. A person can only be called a tirthankara if he has charged an area into which ordinary people can enter, open themselves up and begin their inner search. Jainas call them not incarnations but tirthankaras. A tirthankara is a greater phenomenon than an incarnation, because if the divine enters a human form it is good, but if a man makes a place for others to enter the divine, it is a far higher event. 2-But then there are two ways in which he can travel.On the first, every man has to travel in his own boat, with the strength of his own hands, using the oars. One out of many may succeed. But on the second path you can take the help of the winds and open up your sails so that you can travel faster and more easily.But are such "spiritual winds" available? This is the whole purpose of the places of pilgrimage. 3-Jainas are not basically idol worshipers, nor are Mohammedans nor Sikhs nor Buddhists; in the beginning Buddhists were not idol worshipers at all. But all of them have established their sacred places of pilgrimage. They had to. Without such places there is no meaning for a religion. If there were no such places, everything would have to be done by the individual, and in that case there would be no meaning or purpose in a religious commune. 1-A tirtha, a sacred place of pilgrimage, is a unique invention, very deep and symbolic, made by an ancient civilization. But our present civilization has lost all knowledge about the significance of such places. Today visiting a place of pilgrimage is just a dead ritual for us. We just tolerate them, without knowing why places of pilgrimage were established, what their use was and who made them. 2-For example,In the Pacific Ocean there is a small island, Easter Island, on which there are one thousand huge stone idols, all about seventy feet tall. The population of the island is just two hundred. It was found, when that island was first discovered, that it was so small, it couldn't produce food for more than two hundred people. When only two hundred people can live there, it was surprising to find such huge stone idols and as many as one thousand! What could be the purpose of those idols? Who would have made them and why? Many questions arose for historians. 3-When the idols of Easter Island were photographed from airplanes, it could be imagined that they were installed at certain geometrical points, in such a way that they could be seen from the moon on particular nights. Those who have studied this subject think that we, in this century, are not the first people to look for life on other planets. Many times before experiments and attempts have been made to find animals and other forms of life on other planets so that communication could be established with them. Not only that, but beings from other planets also seem to have made contact with our earth. 4-These twenty feet long idols are not meaningful in themselves, but when their whole pattern is observed from a plane there are indications of some signs and secret messages. Those signs could only be read from the moon. But as long as we had not seen the idols from a plane we could not imagine their possible use; they were still then just idols. In the same way there are many things on this earth about which we will know nothing until our civilization investigates and sets up a similar situation again. 5-Whatever can be seen from the surface is not everything. There are some hidden meanings which are not visible from the outside. We should understand first that our civilization has lost the purpose and meaning of the sacred place of pilgrimage and so today people who go on a pilgrimage waste their time. Those who oppose the idea are also wasting their time, however right they seem to be, because they know nothing about such places. Neither the people who visit the places of pilgrimage, nor those who oppose the idea know the purpose of them, so let us understand a few things about them.... 6-The rainfall is not the same everywhere on earth: there are some areas of heavy rain, where it rains as much as five hundred inches, and desert areas where there is no rain or it is very scarce.imilarly there are places which are very cold, where there is nothing but snow everywhere; and there are areas so hot that it is difficult to make ice. In the same way on the earth there are places with high density consciousness and low density consciousness. Conscious attempts have been made to create areas of high consciousness, fields charged with human consciousness. They do not happen automatically, but are a result of the consciousnesses of powerful individuals.

