Satsang in Richterswil, Zurich, Switzerland on 8th October 2017
Good afternoon and welcome!
I usually like to answer questions, rather than giving a speech, because often a speech is off the track, because it may be something you don’t even want to know, but if questions are answered, it is more relevant.
I think I have met quite a few of you. But is anyone meeting me for the first time? Thank you, welcome!
The Path of Nath Tradition
I’ll brief you about the path I follow. It is not complicated. Lord Krishna was soon going to leave his body. When he knew that he will not be in the body for long, he also understood that what he came for, the reason for his avatar will also get diluted after his death. This is natural for every guru. Mostly after death we forget them. Lord Krishna called upon Dattatreya; he was the Aacharya (means teacher) of a yuga (era); Yuga Aacharya of Lord Krishna’s time was Lord Dattatreya. He told Dattatreya “I’m afraid that once I leave the body, what I came for, all my teaching will be forgotten. We should do something.” So Lord Dattatreya codified a system, a tradition, called the Nath tradition. Nath tradition is very simple, only one purpose, Liberation.
Liberation while living means detachment from all things around you. But at the same time it doesn’t mean you don’t experience life. You can be in everything but at the same time you are not bound by anything while living. And what is liberation while dying? Less luggage, means less desire. How can you have less desire? Experience life as it happens, fully. Tradition of Nath has only a purpose which is liberation and that is beyond enlightenment. So Lord Dattatreya created the Nath tradition based on Lord Shiva, the stature or state of Lord Shiva, totally in happiness, he needs nothing. When can you be truly happy? When you are fine with what you have and you are not worried about what you don’t have. Then you are happy! So that is a simple tradition that I follow and there are lot of masters in the same tradition. You can see a minor deviation with the masters, because everybody has their own orientation, we all have our unique flavor and that is the main thing that we are giving to the world, that’s how people recognize us. This is Nath tradition. Purpose of Nath tradition is Liberation. Liberation has two sides, one while living, you are not affected by anything around you and while leaving, you have very few desires, you are free. These are the two aspects of Liberation and that is exactly our path. I’ll take your questions now, challenge me. (smiles). Yes please.
Q: When we go to school, we are told you must have wishes, then when you have wishes, you start working. I think it is so difficult to change what you are told and not to work in order to fulfill your wishes. I find it very difficult sometimes; I often feel because I have wishes I work, but it is the opposite. Please advise.
Well, the world operates on mind. Everything is mind. Even our education system is feeding into the mind. When I say liberation, it is going beyond the mind, so it’s slightly different here. Mind is almost like an organ as far as I am concerned. 80-90% of our living time we are only entertaining the mind. I was telling someone recently that when Karl Marx’s was talking about the ‘the haves’ and the ‘have nots’, we had a particular species in India who wanted nothing. So we did not know where to place them. They can have anything, but wanted nothing. You go beyond your mind to a stage of a complete contentment. We keep our mind alive and we are afraid that if we lose our mind what will happen? Mind is kept alive by thoughts. What is most of the wishes or desires or the things that we use for propulsion, these are all thoughts per second. This is exactly the difference between the slave and the emperor. When thoughts are controlling you, you are a slave. When you are controlling the thoughts you become an emperor. How do you control thoughts? Thoughts are not within your control. They are like our children, we have no idea what’s coming. After they came, we thought this is our child. Just like that we have no control on thoughts. In a moment I will explain to you the chronology of thoughts but before that, why do we emphasize or over emphasize on our ability to think? That is because the mind wants to stay alive. The food of mind is thought. These thoughts are inevitability for us, we cannot control them. So take one step backwards, what is bringing these thoughts into mind? We have inclination for something, such a thought will happen. For example, if a person has an inclination for alcohol, he would have thought,’ I must have alcohol’. If a person does not have inclination for alcohol, he will not even think about it. Imagine if a person has no interest in alcohol and you give him the most expensive bottle of alcohol, he will have nothing to do with it. So inclination creates thought. Before inclination what happens? Desire, unfulfilled desire. Before unfulfilled desire what happens? Why is a desire unfulfilled?
It comes from impressions. What is impression? Your understanding of an experience is impression. The residue of how you understood or experienced something in life, the residual memory, became an impression in your hard drive, subconscious. That’s why the same event will have different results or different memories for different people. If 50 people see an event, the 50 people will have 50 different feelings, 50 different memories of the same thing. Each person can only understand as per themselves. Have you observed in certain parties, where buffet is observed, some people do not like to eat something, while other people relish the same thing. Maybe I don’t like certain food but another person likes it. This difference is because our flavor determines our experience. What we are determines how we taste it, how we experience life. We have experiences in life, that is why we have taken the body, mind, intellect and ego. Then we collect memory out of it. That’s called impression. That is stored in our causal layer; it is like the hard drive of our computer. You may not even know what is in your hard drive. How do you know what is in your hard drive? It manifests on your screen, then you say, “Oh, this is sitting there.” Like that in our life we do not know what is sitting in our hard drive, in our causal layer. Only the effects are visible. So you look at the effects and say,”Oh, this is already there.” The causal layer creates effect, which we call life. If the hard drive is full, life is terrible, it slows down the computer, and our life becomes complicated, when so much data is sitting inside. So this is how the chronology, an event, or an experience, its memory, impression, it creates desire, which needs fulfillment, it causes an inclination and a thought happens. When thought happens, it asks for expression that is you have to express your thought, you say I want this experience; you go and buy it, that’s the action. So thought word, action, it creates an experience, it creates a memory, it creates an impression and then again desire, this is the cycle.
