Today, I would like to discuss with you the philosophy that I have followed for a long time. Just like many of you, I have been a rebel, and I was quite passionate about various situations in society; and I had the will and the need to express it as an activist. I did not participate in many activist activities, but I had strong opinions; I still hold some of them. I do have a strong opinion about any kind of bloodshed.
I do not endorse bloodshed. I do not endorse wars. I do not like canned hunting or hunting of any kind. I strongly object to the killing of beings. I do not approve of corruption. I do not approve any kind of negativity in thoughts, words, or actions. These are a few of the things which I do not endorse at all. There are some more.
But the point that I would like to tell you is that we have two ways to approach life or live a good life. One is through acceptance that there are varieties in the world; so many different things, people, diversity. Each person, or each community, or similar activity can bind people together. Each community has its own expression. Each person has his own expression; societies have their expressions.
We are living in a world of great variety; our languages are different, our food habits are different. Our likes and dislikes are also oriented to our upbringing. There are different religions, and that’s mostly connected to what we are used to. And we conglomerate, we become clans, we come together because we like it or we are used to it. Mostly, it is not what we like; but what we are used to, which is comfortable. We are used to a certain diet, and that’s comfortable for us. We are used to a certain language, which is comfortable for us, and so on. It’s not a question of whether this is the right or wrong thing happening in our lives; it is as it is.
Our language, mother tongue is beautiful for us; another person will feel the same for his mother tongue. Life thus goes on. We have two options here, acceptance and resistance. What happens with acceptance? When acceptance happens, the mind is stable. Acceptance does not mean that you accept everything like a doormat. I’ll explain that further.
When acceptance happens, transformation happens because we start accepting everything around us. For that, we have to start with accepting ourselves, and we should appreciate that there is a variety of things around us. If these are harmless to society, harmless to the world, we can accept them. Thus acceptance automatically brings a kind of approval. We agree with so many things, and that leads us to have greater stability in mind. The mind is stable and peaceful.
Resistance, activism leads to violence; disapproval is predominant because of what we disapprove in society. We are against it; we are fighting it, our mind is fully occupied with the disagreements. We have the right to approve and disapprove. We don’t have to approve everything in life. We can approve what suits us, or what stabilizes us.
I always approve of what is nonviolent. I’m a very strong advocate of nonviolence in thoughts, words, and actions.
I normally approve, or I agree with anything, which has no violence involved in it. No violence, no manipulation, no corruption, etc.; I easily approve them. Where there is discrimination, there is violence; there is division; all those things that separate people, I do not approve of them; I disagree with them. So we have the right to disagree.
But how can we approach it? I like to bring the awareness of people, to the level of their highest potential refinement. We are a refined species because our existence is connected to our intelligence. With most of the other species, their existence is connected to how they are made or their physical mettle.
Our strength is our intelligence. How do we express the higher refinement in social life, in daily life? It is very simple: express the highest level of compassion, kindness, selflessness, and unconditional love; total acceptance of the society, through acceptance, through love, goodness factor, kindness factor, righteousness factor; by binging all these into our lives, we transform society.
By fighting against it, or by being an activist, there are dimensions where it could be very inconvenient. The system may attack us, victimize us being an activist; we have seen that happening. Various activists could not survive the course of time because they had been victimized, by the established system.
We have to understand these methods. One is through acceptance, being a pro-life, and through resistance, being against something, a life of conflicts; will that happen, or not in the world? It is happening; it will happen because people are a variety. What we would like to do is to bring awareness to the level where corruption completely dissolves, violence totally dissolves; no wars, no bloodshed, no displacement, no hunting, no killing; no bloodshed of any kind. And a life where beings of all species can live their whole life peacefully, without any fear of any predator. By saying this, I do not mean that there are no lions, or there are no tigers, or there are no crocodiles. All beings exist, all the creations have their dharma, their method of life, and they will follow it. The reason for this is because of ecology, or the balance of the beings in nature. So that will happen. And we have to allow nature to be natural.
That apart, I’m only talking about the human intervention side. We should stay away; we should keep our hands off nature and leave nature to itself. It will beautifully work its way. We have to be in the system to change the system. What we can change in the system is the greed factor, the manipulative mind factor, manipulating for the sake of dominance, or we can guide people to be humans, towards positivity – this is the point here, always positive. This way, we can bring the awareness of the people to the idea that love, kindness, mercy, and good things, or good feelings can really transform the world. Imagine generations coming together on the platform of love, acceptance and companionship, care and share. They can’t create anything adverse to it, because their minds are all focused on the higher refinement of human existence; being totally human. The goodness factor, righteousness factor, kindness, unconditional love, mercy, compassion, righteousness, and the conscious maintenance of conscience; these should come together. I have explained earlier that conscience is the bridge between our conscious state and our soul. So this conscience should be well maintained; if the bridge is well maintained, we can cross over easily to the soul particle or the soul aspect/principle.
The maintenance should be very well organized; we should maintain our conscience; we should not do anything beyond or against our conscience. If we nurture it as a person, a group of people, a society, a community, a country, we can bring forth huge changes in the world. For example, we have been given good, non-polluting powers for our sustenance such as sun rays, wind, water; they all have power, and this power can be well used so that we can have a very good life, without polluting the Earth.
We do not need fossil fuel. We can make a big difference in the world. This COVID situation has brought forth great possibilities of having a pollution-free existence, a pollution-free environment. COVID taught us that this is possible. But why have we not been thinking about this before? Habitual, native existence. Natural existence, which is, we thought, “Okay, pollution is fine! We have to live in pollution.” We thought so even though we have been talking about global warming, climate change, the forest fires; all of which are very destructive and not conducive to human existence. We created hell on Earth because of our greed factor, and we know this very well! Do you think we could fight it and solve it? I doubt it! It’s like jumping into the fire and burning ourselves completely. Instead, through awareness, through life itself, through our own life, through our own thought process, through our own conviction, we can transform the world. And this is very important to understand because by being against, by resisting, by fighting against, we are burning ourselves. And another point is that activists will definitely get a lot of support because of the noise and the movement; birds of the same feather (flock together). I’m not against activism. I know it exists and that it has to because there are people who would like to make noise; otherwise, people wouldn’t know.
But what is the right way to do it; without harming people, without harming the environment, without harming the mind, without harming our conscience? We can bring the right, elected people to represent us and make a difference in society through the right laws, right actions, and right methods which would be progressive, rejuvenating, and proactive towards a better life; a better world, a world, which is peaceful, unpolluted, uncontaminated, where everybody is living a peaceful existence.
While saying this, am I accepting all the bad things happening, by bad I mean those activities that are harmful to the world? Absolutely not! I do not endorse 5G. I do not endorse the frequencies which are harming lives on Earth. I’ve been told by scientists; I have read that 5G is not suitable for any kind of being on Earth. All these frequencies can create a different frequency which affects our brains. Beings will behave in strange ways because their brains are affected. Water pollution, air pollution, earth pollution, plus all these barriers have created caste, country, culture, colour, religions; so many barriers that we see, a lot of walls; and we have 190- 200 countries in the world.
What is human refinement? One world, One family is human refinement.
We should be together. We should love each other, and through love and through nurturing, we bring forth a better world. This world is possible, and this is our responsibility. I would like to reiterate that our method, especially as Yogis, those who walk the path of Yogis, is to lead a life and lead by example that through positive thinking, positive actions, and by giving forth positivity, we can transform the minds of people, towards the highest human refinement.
What is the problem with activism? Activism, there is no problem. This is a group of people coming together for a purpose, that’s fine. But please remember, they could be victimized by the system, that is number one. And there could be divisions happening – pro or against. We have to choose between being pro or against. It’s not that. We can choose a different thing. We do not have to be pro or against anything. Instead, we can bring forth our life, with deep conviction in compassion; real adherence to our conscience, and being human. We can make a difference, and through our literature, etc., instead of fighting something, we can bring awareness to the minds of people.
If there is no demand, there won’t be any supply. Our demand or the demand that we create is creating the requirement for all these unnatural inventions. If we cultivate generations based on love, compassion, kindness, and no corruption, no greed, no jealousy, no anger, hatred, if we can bring that awareness into the lives of people of Earth, generations will be happy. When the greed factor is removed, there won’t be manipulations. There is no need to manipulate minds. When the profit factor, predominantly controlling the markets, are taken away, or diluted, we will be more ethical. To have an ethical existence, we must cultivate higher awareness. There’s no other way. We have to lead by example; we have to live it.
We can easily endorse fighting against something. Fighting brings in some elements of violence in our minds; it could be any kind of fight or disagreement. We should avoid violence in mind. We should avoid violence in expressions and actions because violence breeds more violence.
We can bring great frequencies on Earth through compassion and kindness, through lack of selfishness, by being selfless we can bring great vibrations on Earth, in our society, in our country, in the world. There is great potential, we can actually dissolve the territories and boundaries and walls, just by dissolving our greed factor. There is sustenance for everybody’s need in the world, but not for everybody’s greed because there’s no boundary for greed. But there is sustenance, there is food, there are materials for a good life; we have them; if we share and if we are considerate about everybody around us, we’ll have a good life; the society will be better. We have the right, and we have the responsibility for it.
To conclude this, I would like to say that our path is that of compassion and kindness. Through disciplined determination, through adherence to our conscience, in all our actions, we build up a world that is pure, uncorrupted, unpolluted, and unmanipulated. We live together as a kind community/society, as a good generation that will set precedents for the generations to come. We strongly adhere to righteousness, goodness, and we can make laws and rewards based on the goodness factor, the goodness quotient in us. And let the world be oriented on this matter. It will happen if you believe in it; if you have the conviction.
Once again, the adverse side of activism is that it is mostly selective towards something, or against something. And that may retaliate, and they may destroy. But we can change the vibration, the frequency of the world to goodness and happiness; choose goodness over everything; choose kindness and compassion, beyond everything. We accept our life, accept ourselves without judging or criticizing, and we accept the world and guide the world to better awareness, to a higher awareness that we are a great, intelligent being, walking on Earth, experiencing Earth. We can make this place much better.
I leave this thought on your plate now. Please do discuss it, share this, and also talk to people about it, and make a difference in their mindset.
Again, as I mentioned earlier, I am not endorsing any violence, any war, any kind of bloodshed. I am not endorsing anything which is not suitable for human existence, including certain foods, certain medicines, certain vaccinations, or any of those kinds. I’m not endorsing. Do not think that I’m supporting them, and I’m saying that let them all exist. No, I don’t do that.
I’m saying that through higher awareness, we should transform the mindset of the world, and that takes effort, consistent effort. We have to believe in it; we have to have conviction in it. And we should live it. This is the way we can transform this world, now and forever.
Question: What is the real purpose of a disciple to do worship of a guru on this auspicious day?
Mohanji: Where does the Guru sit? This is the first question we must ask ourselves. Look at our whole life. We are only looking at a life which has happened from our birth so far, until our death in this life. This is what we consider as life.
All the masters, all the great traditions have said time and again that you are the thing you are looking for. I have mentioned that in my Guru Purnima message also, that you are the very thing or the very subject you are looking for. That means you have got to find yourself inside you. That means you got to do manana (contemplation). When you contemplate more and more, you will start finding your dimensions first. Eventually, you will come to a level where you will see yourself as a beacon of light and the rays spreading as dimensions; that means you have become one with your source, the one that is inside you. When you start connecting to the source that is inside you, you will start feeling the various possibilities beyond birth, beyond death. It means the possibility of the atma tatwa or the soul factor, which has no birth or death.
Once you understand that, you will see all your lives of the past and all the lives that are going to be in one spectrum, in one canvas. What happens then? That means you can see the whole role-play; various lifetimes you have played certain roles, and there is a continuation in between, like a stage in the drama. You go out, you change your dress, and you come back. It’s almost like that, very simple. That means you are almost going out and coming back. There is no birth, no death; just changing over, transitioning. So, once you understand that, the principle of Guru and the principle called YOU become very clear to you.
So, where is this Guru sitting? Inside! Then why do we worship a guru outside? That Guru is a reminder of what is sitting inside: just a reminder, nothing else.
So, when you respect (not only the Guru), the Guru in everything, which is the soul factor of all things, of all beings of nature, you will keep seeing the Guru. This is the main factor, the unchangeable factor. One who has actually recognised that soul factor and decided to settle into the soul factor; one who has found that soul factor from the physical factor, an emotional factor, consciousness factor and still further the witness factor, ( once you have settled down in the witness factor), you will see everything in the form of witness hood. You see everything as a witness. In that state, there is no caste, country, culture, colour, religion, language, nothing, just witnessing the whole thing.
When you start witnessing the whole thing, then you realise what exactly is awakening. That awakening only simply means you are a total witness of everything. You see the whole tapestry, not just the scenes of the drama, not the emotions, not the situations, not even the people acting; you see the whole picture. This is the journey that can only be achieved through our inner journey; you got to go within. You got to go inside, within.
