Fali Engineer Interview

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest this week is Fali Engineer. And I don’t know Fali very well, but he comes very highly recommended by a friend of ours, a mutual friend of ours named Charles Rubio, and the two of them live down in Houston, Texas. And Fali originally is from Pakistan. And I will let him introduce himself a little bit and then we’ll proceed with the interview. So, Fali, if you would, please tell us a little bit about yourself, how you ended up in Houston, what your background is and so on.

Fali: Okay. Well, by birth I was a Zoroastrian, which is a very small minority now, but in the long past had huge empires with a head capital in Persia. One emperor Cyrus the Great is mentioned in the Bible and he was a Zoroastrian emperor. He released the Jews from captivity in Babylon and helped them to build their temple and their prayers contain his name all the time since that time. Now, after Islam came to Persia, a few of us migrated 1400 years ago to India and now we are scattered all over the world under 200,000. I was educated in South India, but worked all my life in Pakistan and retired in America to join our two of the three children we have here. In between, I became a teacher of Transcendental Meditation in 1975 and was the national leader in Pakistan until we left in 1957. I am also a member of the Theosophical Society since 1966 and at present I am the president of the Houston Lodge of this society, which has branches all over the world and the world headquarters is in Madras, Chennai at present.

Rick: Good, that’s a nice overview. You and I spoke a couple of weeks ago and you mentioned that in your tradition it’s not really customary to talk so much about oneself in explaining spiritual concepts and so on. I respect that and Charles says that you have a great many interesting things to say about a number of topics, but one underlying question I may have as you speak is, “How do you know this?” There are so many philosophical books and any of us could read philosophical books and then repeat the concepts that are in those books. Many concepts make a lot of sense to us intuitively. For instance, reincarnation makes a lot of sense to me, I have on an intuitive level, it fits, it feels right, but I don’t know it through any sort of direct experience that I am aware of. So as you tell us things, as we go through this interview, I would be interested whenever possible to have you tell us how you know what you are saying, rather than just stating philosophical ideas.

Fali: Actually, you could talk a lot about the so-called ancient wisdom and all the things, but I want to really voice my alarm at a certain situation which is round the corner and I want to raise the attention of the causes of that situation and why it will not be resolved unless we understand the underlying reasons for the phenomena we see the world over of unrest and discord. And I would like to elaborate somewhat on that area.

Rick: Yes, please, that sounds interesting. So what is the alarming thing that you see just around the corner?

Fali: What I perceive is, because we have got instant access to news and there are 6 billion people who theoretically have this access, at least half the world’s population, 3 billion, so what’s happening is, when an event takes place, anywhere in the world, billions of people are looking at it and reacting to it simultaneously. Now that reaction is not localized where that person is sitting. We know that consciousness is non-local and thoughts and emotional energies are like waves that go out into space. So when billions of people are watching one event and it’s causing them to react with emotional and mental energies, what we are getting is really a wave of those energies radiating out in the whole world. And because of the content of those energies, we absorb it unknowingly. What happens is, we utilize or somehow have that energy reflected in the way we act in our local situation. What we find here recently is unexpected behavior which was not anticipated or understood in the past. And the reason I’m giving is not because the people suddenly became what they seem to be, but we cannot help but absorb those waves, colossal tsunamis of emotional and mental thought patterns that are now saturating the whole world because millions of people are reacting to one event simultaneously.

Rick: Let’s take a couple of examples. For instance, we had 9/11, we had the tsunami in South East Asia, we had Hurricane Katrina, so there have been some big events which kind of shocked the world. Can you tell us how you see those events having rippled out into the collective consciousness?

Fali: I want to go a little deeper than that even. When we absorb these unknown energies, it’s like an x-ray. I don’t know if an x-ray is passing through me just now, I don’t know it, because that’s the nature of the x-ray. Similarly, emotional energies are causing a polarization in the world because one group looks at it in one way, millions, equally millions look at it opposite and both the energies are up for grab. So we absorb one portion of it which fits with our attitude, to equal number absorbs the opposite value and we see polarization at all levels here and people are grumbling that system is broke and this doesn’t work, but the real reason is that we are saturated with an energy which we cannot control. Lack of control that I want to play more on, but I am giving the source of this is not local, it is global, but played out locally in local issues, because that’s the only way I can reflect my consciousness locally, but the force is not local and this is something that’s not going to go away because we have got so many hot spots in the world and we conveniently think that the problem there should be dealt with there and I can go on with my life, but that’s no longer true, because as I said the reactions to the hot spots are generating waves of emotions that we are absorbing because it’s right there passing through us all the time. So I want to play a little about understanding the reasons why in this present we feel things are not in control is simply because we don’t have the capacity to cope with those energies. We are in the infancy of our evolution of consciousness, that is the reason, and if I am in the infancy, then the tools I require to cope with what’s happening are not sufficient and we create problems, not because we are bad or want to willfully create difficulties, but being juvenile in our understanding of events, we take action that is not proper or not sufficient and we create more problems and this is simply because we are in infancy of consciousness, which is the source of evolution. I could say a few words, why we are in the infancy, we seem to be all grown up and physically very complete. The reason is that a human being is only one fifth or one sixth physical. There are five or six other energies that animate him which are non-physical. And the modern, because we are in the infancy, I am very much physically conscious, but I am totally unconscious of the very powerful energies that are animating me and everybody which is not physical. And because my attention is not on that non-physicality of my composition and the energies I absorb are non-physical, I have no way of handling them or understanding them or controlling them. And when things go out of control, we see what’s happening. Irrational actions, behavior is normal now because we are infected with energies of which we have no control or knowledge.

Rick: So would you say that when you say we are in the infancy of our evolution, I presume you would acknowledge that there is a kind of a spectrum and on that spectrum some people are fairly advanced in their evolution and some people are not, and perhaps the people who are more advanced are better able to process these energies or incorporate them into their awareness.

Fali: I just think that there are people who are warning us, who have warned us down the ages in fact, but when we talk of infancy we are talking of the normal numbers.

Rick: The average, yeah, yeah.

Fali: Authority which dominate the trends are in the infancy of human evolution. I mean Darwin now to take, he is supposed to be the father of evolution, but all he talked of was the physical evolution.

Rick: Right, he wasn’t talking about spiritual so much at all.