7-There is a famous place of pilgrimage for Jainas known as Samved Shikhar. Twenty-two out of the twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas have died there, have left their bodies there. It all seems to have been pre-arranged; otherwise it is impossible that out of twenty-four, twenty-two should happen to die, with long periods of time between them, in the same place. If we believe the Jainas there is a gap of one hundred thousand years between the first and the twenty-fourth tirthankara. That twenty-two of them died in the same place is worth thinking about. 8-Twenty-two tirthankaras traveling to that one mountain, entering samadhi and leaving their bodies there, created a highly charged field of consciousness, in some special sense, at Samved Shikhar.A very deep and intense experiment on Samved Shikhar was made by the twenty-two tirthankaras, just as they were leaving their bodies. On that mountain they tried to intensify and multiply the vibrations of their developed consciousness so that it would be easier for us to communicate with them. 9-It was thought that if so many souls of such consciousness left their body from the same place, a path between that place and another plane could be laid. And such a path has existed.It was intended that if someone sits there, chanting the special mantras given by those twenty-two tirthankaras, his journey in out-of-the-body experiences will immediately begin. This is as scientific an experiment as any which takes place in a laboratory. 10-A sacred place of pilgrimage was a means to establish contact, not with any living beings in space but with enlightened souls who once lived on this earth.For example,The place of pilgrimage for Moslems is the Kaaba. Until the time of Mohammed, there were three hundred and sixty-five idols in Kaaba - a different idol for each day of the year. All these idols were removed or destroyed, but the central stone which was the center of the temple was removed.The Kaaba is more ancient than the Muslims' religion. The history of Islam is only about fourteen hundred years old, but that black stone in the Kaaba is hundreds of thousands of years old.Another interesting fact is that the stone does not seem to belong to our earth. 11-Whatever the astronauts have left on the moon will remain there safely, even if there is a nuclear war and life on this earth is destroyed. If ever some civilization reaches the moon, they will be very surprised to see those things we have left there.So the stone at Kaaba may not be part of a meteorite but may have been left by some inhabitants of another planet. Perhaps it was once possible to establish a connection with those inhabitants through the medium of that stone. But now, only the worship of it has remained. The science of how it might have been used as a means of communication is lost.

ARE THE PILGRIMAGE CHARGED FIELDS OF CONSCIOUS ENERGIES?

10 FACTS;-

1-Another important fact is that in the life of man everything except his consciousness is made from matter. But we do not know what that inner consciousness is. We know only our body, and the body is related in every way with matter. So let us now look at another kind of alchemy so that you can understand the second meaning of a place of pilgrimage....

2-The alchemists' experiments are very deep.You may be aware that seventy percent of our body is made up of water. The chemical composition is just like that of sea water. If you don't eat enough salt, the salt content within your body diminishes, becomes less than that of sea water. If the percentage of salt in your body is changed, there will be changes in your consciousness.

3-If you drink water which has been distilled one hundred thousand times, it brings about changes in many of your desires and attitudes. The alchemists were making such experiments. Distilling water hundreds of thousands of times may take several years, but the alchemist does this.

It brings about two types of changes. The first will be in the alchemist's mind. Doing the same thing again and again can become boring after a few days. If out of boredom he stops the process, he will go back to his old state of mind; but that moment of boredom is the turning point. If he continues in spite of the boredom he will give birth to a new consciousness.

4-For example,If you go to sleep at ten o'clock every night, then exactly at that time you will feel sleepy. But if you decide not to sleep and keep awake, after half an hour you should become more sleepy, but what actually happens is that you will find you feel more fresh than in the morning. There was a turning point at ten o'clock; it was your habit to sleep then, but if you ignore your habit, then you break the body's automatic arrangement, and when the body realizes that it will have to stay awake it releases fresh energy from a reservoir which it keeps for emergencies and you feel fresher than ever. 5-Actually,the only reason for creating the places for pilgrimage was to experiment with creating powerfully charged fields of conscious energies, so that anyone could easily begin his inner journey.There are two methods of making a boat move. One method is to open the sails at the right time in the direction of the wind and not use the oars; the other method is not to open the sails, but to help the boat move with the use of the oars. The places of pilgrimage are places where a stream of consciousness is flowing automatically: you just have to stand in the middle of the stream where the sails of your consciousness open up and you begin your journey onwards.