There is nothing permanent. The same person, who liked a certain thing at the age of 15, may have complete hatred for it at 30. It is not like the person has changed, but the memories have changed, the impression has changed, desire has changed and also the need has changed. Have you observed, sometimes we have very close friendships in school, college, university etc, and after a while you don’t even feel anything for each other, sometimes friends part, they go away. This is because when the frequency is not matching, there is no communication. This is also created by impressions. So there are so many things happening in the causal layer, that we unfortunately cannot see, but we can experience them at times. This is how the whole structure of life is happening, how much control do we have in this? Each thing is happening at a particular time, at a particular place, with a particular set of people for a certain experience. At this point in time, we had to meet; this group of people has been decided before. This is how destiny brings people together. We are born at a particular time and die at the particular time. It is unchangeable, it is decided. What decides this duration? Destiny. Destiny is equal to desire that is unfulfilled, that needs fulfillment. It has to be laid on time, on linear time.
What is spirituality in this whole game? Very simple, your awareness of your spirit, your soul, is spirituality. Most of us believe we are the personality, because that is what we project to the world. That is why we don’t know anybody in this world including our children or parents or anybody. You think you know them; you probably know their image, the form, the expression and say I know this person very well. How do you know this person at all? You can’t see his dream state, you can’t see his deep sleep state. Our level of awareness for anybody or between anybody is very limited. But we say boldly I know this person. I know very well, I don’t know anybody, even if we have lived together for a long time, because I can’t see anybody’s karma, I can’t see anybody’s dream state. In a way we think we know, but the truth is we do not know. When do you get to know people? When do you become completely yourself, totally yourself? When you connect to the frequency and vibration of yourself, you will start connecting with everybody in the same way, otherwise we only look, but we don’t understand.
Know yourself and free yourself from the mind
It is important to ask ourselves, do I know myself? You know how we measure ourselves, by other people’s words, what others talk about us and what we think about us. These are not both us; do we know what our next thought is? So it is audacity to say “I know myself.” We must connect to ourselves, go deep within ourselves, beyond our states. That is what Osho explained, you do not fall into sleep, you become sleep. When you are falling into sleep, there is somebody who is not sleep, when you see people outside; there is somebody who is separate from them.
Someone told Ramana Maharishi, a great saint in India,”I’m bothered with these people.” Ramana asked, “Which people are bothering you?”
He was told, “Other people.”
Ramana said, “Where are other people? I can’t see anyone outside of me. My own soul has manifested into various people. So it’s a collective existence. When you understand this, you see in the mind, a wish or a desire; in which mind is it?”
One more thing about this education system, I love this system because they create bricks on the wall. When a person is individualistic, we make them mediocre and make them as bricks, because the system is not made for geniuses. A good education system shows children where to look, not what to see. The moment you tell them what to see you are binding them. They don’t need individuality; you already told them what to see, finished. So good system is always leaving people free. The highest gift that any master can give to any disciple is freedom. The highest freedom that you will ever experience while living, is freedom of the mind. Where can the freedom start? How can you be free?
Acceptance
No education system is teaching you that. One word, acceptance. Accept yourself as you are, with the good part, the bad part, the ugly part; everything is you, accept them totally. Never judge yourself because you are unique, there is no one like you. Experience the uniqueness that is you and be fully with it. Acceptance, if one word you want to remember, remember acceptance that leads to freedom. In the path of liberation, there are very few words and the key word is acceptance. We judge ourselves much more than others do. We have no right. How can we judge ourselves, because we created this life to fulfill desires, for completion, for experience. How do we judge this at all? It doesn’t matter if other people approve of us or not. In actual journey of spirituality, there is nothing called proving, we have nothing to prove to anybody, because all people are the same. Second, you don’t need approval of anybody, because you are unique, no one can really know you. In the paths, traditions, religions, that great masters have created, it is all to know yourself, not to know something outside of you. Knowing yourself starts with you and ends with you. You know, if you are talking to the God outside, what is sitting inside? We forget the God inside, which is called the soul, because as I told earlier, we have our physical body, we have our emotional mind, we have our intellectual, the intellect, the analysis part and we have our ego, the personality. All these four things are alive only because of one person, soul. When the soul leaves, there is no physical, there is no emotional, intellectual or any personality. When somebody dies, we call it a dead body. So it is important to understand who the boss is. It is good to know. That awareness is called spirituality. All the time you are aware that,”This is my soul running the whole show,” that means you are very spiritual.