Fali: He explained the future of our humanity is not going to be physical because we have reached the limit of that physicality and we will go in other directions. So I am saying that the present moment we have a capacity less than the demand. So we struggle with life. And when a person is poor financially, they struggle with their finances and they create a lot of stress in themselves and we see the stress just now in this present recession. People say life is a struggle, not realizing that because they didn’t mobilize their capacity sufficiently to overcome the difficulties, it appears like a struggle. And in this struggle, the weak go under and the strong come up on top because it’s a struggle, it’s like a battle. So I am saying that we should understand that these energies that have been unleashed globally have to be understood how to manage them, otherwise they will keep on harming us and really the future will depend on our understanding of the source of our difficulty is not local but global.

Rick: So would you say that the most obvious symptom of what you have been describing is polarization? Because there is a great deal of polarization. I happened to have the good fortune of meeting President Obama yesterday. He came to Iowa and I went to the event and I got to shake his hand and I said to him, “We love you, don’t let the turkeys get you down.” And he said, “There’s a lot of them out there, they keep on gobbling.” It was a very charming experience. But the reason I mention him is that I have some friends who are kind of conservative right-wing friends and they think that Obama is just the most radical socialist guy that’s just going to completely destroy the country. And then I have left-wing friends who say, “Oh, he’s just another George Bush, he’s sold out, he’s just as conservative.” And it’s so ironic that two people can see the same man as completely different.

Fali: Because they are feeling of different energies unknown to them. They think that they are thinking it out in their minds but they are infected with this global energy of which it’s not going to end, not going to stop or not going to be cut off. So we have to, unless this is understood, we are going to compound our polarization. And what happens with polarization, the system envisaged to run the country is not found adequate. The founding fathers never envisaged the situation where there will be such a polarization that people will take the law into their own hands. That is one symptom of extreme polarization. When you don’t get results, you will do things in your own way. And that’s not what this country was founded on, but to go in that direction, unless we understand, and I have some ideas about that also, but I’m giving the real reason of why this phenomenon is occurring locally with a cause global.

Rick: Yeah. So it’s interesting, when I first met Maharishi myself in 1970, he talked a lot in a way that you’re talking now. He said, he used the phrase “survival of the fittest” a lot. He said, “We have to be fittest.” And he said, “The times are, the pace of life is increasing.” And he said, “If you have a big load and a donkey has to carry the load, there are two things you can do. You can either lighten the load or you can strengthen the donkey.” And he said, “It’s not likely that the load that we’re confronted with in our world is going to be lightened, so we have to become stronger.”

Fali: Yes. So that’s why I have some ideas, but I’m giving the real reason of our present problem is deeper than we think. And unless we wake up to that, what needs to happen, to be very frank, is we’ve got to… Let’s face it, every sick person in this world happens to be a Muslim. Statistically, I mean I’m just saying statistically. And a Muslim, the real core of the religion is based on brotherhood, actually. Leaving aside all the other ceremonies and theories, brotherhood. So in the brotherhood, each one will take up for the other, come what may. And we see this. So this lack of attention to this group is causing us difficulties everywhere.

Rick: So are you saying that their principle is brotherhood with other Muslims or brotherhood with everyone?

Fali: Well, that is what they want. If everybody becomes a Muslim, then the world will be one brotherhood.

Rick: Well, that’s not going to happen.

Fali: It’s happening, but down the road, they expect it to happen when all other systems fail.

Rick: Right, and the Christians expect the same thing and probably some other groups expect the same thing.

Fali: We are talking of one in six inhabitants who have not been adequately understood and approached properly. And to some extent, those waves we are talking about, the polarization is coming from that camp also. And that is then available to us as we are defenseless because we are poor in the currency of life, which is consciousness. And when I am poor in the currency of life, I am defenseless at vulnerable areas. I am physically, the nation is prepared to attack, to defend, but it’s very vulnerable in the non-physical consciousness, which is really the powerhouse of the physical. And it’s the non-physical area that we have been unaware, taken unaware, ambushed, and we are playing out what is the result of that ambushes. Our attitudes, our actions are not conducive to good for the majority.

Rick: So I could ask you at this point for what you feel the solution might be, but perhaps you would like to lay this out even more before starting to talk about how to solve it.

Fali: Yes, I would like to lay out more. This infancy, what’s the implication of being infants? We are not children in the physical sense of the word, but children in the currency of life, which is consciousness. What’s happening is, the science that we have today is catering mainly to the physical side of knowledge, physical laws, research, and people are somehow taking up that science as a present formulated, is the pernicious for the future, and it’s not, because the parameters do not take into consideration energies that are beyond the instruments. Those are the energies that cause the physical discomfort. There are laws of karma that say that if you have a great disaster, physical, like an earthquake, now scientists will say it’s caused by the movement of the plates, and this energy was released. But the ancient wisdom says that the physical, this tragedy there, cataclysm, was built up over a long period of time by the dynamic power of human thought and emotions. Human energies which are discordant, errant, when we are stressed, every thought is not orderly, millions are on the same feeling that over time it shows itself physically, and you get this catastrophe. So this catastrophe’s origin is non-physical. Our health proves that, because when I am angry and upset and stressed, it shows physically. And the reason why it shows physically is that we have an etheric body that is the link between the physical and the non-physical. Science cannot verify because it cannot be instrumentally measured. It’s a reality. This etheric body is what gives us the vitality from the sun, absorbed through the etheric… the chakras that we talk about are in the etheric body only, it’s not in the physical body. So the etheric body is the basis on which our physical is concreted. And when the etheric body is incapable of absorbing vitality, the physical dies. That is the difficulty in absorbing vitality through the etheric. So if we strengthen the etheric, we will immediately get the health that we are looking for. I was just mentioning that the infancy we are in evolution, the focus is not on what is causing the difficulties, we are repairing the problem, but it shows up in another area and shows up in another area. So this is the real reason why we can’t cope with the problems that we find all around us. And especially now with the polarization, the instantaneous access to information, the internet, blogging, it’s going to be a challenge. We have to understand how to meet that challenge.

