2020 = 4 – Sangat is the 4th Dimension

‘Neutral attitude is the joy of God’ Yogi Bhajan 13 Jan 1972

This is not a prophecy. Merely words of contemplation for the year 2020.

Going from 2019 to 2020 moves attention and energy away from the 3 (2019 = 12 = 3). Towards 4 (2020 = 4). This can be represented in the way a triangle opens to become a square.

The form of 4 points makes a lot more movement possible. Even when the sides remain the same length, there are still many 4-sided forms that can be made. In this way the number 4 brings openings, possibilities and opportunities. It can come as a relief and sense of freedom. Or a disturbing breakdown of the familiar, leaving you in uncertainty and a tendency to paralysis in order to keep the false sense of security and safety. It can be painful to release yourself from a fixed position. However, the change to the 4 gently confronts you to leave behind false structures.

If this opening is to the higher self, greater awareness, then it becomes a cup of receiving and sharing. On the other hand, if the opening is down to the lower self then there is a danger of falling into an abyss, through the subconscious domain of the 2 (negative mind), and there is no receptivity.

The opening into the 4 is an inner opening. The heart opening to its own inner secrets. It is an internal revolution where you become naked to yourself. It is not an exposure to the world around you. Whatever may have been locked away even from your own attention, conveniently buried in the subconscious, will offer itself to be dissolved through consciousness. This is the possibility that comes with the neutral mind.

In the language of numbers, the year 2020 sums up to number 4 (2+2). In the Spiritual Science of Applied Numerology, the number 4 is referred to as the neutral mind. The neutral mind gives the ability to operate in life free of the effects of multiple influences that condition our decisions in, and responses to, the world. Influences such as shame, guilt and anger based on our past story, expectations, hopes, social pressure, media, attachments, fears, need for approval, addictive patterns and even things like the climate, the season, the planetary movements, the attractions and distractions around us, and so much more.

Neutral does not mean that there is no differentiation, or that all things are to be seen and treated as the same, or as having the same value. Neutral does not allocate any specific value on things, events, time of day, shapes or colours, people etc. It meets and embraces everything just as it is. Fully aware of the distinctness of the diversity of the creation. While not giving undue importance to anything. None the less the Neutral Mind recognises the priority of the moment and consciously chooses to attend to the inevitable. Whole heartedly committing to that. Neutrality

allows you to be free of attachment, fully capable of making intuitively informed decisions whilst also being free of the fear of the consequences.

True neutrality is a dynamic state of non-attachment, which sits between attachment and detachment. It a state of being that liberates you from attachments and allows you to be in truthfulness; to perceive the reality and live by it. it is impossible to remain actively in the neutral state without also being in conscious and perpetual trust, which is also the true nature of prayer. Otherwise your neutrality will either become a frozen, detached, paralysed state of insensitivity and apathy. Or it shifts into a trembling doubt, uncertainty and confusion, where hesitation is the standard reaction to life.

There is a small voice within your heart that wants to be heard. It is a voice that wants to take you beyond the limited world of individual personality (ego) into community consciousness. It is a voice that says ‘we’ not ‘me’.The call to community is a move away from a life based on getting and having. Into a life of giving and sharing. The human heart is a prayerful cup through which all giving and receiving really takes place.

Note: this means the heart chakra not the heart organ.

Spiritual community (Sangat), like the inner heart, is the melting pot; the chalice, within which the rising human soul and the descending divine spirit merge, to give birth to the new human; a being of light.
Animal and angel meet in sangat. Community consciousness is an ambient where truth prevails/wins.
The neutrality and inner connection to ‘We’ ensures that your perception is illuminated by the light of truth, the light of consciousness. Reality becomes the ground for all your decisions. It is the place of honesty, sincerity, authenticity, reality and truthfulness.

Whether you define your heart as open or closed. None the less it is the place where you embrace all humanity. Where you feel the love of all and the pain of all. Denying, oppressing, or numbing, the pain will result in the same effect to love. Then there is no basis for a human life but only a life based on individual impulse, instinct, desire, and self-satisfaction. It is the human within you that can meet, connect and awaken the human in others. It is the human within you that can heal the human wounds in others. As it is the humanity on others that awakens you to your true identity and inspires you to risk being open and vulnerable as well to be loved and to share the love.

To fall into the heart is to fall in love. To fall into the heart is to enter an uncertain and unknown realm. To fall into the heart is to call upon your inner possibilities. Falling into the heart is what attracts opportunities. It is a place to‘be’ not to ‘do’. Then a new quality of action will be born from the state of being. The heart is like the bud of a flower, while the arc-line (halo) is like the open flower.

You can be suspended in the heart in several ways. Retreating inwards into the bud of the heart to close, to shut down, to lose feeling, or to recentre, to connect to self, to gather yourself together. Retreating to the source of inner truth. The source of your humanity. The inner unknown. The possible self. The source of poetry.