Awareness
First word is acceptance, second word is awareness. What is the guarantee? Liberation will happen, with these two words. You don’t need a religion or guru to tell you this because it is already within you. What is the highest gift that any guru can give you? Freedom, which is already within you. Did I confuse you or is it clear? Remember these three words – acceptance, awareness, liberation. I think that is enough. If you ponder on those, if you contemplate, you will understand the whole world of spirituality as if it is in your palm.
So many people do so many things to connect to God. Why are there so many things done to connect to God? That’s because each person is unique. In the Hindu path, there are 330 million Gods. What does that mean? 33% of you is God, the soul aspect. The only permanent aspect in our system is the soul aspect. 33% is physical, you have a body, 33% is mental, we have a mind. That is why as a blanket opinion the tradition says, there are 330 million Gods, because there are 330 million types of people. You can only appreciate something which suits you. If something doesn’t suit you, it doesn’t belong to you anyway, very simple. Lord Krishna talked about this in 2-3 lines, there are numerous things in the world, material people, places, time, lot of things in the world and for people to know this or experience this we have five senses. Five senses are eyes, ears nose, skin, tongue. To experience this world of numerous things we have 5 senses and one mind. So mind cannot be with every sense at the same time. Like you are eating your food, but if your mind is in your office, you will not taste the food; your mind is elsewhere, not available. So mind has to be with your tongue to feel the taste. Mind has to be with your eyes to see. Mind has to be with your ears to hear properly. So at one point in time you can experience only one thing. The result is usually either happiness or sorrow. This is it, broadly you categorize your experience, some category called happiness and some category called sorrow. If you understood this, you understood life. We think that we can conquer this earth, but at the end of the day, this earth conquers you. That is why we go with flowers to the graveyard. All those people who were trying to conquer this earth at one time, but finally earth conquered them and put them inside the ground. So if you look at life it is funny, you know. If you don’t live now, you don’t live ever. Right now is your reality, yesterday is finished and you have no idea about tomorrow. Be happy now. Secondly, don’t be afraid, we will die anyway, there’s nothing to worry. Have I answered your question?
Audience: Yes.
M: Yes please.
The Nath Sadhana
Q: I have two questions. Don’t you recommend Sadhana? Another question, I have never heard about this tradition, Nath, but Advaita and it sounds very similar.
Yes, good question. There is a variety of Sadhana in Nath. Kriya is one of Nath Sadhana, we teach kriya. I like meditation, but not sitting and meditating. I like meditation, 24/7, that means being aware. You are being aware of your movement, your walk, your talk; there is nothing unconscious in your system. This is Nath Sadhana, the practice. Once one great person came to a Nath master and asked him, how can I be initiated into the tradition? He said jump into the river, river takes you. In other words, be life, don’t do life. Most of us do life, like we are acting. As explained earlier, education tells you, achieve this, conquer the world, all this education tells you. So we are acting, doing life, instead being life. We try to become somebody else, it’s already taken and all the people are already taken. We have to be fully ourselves. These days there is another fascination for people, regression, past life. People come and tell me sometime, “You know, I have been so and so in my past life, I have been a great master, or I have been somebody.” I don’t know how it matters in this life. When I ask them,”If you were a great master in another life, what are you doing on earth now? You should have gone away.” So it’s ironical that we bank on something already finished, even if it is true, this life is the only valuable life at this point in time. This is the only time, this is the only life. Imagine there are no more lives. That’s a big relief actually. You will be fully now, here. All your happiness and sorrows have no value, no permanent value, experience-wise there is some value because you are experiencing and whether there is happiness or sorrow, value is the same. We like happiness but that is different, because of the mind. Happiness and sorrow are only two situations of life. Have you observed most of us, when we have a good happy situation we fail to enjoy? There is cloud of fear of losing it, sitting always with us. We are always worried about losing something. What can we lose maximum? This body? It will be lost anyway. So why don’t we just be happy? We fail to experience relations; we fail to experience events, various things in life because of this cloud of fear. A lot of masters have said through time, that we are infinite. But why are we not experiencing infinity? People have said that we are immortal, but do we feel it? To feel it you need to know yourself. There is one part of you that is a time rider; it rides the time like a horse, soul, the subtlest of the things sitting within you. Once you connect with the soul everything makes sense. You know ego is not bad, it is a good idea. Ego is like the walking stick of the mind. Without ego mind feels lost. What is ego? It is the skeleton of your personality. Just like we have a skeleton to keep the body in shape, the skeleton of personality is ego. Skeleton is not bad, but if you are only skeleton, then it is very bad. You scare people. That’s what ego does to the society, you run away from such people right? Because you are scared. But if ego just maintains your personality, it is a good idea. When I ask who you are, you say I don’t really know. It’s a problem. You must know who you are. It’s a good idea to know yourself. Not as the ego, not as the personality, but what runs the personality? That awareness is Nath sadhana, practice. It is a constant practice. That awareness transcends into dream state. In other words, you woke up I the morning and then you sleep in the night. This time awareness is above all the activities. You will reach a plane where you are seeing everything from above. This is one stage that we automatically come into. After a while, automatically you will see yourself going into another state, which is called dream state. Why is dream state important? Is it as important as waking state? You get fulfillment through dreams. After the waking state, the dream state, then the body goes into total rest, deep sleep state, usually about 3.5 hours. That time it is like death, you have no idea who you are, whether a man or a woman, no idea of time, space, where you sleep. Nothing is important, nothing matters. That is the time that you are plugging in your mobile for charging. You become fully replenished for the next day. So everyday destiny is reminding you that you have death.