When you are worshipping a master or when you are coming in contact with a master, who has already settled down within and he is fully established, your worship, (forget about physical worship), even thinking, even remembering, even your meeting, connecting, all that amounts to one thing. What is it? This is the state I’m looking for. Give me that state of yours. The state makes a master. The state where the Master rests makes that person a master. If the person is resting on emotions of life, that’s not mastery. The mind is dragging us like a slave.
When our awareness rests in the body, we are in waking state. When our awareness rests in our mind matter, we are in dream state. When our awareness rests in deep sleep state, we are in a state like death; we are detached. We are only in consciousness. When our awareness merges with consciousness, we start witnessing the state of the soul. That’s the only time we really witness what the soul is experiencing. That is the journey.
So, if you worship a guru, do you think the Guru needs worship? Guru needs nothing. Why does the guru need worship? Guru is not dependent on things outside of him, because he’s fully established in the witness hood, peaceful, stable and happy. He or she doesn’t matter. When you go within, and you start connecting to your own soul as I explained just now, you don’t need any worship. You are happy; you are settled. You are not dependent on the world outside for your pleasures of senses. Instead, senses are existing, but the senses are not demanding. Senses are relaxed, the mind is relaxed; there is no thrust of desires, no push of desires; tranquillity, peace. This is the real state.
If somebody is resting in that state, what would he feel and what would he say? Just be. JUST BE. The highest is achieved through that state of being YOU, being YOURSELF. BEING; only being. That’s the beauty.
When somebody says you have to worship me, that person only displays insecurity. That person is insecure. Why is he insecure? It is because he’s still dependent on the world outside. For a person who is stable within, whether somebody respects, somebody worships or not, it doesn’t make a difference. But if you want to experience that feeling of connecting in your way, as you are, you can do that. You can do whatever and for the Master, it doesn’t matter.
Sai Baba displayed that all the time. As the disciple came, Baba allowed them to perform their chosen ritual. Baba just allowed it to happen. He never said, “I don’t like it”, because there’s no like or dislike; just being.
Question: I want to know, for somebody like me when I’ve not met you in person, how could I understand that you are helping me and uplifting in spirituality? How do I know that I am growing in spirituality?
Mohanji: Do we actually need any help? This is the fundamental question. What help do we need?
In fact, a true master always remains as a mirror, undistorted image. That’s what he gives us. So, he always remains like a mirror, stable and still, and when you look into the mirror, you see your own true reflection. You see yourself in your true form, as you are. And that itself is a big deal because, in the outside world, you are only getting opinions of people. Some opinions are good, some opinions are bad, some are criticism, and some are praises. But between this, there is a reality. You never get that reality from the world outside. When you come to a master, the mirror is so fresh, perfect and clean; you get the real picture. That’s the biggest thing a master gives us your true picture.
So how does a master help? It is by giving your true picture; you realise this is where I stand; this is what I am. The moment you understand what you are, correction is easy. Diagnosis is difficult; the cure is easier. Similarly, when you come in contact with a pure mirror, an undistorted image happens. You automatically know where you stand and where you should be. The Master becomes a road sign with his own life.
What is the main thing happening here? Amidst all the varied dimensions of existence, emotions, changes; HE remains unchangeable, still. So, when you look at that Master, and you see a zero change, unchangeable, steady, then you realise this is the state of happiness; not pleasures, which are changing every now and then. Pleasures keep changing. For some time they remain, then again, you need more. But here, happiness is a state where you are always happy, stable and happy. And that state is what you are looking for. That’s when you realise, this is the state. So a true master’s life itself is the lesson, message and path. And when you come in contact, how do you know that you are being helped? Are you attaining silence in the mind? Or are you continuing to be restless and affected by things around us around you?
If you are always affected by things around you; that means you are only expressing your inherent patterns. It means, patterns or habits have formed, and it’s like a cycle going on and on and on. But a master shows you, that there is a possibility of being still, being out of the patterns, overcoming them by accepting those patterns and not resisting them. By holding the hands of the Master, (as long as it takes, maybe it takes lifetimes we never know), you come out of your patterns of life, including habits, likes, dislikes, opinions, prejudices, etc. and you become free. When you become free; fewer thoughts, less desire, less wear and tear from life will be the result. If this is happening, that means this relationship is working.
Relationship with a master does not have boundaries when I say boundaries, not bound by time. It is a continuous process. What brings you to a master is eligibility, YOUR WILL to experience the higher aspects of existence such as happiness; this brings you to a master. (And again as I said, it is not pleasures of life. We have many pleasures in life. It keeps coming and going, and we are not happy. Because one time it comes and goes, you crave for more, desire for more, and this is a continuous process.)Then you are in a tranquil state, and you are happy by nature and contented. So the contentment factor is the connection factor; you can actually assess your connection with your level of contentment.
Question: If people take advantage of unconditional love, how do you handle such situations? Is there a boundary to draw when you give unconditional love?
Mohanji: We are unconditional love by nature. That is our nature. We are love by nature, and we expand with love. We contract with hatred, revenge, anger; it makes us shrink. But with love, we expand, and that’s our nature; our nature is to expand. So love is our natural process. Love is our nature. But the world outside, of seven billion-plus people, is of every dimension. They are of different dimensions. It is not easy to say or categorise them at all.
Everybody is a mixture of various types of people. So, in this whole mixture, how people respond is completely based on time, space, their moods or the fluctuations of mind as per that time, because of various reasons. So, we cannot predict. We can only generalise a person based on the most predominant attitude. We can never say, “This person is always like this”. Each day could be different, moods could be changing, and everything could be changing. So, we must never judge anybody and say that he/ she is always like this. So, we have to understand that the world operates in such a way where the gunas; the Sattva, Rajas, Tamas gunas are fluctuating, flowing.
That changes time and again based on various aspects of existence, and that causes swings in moods. Sometimes Sattva is very high; people are tranquil and peaceful, then Rajas becomes high, they become very active, very explicit, and when Tamas becomes high, they procrastinate. So, this keeps going up and down, and according to that, a person will respond. Sometimes when the person is filled with Tamas, they may respond illogically, procrastinate. Procrastination brings forth anger, hatred, various types of feelings: feeling of separation, feeling of lack of love, etc. When that happens, maybe a disconnection happens between the person who loves them fully and the person who takes advantage of them.
Sometimes people think that the people who take advantage are good people because they fail to see the truth. At the same time, a thought may come that the people who love them unconditionally, but pretty rigid in their attitude are bad guys. In such cases, they hate the people who are truthful, and they follow the people who are manipulative. We have seen that in life. Sometimes people go after people who are manipulative, and they realise it much later. By the time too much of water would have flown under the bridge. That means time would have changed, and it would have probably become irreversible. Then betrayals happen, revenge happens, so much of bad blood happens. At the same time, the estrangement takes root; it means separation takes root, so this might become a trauma. But a master you are connected to, the Master will remain unconditional.
In the story of Victor Hugo, the Bishop gave food and accommodation to an ex-convict. When nobody wanted him, the society rejected him and did not want anything to do with him; at that time, the Bishop invited him to the church, gave him warm food and accommodation. But the convict in him could not accept it. The convict in him accepted himself as a bad guy, and decided, “This is not possible. Nobody can love me”. Because the inherent feeling or the concept or the state that he was in, rejected the kindness which the Bishop showed unconditionally.
What did he do? He stole the silver candle holders and ran away in the night. The police caught him, brought him back to the church because he had those candle holders which had the mark of the church on it. The police asked the Bishop, “Did this man steal something from the church?” and showed him the candleholders and few other things. The Bishop said, “No, I gave it to him”. Thus, he saved him again. That transformed the man.
So I always believe CONSISTENT KINDNESS transforms minds. So all you have to do is, not to have any expectation if you are brimming with unconditional love. If you expect people to appreciate, people to accept you as unconditional etc., there could be disappointments. Whenever there is an expectation, there is a potential for disappointment. So, express unconditional love consistently and be kind again and again and again, and you raise yourself in stature, not status. Stature is your ability to be unconditional love all the time. Then what happens in society? Society cannot ignore you anymore. Society will come around you, respect you and glorify you and make you a legend or legend hood comes to you because you have been consistent.
Consistency is a big deal. Many people do not have it. It is because they pitch expectation into an activity, and suffer sorrows and disappointment. So, this is something which we must remember. Be unconditional, but have the maturity to have no expectations. So you keep giving. Examples are Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi; we can find so many examples. They did not do things for the sake of earning glory, and because of that, glory came to them. Nelson Mandela, for example, He was behind bars in one cell for about 30 + years, that is, for most of his life. But when he came out, he was not affected. He created the platform for a peaceful society.
How can that happen? There was no revenge in his mind. Likewise, various great masters whom we have respected over time, they have been kind consistently, been compassionate, and been selfless consistently, and expecting nothing and that made them legends. Being unconditional is a beautiful thing. But it should have one more ingredient added into it. That is, zero expectation, and that will give you glory.
Question: How can we be sure that we are doing Consciousness Kriya correctly? And how do we know we’re making progress?
Mohanji: Well, any practice for that matter, say a normal physical practice, how do you know whether you are making progress? In simple terms, your proficiency increases. But in spiritual practice, the idea of spiritual practice is to give you a certain level of stability. So one of the criteria if you are doing a thing right, with the full application, full commitment, with conviction, faith, and consistency; if you are doing it properly, the result would be stability. Automatically, you will be very stable, and you will not be affected by the things around you too much. Things will be happening around you as it would, but it will not affect you as much as it usually would. So that’s the real sign that you are actually in the right track; we can extend it to say with fewer thoughts, less desires, etc.
End of the day, when you are practising it right, when you are consistent about it, and you believe in it, (if you don’t believe in it, if you are testing it, it may not work that much.) then you will realise that there is a kind of stability happening inside you. You are not fluctuated by the fluctuations of the outside world. The outside world will remain outside; the inside world will strengthen. When the inside world strengthens, the outside world cannot affect you anymore.
This phenomenon, you can see if you are getting more and more stable inside that means the external world will not affect you as much as it normally would. So, this is a clear sign of knowing you are doing it right. Sometimes, you know the method very well, but the effect is not happening because you do not trust it. Secondly, when we go to a guru with expectations and the guru gives you certain guidelines, but then we neither trust the guru nor the guidelines, we fail in the whole thing. It is because of one reason; we have not connected, we have not accepted. So, it’s important to accept wholeheartedly, experiment it, keep trying it, and after a while, it will start working. Maybe initially it may not work, it starts working as you go further and further.
There should be some kind of consistency in your practice; this is very important. If that’s not happening, the results may not happen. We become busy with our thought processes, so we do not have consistency sometimes. Then, that affects us, and we feel dejected, depressed because we are not progressing. Progress means less thoughts. Less thoughts means less desires. Less desires mean more detachment and more freedom.
Less thought = Less desires =Less needs = More detachment = More freedom.
That’s a benchmark which you can actually look for. But for that, you need to connect to your inside world more than the outside world. When we are running behind the pleasures of existence, entertaining the senses, entertaining the mind, etc., it may not work easily. On one side we are chasing things outside, but on the other side, we are trying to come inside, this struggle will continue.
So you must spend enough time with yourself. And I have always done that between 3 am to 8 am, early morning. That is because that time, the world is relatively free from you or you are free from the world. After that, you got to give yourself to the world. Maybe you are working, you are doing things, and then you are probably busy with your life outside. And that will take its toll. It’s okay, that’s part of life. But we got to spend time with ourselves, a personal time. That’s the time you should practise consistently with faith, faith in yourself, faith in the activity and also be clear that you are not keeping expectations ahead of you.
What are you doing? – Just practising. Just doing what it takes. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad. Just by focusing on the activity with full surrender, the results will start happening because you are starting to connect with yourself. End of the day, whether you are a Bhakti Yogi, following the path of devotion, or Jnyana Yogi, following the path of knowledge, or Karma yogi, following the path of service, or Raja Yogi, following the path of consciousness, it doesn’t matter. Everything leads you to yourself. Eventually, you will have to come back to yourself, and that’s the whole path. That’s the whole tradition. So this will happen anyway. This has to happen. So it doesn’t matter whether this practice is right or wrong, etc. I would say wrong practice means you need to put pressure to do it. Right practice is a pleasure. You are happy to do it. This is very simple.
Question: What would strengthen and help the awakening of consciousness?
Mohanji: Consistency strengthens our purpose. When we are consistent, what is our priority? We must ask this question some point in time. Imagine you came in contact with a very powerful master. But you contacted him for some personal gain or personal benefits, such as a job or a marriage or a relationship or some money or a position in the world, something like that. That’s very shallow. It may happen anyway.
But why did you associate with a very powerful Master? What brought you to him? It is your eligibility. What kind of eligibility brought you to a master of that kind? It is the eligibility for liberating yourself from the mundane existence of likes and dislikes, happiness and sorrow; this kind of duality. It was time for you to come out of it. That is how you came in contact with the master. Now, imagine you are still expressing your patterns, expectations leading to disappointments, ownerships, anger, hatred, jealousy, etc. What happens? You stand still! Your patterns are more powerful than your association with something really powerful (the master). That means your patterns become a wall in front of you, which disconnects you from that master.