Rick: Yeah. I have no problem accepting what you just said about the etheric body and so on. But, you know, and Maharishi also used to talk about earthquakes being due to collected stress in the collected consciousness, but I mean, I have a little bit harder time understanding that because the fact is there are, you know, tectonic plates which are floating on a molten core and they do inevitably move and pressures build up between them and earthquakes, whether or not there are people on the earth, there would be earthquakes because these plates are moving around. Now obviously if millions of people have congregated in a particular city and there’s substandard non-earthquake proof housing and there’s an earthquake in that place, a lot of people are going to die. If it’s perhaps a more advanced country and they’ve taken care of building codes so the housing is better, not so many people are going to die. I mean, does that mean that there’s more kind of bad karma? Maybe it would mean there’s more sort of bad karma in Haiti than there is in Los Angeles in terms of susceptibility to earthquakes, but still there’s this physical phenomenon of tectonic plates.

Fali: But now science is puzzled because the matter that they calculate is only 15% of what should be there. – You mean in the universe? – Yes, 85% is dark energy. If 85% of this dark energy of which they cannot know, then it stands to reason that that 85% is playing a major role in the 15% energy that is visible to us. That is what I’m saying. There are planes of astral and mental which is non-physical, 85%. We don’t take them into consideration and calculate only the 15%.

Rick: Right.

Fali: That’s why I say there’s a proof that there are reasons beyond the known that is causing the known havoc. I’m just talking on the physical level.

Rick: Right.

Fali: What about mental level?

Rick: Yeah, no, I have no problem with that. I think that what we see is just the tip of the iceberg that there’s a whole lot of stuff going on that’s influencing the visible level.

Fali: Yes, because if we study how the universe manifested, there’s a process called involution. It is involvement of the source or the spirit in denser and denser levels of matter. That’s called involution. During involution, there is evolution of matter and devolution of spirit. When I said infancy, I mean we have just finished that involution and now we’re just coming out. When we are coming out, evolution of spirit and the devolution of matter, but it will take forever to show results. That is why we are showing so much of incapacity to handle the planet as a species on the earth, our job is to handle the planet for the best possible results of everybody inhabiting the planet. That’s our responsibility. Animals don’t do it, the trees don’t do it, but we are not doing it properly because here in the infancy and the poverty of consciousness, we act in a way that is detrimental. I can even explain what are the symptoms of this infancy. The symptoms of this infancy is that we think our principles, there is a portion of us that dies, which is self-evident, that there is a portion of us that does not die. Now, if I cater more to the portion that dies, temporarily, and for the portion that does not die, I am being an infant in my priorities. So when my priorities are misplaced, all the energy, the intelligence, the intention is there, but it’s in the wrong direction, and so we don’t get the results that we should see the proof. We put a lot of watering and a lot of harvesting, but if the seed itself is barren, we are not going to get the fruit. So much of energy is going, people are working hard, really hard, not lazy, but the outcome, because the energy is focused on the perishable part of their constitution, which is temporary, and ignoring that which is very important, and that is ignored, and that is called infancy of evolution.

Rick: So I can still hear you, I had to step away for a second. So I think you’re suggesting, in what you just said, the solution to the problem you laid out earlier, you’re suggesting perhaps that the way to more effectively deal with these energies which are influencing us, and to diminish this polarization, which is tearing society apart, is to shift our priorities and put more attention on the subtler values, and not so predominantly on the obvious physical values, correct?

Fali: It’s not going to happen because people cannot be just told, they’ve been told forever, and there is no clear relation. It’s not happening, we have to do it differently. The difference is to calm down the hot spots that we feel are far away and we don’t have to attend to urgently, those are like the volcanoes in Iceland, bogged down the whole of Europe, visibly, but we are invisibly having these volcanoes all the time, around the clock. Don’t realize that because, as I said, our focus is not on that day, let the physics focus on physics. So we have to cool down the source of where this polarizing energy is emanating.

Rick: How?

Fali: I’m coming to that.

Rick: Oh, okay, it’s good.

Fali: I am a TM teacher, so technically I’m supposed to only propagate TM. But I say the world conditions are such, that I can’t wait for that. I’m telling you something that maybe you should not edit out, you’re going to edit this thing?

Rick: Not necessarily, I’d rather not, it’s a lot of trouble to edit it, we should just keep going if we can.

Fali: I want to reveal something rather than tell. I was with Maharishi in India in the 80s and he asked me to become a Siddha teacher. He set up a course for me in Delhi and Rishikesh, and we had long talks and he talked in the same language, you know, Urdu and Hindi. So he told me that you’re in a Muslim country, you know, Pakistan, not easy. If people, and I have his words also, he mentioned it separately, he said when you find that they are intractable, not open, you know, because of certain blocks, you’re free to teach them in their own culture and religion. And I did. So I’m just saying that the time has come when we should understand that in emergencies we don’t go by established protocol and rules that worked in the past. If a person is gravely ill and a surgery is called for, there’s a surgery needed. You don’t just keep on hoping he’ll get well by this treatment. So I think the time has come globally when we need a surgical operation. I propose that we reach out to people and teach them how to relax in their own culture so that they are comfortable and they continue with the practice. Only today, by chance, or yesterday, I got in the mail ten CDs from a Swami in Rishikesh, based in Minneapolis, Swami Vedabharati. Eight of those CDs are Christian meditations and two are Islamic meditations. And he is a Hindu. He sent me, I got the CDs. I’m just saying that he has realized that time has come when it’s too dangerous to delay and to just go by what routine we’ve been asked to follow. So I suggest that well-wishers of world health reach out to these Muslims and very rapidly they will take to a meditation which is compatible with their own thinking and belief systems rather than resist it and fight it. And this is what I propose. Allah meditation. Name could be called Allah meditation and it works. And Quran is full of wonderful phrases. Arabic is a very rich language in spiritual energy. The Sufis have used Quranic mantras very effectively. I had a Sufi friend, he wrote out a list of appropriate mantras, Quran, and I used it.

Rick: So in the Quran they have mantras which are like Hindu mantras where it’s meaningless sounds or more like little verses and things?

Fali: No, they’ve got all types of mantras. Small, big, large, quotations. So it’s a very rich field of effective vibrations improved also in their own way. The Sufis have demonstrated the validity of the mantras by their own lives. The Sufi master I had in Pakistan, he demonstrated to me, I had experiences… I had experiences through him, we can talk about some other time, he followed the Quranic injunctions in a different way. He was a Sufi, so it’s possible.