When you wake up in the morning, it is a fresh life. Every day there is a birth, every day there is a death. That is why in the Hindu system there is prayer, when you start your day, we say, Kayenavacha Manasendriyairva,Budhyaatmana Va Prakruteh Swabhavath Karoami Yadyad Sakalam Parasmai Sri Narayana Yeti Samarpayami. This means Lord Vishnu is the Lord of sustenance. What are we chanting? “Whatever I do today with the organs of action and the organs of perceptions, whatever I think, whatever I say, whatever I do, with my body, mind and intellect, I surrender at your feet. Please protect this.” That is not the same chant in the night.
Before we go to bed, we say, Karacharanakritam Vaa Kkaayajam Karmajam Vaa,Shravana Nayanajam Vaa Maanasam Vaa, Aparaadham Vihitamavihitam Vaa, Sarvametatkshamasva Jaya Jaya Karunaabdhe Shree Mahadeva Shambho. That is to Lord Siva. Why Lord Siva? The Lord of Dissolution, recycling. Lord Vishnu, maintainer, “You please maintain my life, smoothly.” Night, you know you are dying; there is a deep sleep state coming. So you tell Lord Siva, “Please purify me, recycle me and make me fresh for the next day.” What is the chant, “Whatever I did with my hands, with my feet, physical, whatever I performed, through the ears, through the eyes, whatever I experience, anything is good, anything is positive or anything is negative, whatever I did today, I surrender at your feet, I am not perfect. I would have done, probably quite a lot of things today. But I surrender everything at your feet. Please bless me and dissolve this for me. So we remain purified always.” When you do not do something, Lord Krishna says and surrender it, your actions to me, I release you from the sins of it. You are not the doer. When does karma happen? When you become the doer, I am doing it, that means I carry the weight of it. When I surrender everything, what am I doing? I am the instrument of the divine. You will only do pure work, purity. Karma is connected to doership. You own the activity, you own the results, too. When you are humble, when you fully surrender to the divine, doesn’t matter, which religion, which God, but when you are fully surrendered, you don’t have any weight of karma. That is why I said, when leaving, less baggage. When we have so much of baggage what happens, carrying is difficult, you have to pay excess luggage for that. It’s expensive. Did I explain to you?
Q: You talk about, happiness, awareness and all this, I find very often I am a very happy person, because I accept things the way they are, but not always of course. On the other hand, when I meet a spiritual person, just like you, I feel under pressure, I should do this, I should do that, oh now I should have awareness every second of my life. Yes, I know that, from our sages, but what is it that I must do, can you tell me that?
Beautiful question! May I answer this is two words? Do nothing? You get to God, in silence, not activity. We all feel that through activity we can achieve something, it’s only entertainment of mind. This is also the reason, you will not see me telling anywhere that I am a guru to anybody. If people ask me, are you my guru? I always say no. Do you know why I say so? We are living in a relative experience. It’s a relative life. When someone decided to be a disciple, the other person becomes the guru. When I am sitting in the toilet am I the guru? It’s as simple as that. We are all playing certain roles, based on another person’s need. You might have experience this in life, when somebody will come and tell you, when I look at you, I feel like you are my mother. That time you will never ask what is wrong with you, because that person wakes up the mother in you. This is how life works. So the best gift you can give yourself is to be you. Don’t try to practice anything. But at the same time, every moment, be you. Not what others want you to be, even not what you want you to be, but, what you actually are. Do you know the technique? Spend time with yourself. We are eager to spend time with other people or in another place, but, spend time with yourself and understand yourself, “In certain situations I become angry. In certain situations I become upset. In certain situations I like it or I become excited. All these situations are happening through me, but I am not that.” That is why I said contemplation is much more important than meditation. We are not the emotions, we are not what we project to the world, which is the personality. Find the real you. Try to read a book completely, you know which book, you. Don’t read any other book, that is someone else’s story, but you must read you in this life time. No one can write it for you, you reading your own story. It’s not about events. You are reading the authentic you. There is only one book that everyone who is walking the path of spirituality or not must read, which is their story. Other stories are not important. I can be a great master or a stupid master. That also doesn’t matter. What am I doing to the world? What am I providing to the world? A mirror which is not changing. So what do you see? Yourself. There is nothing to see in me, but you have everything to see about you. The moment you read your book, which is you, you have no more lives. Please understand what I said, please take your time, and don’t miss this book. It does not matter, what others have written. It’s others book and It’s ok for them. For you, it’s your book. There is only one examination to win in one lifetime, It’s call the mind. No other examination is important, they are all changing. Sorrows and happiness is temporary. They don’t stay, but mind stays. When does mind become useless? When does the trash can become useless? When there is no trash. Thoughts are trash. When thoughts are not there, you don’t need mind. Thoughts maintain mind and for the mind to survive, mind maintains thoughts. Remember these two things. You must read yourself in this lifetime. Otherwise there will be more lifetimes. One examination to be won in this lifetime, mind. To win the mind, surrender the mind.