Then that connection is wasted. You cannot use it because there is a wall in front of you. Your own patterns, concepts, prejudices make a wall, and the wall grows, because your ego enters. Ego sometimes manipulates you. Ego tells you, “Hey, look here! This is not how it should be; he should come forward to you, not you go to him” etc., all those things and it takes you away from reality and detaches you from reality and what happens is that the whole connection is wasted. So, when you come in contact with a master, you should have the priorities set right. And you should have extreme flexibility, flow like a river, and flow like water. Extreme flexibility helps you to progress in drastic speed.
As I told in the beginning, imagine you have a lot of lifetimes, let’s say 200 lifetimes. As you come closer to your soul, you can see these 200 lifetimes in one frame, like in the zoom, we can see all the people on one frame, all the people who are connected to us are all in one frame, and they are all in these frames. Like that, we can see our various lifetimes in one frame and then we will know that we have been expressing almost similar patterns. Maybe, we have been a man or a woman or a child or anything in each life, that doesn’t matter. But in every life, we have been expressing similar patterns, insecurities, prejudices, all the things which you are experiencing now have been the same in all those lives and the coming lives as well.
So what you are really doing is that with each death, you are just going out, changing clothes and coming back into a new life. So it’s like a new scene in the drama. We are acting scene by scene by scene. If you take a drama, in that kind of boundary/frame, you are enacting a role. And you keep coming back in a new costume, and you play the role. In between, you are coming in contact with a master who says, “I will take you out of this. You had enough of roles in life, you have played a lot of roles, and I’ll take you out of it”. But then again, you have been used to certain patterns all these lifetimes, similar patterns. So what will you say? “Okay, I would like you to take me out of it. But you know what, I have something more to settle because I have left some things on another screen, another time so that I want to go back to complete that. That man cheated me. So I must go back and cheat him. He betrayed me. So I must betray him.” Like that, we have scores to settle.
We have things to complete, which provokes further lives. So in this whole bargain, in various lifetimes we have come in contact with people who have come out of this drama; they have finished their acting, they have already settled within themselves, they’ve understood there’s no need for this drama. They’ve experienced everything connected to this whole life, and they don’t want it anymore. They know it very well, and they have come out of it. These people still hang on to guide others to come out of it. But then our patterns are so strong, that we may even blame the people who are already detached from it, saying, “No, no, this guy doesn’t understand, I have to take care of this thing. This is more important for me.” ‘I’ am important. I factor. ‘I’ is the association with the role not with the actor. This is the problem. We associate ourselves with the role.
If Mohanji associates himself as a guru, then Mohanji has a problem. I’m not a guru all the time. When I play with Mila, I’m not a guru. I’m her father. Like that in every scene, I play a different role. And the sum total of it is what is called this incarnation. So, that acceptance should happen. With extreme flexibility, when you play the role, you play it well, good enough for an Oscar. You play it supremely well, and when you come out of it, you have nothing to do with it. That is the detachment we talk about. We have that experience every day.
Remember, when we go to bed, we shut off from this external world. We are completely detached. We shut the screen; there is nothing on the screen, no world outside. Then we connect to the internal world, and we see the drama of life as dreams. We get tired; we shut that also. Then we go into a deep sleep where you shut off everything, body, mind-matter, everything is shut off. You are totally sitting in consciousness with consciousness. You are sleeping with consciousness. Then you come back again to the waking state, where you and the world come alive. Again you wear the costume of this incarnation as per your projection, and the world recognises you as you are known in this incarnation. But is that you? Ask this question – Am I this? This role play is important in this act for sure, because you play that role, but is that you?
Why do you set boundaries? Why do we have boundaries? This question will happen, and that time we will start understanding the role play. So, everybody’s life is just acting, or role plays and patterns are guiding. The inclinations, tendencies push them to express what they are into this world. That means we are projecting what we are into this world. That means we are seeing or experiencing this world as WE are; we cannot experience the world as it is. We are not experiencing the world as the world is. Instead, we are experiencing the world as we are. What do you see around? What do you get from this world? – Opinions, concepts, prejudices, and so many factors of that kind. Think about it.
The world is full of opinions; it may not be the truth. Somebody says, “This person is not good.” That is his perspective. That person thinks that the other person is not as good as per his criterion. But another person may say, “This guy is very good.” So who’s telling the truth? Nobody is good. Nobody is bad. It’s our perspective; it is the way we see it. We see a person, and if our frequency is not matching with something, we call it not good – For whom? – For us. So, when we tell another person, “That person is not good, stay away”, are we missing heavily here? Definitely. We are missing a lot because we fail to see the truth. Our opportunity to see the truth or our opportunity to be neutral and have clarity is taken away because we see the world through our ears, not through our eyes. Eyes are given to see the world, to see the truth, but eyes cannot see the truth because ears work more.
We experience that in life. So this has to be clearly understood. The world is as it is, but we see the world as we are. And then if you see this whole 100, 200 lifetimes of our existence, you can see the same pattern at work. But because we are getting involved in the drama, we cannot really come out, because each person changes the costume and comes back and we must be there. We are addicted to this play, and we keep coming back: the same people, different costumes, and different order. They all come back, and they all provide similar emotions because they’re all coming with patterns; similar emotions. We enter into the drama, and we really suffer from that drama, sometimes happy sometimes sorrow, but do we see this drama? We must. The moment you start seeing the drama, and then you realise, “Oh, this is the story.”
Do you know why we have assassinated most of the people who spoke the truth? The people, whom we assassinated like Jesus and Socrates, were great masters who saw the truth and told the truth – undistorted truth, but we killed them. We character assassinated them. Why did we do that? Because we do not see, we can’t see. We are blind to reality. We only see what WE are, what is our pattern through the eyes of the pattern. We only see through the eyes of the pattern, through the eyes of our prejudices and concepts. Through the spectacles of what we have carried forward and what we have collected, we are watching this world. We are witnessing this world, and we don’t see the truth. We do not even accept the truth. All these people are like that. That is why racism, speciesism is all because we are eating concepts right from our breakfast till we sleep.
Somebody says, “It’s okay to kill an animal and eat” and we eat. We do not think that they have a life. They have a right to live as much as we have. The right is the same for every species which we don’t see. Likewise RACE. Each person is born in a certain community, and that’s about it. Nobody is higher or lower. Nobody can be higher or lower. Experience wise, everybody has the same right; the same kind of experience. If you touch fire, your hand will burn. The same happens with every race, everybody.
If we start seeing beyond all these seeming boundaries that we have created for ourselves and we fail to see the truth, then we realise, ”Oh, so there is a pattern”, but when do we get to see it? Even when somebody who has seen it tells you, we may not accept it. We may ask mundane questions. What will happen to me in the future? Does that mean you are asking what is the script? Or ask what will happen after my death? You will come back in the same way. It doesn’t matter. What you can do right now is your only reality. Try to connect yourself and try to see the truth now. That can change your future. Not that the future can change by sitting doing nothing, or entertaining the patterns now. Future will not change like that. Future will be future, patterns will continue, and patterns are ruling us. Our inclinations and tendencies are ruling us, which we don’t know. Even if it is told, we do not accept, nor do we understand. We do not allow changes because we are too bound by the patterns. We don’t even see. I have to sleep; I have to eat; I have to do this. I have to do that. You are completely preoccupied and bound by patterns, where your freedom is lost. As I have explained in today’s message, freedom is freedom from the senses and mind, not of the senses and mind. But unfortunately, what we have always been told and what we tell others is that I have freedom because I can go out and do whatever I like. That means being a slave is freedom. When you say, “I have the freedom to go out and do things that I like”, you are saying, “I can exercise my patterns and I call that my freedom”.
That is not freedom. Freedom is a state where you are free from your own senses and mind. Senses are pretty much sensors; they cannot operate on their own, the mind provokes them. So when you are free from your mind-matter such as intellect, ego and mind, then the senses are in control. If they are not bothering you, if the mind is not bothering you and if you are detached from your mind, and in the state of witness hood and mind is not really provoking the senses to go out, that’s the only time you experience freedom. Otherwise, you don’t. Whatever we say as freedom: freedom of choices, freedom of doing things; that is not freedom. That is just another word for living your own patterns.
Freedom is when you need nothing from Earth. Freedom is when you are free from your mind. If you understand that clearly, you have understood the whole tapestry. You have understood the whole thing. So when you are coming in contact, or when you are fully in contact with your own soul factor, then you see life in the whole picture, the whole frame, every life, and all the lifetimes together. That time you realise, if I miss the chance to get out of this drama, I’m stuck again. That’s the time when we realise this connection which you have received in the path of spirituality is worth millions, or it’s totally priceless. That’s the only real thing in Life.
Forget about the patterns and other things. You want to get married; you want to have children, a house, etc., all these are patterns. But look at the reality now. Look at the truth which you have come in contact with. The truth of being you, the truth to be you, connect to you, accept you, understand you, assimilate you, align you, be you and realise you. We call it self-realisation, and that is priceless. You cannot put a frame or a price to it. And the role of a master is to bring you to this awareness, not to force you into this awareness. No master will force you, why should they force you?
A true master will show you a mirror, “Look here, this is where you stand”. “Then where should I go?” – Into yourself. Which way? You connect to yourself through contemplation, understand yourself, and accept yourself. Acceptance is very important. You have to accept yourself with all your weaknesses and strengths. You have to feel yourself as you are and be yourself. This life is a golden chance. Do not chase the rainbows now because we have been chasing it always, in all the lifetimes. Now, we have got an opportunity to be aware that reality is at hands reach. We have come in contact with reality. And this is worth anything. That should be the first priority.
Destruction of patterns should be your first priority. But you can’t destroy something and stay empty. You got to catch something higher. How do you catch it? What will you catch? TRUTH. The Truth inside you; the truth is what you are catching. That truth is inside you. That’s the real you; the witness who needs nothing from Earth, nothing from anywhere. Beyond relationships, beyond time, space, beyond matters, materials, possessions, positions, this is you. You start connecting to that; you will see immense power happening inside you, overwhelming power.
Because you are free, you feel the power of freedom. It is great freedom to feel that power. That power is not to display to somebody, not to show off. The power is big, the power of beingness, the power of being you, you have nothing to prove on Earth. There’s nothing to prove; there is nothing to ask for or nothing to gain from Earth. Instead, you are giving the Earth all your brightness. Imagine, this is the truth of liberation. This is a liberated existence. If we understand that, we have understood everything. This is within you; it is not something which is kind of unreachable. It’s not a tall order. It’s within you. It’s you, connecting to you, assimilating you, aligning you and being you.
The connection with the master is to bring that spark, to light that fire. Then the fire catches, burns you and reduces you to yourself. All other things go away; all the patterns, concepts, everything burns into ashes. Then you become you. If this is really understood, you have understood everything. This opportunity is right at hand, and you have it. This Guru Poornima is the right day to think about it. Sage Vyasa, Vashishta, Saptarishis; everybody came to tell you this story, that human birth is extremely important. And in human birth, you have this opportunity to recognise, understand and assimilate your true self, the truth.
It’s not a linear existence. Life goes linear from birth till death, but that is only for the sake of experience. However, truth does not go linear. The truth remains vertical, always vertical. All the time, the truth remains the same. When you are a child, the truth is the same. When you are an adult, the truth is the same. In your old age, the truth is the same. Truth never changes. But in linear time, experiences changes, perception changes, body changes, mind changes, intellect changes, everything changes. And we confuse ourselves by thinking, “I am changing.” However, nothing is changing. You are the same, you cannot change, and truth cannot change.
So, if you’ve really understood this, you will start recognising the truth every moment. What you get out of it? – Immense stability, peace, tranquility, freedom. You will experience the real meaning of freedom only when you reach that state, where you are connected to the truth yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after. It doesn’t matter what your moods are, what your surroundings are, what your emotions are. Not a problem. Nothing matters. You could be anger, hatred, jealousy, lust, anything. Not a problem. It is a state of freedom. That’s exactly how great masters existed -consistent, stable, integrity, unchangeable because you are connecting to the unchangeable.
Question: How to dissolve the barriers of physical identity and see all gurus and masters as one?
Mohanji: The usual mind is filled with so many factors, so many different flavours of life; which means that we have been living all these years and we have had various lifetimes. What we have collected over a period of time has made the whole mind murky; our mind is filled with so many things, especially things connected to likes and dislikes, prejudices, concepts and knowledge of various kinds. All these things are mixed in our mind. Our awareness is very much like muddy river water. So, unless that mud settles down in the mind and the water becomes clear, we cannot see the truth.
That is why masters have insisted that we must spend enough time, to give clarity to our own mind through stillness; by practicing stillness – through contemplation, meditation, etc. When we do contemplation, when we do meditation consistently and consciously, it means we do nothing, that is, be still or keep the mind still. Mind by habit keeps moving. It has many prejudices, likes and dislikes, flavours, and emotions like anger, hatred and jealousy are also a part of our existence. We must understand that to have clarity, you need to settle down; be still. Else, you may connect to one master, who you have recognized through your own experience. Do not go with others’ words, it won’t work. People can give you opinions; it will not work. But through your own experience, if you have understood that this person has stabilized his mind, he has settled down properly in himself and he’s just like a mirror, then you connect to that person.
