Seeing the One in All – A Group Life in Spain
From 5 to 8 July, the 4th group life of Sri Kumar 64th tour to the West took place at Platja d’Aro at the Costa Brava in Spain. After Iguazu and Rio, I joined again the tour. At Barcelona airport a friend picked me up, together with another friend from Hamburg. The seminar hotel was located on the tops of rocks with a fantastic view over the coast. (For me it was a special souvenir – in October 1972, when I was 18, I went with a friend in an old Volkswagen to Spain, two weeks before I started studying at the university. We had no idea where we would land; it was the camping site next to the hotel where now the group life took place.)
At the group life, we were about 160 participants, mainly from different parts of Spain, but also from the USA, Germany and Switzerland. It was again like a “family gathering” with many friends and intense exchanges, and of course the discourses of the Master. The topic was “From Devotion to Synthesis”. Here is an excerpt of one of his lectures:
“We emerged from One. This unity is regained by those who are tired of seeing the diversity. When you keep on seeing the details – on the way you get perplexed and lost. This idea of getting back is what is making humanity to think of synthesis. In earlier times a physician had a good knowledge of the entire body.
Today there are specialists due to knowledge of different parts of the body. There are doctors of eyes; they do not care for the nose. There are doctors for the nose, for ear, nose and throat, for nervous depressions, for human psychology, for children – every limb is taken care of by a doctor but no doctor knows the whole human. If you have heart problems you go to a cardiologist. If you have other problems, he sends you to another doctor. Go to ear doctor. If you have some problems with the nervous system, you to a neurologist. No one deals with the entire human being. They are not worried about the entire body. The say if you have heart problem, go to a cardiologist. The science of health has gone so far that no doctor is able for diagnosing one problem that detailed into many problems.
The analysis has brought us out of unity. It is so in every field. If you go to finance field, there are many specialists, the same with accountants. No one has a complete view. We have only viewpoints but not vision. Analysis can know but losing the basis of synthesis, lands you in a complex, very confused situation. From generals to particulars is more important than to try to get from particulars to generals. In ancient times they tried to go from the seed to understand the whole tree, not from the leaves. It is one seed that sprouts, develops a trunk and gives many branches and gives out many sub-branches, leaves and flowers. If you cannot see the one unity of the entire tree you lose sight of the basic knowledge.
Therefore there is the need to devote ourselves to see the One in all. Unless you devotedly see, you cannot see the One in all. Devotion is an attitude, not an emotion. If you are devoted you can see everything. Then you find the One in a different seed. The same seed we see in a different seed. There is only one water – call it Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, but it is only one water. It is all one but for an understanding of the mind we have done divisions. The apparent is seen as real and the real got obscured.
When you start accepting the apparent as real, the real gets hidden. Even if we see the sun we don’t see the source from which the light is coming through the sun. The sun is the form through which the light is coming. It is an illumined globe through which the light is coming. The eye does not see; it is you and me that see. The eye is the window, the window cannot see, the window enables the sight. Who is seeing? The inner being. It is his eye that comes through the eyes.
That is what we have to see when we see the people. We see the eyes of the people, not the other parts of the body. Don’t look to the lower torso. People see not the other person. Oh, you lost your hair, you look a bit older. The inner being neither grows out nor thins down. We say, may the light in me be the light before me, but we don’t see. That is our problem.
When the One is lost, what is it? The One is the basis for all.”
From inside the hotel you could go down 4 storeys to reach a public path along the rocks. In a distance of about 100 metres there was a beautiful little bay and next to it the beach of Platja d’Aro. There were breath-taking sunrises later transforming into resplendent light transforming the water into multiple shades of turquoise. In the morning, before the beaches filled with sunbathers, I went for a swim in the crystal-clear water with some friends. With the goggles of a friend I felt like flying over silent underwater landscapes, where groups silvery fishes were looking for their breakfast. And when the day slowly cooled down again, we went for another swim.
Sunday morning, the group life ended with a question-answer session followed by a marriage ceremony of an elderly couple and the blessing of children. And then, some gifts were presented to the Master and the accompanying team. From a dissolved activity at WTT-Global, I had brought a small bag with crystals from all over the world as a present to the group. The Master presented them to the group: “Let the stone select you.” It was a very special situation for me to let all members take out a stone from the sack, without knowing what stone it would be – and then looks of joy and surprise. And thus, I looked into the eyes of most of them.
It had been planned that after the seminar I would visit a friend for 3 days, together with another friend. However, due to a private situation popping up on Sunday morning, this was not possible. So we decided to stay at the hotel for 3 more nights, together with some other friends who had planned their stay. This way, we had a beautiful conclusion of the group life with some more swims, meditations and exchanges. Then, Wednesday very early morning, a shuttle took us to Barcelona airport. Flying back to Switzerland, I felt deeply grateful for having been able to participate in three group lives of Sri Kumar’s 64th tour to the West.