A Story of Lord Ram
There is a story of Lord Ram, he was fighting against a very powerful person and Ram had to win the fight. This man has blessing from God, that whoever fights with him, 50% of his strength will come to the man. So Ram hid himself behind the tree and shot the arrow.
You are Ram; your opponent is your mind. Try to control the mind, the mind controls you. So how do you handle the mind? Allow the mind to be, do whatever you like, I’m not worried. You are not worried about thoughts, you are not worried about emotions, everything is happening, let it happen.
Coming back to the first part, do nothing. That does not mean you don’t live your life, do everything you like. Enjoy everything, whatever God has given you, but at the same time, you are not that. Have you seen the picture/idol of Hanumanji, face of a monkey, body of a very strong man? What is Hanumanji? It is our mind. The face of Hanumanji is that of monkey. What is the main feature, unstable, can’t stay in one place, jumping from tree to tree, restless. Why are we worshipping Hanumanji?
There is a great truth that is given to the world, through that image. When mind is surrendered to supreme consciousness, you become extremely powerful. Lord Ram is supreme consciousness. The mind is surrendered to supreme consciousness. The supreme Consciousness has no desires and the mind becomes very powerful, invincible and also eternal, because mind is surrendered to supreme consciousness. That is symbolism. But mind has the face of a monkey. This is all symbolic, this is all very important. The moment you understand all this, you see your picture in all this. That’s why the 330 million deities have 330 million aspects of you, dimensions of you. We have those dimensions, whether we appreciate them or not, we all have every dimension, hugely varied, different. Because mind says, we are only this much, I am this personality, we limit ourselves, but we are unlimited by nature. That’s why I said don’t miss this book. Thank you
Q: I am a much disciplined person. But more and more I am getting fed up with always being disciplined. I am also ok with being fed up with all this discipline. There is a beautiful figure of Hanuman that has come to Somesskandashram. I’m so drawn to that figure that has very beautiful eyes and also the energy. I don’t want to be so disciplined.
I think the answer is already in your question. Spontaneity is the other side of discipline, discipline if it is from the mind, the other side is spontaneity, it’s natural. If you are not spontaneous, you will suffer, there will be suffering. The other word to say is water. Answer is ‘be water, all the time not the rock’. If you flow like water you will be happy. What happens when water stagnates, you cannot drink it anymore. If your life is like water you will always be fresh. So discipline is good, if you are waking up in the morning and doing certain things but, mentally be like water, in the mind, be water. Now coming to Hanumanji, since you told that the idol is beautiful in Somesskanda. If you look at Hanumanji, he was much evolved, he chose to be the servant of Ram and what did he say to Lord Ram? “This body is at your service, I am your servant. My mind is at your feet, your wish is my command. But soulwise you and I are one.” Powerful statement and truth! Look at Hanumanji, when did he meet Ram? When Ram was already in the forest, not when Ram was the King. How many of us will support somebody who is not doing so well? We like to be connected with the rich and famous people. Someone who is doing well, we like to say I know him quite well. But Ram had already lost his kingdom, was already in the forest that is when Hanumanji met him and decided to be his servant. Look at his stature. Powerful Avatar! But what we need to understand is that whenever we have surrendered our mind, our body, our intellect, our ego, at the feet of God, a lot of tests will happen. Why are these tests happening? Each test is purification. Each test will purify you. You survive each test, the next will probably be even more tough. You become purified. Layer by layer things get removed from you. Finally you stop existing. You and the Lord that you worship become one. So it’s like peeling the onion, each layer is removed until there is no layer to remove.
Hanumanji is a powerful representation of determination, clarity, discipleship, bhakti. He is a prime example. That’s why today, you see more Hanumanji temples than Ram’s temple. We see so many people get influenced because of other people. Lord Ram decided to send his pregnant wife to forest. There was a divide in the court. Some people said, “Ram is an avatar he knows whatever he does,” some people said, “This is injustice, how can you send your wife to forest?” So there was a divide. They approached Hanumanji to take sides, “My Lord knows what he is doing, I’m nobody. I don’t even exist. It’s Lord working through this body.” How to become a true disciple, the prime example is to know how Hanumanji is. If you become truly connected with a guru or a Lord, you should not exist. Not physically, you will exist; but the surrender will be so complete that you are one. There are so many stories about Hanumanji, it’s so inspiring and exciting and how he operated in this world.
A Story of Hanumanji and Saturn
You probably heard about Saturn, the influence of Saturn. In the astrological chart, everybody will have some influence of Saturn some time in life. That’s a beautiful state some time. Nothing works.
So Saturn told Hanumanji, “Look here I have to come to you, it’s time.”
Hanumanji said, “You come, no problem, you do whatever you want on me. But if something happens to Lord Ram, I will beat you up.”
So he threatened Saturn. That is why during Saturn’s time, people worship Hanumanji.