6-You will be able to travel far more easily and faster in such places than anywhere else, and alone. Elsewhere, you may unknowingly reach some negative place and open up your sails in the wrong direction: you may move further away from your destination and become lost.For example, if you are sitting in meditation at a place which is full of negative emotions - where butchers are killing animals the whole day - there will be a great struggle and conflict in your mind. 7-In meditation you become very receptive, open and vulnerable, so whatever is happening around you at that time enters you. So when you meditate it is always necessary to choose a place which will not take you in a wrong direction. Whenever, during meditation, you have disturbing thoughts or find it difficult to be silent, move from such a place. You can sit in meditation in a jail too, but that requires a very strong individuality. There are different methods to help you meditate in a jail: you create a line of demarcation over which negative forces cannot enter. 8-But in a tirtha, a holy pilgrimage place, such a line is not necessary. In such a place you drop all resistance and open all your doors and windows. There, positive energy is flowing in abundance.Hundreds of people have traveled into the unknown from there and have created a path. It is as if they have made a path by cutting down trees and removing the bushes blocking the path, so that those walking behind them find it easier to travel. On the religious path, efforts are made by the higher, stronger consciousnesses to help weaker people, in every way. The place of pilgrimage was one such experiment. 9-A place of pilgrimage is where the currents are flowing from the body towards the soul, where the whole atmosphere is charged; from where people have achieved samadhi, from where people realized their enlightenment. Such places have become specially charged. In such a place, if you just open your sails, without doing nothing else, your journey will begin. 10-So all religions have established their places of pilgrimage. Even those religions which were against temples have done it. It is surprising that religions that were against idol worship and temples established places of pilgrimage. It was easy to remove idols, but places of pilgrimage could not be removed because such places have a value which no religions could oppose or deny.