Rick: Well, I’m fine with that. As a matter of fact, there’s a Sufi master who spends about half the year here in Fairfield, Iowa now. His name is Effendi and he’s from Turkey. And he has quite a following. They bought a house and they pack this house every single night and he answers questions until all hours. In my own orientation, I was a TM teacher also for many years and we were taught to believe that TM is the most effective thing and everything else is fine but not so effective. It’s more like a distorted remnant of some previous revival of knowledge and so on and so forth and that everybody should really ultimately learn TM. These days, I really have a more liberal attitude. I just sort of feel like God or divine consciousness or whatever you want to call it is really universal and is expressing in all sorts of different ways. There are all kinds of people in different traditions and from different backgrounds and orientations who are really blossoming in their spiritual understanding and development and no one has a monopoly on it. So in a sense, when you say we should go and teach the Muslims, I wonder about the practicality of that because any kind of outside group coming in and trying to make any significant impact on them, it’s probably going to have to come from within.

Fali: That is why if we collect people and explain that the tensions are the stress level, not in evilness or badness of a person. When you stress a good person, he becomes not so good. When you unstress a bad person, he becomes a good person. By nature, we are good. Every Muslim is in nature as good as you and me. But stresses upset the system. So if that is explained and they become teachers and they pass this on, who knows? Once temperature goes down there, you’ll automatically find our good nature reasserting itself and we come out of this hole. If we don’t plug the source, we’re going to have more of what you’re witnessing today. No Obama or no Congress can halt it because we’re all victims. Normal people are doing things that surprise us these days. You see what I’m talking about?

Rick: Now, are you suggesting that the Muslim population of the world is kind of the primary culprit here in terms of the disharmony or the tension or the negative energy? Are you just using that as an example and there are also many, many other things that we might use as examples?

Fali: Again, there are always deeper reasons for why this is happening. I want to spend a few words on that deeper reason. Though there’s a karma of an individual, there’s also national karma. Nations have a karma. If a nation does something and though that something ended, it doesn’t mean the outcome is ended. The perpetrators of that might have passed away, but the karma of the nation will be felt down the road.

Rick: Sure. Take the Civil War as an example.

Fali: Yes. Now, one can speculate that some actions he took in the past as a whole, I’m not talking of individuals, were of a nature that we can expect a backlash down the road. We don’t know from where, how, what, but things done with harm, large numbers, cannot be forgotten by nature. It’s a law, I mean. This is a law. You can’t avoid it. Now, there are two or three things we did in our infancy, but infancy doesn’t mean that we are not guilty. Nature doesn’t calculate that because we are infants, we will escape the laws. No. The laws are uniform. The way we handle the American Indians, for instance, Indians, harshly treated, taken away, the culture, you know what I mean. Now, when a person or a group is dealt with in that way, they are traumatized. Trauma is very common when you uproot a person and put him somewhere and say, ‘This is the way it is.’ He’s traumatized. When millions of people get traumatized, went to their death in a traumatized state, when they are born again, the seeds of that trauma will take off from the gate to end it previously. It doesn’t dissipate or decrease. Thousands of years can pass, but the seeds never decay. They are born, they get traumatized, but they don’t know where it’s coming from. They are traumatized. They will collectively have an instinctive… Because they are in infancy of evolution for revenge. Because that’s the natural tendency of life. They are present, somebody is dead, you say, ‘I want revenge.’ Because we are in the infancy, we are nowhere near what Jesus Christ preached to turn the other cheek into. So we are Christians or Muslims all told to behave properly. But we don’t, because we are in the infancy of consciousness, and we are poor in that consciousness. So we behave in an unnatural manner. Some are speculating that when these traumatized groups are formed, they contain within themselves, in the unconscious, a memory of a certain dislike, of a certain group. And very soon it shows itself. I’m just speculating that it’s not that the present community… I’m talking of the transmission of traumatized states of consciousness and death are presumed when… At the time of the rebirth, that’s one area we can speculate, because the large group… The other, to be frank, is the slave trade.

Rick: Absolutely.

Fali: Now, millions were taken away and made to work as slaves. That’s another area. When they are born, traumatized state, they die, they didn’t see what American Indians… I mean, they are seeing now. They are seeing those days they died in a traumatized state. They will also carry that feeling of not liking what they saw. So what I’m saying is this so-called hate we ascribe to the present population could be merely agents of our own karma. So to blame somebody is on the surface level valid, but invalid on the interior levels. So other processes are required to deal with what is causing the interior problem. Outer problem, we use force, put them down. It’s necessary because we don’t know any other. But the real reason could be very different. And a third, before I end, another long… It’s the atomic thing.

Rick: Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

Fali: At the reverse, 200, 300,000 civilians were fried, you know. A trauma, you can imagine. They will not be born again. Who knows? We’ve got vast numbers of people who will be born with an innate instinctive dislike of us. And it will show itself over time.

Rick: And it’s not only us. I mean, you could think of many examples. I mean, Germans killing the Jews, and Stalin killing 20 million Russians, and the Turks killing the Armenians. I mean, there’s so many. It goes on and on

Fali: and on. So all that poison, but we will not recognize the underlying… We say, “Oh, he’s a bad guy, and we are the good guys, and we must fight.” That’s true, because we are in the infancy of our consciousness. We will do what instinctively we want to do. But the long-term solution is not that. It’s just understanding of the underlying causes and dealing with those causes. And I have some ideas on that, but that can wait. But this is the causes I’m talking about.

Rick: Yeah, we can get into that, too. Some people speculate that the killers become the killed next time around, and that’s how they work out. And that’s essentially what you’re saying, but it could very well be that… I mean, it could be a very touchy thing to even say, because people would resent, you know.

Fali: Because perpetrators have passed on. The nation has to receive the outcome of that.

Rick: Yeah.

Fali: There’s another point, the opposite is also happening. We are getting very smart children being born here, very advanced thinking. They are born with an approach of unifying. They can’t understand what is this conflict and lack of peace and discord. Indigo children, they are called.

Rick: Oh, right, yes. Yeah.