Poetry is the bud of awakening. The quiet voice speaks in a different language than the rational mind. It is the voice of the child (YB re that voice). Not the wounded child of this lifetime. The true child. Child of the spirit. The eternal child for whom earth is the mother and sky is the father. The child who is free of stories based on false and temporary identification. The child who knows how to be in the perpetual moment.

Falling into the heart is a beautiful revolution, which can lead to revelation. However, breaking the triangle can also be a journey of social revolt and riot that leads to nothing but trouble. A deconstruction of social norms can be a foundation for liberation or a breakdown leading to anarchy. When it is evident that the ship is sinking then thecaptain cries out ‘every man for himself’ (save yourself). The spirit of human community is to keep each other afloat. To bring buoyancy to the collective consciousness.

Let’s visit again, and a little deeper, the nature of sangat:

‘’ Sangat means that congregation of affection, which can work for liberation.’’ YB

Sangat is a reality check, an environment to awaken the neutral mind, a gathering where ‘’We are We and We areGod’’ (Hummee Hum Brahm Hum) becomes a directly lived experience and where truth unfolds naturally.

Sangat means to congregate, to assemble and develop a sense of togetherness. 1 in spirit. It is time to focus your intention to get together, sing together, meditate together, eat together, be together.
Sangat consciousness is a natural result of inner consciousness of ‘we’. It can be described in many ways.
A formless holding; a state of disinterested interest; being in touch with others as an Invitation not a demand; enquiry not analysis; curious not interrogation; contact not intrusion; holding not grabbing; interested not seeking, available without expectation.

Participation through service:

You are part of the one human race and therefore participation makes sense. Participation allows a flow, a giving and receiving. We are talking about participation in humanity. Not mere participation in the consumeristic industry, the tourism, the spectatorship, window shopping, putting your bets at the casino, and so on. All that can be called participation in Maya. Rather we are talking about participation in human interaction, human relations, human development and evolution. Participation in unfolding the true human potential. That is not necessarily highlighted in material or social gain or fame; in wealth, winning over others, promotion at work, getting a bigger car or house, or any thing else that directly or indirectly promotes self-importance.
The value of what makes us human and not just animals, is in our giving. And the highest value of giving is when it is without self-interest. Selfless service (Seva) requires the active investment of the neutral mind. Seva is a meditation in itself. It is a cup of prayer. A call to the unknown within, through the inner heart, to fulfil the impossible. To provide what seems to be unavailable, to address the needs from an infinite supply. The cup of prayers opens up the flowsothattheDivinecangivethroughus.Godisthetruegiver,thereforegivingisGodly. Sevaneutralisesmanyof the problems of the mind based on the self-importance of ‘me, me, me’, (I don’t/want, I don’t like, etc.) andtransforms it to attuned to the sense of ‘we-in-me’. It is a deeply intuitive awareness that the other’s pain is also your pain, the other’s benefit is also your benefit, the other’s joy is also your joy.
There will always be a need of the prayer of Seva as well as the Seva of prayer.

It is not a time to just waiting for community to happen. Nor to be busy searching for your community. It is time to build community. To be asking yourself, not what I can get from community, but what can I offer, what can I bring? Where there is a need, a gap, or a lack that you identify. As it has come to your consciousness then it is you who are called to address it. And when it seems impossible then to, at the very least, offer a prayer.

To relate to others from a community consciousness. we have far more in common than the differences we tend to highlight. We are created from the same 5 elements, we breathe the same air, we inhabit the same global magnetic field, our blood and bones are the same colour, we walk upon the same planet and share the same resources. We see the same colours of the rainbow then why we not also see the same essence shine through everyone’s eyes. The temple of the Aquarian age is sangat. Every soul is a brick. It is held up by the consciousness of seva, prayer, and the trust you put into your prayer.

Some extra numerology:

The diagram below illustrates a form of the pathway to the number 4 and especially how it must pass the 2 twice, which is significant in a year like 2020 where the 2 is present 2 times.

Be true to your true inner self

In the Mul Mantra of Guru Naanak, the 4 stage of the mantra is Sat Naam. Meaning True Identity. When you are truthful then you are true. God is true and truth is God. Truthfulness is next to Godliness. It is not easy to be truthful. And not easy to know the truth of any situation in any moment. However, the inner voice uses the negative principle to alert you to what is not true. Therefore, the right use of the negative mind (2) will serve you to be truthful.

The negative mind alone is designed to identify problems and obstacles. But when these are held in the light of reality, in the heart’s truth, then they are not perceived as problems. Rather each challenge is a moment of opportunity filled with possibilities.
The negative mind is the innocent roots of our longing and the pure instinct that negates the impure. Its virtue is to obey the innocent call, the cry of the soul, that flows like water and finds its way to the ocean by moving away from the obstacles to find the natural gap.