Where you park your mind, where you are connected to and what you are connected to, you start becoming that. That becomes you or you become that. This is very important to understand. You need to connect to masters who are stabilized. (You connect to) One master or one person, but not many masters. Many masters are all illusory. Only in a confused state of mind, you connect to various people; otherwise it’s just one connection, steady connection, stable connection which gives you stability. Those who keep wandering, they do not stabilize anywhere and it is not easy to stabilize too. This is important to understand.
Confusions arise in the mind, because mind is murky, mind is not able to see. Once you are very settled inside, then you are fully into yourself. The right place to settle down is inside you. We are settling down inside us every night. Do you know during deep sleep state, we are fully settled inside? We are settling down inside fully. So, we do have that experience every night, when we are in deep sleep, where we are fully settled inside. When we wake up in the morning, we get scattered, the mind is scattered. Then we bring that mind back into ourselves and sleep. When you do this with awareness in the morning – meaning your mind is completely inside you, in that state, you will fully be stabilized. This is very important. But I would tell you one thing – you can do it yourself; you have that ability, because you have that example of the night, the sleep time, where you are fully into you.
The mind which is going out normally comes inside and settles down inside and then you are fully into yourself. From that point, if you understand and shift with awareness; in other words, you are aware that you are inside, that is a state of meditation. You can come inside and you can settle down. None of the external factors will make much difference to you. The emotions, the places, the people or the situations will not make any difference in your mind because you are stable and still. This is your birth right. This is what you are essentially.
If you look at a master like Shirdi Sai Baba, he used to be just like a mirror. During much of our life, we are projecting what we are to the world outside. Whatever is inside us, we are projecting it to the world outside and we get the reflection of our projection, or the reciprocal/ reflection of our projection. So, if you are projecting anger into the world, you also get anger from other people. People become angry with you for no reason. If you are projecting hatred to the world, you do get hatred back. If you are projecting love into the world, you get love back. So, when you do selfless service and altruistic activities in the world, you get that back as well. When you dedicate yourself to the world, the world gives itself to you. That is how life works. So, what you are is very important. That is exactly how you will experience life – AS YOU ARE. You can’t experience life as something else. You cannot experience life even as how things are. It’s not easy.
Hence we must understand that we are the cause for all our experiences. There is nothing right or wrong with whatever is happening. Don’t try to categorize them into, “This is okay”, “This is not okay”, “This is right”, “This is wrong”. There’s nothing like it. Everything is good for you. Because you are asking for whatever you are missing. Otherwise you won’t miss it. If you are not missing it, you won’t ask for it. So, whatever you are missing, you are asking and that is a potential for another existence. You may need another body, you may need another time; you may need another situation to experience that thing. Nothing is right or wrong that way.
Everything that you are missing, you are asking for it and you must have it because that calls for or asks for fulfilment. This understanding is very crucial, as to why certain things are happening. First of all, there is no ‘WHY’. Everything IS – AS IT IS.
Because there is a deficiency in you and you are asking for that reality. Sometimes we may feel that we never asked for anger, but do you have anger suppressed inside you? Do you have rejection suppressed inside you? Do you have feelings of injustice inside you? All these things will definitely create that asking and will ask for fulfilment. So, when you have consistent rejection, you will ask for appreciation and acceptance. So, when the world is not accepting you, you will feel unhappy, you feel angry. This is how life works. In a broad spectrum, life is all about – whatever you are missing, you are asking for and chasing. And that’s exactly what gives happiness also. If you get it, you are happy. If you don’t get it, you are sad.
Question: In times of trials and tribulations like we’re in now, what is the best way to calm our restless mind?
Mohanji: Currently we are in a particular time situation where none of our plans are working. Everything has changed. We made plans last year for this year but because of the Corona situation, everything has changed. It is not in our control. The best method to manoeuvre in such a situation is flexibility. Be very flexible, absolutely flexible. That means you flow like a river. Be like water and keep moving and be very flexible.
If you really flexible, then you do not have that feeling of loss and feeling, “Oh! Everything is lost and all my projects are finished”. That kind of pessimism comes from not being able to execute your desires or your plans. It happens to people, right? Sometimes we make great plans and we can’t execute it and we feel that everything is lost. But that’s normal. That’s natural, because we are human beings and as human beings, we tend to have expectations. So, the right method to handle such situation is absolute flexibility.
Keep flowing like water. Just flow like water. Be like water. Be flexible. Tell yourself, “Okay, this is not happening then there will be another thing” and be happy with what you have. Have Gratefulness. Have Gratitude. That’s very important at this time. You should really be grateful for all that you have; even your connection to your father, mother, Guru and God. In that process, all those people are adding value to your life. We must remember this and be grateful because this a good time, because you have time with yourself.
You can remember what built you up? What made you what you are today? First and foremost is mother – you have a relationship with your mother, nine months more than the society. So, the first and foremost is mother. Then father, the protector and the guide, the guiding factor who helped us to be ourselves. Next is the guru who gave you clarity about existence. One guru – whichever guru you connect to, be consistent with one, otherwise, nobody can give you anything. You can appreciate, accept, respect all masters and you must. But remember your guru, your tutor, your teacher; your guru should be one; because inconsistent connection means no receptivity. You can’t receive. So, be very constant with that connection. You can you take your time to be connected to the guru. But you should not get fascinated. It should not be out of hallucinations or imagination or expectations. It should be with reality. You should know that this man whom you are connected to is stabilized in himself. If you are not sure, do not connect. If you connect to any master with expectations you will have disappointment because the master and the person are different.
The aspect of mastery is different from the man or the woman. Let me tell you a real story. One man took a lot of pain and struggle and finally he reached his guru. When he came close to his guru and started living with him, he understood that the guru also eats food, drinks water, sleeps, goes to toilet etc. Then this guy got disillusioned. He had all the wrong thoughts in his mind. He said, “Oh, no! This Guru is an ordinary man just like me. I do the same”. So, these kinds of illusions can come in. Doubts can come in when you know that this person in the body is just another human being. So, you must segregate the human aspect and the spiritual aspect and just go with the teachings.
In Sai Baba’s case, Baba used to smoke chillum and somebody thinks, “Oh, Sai Baba is smoking so I also can smoke”. That means you will only become a smoker you will not become Sai Baba. So, we must understand that what Sai Baba said, we must follow– Shraddha (Faith) and Saburi (Patience). Saburi is extremely important. Very clearly, COVID is teaching us Saburi now. It’s a very important lesson that the COVID has given us – Saburi.
So, to come to the point, we must respect all beings. We should take time and respect. When it comes to God, you have to respect the god inside you. The God Particle inside you is the most stable particle inside you – which is your soul.
With zero interests in your likes and dislikes, your life, your death- it has no interests. It is just accompanying you as totally neutral. Just like electricity comes and gives light in your house. It helps washing machine, it helps refrigerator to function. Electricity has no needs, it has no requirement. The electricity board needs money, but the electricity does not need money. Those who produce electricity may need money, but the electricity itself does not need anything. But electricity is essential for the lights to happen, the fan, the air conditioner, the refrigerator, the washing machine. Electricity is always neutral. If it goes into washing machine it operates in that way. If it goes into air conditioner, it operates in that way. If it comes into a light bulb, it operates in a different way. Just like that, the soul is the same. It operates through different machines. In the body of an elephant it operates like an elephant. In the body of a human being, it operates as a human being. So as simple as that. All are same. Once we connect to that aspect inside you, you have found God. That is how you find God. We call it the self -realization. Realization of something which is already sitting in you and operating you. It is giving multiple dimensions, such as waking state, dream state, deep sleep state. Each dimension we have different experiences. This is what we are. This is how we are. This is something which we have to always remember.
We are universal. We are the soul, not the body. Body has duration, it has some time on earth, birth till death. And also we are changing with age. What we liked with the age of 20, we may not like it at the age of 40. Like that, every time the flavour changes, everything changes. This we should always remember. During covid time we can connect to ourselves , be ourselves completely. Its worth it. I hope I clarified this point.
Q:Why we are facing so many disasters and natural calamities? Including suicides this year.
Mohanji: Why we are facing so many calamities is becasue of our insensitive lifestyle. Earth has its rhythm, its balance. All the beings of the earth are supposed to live within the boundaries and balance of earth. But human beings are different. All being are controlled or run by instinct. What is instinct? The basic instinct is survival -to be alive, to stay alive. That is a basic instinct. If you look at all the beings in the nature, they are all struggling to stay alive. They are always looking forward to being alive. Human beings also have the same thing. But then because we are highly intelligent,we have intelligence separated from the instinct. We created lot of things on earth for our comfort, for our protection, but basically survival instinct; extended survival instinct. That is the reason.
We created a lot of of things on earth. But we have become slaves to that. Now, even if we don’t get food, we are ok, but when you wake up in the morning , if the internet is not working, some people might commit suicide. They can’t think of a world without internet, without communication. Imagine, something hapens and the internet goes away. What will happen to the world? But, that’s the reality!
We have changed our taste for gadgets and various things. We even lost eye contact, as a species; we don’t even see eye to eye; we don’t have eye contact. We suppress so many desires. And what happens? We have perversions; we have aberrations in life. This is because of suppression. Many explosive behaviours; anger, hatred, jelaousy; these are all connected to suppression. But we never had that problem earlier. Animals do not have a problem with suppression. They are spontaeous. They express and they finish; they forget, so that they are at the moment all the time. We also should be in the moment all the time.
So what has happened? We, as one species, behaved like viruses and destroyed most of the species on earth. Including flora and fauna. That means ecology. So we made a disaster on earth. We created disaster on earth, so earth is giving us back. If our previous generations had thought,“ We got a world with us, we should give a better world to the next generation“, things would be different. But they never thought like that. Even we are not thinking like that. We are talking about religion, caste, country, culture, color, and we are dividing people more and more, based on religion, culture, language..all those things. What is happening in the bargain? We are getting isolated; we all became like islands, separated from each other.
We don’t love, we only expect. We do not give, but we expect. We do not share, we expect more from others. So we have become greedy, selfish and a little insensitive. That is why all these disasters are coming forth.
Imagine a Unified Consciousness, where everybody, we are all one family.
Our slogan in Mohanji Universe is,“ One World, One Family – one family, beyond species“. We are all here to experience earth. We are not here to accumulate anything.
See, you came empty handed, when you were born. Nothing was in your hands. You will go empty handed when you die. You carry nothing, not even a pebble. So what is life? Experiences of each moment and we must experience. That is why we are born. We have to experience. Every flavour of life we must experience. That, we deny. We say, “Oh, this is not ok, that is not ok“. Mind divided things and we separated them. Then what happens? All those desires are suppressed. Then we ask for more births. We need another birth to fulfill them. Like that, we have become unaware. If you live with awareness, you understand that we must coexist with all the beings of the world; every being that has taken a body on earth must have it’s set of experiences and we cannot deny it.
If we consider ourselves as more refined than other species, we must behave so.
We must be considerate.
We cannot conquire, capture and kill.
We cannot do that. We should support all forms of life.
We should coexist.
There should be forests; there should be every aspect of the Existence of nature shoudl exist as is. Then, we will have balance. The we can have better health, better life. Otherwise, all these disasters are signs of human insensitivity over time, over a period of time.
How much of pollution we have made in the world? How much destruction have we created in the world? World wars, religious wars, based on religion, killing based on religion, the pollution in the air, in the water, on earth..Look at everything! No being is safe on earth. This is a human world. In the human world, no other being is safe on earth. I have seen a picture of one man. He has killed 5,000 elephants in Africa, a hunter- he hunted 5000 elephants! Just imagine the number of beings being he killed?! We are paying for all this. Humankind is paying for all these kinds of aberrations and perversions.
We have no right to kill any being. We have no right.
Instead, if we call ourselves refined, we have the responsibility to provide for other beings. We should make sure they are all fine.
Sarve bhavantu sukhinaha – Let all the beings be peaceful!
That is exactly how it should be. Everybody should be peaceful and happy. Everybody should be blissful. This is our path. This is how it should be.
Q: How can I know my purpose in life?
Mohanji: Your purpose in life is what you are experiencing every moment. Because your birth is connected to the bundle of desires you have carried. From birth till death you have a duration of time. Within this time, you are supposed to experience whatever you came to experience. It doesn’t matter. As I said earlier, no right or wrong here. Whatever you are supposed to experience, you will experience within this time. That is the real purpose of each birth. Each birth is the fulfillment of the pending desires. This is exactly what you are born for.
Now, what is the possibility of a higher purpose? A human existence has this great possibility. From total unawareness to Supreme Consciousness. You can connect to Shiva. Be Shiva, which means Supreme Consciousness, stillness. You have that possibility. Shiva or Vishnu, its all same – Supreme Consciousness. You have that capacity in one lifetime. If your focus is on something larger, higher, you will reach there. It doesn’t matter whether you are a man or a women, it doesn’t matter which caste, country, culture, color- you can reach there. Everybody are same in the eyes of the Supreme .