ARE THE EXACT PILGRIMAGE PLACES HIDDEN? 06 FACTS;- 1-There are physical indications of such places of pilgrimage, but as time passes, those signs may disappear. So they have to be protected by building temples or erecting huge idols so that the footprints of those great seers can be preserved. Great care has to be taken so that those places do not shift even by an inch from where the event had happened sometime in the past. 2- Pilgrimage places are well indicated, but the exact place where the spiritual event took place may not be known. Such places are hidden from ordinary people. This is very confusing. You may go to some place where it is said Mahavira reached nirvana, but there is a great possibility that the exact spot is a little away from the place shown to everyone. The real location is shown only to those people who are authentic and deserving seekers. There, those people can bow down in respect and return home. The real location will be kept hidden for those who come there out of an authentic spiritual search and who need that help for the jump. 3-There are many such places.... In one Arab country there is a small village called Alkufa where no civilized man has been able to enter. We have gone to the moon, but no traveler has yet entered that small village. Up till now it has not been possible to locate this village. There is no doubt about its existence, because history mentions it and there are also maps available. The location is hidden for a special purpose. When some Sufi reaches a deep state of consciousness during meditation, he finds the key to the path; he is able to visualize the whole of Alkufa. Otherwise, whatever maps are available are false, to misguide people. 4-Many pilgrims from Europe have tried to reach Alkufa for the last three centuries. Many of them died before they could return. Those who did come back, didn't reach the village but had just been roaming around. One can reach only through a special meditation, during which Alkufa becomes manifest. Once he sees the place he caught a glimpse of in meditation the Sufi meditator walks to it. Alkufa is a secret holy place, more ancient than Islam. The places of pilgrimage which are well known and can be visited by any pilgrim are not the real ones; the real one is nearby, but hidden. 5-The truth is that the Vishwanath temple is not the real one, and the one Karpatri wanted to have built instead of it . The real temple is a third one, which has to be kept hidden. The Vishwanath temple which is now standing is already desecrated. Any other temple being built there will also be false, but a false one will always have to be there so that the real one can remain hidden. 6-There are secret keys, mantras, through which to enter Vishwanath temple, just as there are for Alkufa. Occasionally, some fortunate seeker, who has the knowledge about the mantra, may be able to enter, but otherwise pilgrims go to the false temple, worship there and return to their home. But this temple has developed a sort of sanctity over thousands of years, even though it is false, because for so long people have believed it to be the true one. ARE THE TEMPLES & PLACES OF PILGRIMAGE MEANT FOR SPECIALISTS?- 10 FACTS;- 1-All religions have tried not to allow a person of another religion to enter their temples or places of pilgrimage. Those who made those rules knew the dangers for such entrants. In a way, it is like a notice hanging on the entrance of an atomic energy laboratory, warning, "No entry except for atomic scientists." We agree that such restrictions are necessary - it is dangerous for non-scientists to enter - but when such restrictions are made in connection with a temple or place of pilgrimage, we don't agree. We do not know that they also have their own science. These temples and places of pilgrimage are meant for specialists. 2-It is like a conference of doctors standing around a patient discussing his disease. The patient listens to them but can't understand them because they are talking in medical term and not in the interest of the patient to understand. Similarly, all religions have developed their own code languages. They have their secret holy places, their secret languages and secret scriptures. So what we understand to be places of pilgrimage are almost certainly not the right places. Such great traditions have to be preserved because if they fall into the wrong hands, they may be misused. Ordinary people will only get into difficulties and will not benefit from them. 3-It is said that if you are allowed to enter the Sufi village of Alkufa you will become mad. It is said that anyone entering accidentally will leave the village, mad, because Alkufa is full of vibrations which cannot be tolerated by the ordinary mind. So it is better not to enter the town without the necessary preparation and discipline.It is said that it is not possible to sleep in Alkufa, so it is natural that those who haven't experimented deeply in staying awake will go mad. The greatest accomplishment among Sufis is the night vigil; they keep awake the whole night. 4- If a person does not eat for ninety days he will become very weak, but he will not die or go mad. An ordinary healthy man can easily fast for ninety days, but he cannot remain without sleep for even twenty-one days. it is difficult to remain without sleep for even one week - but it is impossible to sleep at all in Alkufa.This was the reason why things were kept hidden, so that they should not harm anyone. They were meant to guide those who need help in their spiritual search. 5-This is why places of pilgrimages are necessary, but the real ones are kept hidden. The false places are created to keep you off the track until such a time when you are ready for the real. No wrong person should reach the authentic place, but the right person will always find it.Every place of pilgrimage has its own key. If you want to find the pilgrimage place of the Sufis, you won't be able to with the keys of the Jainas, and the Jaina places of pilgrimage can't be found with the use of Sufi keys. Every religion has its own keys. 6-For example,the Tibetans have special mystical diagrams or yantras. These are keys. Hindus also have such instruments, thousands of them. In their houses, they write words like "Labha-Shubha" - "Prosperity and Goodness" - and they write some numbers underneath, without knowing why they are doing it.In their house there may be some such yantra, which can be the key to a place of pilgrimage. They have no idea what they have written, but they go on doing it only because their forefathers were doing it. 7-Every outwardly created figure creates a figure within your consciousness. For example, if you keep staring at your window for a few minutes and then close your eyes, you will see a negative impression of the window frame. Similarly, if you meditatively concentrate on some instrument, you will create within your mind a negative impression of its particular figure or its digits. These can be seen within after some special meditation practices. If you can invoke these images, then at such moments you can immediately begin your pilgrimage into the spiritual. 8-There is a story of a Sufi saint who lost his donkey - and that donkey was his only wealth. He searched for him through the whole village. All the villagers joined in the search, but without success. Then the people said that as it was a holy month, and many pilgrims were passing through the town, perhaps the donkey had followed them. But the saint said he would make one last attempt to find him. He immediately stood still and closed his eyes. Then he bent down and started walking on all fours. He walked around the house and then the garden, and finally he reached a large pit into which his donkey had fallen. His friends were surprised and asked him what his trick was. 9-The saint revealed the secret , "I thought that if a man cannot find a donkey, then the key to finding it is not with him; to find the donkey I have to become like a donkey. So when I began to feel like a donkey, I thought if I was a donkey looking for a donkey where would I look? As soon as I thought that way, I went down on my hands and knees and started walking like a donkey. I do not know how I found the place, but when I opened my eyes, I saw I had reached the pit, and there was my donkey!" 10- Anyone can read this story and laugh it off as a joke, but there is a key in it. It is a key to searching, and in a spiritual sense, this is the only way to search. So every place of pilgrimage has keys and yantras. The main reason for the existence of such places is that they put you in the middle of a charged current, which you can flow with.

DO THE SECRET PLACES HAVE THEIR METHODS TO ENTETR THEM ?-

NEXT...

...SHIVOHAM....