Fali: Actually, this group that is at present coming in, the origin could be to me the original Egyptian civilization, of very high order. If you read the literature, they are the Europeans who left Atlantis before it collapsed, because they knew what was to happen. They took their best cream and founded the Egyptian civilization which had no infancy. It was a decline from day one because they were the top people. So, just speculating, time has come when we require that type of consciousness to elevate, accelerate, get us out of this infant accord to our present problem. They will deal with it differently when the time comes.

Rick: It could be. Some of this stuff seems a little theoretical to me when we say, “Okay, well, the Atlanteans went to Egypt.” I don’t know. But one thing that… I’m sorry, go ahead.

Fali: That civilization was of a high order and if we are going to replace our present difficulties, we require a consciousness of that order.

Rick: Yeah, no, I agree. And what does seem to be happening, from what I can observe, is that there is a sort of evolutionary force that is building momentum and that, as you say, some really remarkable people are being born as perhaps representatives of that force or people who can have a major impact because of their level of consciousness. And I kind of have gotten the sense that all these spiritual teachers and teachings that have been in the world for the last few decades and have become more and more popular, it’s not that transformation wouldn’t happen without them, but it’s that they’re doing their best to sort of grease the wheels or make the process as smooth as possible to minimize the trauma that would otherwise happen if as much preparation as possible hadn’t taken place. And you and I and many other people we know have all been participating in that transformation as best we can, preparing ourselves to be more fit instruments of that evolutionary force. And there’s no… That’s my point essentially, you can respond to that if you want.

Fali: Yeah, now, that is… I have some ideas on the ground. I want to… tomorrow, for instance. Not tomorrow in time, but in the near future.

Rick: Today, you mean?

Fali: Yes. See, this polarization has caused our constitution to come under water, like, you know.

Rick: You mean the government’s constitution, the US constitution, or our constitution as a person?

Fali: American constitution.

Rick: American constitution, okay.

Fali: It’s an inspired document.

Rick: Right.

Fali: We know that to serve its purpose. I mean, on the strain, because the implementers, I told you, are not inundated with that energy that makes it difficult to follow that constitution. And so they are prepared to cut corners and to take shortcuts and do whatever it takes, you know. So I have in mind, because the capacity of the people in charge is not up to… not because they are bad, but because of that polarization recently, they will not be able to implement the constitution in a manner that is beneficial to the majority. It can’t happen because that thing is not there, because of this poison that is absorbed unknowingly by reflecting the action, but they don’t know where it’s coming from.

Rick: Right.

Fali: I have…

Rick: In other words, the government can’t govern effectively, it’s paralyzed by all this…

Fali: Blaming them is not… again, blame appears appropriate, but it’s of no use.

Rick: No, I’m not blaming them, I’m saying the whole thing is just so bogged down now.

Fali: Because of this clogged by energies of which they don’t know they are taking in and it’s reflected in the thinking and in the attitudes, everything.

Rick: Yeah, you could fill the whole Congress with geniuses and they’d still get stuck.

Fali: Yeah, because the election process doesn’t throw off the best people. It throws off the best person who can speak well, who can get money well, who can impress well, and get elected, that’s the system. It is not going to change overnight. So I have an idea how to recruit all the unutilized potential of brilliant people who are not in the public domain.

Rick: What’s that?

Fali: That is, we the people, starting the constitution, the time has come to have these people on the ground by a party that has no political force, it needs enormous power because it charges one dollar a month to be a member. Everybody voting age can join that party, one million. You will get 20 million a month. With that money and that numbers, we have enormous power without flouting anybody. We don’t have any power post or anything. Best brains locked up in our universities, in our research labs, who we hardly hear of, they can come forward and give their expertise to this party, one dollar a month to fund it. We can make the best knowledge available to every household through this DVD and tapes, top-notch knowledge. Every household will get a free copy. If certain antisocial corporations or businesses or practices are noticed, we can file a class action lawsuit which you and I cannot do, but we can do it collectively on behalf of we the people. There are endless possibilities. We can boycott certain born people, we tell them, we can boycott which is legal, make it happen. So I am saying the time has come when the two-party system requires a sort of watchdog, not in any sense of bringing them down, but bringing them to do their duty, which was called for in the Constitution. So the people will have ample funds and we will not want power, but we will see that the power is properly meant for the majority. So that’s my idea for the immediate future. What can be done requires a lot of thinking and feeling, but this is what is missing, is the voice of the people not being heard, because the people who are supposed to make it happen have been inundated with energies that they can’t cope.

Rick: There seems to be a sentiment rising more and more along these lines. Perhaps the Tea Party thing is a symptom of this, I don’t know if that’s an ideal solution, but people are more and more frustrated with…

Fali: Yes, so they are not groups. Let it be a party which is legalized, just like the Democrat Party, the Republican the People’s Party will be legalized, got a manifesto, got a constitution, just like any other party. One dollar means anybody will be happy to give that and we collect the best brains. So what will happen is the talents of this country that are required to get us out will be tapped. It is not being tapped now because the system doesn’t permit it. You can’t get elected unless you have a lot of… and even if you are elected you can’t get your way because there is so much of polarization. When there is no polarization, when a group meets with no pressure and the best brains are put in different areas of consciousness, education, politics, health, every area will get the best people, give them the time and prepare the tapes and let the whole nation have the benefit of the collective wisdom of the whole nation and thus be the people.

Rick: I can tell that you worked with Maharishi for quite a while. This is the kind of idea that he would come up with, the natural law party he had.

Fali: It is not for politics. Once you bring politics then your polarization resumes.

Rick: This is more grass roots you are saying.

Fali: No, this is everybody. Even the president can be a member of our party.

Fali: He will appreciate that. What he made.

Rick: So. I am sorry, go ahead.

Fali: Funding is the key to the future of the party. One dollar will make it happen. Millions will come in every month.

Rick: There are groups like moveon.org and things like that.