So we have all these great potentials. You need to sit down and decide. What do you really want to achieve with this life? And work towards it. Then nature will configure itself for that purpose. But most people do not have that kind of a purpose. What they do is, they just want to make some money, or get some positions, or some possessions, and then they think,“Now, I will be happy“. And eventually, what happens ?No happiness. Because, they want more. When you get 100 you want 1000. When you get 1000 you want 10, 000. When you get 10,000 you need 100,000. Like that, desires multiply. There is no point in saying that if I get this, I will be happy. If you can’t be happy right now, you can’t be happy ever. It is not connected to something outside. It is not connected to your relationships; it is not connected to your possessions; it is not connected to your position. It is connected to YOU. You can be satisfied as much as you are connected to yourself. You can have contentment.
If you deeply appreciate yourself, if you really really love yourself, if you really respect yourself, Life will change its flavour.
Instead, we are busy loving somebody outside. We are busy looking for something outside. We are looking for situations, places, and time outside. In the bargain, we are not happy.
Instead, spend some time with yourself. What a beautiful creation YOU are! Have you ever thought about it? Feel yourself. Feel, see and experience how beautiful you are! How handsome you are! And what a kind of miracle you are!
All the organs inside are functioning like a great orchestra and giving you what is called life. Isn’t it great? We must think like that. We must remember that.
We are wonderful beings, but we forget it. Instead of that, we are looking outside, we see and think that there is something outside that we must appreciate. It’s not true.
First you appreciate inside. You. This whole package called you.
Appreciate it! How beautiful! What a wonderful creation! Then you start connecting to yourself, appreciating yourself. Accept yourself with all your weaknesses. Everybody has weaknesses. Nobody is only strength in the world. Don’t worry about your weaknesses. Instead, invest in your strenghts. Let the weaknesses stay with you. It’s ok. No problem. Why should we be perfect? We don’t have to be perfect. Let us have those weaknesses. We are born with this, or they have come to us. But we focus on our strengths. So what happens? There is no energy wastage. We don’t waste energy fighting weaknesses. Instead, when you strenghten your strenghts, when you invest in your strengths, when your strengths become stronger, the weaknesses become eclipsed. They become ignorable. You can ingnore them. That is the right way. Don’t waste your energy fighting something, resisting something. Instead, use your energy promoting something good in you; the best in you. That will make you very powerful.
And then you see a big difference in the world around you because people will start liking your aura, liking your presence, and say,“Hey, I love you! I love to be with you“ and you will know that it is worth it. The secret is accepting yourself, connecting to yourself, respecting yourself. If you don’t respect yourself, nobody will respect you. The secret why society cannot respect a person is because the person does not have self-repect. Why the scoiety cannot accept a person is becaue the person does not have self acceptance, self love. It is not selfishness, it is admiring and appreciating your existence. Selfishness is very bad. Our relevance in the world will depend on these two boundaries, selfishness and selflessness. The extent to which you are towards selflessness, that is how much you are appreciated by the world. Glory is connected to this aspect. The more selfless you are, the more glory you will get. This has to be clearly understood. That way you can transform the world by your own existence. You have that power! You have that in you! And this must be very clearly understood. Don’t think that somebody has to come and give it to you. Nobody has to give anything. You already have it. And you are immensely powerful. Why don’t you feel it? Because mind doesn’t allow you to feel. Mind gives you boundaries; “Hey, you are only this much! You are not great.“ And then you compare with other people – „ Hey look! This person is more beautiful than me, is smarter than me; is more talented than me.“ But remember one thing – he cannot be you or she cannot be you! Neither can you be that person! That person is already taken. But you are available to you. You are not taken. You have yourself. And that is your strength; your own strength is being you. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IN THIS LIFE IS BE YOU 100%! Don’t try to be somebody else. And respect yourself, respect the world, respect the society.
Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth and Nada Rakovic Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan
This podcast is slightly longer than the other episodes. And it’s recommended that you listen to it in its entirety, with enough time to listen to it from start to finish. And listen again. It’s a good one to keep listening to as a reminder. We hope you enjoy it.
Hello friends. Let’s talk about positioning today. We all have certain complexes in us, which we might have experienced, especially in our teenage years. Some of these complexes make it difficult for us to position ourselves in this world. Along with that point, we can also think about our connection with various types of people. Let’s take one category, Spiritual Masters. What is a Spiritual Master – person who has settled within himself, inside himself. That is a Spiritual Master. Somebody who has taken himself off his senses, mind-matter, and has established himself in his consciousness is a Master. That means he is detached from the external world. His dependencies are less, and he is very stable, because of that. Once we recognize somebody in that way we tend to connect to that person, just because the aspiration of every person who is swayed by the mind is to reach that state. And what is the sign of that state? The sign of inner stillness is silence. No judgment. No criticism. No anger, hatred, or revenge. Peace, total peace. That’s a state that you arrive at when you are deeply connected to the consciousness of a Spiritual Master.
How do people connect to a Spiritual Master? Usually as per what they are. You cannot connect to the world as per the world is, because we have our orientations. We have our inclinations. We have our disposition. Having all these orientations, inclinations, and dispositions, we will connect to the world only as per what we are. Each person connects to another and connects to the world as per what they are. They cannot connect in any other way.
People who are of emotional by nature connect to the Master with devotion – bhakti yogis, the devotional kind. People who are intellectual by nature may connect to the Master’s philosophy, what he says, the intellectual stuff – jnana yogis, the intellectual kind. People who are of ego-oriented nature connect to the Master’s personality because the ego is the skeleton of a personality. The ego gives structure to the personality. So he is more connected to the Master’s personality. Then there are people who love to serve. They are kind by nature, they want to give to the world, share with the world – karma yogis. They connect to the Master’s philanthropic aspect. There are the very rare species, the Raja Yogis, who connect to the consciousness of the Master, the stillness aspect.
So as per the orientation, people connect to the Master accordingly. A bhakti yogi, a person who is inclined devotionally will find it absurd why the other categories are not worshiping the Master. While a person who’s oriented to knowledge will find it absurd that these devotional people are worshipping the Master, a perishable body. What is there to worship? Each category will find the other absurd. This is a very important point to understand. Nothing is absurd to the person who’s oriented in that format, that pattern. We must remember that. Hence, we must not judge, because a devotional person, an emotional person, cannot understand the knowledge path at all, because that’s not his orientation. A karma yogi will find it uneasy to just connect to a Master based on the knowledge or devotion. It’s absurd for him. If you look at each category you will find that they have a distinction, they are distinct in their own thought process, inclinations, and tendencies, and we must respect them.
The rare breeds of people who connect directly to the consciousness of the Master see themselves in the Master or see the Master in themselves. There’s no need to worship. There’s no need to act in any way, there’s nothing to understand. That’s very rare, very difficult. It is not a mind thing. It’s actually a state. Very rarely people arrive at that state after going through all the other states. Those people need nothing from the Master. His presence, his state is the most important thing, they directly connect to the state of the Master, stabilize themselves, just like a spark is enough to catch fire if the wood is dry. Just a spark. And the spark is always sitting in the Master who has stabilized himself. He’s burning fire. He is a fire, which is alive. If we really, really understand all these aspects, we will never judge, we will never criticize, we will never try to discriminate based on the orientations which we cannot understand. People connect to people, based on what they are. Some people look at the Master as freedom, total freedom, because he’s independent of the world outside. He’s detached from the world outside.
Some people feel the Master as love because he gives love, without expectations; free love, unconditional love, which is very rare in the world. We all experience unconditional love from our mothers. Mothers always give unconditional love to their children. But apart from that, the world is full of conditional love. But a Master who has found himself is established in unconditional love. Some people may look at the Master as a great romantic. When you become everything, eternal romance sprouts within you. You are a romantic, you are eternally romantic. What restricts you is your mind, eager to create frames with expectations. If there are no expectations, there are no frames, then you love the world because you are everything. You see yourself in everything. There is nothing apart from you. It’s an eternal romance. Your heart is so expanded that there is nothing else possible, just romance.
Some people look at the Master and they see rigidity, strictness. This is because discipline and determination are essential to dissolve. The mind is captured always by patterns, which we have cultivated and nurtured over time. Masters become strict to certain people because he understands that discipline is essential to cross the barriers of the mind, such as prejudices, patterns, and fears. As you are, as what’s inside you, so you see the Master. But the Master is everything because he is established in himself. He has become the universe, and he’s everything. He is not just one thing. So, he caters to each person as per what they are, as per their orientation, as per their need to take the next step. What is essential is that aspect, or that guidance, or that help that which makes them or helps them to take a stride further. In conclusion, I always recommend that you need to connect to the Master, sufficiently giving yourself time to ask all the questions to yourself, and if it is too much for you, to ask the Master. Take time to understand. Take time to assimilate. Take time to know the Master before you take the plunge, but once you take the plunge stay put.
Ask yourself what your orientation is. How do you know, it’s very simple – it’s what suits you. What’s effortless for you, that is your orientation. What doesn’t suit you, you should not do. For example, a person who’s attracted to the philosophy, the knowledge of the Master, and is not attracted to the devotional side of the Master, or devotional aspect towards the Master should refrain from doing the devotional side. Because somebody else who’s devotional by nature, bhakti yogi by nature is doing it, you don’t have to do it. You connect to the master as you are which is more stable and more real. Every connection should be realistic. Otherwise, it has no longevity. It will not survive time. Your connection should be with full awareness of what you are, not what the Master is. You can only connect to another being as you are.
Understanding your orientation is extremely essential for fruitful connections, for maintaining good connections. Don’t look any further; you realize what is your orientation, what is your constitution, and if you connect accordingly, you will have a stable, real, and peaceful connection. A stable connection is extremely essential for the sake of longevity. Birds of the same feather flock together. You need to have the same frequency, or you need to identify your frequency and connect in that way, to a universal frequency so you can derive what you require out of it. No Master needs any worship. No Master ever tells anybody you should worship me. Only insecure people will tell all these things. Only insecure people will want people to worship them.
This is a perishable body. This is what you are. You have taken this body for the sake of experiences and expressions. That’s about it. All that you are doing or all that is happening in your life are experiences of various nature and expressions of what you are in this world, nothing else is happening. So, nobody who’s balanced will say, somebody should worship them. It doesn’t matter. But if somebody’s orientation needs that fulfillment, let it be. We cannot deny anybody’s experience of any kind. A true Master allows that experience to happen. A true Master just lets it flow, how they are, let them connect as they are so that there is fulfillment individually. Individual fulfillment is essential for the transition to happen in life. If fulfillments are denied, if they are suppressed, they come back with more force, which binds them further to the Earth. For liberation to happen, fulfillment is essential. A true Master allows that to happen. There will be no restriction. What is inside you, what is burning inside you, that is what has to be addressed.
A burning desire is an important thing for that person. If awareness can take care of it, fulfill it, or through higher awareness if you can diminish that fire, it’s fine. If through higher awareness also, this fire is not diminished, fulfillment is the only solution. And fulfillment must happen, it will happen at its time. A true Master allows it to happen and releases the person from that binding desire. In a nutshell, if you really understand yourself, you can connect to a Master who is stability incarnate, effectively. If you have not settled inside, if you have not understood yourself, or if you have not understood your orientation, all your connections will be temporary, faulty, and with expectations. Any connection with expectations has a duration. A connection without expectations, selfless connections, unconditional connections, will live forever.
This is food for thought for you today. Think about it. Ponder it and communicate about it.
Lots of love, this is Mohanji for you.
Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan
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These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them. Keep sending them; I will try to answer them as best as I can.
Speaker: This question is from another listener. They have been thinking about people who have never experienced much beyond the body and mind throughout their entire life. And so, when they are close to death, they are gripped by fear. Is it possible to help them come out of this fear in the last days? And if it is, how can we do that?
Mohanji: Fear is connected to illusions. There’s no room for fear. There is a saying that when you can sleep in brightness, darkness cannot touch you. That means, when we are connected to our inner brightness, the real truth, there is no possibility of any fear to happen. The secret for a fearless existence is connection, deep connection to our inner brightness.
We are bright inside. The real bright aspect of our existence is our atma, the soul. And to reach that soul, the path is silence. Not activity, not doership. It’s silence. Whenever there is fear, there is ignorance. Whenever there is a fear, there is a mind. Whenever there is a fear, there is darkness. Once we know what the source of fears is, we can easily come out of it. People are trained to live in the gross world. People are trained to behave in a particular way or to manoeuvre in a particular way, in the gross world. And that prevents them from the opportunity of connecting to the brighter world inside us. In other words, people are used to the candlelight while the sun is existing in the horizons, or people are used to the candlelight indoors, and fighting their darkness using it, while just by opening the doors and windows the sunlight can come in and take the darkness away.
We are conditioned; conditioned by our education, conditioned by our notions, concepts, and prejudices. Conditioned by so many factors apply, where truth is missed. Truth is sitting inside us, and it can be found only by connecting deeply, purposefully, and consistently with ourselves. How much time are we spending with ourselves? This is the all-important question. How much time? Are we spending any time at all with ourselves? That makes the difference. We can’t find truth anywhere in the world except within ourselves. The world has all the varieties good for experiences of the senses and the mind. That’s not good enough to find the brightness inside. In fact, they are distractions from the pursuit to find the truth inside – the brightness inside.