The story goes that at one time, Saturn tried to detach Hanumanji from Lord Ram. Hanumanji understood. He caught Saturn and pushed him half way into the ground. Saturn ran away. That is why we worship Hanumanji during the time of Saturn. I think I answered your question. Be Water. Remember that.
Audience: When I see water running down, I feel it’s playing, it’s just joy. It’s so wonderful. Thank you so much for this picture.
Being water also means being egoless. We must understand one thing very clearly. We are not above anybody, neither are we below anybody, neither are we equal to anybody. We are unique. We are born unique and we will die unique. Nobody can change our uniqueness. Once we know this very clearly, we only see ourselves in everyone. The only communication will be love, love, love… Also it’s not expecting something back. We can’t communicate anything else; cause there is nobody else to communicate. Also in essence we are formless. But fortunately or unfortunately we wanted to experience earth. So we need a form. In certain lokhas/worlds, you do not need the elements to have an experience. But on earth we do. It’s not a bad idea. We experience duality 100% here. The good and bad are sitting together having coffee. The higher the frequency, it’s levitation; the lower the frequency it’s gravitation. Between levitation and gravitation we exist. Isn’t it beautiful? So the struggle is between levitation and gravitation. Education system teaches us gravitation, not levitation. When you are connected to the spirit, its levitation. That is the conflict that we are talking about. The conflict happens when our soul wants liberation, levitation and the earthly demands/desires want gravitation. “I hate this guy, I want to teach him a lesson, I’ll come back.” Everything is ok but the hatred stays, so we must swap everything to love finally and when we have no give and take with anybody, then levitation.
Audience: In essence it is very easy, but for us it is tough because of us.
When you say difficult it is one part of your life, which is your waking state, what about dream state or sleep state? Was difficult?
Audience: No and I sleep very well.
Waking state is what we are talking about, so 12 hours-14 hours. In that matter, if you decide to be fully yourself this difficulty will go. We decide to be our mind, that is the problem.
Sita
Q: We spoke about Rama and Hanuman. But we also worship Sita and some other Gods. Can you say something about the suffering of Sita and her liberation?
If you look at the whole Ramayan, even though we call Ram as an avatar and Sita as an avatar, they lived the life of ordinary human beings. So Sita is the feminine/nature aspect of the whole story. Without Sita there is no Ramayana. It is not only about Ram. But Sita’s presence and everything that she went through was very clear in the whole story. It is very important to know that this is all interconnected and her role was very important. This is the Shakti aspect. Shakti has 3 dimensions predominantly – power of will, power of knowledge , power of action. Without these powers there is no Ramayana. So in a way, according to me, Sita is the nature on which the whole story is built. I do not believe that she was suffering. How do we suffer, with what aspect can we suffer? In the mind and in the waking state. There is no suffering in the dream or sleep state. During waking state, there is possible suffering state. But Sita was also an avatar. She knew the role play. She was going through the experiences and never in the book or in the whole story, was there any mention that she was actually suffering. There were situations and she was handling those situations as karma, true duty. She was basing herself completely on true duty. When you sacrifice your life for a guru for God is that suffering? Sacrifice strengthens you. If your life is of sacrifice, it is of power. How she exited, when Ram realized that Sita is the mother of his children, when he invited Sita to go back to the palace. Sita said, “I am not coming. My job is over, the children have come back to you and they will rule.” The earth split into two and she went inside the earth. Ram tried to catch her hair, only the hair was in his hand, she was gone. That was not a wig, it was actual hair (smiles). So you see the power of the personality. Whole life is a sacrifice, not suffering. Look at the power of her personality. She becomes much more powerful as a character, than Ram. When she exited at will, when she went at will, it’s powerful.
So this is the thing, there have been powerful women, elegant, powerful and determined women in our stories. They were all respected by the world. In the creation, without Shakti there is no creation. The power of will, the power of action and power of knowledge must come together for creation to happen. This is the thing. We can talk a lot about it. But to be precise and clear, I do not believe that Sita ever suffered, that way. She understood that this is the story. She understood that, “This is my life” and she accepted it. She stayed pure, fully. Yes please.
Q: Why do some people suffer so much from illness, did they did something wrong in the last life, or do they have so much Saturn?
First of all everything about life, our character, our form, our nature, how we are, the place where we were born, our parents, our lineage everything has root in our karma.
Audience: But why?
Let me complete, I understood your question. Your question is why? Firstly there is no why in Karma. I will tell you a story. Everything is ‘is’.
A story of karma
One woman fell in love with a man. According to the man’s tradition, there is no contraceptive possible. Almost every year she was delivering a child. So after about one dozen children, she was praying to God, please God save me from this. Her only prayer was,”Save me.” So the deepest impression which she collected was helplessness and need for a change. But it is too late. That life finished like that. In the next life she got married, they tried very hard, no children. What was she praying? “God give me children.” This is the cycle of karma.