Fali: But now we want more organized, structured, legal, with authority that will come through this third party. It has no power outwardly but inwardly it has all the power. That is what is needed. Maharishi said for immortality you have got to have change. So this change will come with the people and it will be a very strong energy in the field. I have another idea which equally can be implemented quickly. Relax the people in mass. Actually PM should really be very frank, go out to anybody who wants to learn purity. That would be ideal. If it does not happen, I do not want to get into that aspect. I say if the people’s party is formed, I would immediately create thousands of small, what we call islands of peace, small structures, manned by one trained person, which will give quietness and relaxation in any way they want because the internet is flooded with sufficient information. If you see the internet, mindfulness and so many processes are available. This people’s party would immediately make tapes and every island of peace which is a small structure, even could be a trailer. Before going to work, a person would get off, sit there for 10-15 minutes in a cubicle of his choice, hearing what he would like to hear to slow him down, get himself and his family home, and he takes it to his work, and the work stresses him on the way back. He spends 10 minutes in an island of peace, scattered all over, walks into it, slows himself down, gets into a better mood, and goes home and does not fight with the children or does not get upset too much. This I would do immediately as a counter to the stress levels, without organizing big movements. It is available there. He will catch on. He will say, “Oh, I felt great today.” Another friend would go there. It is free, no charge. And you sit and listen to whatever appeals to you. All are there to slow his metabolic rate down, make him relaxed, and send him home. The whole nation will immediately calm down. The polarization will be effectively counteracted here. Not there, but here. These are a couple of things.

Rick: These are good ideas. And when I listen to you say them, part of me feels pessimistic, part of me feels like, “Well, yes, but this is a huge thing to organize,” and so on and so forth. But part of me feels optimistic because I feel that in a way this stuff is already happening without so much central organization, but there is just this kind of… all over the country and all over the world there are huge numbers of people who are becoming interested in this sort of thing and who are organizing in groups and participating in practices in yoga and meditation and all kinds of stuff. So it seems to be happening by some unseen organizational force, as it were.

Fali: There is a plan. In America, when you have the people’s party, you will find it being imitated all over the world. Because leaders, they will say, “Oh, this is good for America, it’s good for us.” When you have islands of peace here, it will be duplicated all over the world. So we lead the world in consciousness rather than trying to be number two for power in the outer forms, which is a struggle. You see, this concept that we should be leaders is now misplaced, that we have the best economy and the richest this and the most millionaires and billionaires. No. We have the highest ocean of consciousness. We will lead the world and that will be our destiny. The destiny of America is to lead, but in areas that are fruitful and necessary for the future of humanity, not so much in getting more and more. The American dream here, I say, has proved a handicap now what was a handicap in the past. American dream is an icon that requires an upgrade so that the focus changes. It’s a real icon. You are born with the concept of the dream. Its outlay, its utility, and following it now is not paying dividends. I say the people’s party will upgrade the American dream, give it a new focus, and the whole nation will move in that direction. So many things can happen if we are having this simple concept of a powerless party wielding great power. This is what Maharishi and others have said, that the energy of the universe is very silent, all-powerful. To be the party will be to symbolize the energy of the universe, to wield power without hurting or harming anyone.

Rick: Do you feel confident that things are going to change for the better, and that this sort of thing is going to manifest, or do you sometimes feel pessimistic in that it could go either way and things could get really bad?

Fali: Because you see, we are intelligent beings, and we are told that when we have difficulties, it’s the intelligence that does the best job. If we are going to get out of this, we have to change our sights, our priorities. That’s not easy. Otherwise we sink deeper in the hole we are digging ourselves. Every day you see we are clogging up the system, we can’t get legislation passed. Maybe it’s not good legislation, but nothing gets going. It’s clogged with the energies coming from abroad. Not local energies. People blame the locals, but they are picking up energies that they are not aware of, as I explained in the beginning.

Rick: I don’t know, I sort of think that we are contributing our fair share to the energies too here in this country. You can’t just blame them. It’s not like if there were nobody else living on other continents, the US would be utopia.

Fali: No, no. I told you that karma catches up with the stars. And that’s another episode which we get to meet head on. We don’t know if we are meeting it now or in the future. Nature has its own calculations. We don’t know, but there is a price to pay.

Rick: Do you feel like, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but is there anything you could say about your own kind of journey, not in terms of things you did, but how your inner life changed over the years, how your perspective changed from the time, perhaps before you got interested in spiritual things, and then suddenly you woke up to that interest? I have to plug my headphone in, the battery is going dead. Hang on one second. Is there anything you could say? I know it’s your tradition not to talk too much about yourself, but I think people would be interested in hearing your story in terms of how your inner experience grew through your spiritual practice.

Fali: Okay. Now see, first you must understand is brought up on three precepts from birth. Good thoughts, good deeds and good words. And what has happened…

Rick: I can hear you. What has happened is the community has prospered with these three precepts. Do not bog down with much theological or ritualistic… There are, but these are the fundamentals, and by and large it serves us very well. There is no poverty, there is 100% literacy, my education was funded, my children’s education was funded, our health is looked after. I mean we are all doing well because of that cooperation within the community of good thought. But what has happened is, because the community is prospering, again the same attention to the other requirement is not so evident in our community. Evolution requires good thoughts to become better thoughts, that’s the idea of evolution, which is required by time. The community as a whole is not moving in that effort to become better and the best. They think good is good enough, and that’s true up to the present moment.

Rick: They are just enjoying that prosperity and they have kind of lost their priorities.

Fali: They are very good people and I enjoy it, but for few people who are not fitting into that mold, they have to look outside the community to satisfy that aspiration. That’s what’s happened, you see. So that was my case, that though I am very grateful to be born into this community, which is very well founded and running properly, but then we look elsewhere, and in that search we start to get involved into movements and people and philosophies that are not springing from the religion in which I was born. That search then, because luckily I was in India, in that part of the world, a seeker does not have to travel far to get some exposure to fulfilling his urges, you know, of sorts. There is a lot of variety. In my case, a gentleman, being a civil engineer, I was on projects, I was on a job, in a good company, very satisfied. Out of the blue, a gentleman walks in, a Zoroastrian by the way, he looks at me and he says within 10-15 minutes, ‘You need to leave this job and you need to come and work with me.’ Now, out of the blue, I never met him, something would click, you know. I had no… nothing at all, ordinary, click, click, there is something out of the ordinary, and I did leave my good job and did jump into his office on an unknown job, and it paid off in the sense that he then brought me together with teachings and he had himself been in ashrams and all. He was also one of the people who couldn’t fit in, you know, so I don’t know what made him do that, but to this day I am very much obliged to him. That was the start. Then it took many twists and turns, and once you start, then doors begin to open, and you move from station to station, but to me, Shri Master was a turning point because I had one deep experience, and again I say Islam is capable of duplicating to their followers that experience. The last ten days of the month of fasting, you know, there is a month of fasting, ten days, I used to keep a retreat and the Sufi Sahib gave me a place in his mosque and curtained it off and gave me a Quranic mantra to repeat non-stop. So I had a very illuminating experience. I wrote about it also.