Imagine a person living in the gross world, engaging in the world of noises consistently, thinking that’s the reality and suddenly realizes death is at hand. Death is the only companion that you are born with. As soon as you took birth, death also took birth. And death walks with you and finally engulfs you, takes you over. Death is a constant companion, but we ignore its presence, just like we ignore our shadow. That is an inevitability. So why do we fear death? Because we have an instinct to survive, the instinct is inbuilt in us and it tells us that survival is our birthright. It is so, it is indeed our birthright. But death is more powerful.
As I said before, death is inevitable. Death has to happen at some point in time, whether we fear it or not. So, what’s the best way to deal with this fear? Perfect awareness. All that is born will have to die. Death is our most loyal companion. All others will come and go; death will stay. Awareness is very important. And using this time of existence on earth to connect to the brightness within us will help us to stay with this companion without emotions, understanding fully well its inevitability, its necessity, and its relevance. Awareness is the key, awareness is essential for a good life and good death.
Thank you for listening to this podcast. Do contemplate on it. Do discuss with your friends. And let me know how you feel. If you have further questions, send them to me.
Questioner: Who is a Guru? I’ve heard a guru is like a GPS. Can we progress without a Guru?
Mohanji: Thank you very much for inviting me and thank you very much for this opportunity. My gratitude to the Healing Our Earth team and all of you.
About the question about guru – I follow the tradition of Lord Dattatreya who had 24 gurus. When somebody asked Dattatreya, “Who are you?”, he said, “I am just a worshipper of nature”. So, the fundamental is that anything and everything around us is teaching us something. And the greatest and the highest Guru is life itself – life gives you lessons.
And if you consider 24 hours, we have three distinct dimensions that we go through without any choice:
1) One is the waking state where we interact with the world outside. We gather experiences and we project ourselves into the world (and as per our projection we get experiences).
2) Then we enter into a state of the dreams, the dream state where we completely shut off the world outside, close the eyes and then go within the world inside. Then what we process here is from what we have collected and stored.
3) Then that is also shut down when we enter into a deep sleep state where we completely nullify all the experiences.
So when awareness is connected to the physical level, we have the waking state.
When awareness is connected to mind-matter (which is mind, intellect, and ego where mind processes emotions, intellect processes information and ego processes things connected to ownership), when we connect to that mind-matter and become fully immersed in that, then what comes alive is what is stored by these faculties inside.
And then we connect to the consciousness aspect when we have deep sleep, and we don’t know whether we are a man or a woman. We don’t know the time or space, we are completely not accessible to this world, and we don’t have the world to access.
We take a rebirth again every morning – we come back. So we go through this process, almost like a pattern. And then we decide that we are this personality that we have projected in the world. We are also trying to figure out what we are in this world, based on our positions and possessions.
So at some point in time, we realize that this is not really giving us the whole satisfaction – we are actually roaming around for pleasures.
At some point in time we realize there is something permanent and perpetual. That’s a time when we start associating – that the first level of physical, second level of mind-matter and then the third level of consciousness : that it has got these three states, we start thinking about it. It is called manana, not dhyana (meditation), it’s contemplation. That is why various masters have time and again repeated that it is important to contemplate, not meditate. Meditation will happen spontaneously but contemplation is very, very important. The more you contemplate, the more you realize that there is somebody witnessing the whole show. And then it is a quest for knowing who is the permanent, unshakable witnessing this whole show and is always unattached. So this question happens inside. And then we start going within. And it’s an inner journey, it’s definitely not an outside journey.
So as far as the tradition that I follow is concerned, you’ve got to find yourself, and that’s the whole thing. When the student asked the teacher, “I can’t really understand all these scriptures – Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Shrutis, Smritis, and 33 crore Gods! I can’t really go through all this. I can’t understand. Tell me in one word what this whole story is”.
The teacher said, “YOU! You are the whole story. Tat Tvam Asi”. (You are that)
Then the quest is to find this You, who is actually making all this experience possible. That’s the way the connection happens.
So the Dattatreya tradition has great masters like Sai Baba who everybody knows. He lived as a fakir and a Sufi saint. And though he was living in one place, his energy and power radiated in several places. As a perfect avadhoota, he had fully turned inward the faculties like mind, intellect and ego, and started finding himself. And then he finally found the soul aspect, the atma tattva, stabilized there and settled down. Then what you see outside is your own reflection everywhere. So all the leaves, plants, trees, people, animals, birds, everything gives you a lesson. Because you see yourself in everything. And then you become one with the whole universe. So this is the guru principle that we are talking about.
Guru is definitely not just a human being. Of course we talk about Lord Krishna, as jagath (world) guru. Definitely because he lived the detachment. What he lived for is valid even now, because he was in everything and he was in nothing. Perfect detachment. So like that, there have been masters who time and again came and displayed the possibility of existing without boundaries and full freedom.
Freedom means freedomfromthe senses and mind, not freedom of the senses. We have misunderstood this concept too much. When we talk about freedom, we talk about freedom to do anything we like to do or to say whatever we like, that in society we can be ourselves as we are. That is not freedom. That is just an expression of patterns. What freedom is, is the freedom from senses and mind where we do not have any kind of binding to anything around. So this is exactly the freedom which the masters have lived, and expressed.
Now when you talk about guru principle, the job of the guru was to live it and the job of the disciple was to connect to that principle of freedom and walk towards it, inside. Go within and find yourself. So this takes time. In my earlier days, I used to go to the Himalayas quite often when I was working in a company as well. And I was trying to find out this me and it took a long time. I did not have a personal guru at that time, but I connected to my spine – being aware of the spine when I’m walking, when I’m doing things, I’m still aware of the spine. And then automatically things started shifting, awareness started shifting, it took me many years. But the point I’m trying to tell is that if you really want to find your guru, you have to find yourself. If you have found yourself, you found the guru. Then everything around is your guru. All the gurus brighten up when you brighten up. So this is already sitting inside. So that is why Tat Tvam Asi has a lot of value. That means, this is the fundamental principle of all the scriptures. If everything were put together and crushed and a juice made out of it all, you get one thing called You. That is the final thing you can get.
When we walk this path, don’t think it will be easy – because our patterns have become too strong. We have been used to so many things, we have been literally entertaining ourselves and our patterns for a long period of time. And we have forgotten that we are bound by patterns, bound by concepts, bound by prejudices. When we look at a person we decide that we don’t like him, or we like him. This is all connected to how we see the world. Basically, there are no enemies, there are no friends, it’s just as it is, and the world is as it is. We all have our space, we all have our relevance, our activity, we have to do something here and all that we are doing is projecting ourselves to the world and getting it back. That is what we are doing. But once you start assimilating yourself, once you find yourself, then you stop projecting, as there’s nothing to project. Instead you start reflecting like a mirror, you will be like a mirror. When somebody comes in front, you reflect that without prejudices, without expectations, without any kind of flavors – as it is. So that makes you a perfect master, total reflection. That is why great masters like Haidakhan Baba said, “When you come to me with anger, I become anger. When you come to me with love, I become love”. That means that you do not have flavors to project, instead you are being a reflection of the whole world, and that is a very sincere reflection, there’s no flavor. And that is consistent, no change. So when you become like that, you become like a huge magnet because you have no flavors. You become every flavor, you are everybody, you’re everything! There is no discrimination, you see the atma tattva in everything, the soul particle, the soul aspect factor which is in all things, and you connect to that – no barrier. So this is exactly what the soul principle is. And that is exactly what the guru principle is.
On Guru Purnima day, all I would like to tell you that whatever you are searching for is already within. And when you realize that, it is called self-realization. The realization is only of what you already have and what you realize at some point in time is that you have it. So that’s very simple, and all you need to do to achieve that is to spend time with yourself, not in books, not in rituals, not in activities, not with people. You’ve got to find time for yourself, assimilate yourself. For all that you need to accept yourself. Most of us have a big problem accepting ourselves. We judge ourselves, criticize ourselves, we doubt ourselves. And that creates the distance between ourselves and us. We find it difficult to come within because our acceptance is conditional for ourselves. And then the same thing gets reflected in society – you don’t accept everybody, then we don’t accept situations either. And then we sometimes have a lot of opinions. The world is full of opinions, but we have to go beyond opinions and realize the truth. Opinions are flavored because they are situational, and they are a play of duality. But reality is totally detached from opinions. So we got to really cut out all this, these kind of fringes. And then you come inside. And then you feel okay : ‘I’m complete as it is, I’m unique. I’m neither higher, nor lower or equal to anybody. I’m unique, and this is exactly what I’m supposed to express in this world, nothing more’. And then you start connecting to yourself.
So total acceptance is the first step, and complete liberation is the result. Thank you very much.
Questioner: My god, that was so enlightening. My eyes were glued on your eyes, trying to focus on this message. My question for others. Freedom from senses and mind is one of the most difficult things to go through. How would you recommend this for individuals to go through?
Mohanji: Thanks very much. The first step is always acceptance, self-acceptance, self-respect, self-love. See, the most criticized person in our life is ourselves by ourselves! We judge ourselves, we compare ourselves, and we criticize ourselves when we try to compete with other people, and then we dilute our uniqueness in that way, and that’s the detrimental factor. We say – I am not good enough because of X number of reasons – this is not true.
We are good enough, we are unique. Nobody is like us. Our thumb impression is unique to ourselves and our retina is unique to ourselves, and we are unique creations. This has to be accepted, the first and primary step. And that is the moment we start accepting ourselves, we stop competing and stop comparing. Then we start connecting with ourselves with wonder, like a child. Like you know, when a small child is given a toy. The child will be playing, touching the toy and feeling the toy and literally enjoying the toy for a long time. And then it really is fully occupied, full concentration Like that, we have to accept ourselves as a unique creation and start experiencing ourselves with wonder, not as somebody in the society (that is only when we are awake).
There are two things to understand: one is pratheethi and the other is anubhoothi.
Pratheethi means we open our eyes and we see things outside and we connect to those things, and we have an experience.
Anubhoothi means even if you close your eyes, you have that experience inside, you don’t need an object. For example, when you wake up in the morning and you say, ‘Oh, I’m happy, I slept well’, there was no material, there was no person, there was no interaction, but still you’re happy. So we realize that for happiness, you don’t really have to interact with the world. So that kind of awareness takes you to yourself and you start exploring that aspect of yourself. This is all simple awareness that we should have. Awareness. Bodh!
Awareness is the key, when you are aware of yourself and you accept : the 2 A’s (acceptance, awareness.) You do that all the time – when you’re working, when you’re traveling, when you’re sitting in one place, when you’re interacting, just be aware of how you are, what you are, and be fascinated by yourself. So then after a while, you will be fully connected to yourself, and you will be very much linked and happy with yourself. See, all our frustrations, anxieties, insecurities everything is connected to the world outside – all of them will have no value anymore, because we have a lot to see and a lot to feel inside.
And that’s the way we come inside. There are techniques defined by various traditions such as concentrating on the heartbeat, concentrating on the breath, and also assimilating, you are controlling, the pranayama kind of stuff. All those things are there. Anything which is suitable for you is good for you. That’s no problem. But fundamentally, everything should start with acceptance. And there you go, and then be aware. When you’re angry, be aware of the anger, when you’re jealous, be aware of the jealousy. Always be aware but do nothing about it. When you’re constantly being aware, already your witness. You’re taking a step backwards and seeing it. When you are seeing it, that thing loses its intensity. When you are experiencing anger and you’re witnessing the anger, the anger will happen, but you are not angry. This is the difference. So when you take one step backwards and start looking at it, you know that you are actually powerful, you’re not a victim of all these emotions. Instead, you are experiencing all these emotions and you’re still the same, you are completely a witness. This is possible. It takes time, but the first foremost step is acceptance. That is why I keep insisting on acceptance because if we don’t accept yourself; society will not accept us. So this is as simple as that. When you look at the whole society, so many people love you so many people hate you – so you have an element of non-acceptance, which is getting reflected. Whatever you get from society is your own projections. And when that projection ends, then you become a reflection, then the society loves you because they only see themselves in you, they don’t see you. So, there you become lovable. You’re one with the world. You’re part of the world, part of the universe in fact. Everybody enjoys your presence because you are Brightness. You’re like a mirror!!
Questioner: That was a very strong answer! Something I picked up from there was self-recognition, self-appreciation, self-approval. It is so vital to do that, to actually recognize yourself that you are the person you are. That’s awesome. Now it’s interesting, this philosophy, this concept is amazing. I will read the message. I will take home this message. However, to live this message on a day-to-day basis : how strongly do you feel the power of association is? Because if you engage with like-minded people who think this philosophy, live this philosophy, breathe this philosophy, it’s that much easier to be with them in order to think that. Now, can you reflect your message on a day-to-day basis? What to do, how can we make this a part of our life, our breath?