Why do we attract such illness to ourselves? First thing is sympathy. We sympathize with someone, saying oh my God this person is suffering so much. That impression is stored in your system. Your hard drive has no idea why you are collecting it. What happens when an impression is sitting in your hard drive? It has to manifest. It is not a conscious choice. You don’t have to get physically involved with someone who has the disease. You may be watching a television program or a movie and get emotional about it and catch the impression. So it is difficult to say what creates what, because it is a mixture, everything that we do in life has a residue. That’s why scriptures always say do not divide between species. Give food to fish, birds, animals, to so many things. So what happens is when you are one with the whole nature, so much of baggage goes off, you equalize it, you distribute it.
Secondly we are going through certain situation, we maybe like it or we don’t like it, accept both, don’t see it as a problem, but take it as a problem. The situation is given at this level, because you created it. You created some impressions which manifested in this way and acceptance.
Thirdly whenever you have such situations, try to do more for the world. That means, live your life for the society, for the world, so you diminish your baggage. Usually they say that if someone has cancer, at least three life times, they will have cancer. Why? because they resist it. Whenever we have something good or bad and we resist it, it stays. You have to accept something to go over it and how do we reduce it is by being useful to the world so that your burden becomes less.
This is in nutshell, how karma works. It is important to know, because we don’t know why certain things are happening in our lives. But if we know the chronology, how it works, by collecting impressions how we create our destiny, it helps, that is why when you have too much of an opinion about somebody, a part of it comes to you. We are interacting too much with the world and mostly unconsciously. It is important to understand. Especially it is connected to healers, when we sympathize with the healed etc, part of it is coming to you. So with respect to our Mai Tri healing, in our system, Avadoota Nadananda was telling me,”Energy is good, healing is happening, no problem. But tell all the healers to take one dollar or minimum money from the other person, so that the connection is cut. It can be your father or your son, but if the bridge is made, it keeps moving, the energy keeps moving. So take money, it can be very, very small, no problem, but that transaction cuts the chord, connection. It doesn’t end there, 50% of the money you collect should go to birds, animals, poor people, etc, 50% the healer can take.” This system is followed because when you feed the birds, animals etc, whatever residue you collected, that also goes away. Everything goes away, you become clean. When transactions become one sided, we collect, we accumulate, we store and the same thing will possibly manifest in us. Also you can’t interfere in somebody’s karma. If you are healing, you should mention if it is karmically allowed, let the person be healed. Many times the karma of the ailment, illness, and situation is collected and brought and they wanted to experience it. Nobody has any right to interfere.
A child, 4 or 5 years old, was suffering from leukemia and was rejected by the hospital. The parents were desperate, because the doctors said we can’t do anything more. They took the child to a saint, to a powerful master.
They told the master, “This child is in this situation.”
The master said, “Let me see what I can do.”
The moment he tried to heal the child became violent and in a strong voice, the child said, “How dare you touch me. I chose this life and I chose this illness, don’t dare to interfere.”
Many times we don’t know what created it and we are not allowed to interfere. That’s why you say, if it is karmically alright, let the other person be healed. That’s ok. For healing to happen, it is completely up to the person and not the healer. From the karmic point of you, it’s just an experience, from a mind point of you, it is a problem. We can talk about it later.
Q: If I pray for someone who is ill and ask the Lord to help that is ok isn’t it?
That is ok. That is your kindness.
Q: I just wanted to ask, if you said that if I sympathize with someone, I can collect their karma.
Not fully. That residue can come to you. What happens is a small residue of that situation can enter your system.
Q: Ok by doing seva, can that go away and balance it out?
That is why the feeding (annadhan/mahadhan). Why we say that is because, through serving, quite a lot of things leave us. That’s why quite a lot of people ask me, “Mohanji what can we do for you?” I always say, “Feed the birds, fish, creatures, animals. That is the highest you can do for yourself and in that way the whole energy field becomes better.” I don’t like to recommend to people, elaborate poojas or things for clearing karma. I have found this much more practical and also powerful. It’s very effective; like you spontaneously feed the hungry. Don’t worry about species, all are the same, when you are hungry everybody’s hunger is the same. Quite a lot of stuff gets removed.
Q: In the Skanda Vale Satsang, you said, when you deal with people whose illness is passing away, saying “Tryambakam yajamahe” can remove whatever you collect.
Mantras and rituals have power, no doubt and it aligns you. It gives you proper alignment. But purification is very important. That’s why we have karma yoga. There is a rent to pay to earth for occupying the space and gaining experience, we cannot underestimate that. How can you pay the rent? By helping the helpless. Otherwise you can become enlightened, but you cannot leave, because you haven’t paid the rent. You will keep coming back, until you pay the rent. It is important to know; that’s why Adisankara, one of the greatest masters (the Yuga Acharya of the Kali Yuga, our time) told all the saints meditating in Himalayas to come down, during a particular time during Kumbh Mela and distribute the energy to other people as service to the population because, otherwise they cannot leave. Every religion talks about service as purification.
Q: Is that what you meant, sacrifice?