Rick: Could you talk about it a little bit?

Fali: Yes. That experience is peculiar because I found that we have a ruler within us who is never making himself known to us for some reason.

Rick: A ruler?

Fali: A ruler, yes, a real ruler.

Rick: What sort of ruler?

Fali: I’ll come into that.

Rick: Okay, sorry.

Fali: Suddenly I began to feel different, and that ruler is a very real… you may say what you like, but the moment the ruler came, I saw my mind shrinking and standing in a corner, just like my hand or legs don’t move if they are not used, they are motionless, my mind was visible. Here is my mind, here is my hand, here is my legs, I have become the ruler. Then I found that the qualities I had then surpassed anything I ever imagined, and what Christ said became a reality. At that moment, if somebody wanted anything, I would say, ‘It makes no difference at all, I am just that.’ There is no difference. I didn’t think there is a lion came, all I’d do is just pat it and say, ‘Okay, now be quiet, don’t bother me.’ My hand is not clear. Absolutely 180 degrees turned in the consciousness. I wrote about it immediately, it remains with me. So this is what happens when this transformation takes place, but this is the point, it’s a peak only. You can’t stand on that peak because your past will catch up to you. And I recognized that when I became a member in the same year this happened, of the Theosophical Society. Then when I read the literature, I did not hanker for that experience or regret not having it. I knew that was just an indicator of our ultimate destiny down the road, but I didn’t have to do many more things to make that permanent. I just left it aside, didn’t meet the Sufi Master for many months, working things out and met him afterwards, but it was not the same relationship. I went my own way, but that experience was an indicator of what every human being will one day experience down the road. Not today or tomorrow, but down the road, and the ancient wisdom gives the timetable for that and how to do it and to move. So I took that direction, founded a lodge in Lahore and continued with this. That service is the message for this generation.

Rick: Service. It’s interesting that you use the term ‘ruler’ to refer to this thing that awoke, but would you say it wasn’t something that came from outside of you to rule you, it was more your inner ruler, right?

Fali: Suddenly I felt different, I felt totally immune to death, immune to disease, immune to anything, solid, 100%. If I had that consciousness I would still have it today, but I knew I can’t retain that, so I had to attend to my karma and I thought on that. You get back to that when the time comes, but it’s not.

Rick: Would you agree that it wasn’t that you were physically immune to death, I mean if somebody shot you with a gun you probably would have died, but that you were more, so you were kind of identifying with a deeper level of life that is immune to death.

Fali: No, no, that’s not it. If I’m shot I would still have an unbroken perception of my consciousness.

Rick: Right, right. That’s what I’m saying. In other words you were not sort of identifying with the body so much, you were identifying with something.

Fali: If I were prepared to be eaten up or cut off, the ruler would still be me, I would still have all these feelings intact. So immortality in and out of physical is a definition of an unbroken perception of one’s existence. This is the ruler.

Rick: Yeah, I understand. I mean, despite the fact that you didn’t maintain that experience fully, did you feel transformed afterwards, even now, even to this day, did you feel that it changed you somehow in a way that never went away?

Fali: Yes, like you know when you get major earthquakes you get tremors after that.

Rick: Yeah, yeah, go on, sir.

Fali: And then the tremors come off out of the blue, I get back a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but I’m not focused on that at all.

Rick: No.

Fali: Because I know ancient wisdom has a very, very well marked routine, if followed, will take you there. It’s not so rapid, it’s not so spectacular, but it’s the way, because it’s accumulated wisdom, not a one person or two persons, of all the sages down the ages, it is the way.

Rick: So from your perspective, do you see it as something that you might achieve many lifetimes from now, or next lifetime, or five years from now, or what?

Fali: Actually, they say that if you are fully enlightened, even then you pass seven lifetimes working out your own karma. Enlightenment doesn’t mean that the old past is washed away. It’s it which is the present moment, but the past will always have to be cleared. That is seven lifetimes, even for a highly developed person. He will have misfortunes, he will have setbacks, all caused by the past, and he will handle it better because he has better humility. But it will come, it will come.

Rick: So is this lifetime number one that you are working on now, of the seven, or maybe it’s number three?

Fali: I am what is called the outer core. When you just put the door open an inch and you put one toe inside. This is one toe in and one toe outside. Outer core, we are yet to enter. There is a lot of literature that tells you the stages, I am studying a book that’s now called Light on the… Light, Voice of the Silence, Madam Blavatsky’s new book, and it tells you the different stages of all of ignorance and all of ideation and illumination and initiation. It goes into all that. So one can see for oneself, we are way out in the preparatory stage. There are two women who enter in the preparatory before getting to class one, so it’s preparatory, all this.

Rick: Was Madam Blavatsky herself kind of at a more final stage, or did she herself say that she was in a sense a beginner that still had a lot to go through?

Fali: This is one thing with theosophy is, it’s not personal. The focus is not on personal growth. She was highly accomplished occultist, having associated with edicts in the past, and they selected her to be a messenger of the ancient wisdom. That’s why she fought against ridicule and calumny, because vast energies were against her. She propagated something radical. She tried to clean up the religions, take up all the stuff, and that’s always dangerous. That’s her role. She didn’t care about herself at all. This is one theosophical hallmark, they are not so much involved, so much tries to spread and make it available and explain, so that others can benefit from that. Because the motto is, “There is no religion higher than truth.”

Rick: Higher than truth.

Fali: That’s the motto of your…

Rick: That’s a good motto.

Fali: You see, the LCC church in the 13th…

Rick: Which church? Yes, yes.

Fali: Yes, ex-National Secretary of the Theosophical Society was there on the 22nd to inaugurate some priest or some ceremony. Many people are members of the church, and a lot of the church people are members. Jeffrey, he was there in fact in the last week.

Rick: Yeah, I remember hearing that there was some connection like that.

Fali: Yes, so he was there.