Mohanji: There are two parts to this question; one I feel that we should not detach from anything that comes our way, we must accept. Because when we detach, there are two things happening: one is suppression, other is escapism, and these two are equal to postponement. We should not postpone – we are postponing to some other time. When fears happen, we look into the eyes of fears. When situations happen, accept them. Some situations may not be very easy to accept. If you don’t accept, they hang on, they stay, they persist. So whatever we resist, persists. So I always recommend acceptance in everything: ‘Come, come, we look into the eyes. Bring it on.’ And that makes you free, liberated, because you’re not hiding from anything. You’re not avoiding things, you’re not escaping nor are you trying to manipulate things. It is as it is. We are taking it, as it is.
And secondly, often we can’t avoid many situations in life. For example, workplace situations – one can’t change them. So, being yourself there is the right answer. And always one thing in every situation, we do not have to respond. There are two ways you can interact with a situation. One is to react emotionally, which we usually do – egotistically, emotionally. And the result is usually regret or guilt. Or the other way is to respond using the intellect and just take it easy, take a foot back and look at it and then respond with awareness, and with intellect so that it will not create emotions. These are the two major ways we can interact with society. I always recommend responding, not reacting. Reacting always leaves some bad residue, which is not good. So if you constantly respond, and you have your time, your space and you respond, then you are always light and free. And then you do not have to handle so much of the hangover of regrets or guilt. So that itself saves a lot of time, because we have to handle a lot of all these kinds of things.
So in this society, whatever happens, let it happen. We are not trying to change it. We can’t change it. So we interact in our social life, in our family life, in business life – it’s all one life, but in all the situations we are playing different roles. And in those roles, just be ourselves, keep responding. And our equilibrium, our inner stability, our peace quotient is very vital for us. The peace quotient, and that’s inside us, we already have it. Peace is a state of the soul. Soul is always peaceful whatever emotions we go through. In turbulences, and similar situations, the soul is not affected. So we are coming in contact with our inner core all the time. Or just be reminded that there is a situation inside, which is completely unaffected and try to imitate it. And then we respond and not react. And this is also connected to ownership a lot. Means we own our actions that” I do this , I do this” , this I factor is sometimes very painful. So instead, like what Krishna said, in the Gita,
That is what He said: “I happen”. He did not say, “I take birth”. “I happen”, He says.
Life is about happening. Happening means you are actually happening, or life is as it takes place; not that we have created it. There is of course a history for everything, something has produced a situation and something will happen to the situation; there will be a result, but at the same time everything is sprouting. So we understand that. And we assimilate that, and we accept that. We are not the owner of the action. Ownership of action creates pain, disappointments and also karma. If there’s no ownership, the karmic structure is different. When you do not own it and you are surrendered, (like kaayena vaaccha manasendriyairvaa). And there you are detached from your action, and you’re flowing through. When you are flowing through, you are always free.
And that is what Vyasa said when he ate all the sweets, which the Brajvaasis (residents of Braja) had brought. The Yamuna River was overflowing and Krishna was on the other side. The Brajvaasis said, “We want to cross to the other side but can’t go as no boatman will take us, because the river is overflowing”. Vyasa asked, “What did you bring for Krishna?” They showed him all the sweets and he started eating them. They were embarrassed to tell him not to eat because he was Vyasa. And then Vyasa said, ”Come with me”, and when they reached the shore, he said, “If I have not eaten anything, let the river part”. And the river parted. The Brajwasis went to the other side but were surprised as they knew Vyasa had eaten all the sweets in front of them. Finally they found Krishna sleeping on a bench in the garden, and they waited. And Krishna got up and asked them, “What did you bring?” So they said all these things. Krishna said, “Sorry I can’t eat them because my stomach is full after eating the same things a little while ago”. That means when Vyasa was consuming it, he was offering it to Krishna, and though it was going into the mouth of Vyasa, it was going into the stomach of Krishna. So this is exactly the point.
The point is that if you are absolutely, completely surrendered to existence, then karma cannot take place. The other side I’m saying is that, when we know that everything is happening in life, and you are completely floating through it, like you’re cruising, there will be turbulences, but it doesn’t matter – the ownership and the pain connected will not be present.
Questioner: This was an amazing tip that you’ve given, and this is why they say that we need a guru who can guide us properly so these are some amazing tips that you should share, thank you very much for sharing !!
Today, let’s talk about a personal bank account. What is a personal bank account? We all know bank accounts; we invest money in our accounts. And we are confident because we have that bank account. We have money in the bank; we can withdraw from it when we want. This bank account is like our confidence, our self-esteem, and our security. So, this is the bank account.
Think about another bank account; the bank account that is inside you. You have a personal bank account within you. What will you invest in it? Have you thought about it? There are so many things you can invest in it. And that’s the only thing you can withdraw as well; only what you invest, you can withdraw. If you invest goodness, if you invest righteousness, if you invest kindness, compassion, positivity; if you invest beautiful, large vision, great goals for the improvement of the society; if you invest the things which are regenerative and rejuvenating into it, what you can withdraw is the same. What you sow, you reap.
So, this bank account is very important, much more important than the physical, monetary bank account. If you do not have much bank balance in this bank account, what comes out are insecurities, addictions, self-hatred, lack of self-esteem; and so many things which make you feel pretty insignificant or low in your own eyes, just like a poor man. But if you have great things in your bank account, then you will behave like a rich man; very happy, you have your money, you can fulfill your wishes, like that. I hope this is very clear.
The bank account inside is your choice. What do you want to put in that? It’s almost like your own personal locker; you can keep anything you like in it. But what is put there determines you. I always recommend people to put your highest aspirations in your bank account locker and take away all the fears and anxieties and those kinds of stuff and discard them. You don’t need them. I always used to tell people the best investment in a lifetime is in awareness. When you invest in awareness, it grows. When you concentrate on your own awareness, it reflects in the society as brightness, as kindness, as compassion, as positivity, as reliability and so many other good factors, positive factors. When you invest in your own awareness, you will stop complaining, you will stop comparing, you will stop all those things which drain you. You can easily come out of your addictions, which are bound by inertia, tamas, and you can look at your own life, fresh and as a great opportunity.
If you invest in awareness consistently, you will be brighter, you will be lovable in this world and you will not have complexes. Usually, people have an inferiority complex or a superiority complex; both these things will be alien to you. You will be fine; you will be happy; you will be stable in yourself. So, investing in awareness is very important in a lifetime. And that’s the best investment you can ever do in a lifetime. This investment matures and gives rewards, just like a bank account; you get some interest for your investment, like that, the investment on awareness, gives you clarity in life. The clarity that you get in life is your interest. When you continuously invest in awareness, in your own awareness, in your bank account, your goals will be clearer, the purpose will be clear and there will be clarity in the activity, in planning, in the road map because you are consistently investing in awareness.
Awareness is vital in anybody’s life.Life is always an opportunity and awareness is its oxygen. When you consistently invest in awareness, you will always be optimistic, bright and energetic. You will start seeing life in everybody because you have life in yourself. You will see life, in life. It’s not a heavy, depressive, disappointing life; instead, it’s a bright, positive, rejuvenated lifestyle every day, every moment, self-inspired. When you wake up in the morning, there will be only one question; what else can I do for this world? And the answer would be instantaneous. It may differ each day but it will be fulfilling. When you continuously invest in awareness, your life will not only be fulfilling but will have immense contentment each moment. A successful life is a well-lived life filled with happiness and contentment. We will love everything, we will love everybody, we will not judge, criticize, talk bad about people, about situations. Instead, we will only see, what can we do now in this situation? What best we can do now? How can we improve this? You will not talk about people, instead, you will talk about situations!
Imagine, you are working with somebody, and the attempt failed. There are two ways you can respond to this situation. One is to blame the other guy and say, “Because of him, I couldn’t complete it, or it was not successful.” Or you can say, “I can do better homework, and I can improve on it, along with this person; or I can give him better awareness and put him on the same page as what I think, and we can do it together.” Which is better? It is always better that we upgrade ourselves with every situation. This needs awareness. Awareness each moment; awareness over each activity, so that when you face situations, you will see, okay, this is the situation. What can I do now? How best I can do now? Here I am not asking you to reinforce your ego aspect, here I’m asking you to consider, what is your best potential? Then there are other people also, you cannot expect them all to see what you see or come into the same frequency as you. So, what can you do?
Discussion. If something has not worked, discuss the options, the pros and cons and say, “Can we work it out together?” And then attempt again; if it fails, again you make an upgraded version of the same situation and try. A few times later, it will become successful. Sometimes our own consistency, our own determination and discipline, this brings success. Our own self-confidence and ability to rise beyond the usual or ability to rise above each situation brings success. That needs awareness.
So, investing in awareness will never go wrong. You will start looking at everything, you will understand its value, you will understand the merits. If there are certain things which you don’t have to do, you will discard them, and you will not feel much about it. Only when you don’t have awareness, you are afraid to discard the unwanted. If you are fully aware, you will discard what is unwanted; you will keep what is required so that there will be clarity and there’ll be a clear purpose, while you’re at it. Everything will be visible and then it’s easy to put this together and get on with life. Bringing people together is very, very important and that shows your open-heartedness, large-heartedness. We can’t insist that everybody sees what we see, but we can definitely guide people as per their capacities and expect less, give more. Expect less. So, this is a good combination, just like awareness and flexibility; maturity and flexibility – good marriage. This is all within us. Our world is within us, we see the world as we are.
So, these thoughts might help you to understand yourself, assimilate yourself, align yourself with awareness and you can have a great bank account, very rich inside. This is your choice. Nobody is born poor in this context. You all have your potential, you can have a great bank account; you have it with you already.
Depression. It’s a very common subject. We hear that very often in the modern days. That has a lot to do with the way we live and the way we think, the way we interact with the world outside. And grossly speaking – expectations. Expectations are the root cause of most of the sorrows. The more expectations we have, we are prone to more disappointments.
So, how is depression happening? It’s to do with our interaction with the world outside, during the waking state. We have a gross body, and we have a subtle body and we have a causal body. We have the gross body, which is the tangible, physical body, which is prone to various wears and tears and various situations. And we identify ourselves with this gross body; people identify us with this gross body. But we have a subtle body, which is basically the body that experiences, using the gross body and the senses, which consists of the mind, intellect, ego, most of the koshas, the sheets, etc. So, that’s the subtle body. And then we have a causal body, which is not even experiencing anything; but it helps the subtle body and the gross body to experience. But it is not connected to any of these, so it’s not affected. The causal body is not affected, ever.
When we interact with the world outside, we usually interact with a lot of expectations; our positioning, our likes and dislikes, which are controlled by the patterns, our disposition, our behavioural patterns, our character, our constitution. All these are kind of orchestrated by our inclinations and desires. So, when we move in the world outside, we move with a lot of baggage such as social positioning, education, and various aspects that determines or decides our position in the world; we carry this burden.
When disappointments happen many times, we call that a failure. We call ourselves a failure. Sometimes, society calls people losers, brands them. And many people cannot handle it. They can’t handle failures; they can’t handle expectations. When that happens, they have great disappointments. Big anxiety happens in life. We can see in children, the examination time anxieties. Which questions will come? What will I answer? Will I be able to perform? All these kinds of things. And this is more or less everyday feelings, all these are everyday feelings, you don’t have an escape.
So, what is the root cause of depression? Unfulfilled expectations caused by patterns. And it gets repeated, it keeps repeating. And our dependency on people, places, gadgets, all these keeps us bound to the world outside. We have a great world inside which is free – an unbound world; the causal world. And this world is your refuge, that’s a good place to settle down. So that helps us to stay away from depression. The world that is stable, constant, unaffected from anything outside, even inside, that’s the right world to settle down.
So, how do we come out of depression? Start walking inside. Start connecting more and more to the inner world. First, as I said, the gross external world, which we are dependent on during waking hours which consists of materials, people, objects, visible world, a world of vision, a world of sounds; this is one aspect. Second is the inner world, which is the world which processes all these experiences, which is also a seat of memories, impressions, and it provokes or it displays the character, constitution and all those things; that is the subtle world, the inner world. And then we have the causal world which is activating all the other worlds. So, if we have that clarity, we understand that the people, the places, the time, the materials outside are applicable or enjoyable only when we are awake, and that’s not permanent. They all come, they go. We can watch them, we can witness them as they are, just like a feature film. We are watching it, we are experiencing it, but we are not participating in it. We can do that. We are fully involved in it but without expectations. If you involve with anything without expectations, immediately you will feel a great difference.
Life brings us to situations. Destiny brings us to situations. And that’s more or less inevitable, you don’t have control. Each time, each situation, each interaction, each experience; we don’t have really much control. Let it be. No problem. And inner world brings forth many, many experiences such as dreams, desires, thoughts; so many things. Let it be, let it be, no problem. So where is the problem? When we have ownership on it. When we say, ‘I do it. I am responsible. I own’. That’s where the whole burden comes. If you think or if you understand you have no control on situations, and it’s happening in front of you, inside you, and you are just an actor, you’re playing the role, and you’re having the corresponding experiences, and you enjoy it, whether it is good or bad, doesn’t matter, enjoy it; then each experience, they will come and go, time takes them away. Time brings the picture, scene, scenario, and time takes it away, whatever time brings, time removes.