Not exactly, this is a duty, dharma to serve others. When I say sacrifice, for the sake of a master or the Lord or love, you give yourself up. Not that you die, but like Hanumanji or various people we see in the scriptures, devoting your whole life for something selfless is sacrifice. Providing food, providing support is seva. It’s not only food, when you say seva, it is giving what you have. If you have knowledge, it is knowledge, if it is time, it is time, if it is love, it is love. What you have you give. That is equal to inner richness. When you are rich inside it shows. Your conscience becomes much strengthened, like fire wall. What is conscience, conscience is your immune system of the mind. We have the immune system of the body. Similarly we have immune system of the mind. When conscience decays, illness happens in the mind. When our immune system fails, body suffers. When conscience decays, mind suffers. When both are weak, life suffers. This is the story.
Q:I have a very good friend and she has been suffering since many years ago. She believes and she knows that she is helping other souls, she saves other souls. She knows that she has to be in pain every day for many years. She is serving the other beings.
Yes very much possible. That we can’t call as suffering. It’s more of a sacrifice. Like the mother takes on something or suffers for the child, likewise compassion overrules you at times. You become fully compassionate. When compassion becomes you, there is no suffering. Likewise purpose can do the same to people. When your life purpose is very strong and you are determined about it, there is no suffering. Jesus knew very well, that these people won’t leave him alone. He was fighting against established priests who thought that they knew everything about God. Who is Jesus? A son of a carpenter. Can he go and fight with established priests? What drove him? What was the fuel behind this? What was energizing him? Purpose – the will of God, which he explained to people as the truth. It made him invincible, powerful. We all go through the same situation. When you develop conviction at that level, nobody can touch you. Our body, our mind, our intellect, our existence, becomes a sacrifice. It’s more sacrifice for mother Mary because she knew very well, that her son will be crucified, taken away. A person becomes a master through a lot of sacrifice. I’m not saying that that’s the only way, that is one of the ways. So if your friend is not affected by her pain, she is already a saint. In one of the epics, Mahabharata, there is one woman, she prays to Lord Krishna, “Give me suffering so that I always remember you.” What do we usually pray? “Don’t give me pain, don’t give me suffering.” So you can convert everything to positivity. If anything is happening to you at all, surrender that to God and say, “I leave it to you.” You won’t be to go through it, He will. It ends in that life, it will not be transferred. But if you are resisting, you are fighting and you are angry, then it goes on. Sometimes I have also seen, masters come and take birth in human body, and those people may not be normal, we call them abnormal or differently abled. But they are masters. They chose this body so that they don’t have to go through this animal life. Our usual life is take birth, get educated, get a job, get married, have children, have grandchildren, take care of the grandchildren as servant. Then we die. This is our usual existence. Sometimes when we take too much time to die, they put us in the old age home. Why aren’t you dying? You are supposed to die early. But this is not our life. This is not the way.
Classification of our existence
In the Indian system, we had distinct classification of our time and our existence. If that is followed, there won’t be any old age homes.
The first part is Bramhacharya, as a student, you learn your skills to lead a life.
Then you go into Grihasta, you get married, you have children, you take responsibility, you work, you earn money, you establish yourself. If you don’t want to get married you can be on your own, but you take responsibility, the time of responsibility, this is Grihasta. Again this is rooted on Dharma so you will not cheat or kill or something. You are deeply rooted in Dharma, in truthfulness, positivity.
Imagine you have a family, your children have grown up, they are ready for life, either they got married or they are on their own. You don’t stay there any more. You take Vanaprasta. When I say Vanaprasta it doesn’t mean going to forest, it means you learn to detach from whatever you have created. You move away from all what you are doing, you are focusing and identifying connecting with yourself, assimilating yourself and preparing for being complete. So you are not being a baggage to anybody at any point in time.
The last is Sanyasa, renunciation. When I say renunciation it means only thinking about God, being one with God. When do you get very close to God? When you become very close to yourself. This is the time for chanting connecting to yourself, for assimilating what you are and changing your breathing pattern or doing whatever it takes to connect to God. So by the time you are dying, you are fully occupied with God, you don’t have any distractions. You have no baggage, you are fully occupied with God. So when the soul leaves the body where will it go? Merge with God.
These 4 stages are extremely essential. We don’t lose our attachment, we are connected to earth and attachment is related to earth. We have to learn to live with them but at the same time not be attached to them. Awareness is the key. Remember, awareness is the key. If you understand this clearly there will be no old age homes. There will be no need; because at each stage you will be complete. At no point in time will you ever ask, what next, what should I do now? Because we know clearly this is how we go. Every point in time we have respect towards our self, others respect you because you are going through the rich process. Noone will ever become redundant. Complete life. I am telling you the whole cycle.
Any more questions, you must be hungry now? It has been great seeing you. We are connected whether we like it or not. Destiny connected us. As long as destiny allows us we will stay connected. But soulwise we are related and that relationship nobody can change. There is no your soul and my soul, there’s only one soul and many bodies. Wish you the highest awareness. Enjoy life. You know what Lord Krishna gave to the world, dance, songs, romance. Otherwise imagine if Lord Krishna was not there, imagine everybody will be sitting and meditating. All people will look like somebody died in their house. But Lord Krishna made everything fun. I love him. Life should be like that. Everything should be fun. Because we’ll die anyway.
Transcribed by Hema Gopalarathnam
Thus Spake Mohanji 
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