Rick: So we’ve been going on for just about as long as we usually go on in these interviews. Is there anything that you feel that is kind of important that we’ve just gone around or we’ve gone over too quickly or we haven’t covered that you would like to say?

Fali: No. I would like people who hear this to be warned in the mind that one suggestion I give, that’s the immediate need, is to form this grouping collectively to strengthen the national function. That’s a very important need of ours. So some capable person talks to another person, it might just create some response, practical, and things could get going. But I think without that we will be deeper in the present situation we find ourselves.

Rick: Do you have a website?

Fali: The Houston Lodge has a website.

Rick: So people could contact you through that if they wanted to?

Fali: No, not directly. Because that’s maintained by our… I’m very poor in… but a lot of our lodge information and my tapes are there, interviews are there, my tapes are there, you can hear it. What happens after death, grow or perish is another seeding there is, that tells you higher states of consciousness. But I want to say one few words at last, if you don’t mind.

Rick: No, fine, please.

Fali: There’s a misconception about this phrase ‘higher states of consciousness’ and we need to clear it up. And the reason why we need to clear it up is that most meditations, most, because we cannot aspire to more deeper, cater to the physical well-being of our immune system. Even today the Guardian has a long article how it helps in depression. Guardian, I got it, I might send it. It’s great for the physical. People, they have been meditating 40, 50 years and theoretically the higher states are talked about – you know what I mean? – but it’s not exhibited for a fundamental reason that evolution is not monolithic, it’s triple. It’s physical, mental, emotional, three different laws operate on the consciousness. And normal meditation does not cater to all three simultaneously. You hear it, you suppose to. Because it doesn’t do that, one area, wonderful, don’t fall sick, don’t take medication, it’s great for health, cuts the cost down, marvelous. It’s big. Simple meditation will take you up and up because the three other levels are ignored. It will do the job. Unevenness, imbalance, because the physical exceeds the emotional. At the higher level of the mind, the seven levels of the mind, everything is in sevens, at the higher level of the mind there is no thinking, it’s only known. It’s only when you know that you know you are spiritually advanced, when you keep thinking you are not yet there, because the spirit knows, not thinking it knows. Nature doesn’t have a thinking department. It’s thought that knows, because the intelligence is in the action. There is no special thinking that I’ll do this and then do that. We have to do that because we are not knowing that people, we are thinking people. So thinking is a measure of our ignorance as far as evolution goes. So meditation does not bring us to that knowing level, so we have a thinking level. But the thinking level doesn’t grow the emotions. There are different laws regulating it. So if the emotions don’t match the thinking, you get a disconnect and you are not there yet. And the higher stage requires a perfect blending of the requisite emotion, the requisite mind, thought process, they combine and it’s absorbed into your consciousness and you gain a notch. But till that match is made, you get a mental construct, you get an emotional construct, but you don’t get a combination that is taken into your system. This is what is not happening with normal meditation.

Rick: I like that point actually, because I’ve seen many examples of people that seem to be fairly advanced in one line of development, but really quite in need of growth in some other line of development.

Fali: That is the limitation of meditation because we are in infancy of consciousness. We can’t have meditation that we are going to be down the future, that will be of a different sort. When we are well developed, we have that meditation. Now this meditation is to make your immune system stronger, to take out the stresses, to make you focus better. That’s what it does. It is not taking you to the theoretically higher states we are talking of all the time. Because the emotions are not being catered for in this meditation. It’s left behind.

Rick: So in saying this, do you wish to offer some prescription that people could follow to have a more complete development, or are you just saying that be content with what you are doing and somewhere down the line you’ll find something more advanced?

Fali: It is a simple prescription for most people, which we talk of. It is like a three-legged stool. Meditation relaxes you, strengthens your immune system. Study, preferably the ancient wisdom and service. These three are done. What happens is the idea that we have to serve our person, I told you our American dream is to serve more the personality than our spiritual growth. What will happen is your ideas will begin to have ideas in you. Ideas, you know, more than what helped you in the past to satisfy you at a lower level. When you have sufficient ideas, your desires will elevate to aspiration. How will you have desire? I have an idea, I want this. And then you fulfill the desire, and you feel happy. Then you feel, I want more, because you are not satisfied. You can never be satisfied with desires. So you keep on fulfilling desires, and you feel… you try hard and get upset and fail and this and that. When you have more ideas, more aspirations, then you become altruistic. So that means you have opened up to your higher nature. That is when the growth really takes place in your personality, your mortal nature, your perishable nature. That is the process of evolution, to elevate the perishable part of us so that it is a better instrument of the imperishable part. It is not visible.

Rick: It is an interesting point because I know some people have this attitude that meditation is a more advanced thing, and service is for people who can’t really meditate because they are not as advanced. But I have seen people who have been meditating for decades who can very often be quite selfish and immature, and obviously some service would be very beneficial in developing the heart and making them a more mature, well-rounded person.

Fali: Yes, yes. You know, when you are not so dominated by desires… Buddha preached this very clearly, that desire is the cause of sickness. And even spiritual desire is also mental at this point. It is not spiritual but mental. So the mind is not reached at knowing level. The four lower levels of the mind cater to the logic of intellect, reasoning, very important, but without opening up to knowing levels, you can’t get the higher energies into your lower personality and be involved with that. So that’s the system recommended for this.

Rick: Good. It’s a good recommendation. Well, thank you very much, Fali. This has been very enjoyable. And thank you to our friend Charles for setting this up and coming, driving an hour across Houston to bring his computer and enable us to do this interview. Those who are listening to this, if they go to batgap.com, I’ll have a page up with the audio of this interview to download. And we’ll have a link, Fali will provide me some link to a website or websites that he feels would recommend.

Fali: My email.

Rick: We’ll set that up.

Fali: I’ll set up my email and I can get it. The only thing I’m expert at is email. I’ll mess up the whole thing.

Rick: Okay, we’ll do that. Don’t hang up yet, but I just want to close the show by thanking you and telling our listeners that you’ve been listening to or watching Buddha at the Gas Pump. And in case you just are watching or listening to an isolated episode, it’s a weekly show and there are many more. So you can go to batgap.com and you’ll see them all there. And you’ll also see links to a YouTube page, a podcast, and a number of other things. So thank you for watching. (music)