So, you’re actually witnessing and watching the show, without any baggage from the past, you’re not carrying any remnants, even memories, which are not so essential, you can remember sometimes but not with attachment. Keep moving. Let it move. That way, you can stay away from states of depression. If expectations are reduced through awareness, (major awareness is everything moves on, everything passes), if we handle life with that understanding, with that awareness, with that attitude, we will not have too much of depression.
Another thing I have experienced myself is the judgment of people. People judge you whether you like it or not, they have opinions about you. And sometimes they go to the extreme, such as character assassination big-time, scandalizing, character assassination, gossiping. And that if you believe, or if you endorse, you’ll suffer. That’s the only time you’ll suffer. Understand that people are people, they may have full view, partial view, no view; they may have their own opinions as per their character, as per their constitution. And actually speaking, we have nothing to do with it.
But this awareness should be constant. While we are experiencing the blows from society, we may not remember all this, we will feel miserable because that’s exactly what they want us to feel. They want to destroy us. Due to whatever reason, it could be jealousy, it could be anger, it could be hatred, it could be revenge, whatever, it doesn’t matter. But they have decided to put us down or pull us down. What do we do? Again witness. What time brings, time takes away. The cruelty that the society inflicts on us, we got to really watch and let go. This is because if you interact, it aggravates more inside you than outside. When you take it in, it makes you suffer more than what’s happening in the outside world. The effect is terrible. So, you should let it go, let it happen, let it finish.
There must be a cause behind all this, as I said earlier, it could be jealousy, anger, hatred, revenge, anything; let anything be the cause, we are not involved. It’s not something which we created. So, something which we have not created, we are not responsible for. If the society decides to harm you in this way, I’m not telling you to be passive. I’m telling you to witness it, and step aside as much as you can or lie low until the storm is over. Stay safe. When I say safe, it’s inner safety, don’t expose it too much. When people talk bad about people, I always say, I don’t want to know. I do not want to know. Why should I bring contamination into my space? We have that option.
So, social pressure, social insecurities, social dependencies or their opinions; all those things are not important. We got to understand that we are unique. We will live our lives in a unique way as we are created. We are unique specimens. And we have the right to do that. I only talk about violence as avoidable. We should not endorse, engage and sponsor violence. Violence is not good because it hurts inside, more than outside. And consistent, continuous violence makes us insensitive, and to become sensitive, it takes a long time. So, we got to live sensibly, sensitively and consciously.
So, if we start accepting ourselves with all our weaknesses and strengths, there won’t be much depression. If we constantly reject, resist, and we constantly punish ourselves for anything happening around, thinking that we are responsible, instead of time being irresponsible; again, we will have depression. This is not something which we consciously do; it’s a pattern at work. So, how do you change the pattern? Have nothing to do with it. That means, watch, witness, let go. And you be yourself fully, settle down yourself fully. Spend more time to connect to yourself. Spend more time to be within. Like that, we can come out of states of depression and even prevent it.
I’ll leave you with these thoughts. Have a great day and a great week ahead.
Awareness is always available to you like your shadow; awareness is not outside of you. Awareness in some degree is always present in us or in any degree, it is available to us. But what we choose to use is what is actually our reality. Although we are able to tap into our own awareness (a huge reservoir of awareness is available), we choose to use only a tiny bit of it. That is why we are conditioned because our mind always uses only a fraction of what is available; the mind does not have the capacity. You have to go beyond the mind to reach the actual level of awareness; for example, the transformer outside has high capacity, but that electricity cannot be used by this house. It needs to be toned down to the level through smaller transformers before it can actually light a lamp or operate a washing machine; like that, awareness is huge, and it’s available to you. But we choose to use a very small part of it.
So, to increase the awareness, you need to go beyond the mind, beyond your ego, beyond your intellect and beyond the whole setup which you use normally in the waking state. On a usual day what you use, you have to change the pattern. And the best way is to watch. Watch your thoughts. Watch your words. Watch your actions. It’s not that you stop doing things and watch; while doing things, watch it, observe it, be objective about it. Do not criticize, do not censor, do not suppress, then what happens? Spontaneity happens; you are moving through situations in a spontaneous way. And the further and further you move through the situation spontaneously, there will be no happiness or sorrow. There are only effects, its particular experience, whether it be good or bad, or a particular expression.
That means every being is a unique constitution. Seven billion people on Earth have seven billion constitutions, uniqueness! There are no two people alike; the same way. So, once we know that we are unique beings and why we are here, we can express ourselves in the most unique way. We cannot be stereotyped, we cannot be somebody else; somebody else is somebody else. They cannot be us. So, our expressions are unique and this is exactly what we are here for. Once we understand that and when there are no big ups and downs in our mind; we are relatively stable and we are relatively detached from the daily activity. While we are doing it, we are detached from it. It means we are not indifferent, we are enjoying it, but that is not like a craving or a front-footed affair like we are always in a kind of pressured mode. Then awareness cannot survive because the mind is taking over. And when the mind takes over; many things are possible, many negative things are possible, such as wrong decisions, pressured decisions, pushing into thought, word and action; you are pushed into activity. Also, the mind distorts reality. There is probably a reason for an action to take place in a particular location, the mind inflates it, connects it to our past. You know, sometimes it mixes our past events into an event of the current time and inflates the whole situation, at least in the mind. It makes you feel, “Oh, this is a big deal, it’s a great thing, or this is bad, it shouldn’t have happened.” Actually, there was no problem, probably it was a very normal situation but our mind creates it. Like we watch a film, some people really get affected by the feature film; some people say, “Ok, it’s a good movie, a good story, nice.” So, why is there a difference? The same thing has a difference in different people. It’s because the mind operates in different ways; our constitution is different. Likewise, awareness is available 24/7 in the most expanded form. But what you choose to use is what is your reality and your understanding. Your understanding level will depend on what level of awareness you’re using. So, the higher the awareness, the more is the enjoyment; the higher the awareness, your visibility is higher, you can see things with clarity, You can see things much more distinctly, clear, based on necessity, so that you will not be interested in so many things. You will be objective, you will do what you have to do, and you will be very clear about your functions as well irrespective of who’s around you, and what the situations are.
Often, we are encouraged or discouraged by the people around us, or the situations around us, or even our upbringing; my parents did not do well, or they did not do good to me, so I am angry. So, we have somebody to blame. All this will change because awareness will take you higher, and say that these are all situational, that situation is over. We are moving forward and time is taking us forward whether we like it or not. When time takes you forward and then you are absolutely existing in the time as it moves; that means not the time of the past which is dead nor the time in the future, which is not here as yet. You are existing in the Now. This is the only reality. Let me be here now. That is perfect awareness. That is perfection in awareness. That means your operational level has shifted to the now; energy loss will not be there, because maximum energy is lost when you are moving towards the past, entertaining guilt or moving towards the future, entertaining anxiety. These two suck you away, insecurity sucks your energy away, and you feel drained. Why should there be insecurity at all? If you’re eating food today, tomorrow there should be food. There’s an old saying if God has given you the mouth, He will provide the food as well. Trust that God, whichever God you like, but this is the truth of existence. God has provided for everybody’s need, but not for everybody’s greed. This is the difference.
So, when you are in higher awareness, there’ll be no greed, you will perpetually be operating, more or less, in the plane of the Almighty. Because you cannot be self-centred or narrow-minded, with a higher awareness; both cannot sit together; both will not sit together. And what is the nature of God, the highest entity – Unconditional love, nothing else. The operating level itself is unconditional love. You and I are one, there’s no duality. This is a higher awareness. This is understanding.
So, higher awareness is available. It can be easily achieved if you’re able to objectively observe your thoughts, your words, your actions. At that time, I do not exist, a situation exists and a situation has been brought by my inherent karma; it brought this time, space and myself into it. So be it. It’s fine. That awareness will help you to move on in life, or float through life without many upheavals, even if there is calamity around, we will be fine. If society is filled with people who are fine, society will be a better place. Calamities, murders, rapes all those things will not happen because suppression brings forth reactions. The more you suppress, the more is the tendency to burst the wall and come out, eruption happens.
So, higher understanding, higher awareness always brings you into a perfect balance. It gives you equanimity in existence and equanimity leads to liberation.
Transcribed by Padmini Ravikumar
Proofread by Rekha Murali
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Mohanji: Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them. Keep sending them. I will try to answer them as best as I can.
Speaker: This question asks, “How does one deal with envy experienced by both oneself, and by others towards us? This is for both materialistic and spiritual envy.”
Mohanji: Jealousy, envy, such matters; it’s habitual. You can’t really do much about it. But we can do something about it. The illusion that something is better is what causes envy normally, or the fascination for something which others have, which we think we do not have; this causes envy and jealousy. And people feeling jealous about us because of our accomplishments or because of our lifestyle, or because of our personality, how we look, how we talk, how we interact in life; you cannot do anything about it. And you should not. Just live your life and ignore everything around you in that manner, in that context. Just be yourself totally. There will be envy, there will be jealousy, especially if you dare to live your life as effortless as you could. There will be envy.
One man told me that he really hates me. I asked him, “Why do you hate me?” He said, “You’re too effortless. You’re handling everything effortlessly. For you, life is effortless. I know that you’ve gone through tremendous pains, but it’s not visible on your face. You’re effortless. I can’t do that. Everything that I do is effortful. I have to put a lot of effort, right from getting up in the morning to do daily chores, relationships, everything has effort. So, when I look at you, I see my deficiencies. And that makes me hate you.”
So I told him, “I’m happy.” You could voice it that itself is half the war won. If you are able to voice your deepest feelings, there is a great chance of improvement coming out of it. If you’re able to articulate it, address it, diagnose it; that itself is half the war won. But I would strongly recommend you should not change your ways unless it is for the positive, it is for upgrading yourself. Otherwise, you should not change. Every day see how you can upgrade yourself. See how you can improve yourself and position yourself better. This is a good sign of youthfulness, that’s the youthfulness that you can carry with you, and you can experience in life. But regarding silly things like jealousy and envy of others or you or you over others, see, we do not have any control over others movements. Some people may be successful in your eyes; some people may be failures in your eyes. It has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with you. Whether it is success or failure, according to you, in real life, it doesn’t matter. It’s just our opinions.
Why should we be envious about somebody? We shouldn’t. We just appreciate, “Oh, this person has done well. Very good. Or this person is conducting himself well, he is managing relationships well.” If you can take some cue from there or some tips on how to improve your life with that, good enough. Otherwise, just leave it.
Likewise, if somebody has envy or jealousy over you, you can’t control it. That only says that it’s an appreciation in disguise. Because, if somebody is jealous or envious about you that means you’re doing well in their eyes. So, it’s an appreciation in disguise, be grateful. But you should not do much about it, don’t try to prove anything to them. Instead, what you should do is that, if somebody like this person who spoke to me that he hates me, so I said, “Okay, how do you sort it out? All your life you’re going to hate me? Or you want to sort it out?” Then he said, “I don’t know how.” I said, “I’ll tell you how. First and foremost, if you love what you do, you will be successful. If you do not love what you do, try to love what you have to do. This is very important. Sometimes destiny gives you some things which you have to do. Then start loving it, start appreciating it. At least you have an activity, which is bringing in money. So be grateful. Secondly, this effortless you talked about. Do you know why I’m effortless? Because I really love what I do. And I have a clear purpose. So, increase your purpose, clear purpose, clarity of purpose, not for your personal gains but look at what else you can do using your skills, your own limitations or no limitations or capacities, whatever it is. Use your potential to the best. You will have more self-esteem, you’ll start developing self-esteem. You will feel more relevant in this world, automatically, you will be effortless because there’ll be self-inspiration, self-motivation connected to the clarity of purpose. The purpose should not be something very small, it should be large. Large purpose means doing something good for the world, not just for yourself. Just having a house or child or family, this is not the thing, doing something much larger for the world. If you are able to realign yourself, you have tremendous capacity, you will start feeling that. This is the way.”
We can address these things positively if they are open to it. If they are not open to it, and they decide that envy is better, or they decide that being envious is alright, or they don’t even know, unconsciously, habitually they are doing it, ignore it. We have nothing to do with it. And we must never compromise or try to tone down ourselves because somebody is envious about us. A lot of people will be envious when we are seemingly successful. How is he able to do this? How is he able to conduct like this? Or how is he able to influence? All this is connected to jealousy and envy. They need a justification to put the other down or some kind of opinion to put the other down. So, just ignore it. Because they won’t hold water for long. Reality is always better. And people will start noticing the truth sooner or later. People are not stupid. They know what’s going on, so they will see the truth. So, you trust the people, let them see the truth.
And the jealous minds will definitely talk, they will talk bad about us or anybody in the society. And you can see some people are negative by nature. Whatever you do, they will be thinking only negatively. That’s their disposition, their whole disposition is like that. What can you do about it? Unless they want to change, you can’t change them. Just don’t think about all these things. What you can avoid, you avoid. What you cannot avoid, you ignore. This is the way to go.
We should not be envious or jealous of anybody because that’s a perfect illusion. And that’s ignorance. So, we should not be engaging in that. Think about it. This is a question. This is a point which really deserves a deep thought.
Do discuss this with your friends. Contemplate on it, and increase your awareness, step by step.
Thus Spake Mohanji 