Prayer and Seva can serve to bring the flow of emotion out from the subconscious, instinctive, organic, domain of the negative mind, and move it to the intuitively conscious domain of devotion through the heart.

Double negative 2 + 2 or 2 x 2, = 4.

It is time to pay attention to the tension of the 2.
The year 2020 obviously contains 2 twice. These will be further amplified or eclipsed by the double 0 (zero) that is also present. 2 is the Negative mind and can be a great moving power. The longing to belong can become emotion to devotion. Otherwise, it becomes a desperate and needy state through which we descend and drown into the black hole of despair, powerlessness and depression.

The double 2 can result in doubling of the duality, a deeper split in the growing polarisation that is increasingly present in many areas of our collective world. It can also bring an unbearably intense longing, a bottomless pit of cold depression, a sense of lack that knows no satisfaction.

Sooner or later there rises in you a strong sense of not wanting things to carry on as they are. The naïve version ofthat is ‘I don’t want to live anymore’. What it really means is that ‘I don’t want to live like this anymore and I don’t yet know how I do want to live’. This is the voice of the daughters of humanity that longs to, and needs to, be heard.through the 2 itself it may remain always in a mood of being against something or someone – the ‘anti’ movements. We campaign and shout about all the things we are against. Whereas the 4 that ask us to focus on what we are for.

Hence the necessity of a prayerful awakening of the ‘we-in-me’. The cup that can hold even the most distantseparation, most disparate parts of self and society, and bring about a greater unity. Therefore, we say ‘fall into yourheart, do not let your heart fall’. It requires a steady inner discipline of remembrance. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10. Henceprayer can generate something that is extra-ordinarily greater than the parts. The collective manifestations, demonstrations and riots on the streets all over the world, though also filled with danger and delusion, can alsobring about changes that would otherwise seem impossible. It is the voice of ‘we’ saying ‘stop – no more’. There is a caution here that the sense of betrayal fuels anger and any action born out of anger, victimhood and blame on the other, tends to fail eventually. Leading to disappointment, further depression and strategies that reinforce the separation and duality. In contrast to a call to unite and take effective collective action towards meaningful change. We may be more effective in opening the door to the 4th dimension (We), by moments of solidarity in silent prayer, as well as moments of getting out on the streets and helping those in need (as is happening on the streets of Lebanon, Iran, and other countries where the state/government is failing).
It time not to accuse and increase the dualistic tension and separation. Not to throw rocks at the police or soldiers on the street. But to bring them gifts, to hold their hands, and to pray for their awakening and for their children.
The association of 4 with prayer reminds us that it is also a number of miracles. That something can be born from nothing. Through its miracle the 2 x 2, 2 + 2, = 4 may result in one 2 cancelling out the other 2 in an uplifting and transformative manner.
Desire to be desireless.
Doubt the doubt.
Don’t merely bear the unbearable – transform it through prayer
Don’t just accept the unacceptable – transform it through seva

Don’t be resigned to tolerate the intolerable – bring it to the collective ‘we’ and dissolve it through trusting the miracle of the heart.
Say no to the ‘anti’ approach – become for something.

Conscious use of the power of ‘No’, otherwise called the ‘know-how of the no’, is mastered through the negation of the negation. Saying ‘no’ to the ‘no’ that negates the ‘we’. Listening to the ‘no’ that says ‘not this and not that’.
And in this way find the truth.
Guru Naanak affirmed the 1 in everyone. And his name itself is a reminder of the double negative. To never say no to the 1 (Naa Na Ek). Everyone is part of The One. As we are each part of, so we are called to participate. And, once again, sangat (community), prayer and Seva is the way.

Guru Naanak also gave a powerful call to participate in humanity in a single line of his composition Japji.

Ayee panthi sagal jamati man jeetai jag jeet

A summary translation, with several layers of meaning, might be:

”Come traveller (to join) all (your) fellow beings (humanity)…
(in in that way), conquer the mind to conquer (overcome and succeed in) the world (to cross the ocean of time and space – Maya)”

Through a consciousness of human community, beyond sectarian thinking, have victory over your mind to have victory in the world. Not victory as in ‘rule the world’. But victory in crossing the Maya. Victory in transforming karma to dharma. Victory in becoming non-attached and free of influence of the polarities. Victory in entering the 4th state, the 4th dimension, and fulfilling your destiny. This is the blessing of sangat consciousness.

May you fall fully into your heart
May you know the cup of love
May you experience the vibration of the One Deep within your inner being
May your cup overflow in abundance
To become service to the light of truth
In all living beings and all of nature
May our unity prevail over our duality
Let us awake and embrace
Let us stop, breath, feel and be
And the trust the unity of humanity

SCS