Personal Effectiveness

Welcome to Mohanji speaks.

Hello, my dear friends,

Today, let us think about certain aspects of our life, which are taking away a lot of our energy; the aspects that consume our energy more, are the wasted matters of our life, not the necessary aspects. I will talk about a few of these. Look at three C’s of our life and I mean the alphabet ‘C ‘- Criticism, Comparison, Competition.

Let us begin with the last one, competition. We have been trained to compete with somebody or something. But have we ever thought, at any point in time, whether it is necessary, or not? And usually, more often than not, it is not necessary. We don’t need it. But competition is not a negative word. You can definitely compete with yourself. That will help you to improve yourself.

 

The second C is Criticism. Who is our most bitter critic? We ourselves are. We criticize ourselves more than the whole world criticizes us. We judge ourselves more than the entire world. We are our most beloved friend, as well as the most hated enemy. It’s all us. Everything is us. Criticism takes away a lot of time. It even affects our self-esteem. We compromise our experiences for the sake of critical view, comparisons. What are the comparisons with?

Imagine you are an orange, and you are comparing yourself with an apple. Definitely, you’re not the apple. You are an orange and be proud of it.

You are who you are. You are inevitably yourself. You are unique. You are original. You are authentic. 

If you clearly understand this, you realize that you can’t compare with anybody else. Comparison is stupidity. In fact, that time can be used for actualization; that means coming closer to yourself, exploring your authenticity, your original state, your originality. That time is worth it. This is the alternative to comparing ourselves with others, creating a type of competition within and in the bargain, exhausting us too! Is it worth it? Absolutely not! It’s a waste of time.

Along with it, we see that children, (because we have groomed them or we have tuned them like that) are always in the mode of competition or comparison. We compare them with other children. “Hey, look at that boy, or that girl, how well they are doing, how good they are!” etc. This, in fact, creates more divisions in our children, more confusion in them. Instead, if we gently help them to come to terms with their own uniqueness, originality, that would be the biggest gift that we can give to our children. 

We have a great life, but only if we understand it with clarity. Our life is great; it is an amazing life. We don’t experience its greatness, first and foremost because we resist a lot; we resist too much; we cling on to certain bad things of the past. And we don’t let them go. A thing of the past stays on, only if the mind holds that experience or the mind analyzes it and enjoys it in a way, to be in its presence or having a presence in our life. But that’s unnecessary junk. The past is finished; we have nothing to do with it.

Today is our reality. How our authentic are you today? How effective are you today? How much are you able to experience life today?

We are only experiencing our authenticity, our uniqueness. We are not experiencing anything else; we are experiencing the world, as we are. This connection with ourselves will help us much with the contentment factor. 

If we stop criticizing, comparing and competing, look at our world; how will the world be with all unique people, all authentic and all original, walking this earth, expressing their originality and authenticity? The world will be brighter. However, at present, 80% of the people in the world are busy competing, comparing, criticizing, judging and analyzing each other. And what do you get at the end of the day? Disappointments, sheer frustrations, anxieties, fears, jealousy, guilt and regrets are the effects. We can avoid these. We can indeed avoid all these emotions, easily, if we were to connect to our authenticity; if we could connect to our originality, accept it totally, against all odds, and if we could ignore the opinions of others about us unless it is creative criticism. If the criticism is from somebody who’s guiding us to actualize ourselves, it is creative criticism. Someone who is guiding us to explore our own authenticity is creative and that is a good suggestion or criticism. That’s fine. Apart from that, nothing else is important.

Our own connection with ourselves is the most authentic connection you can ever make in a lifetime. Anything else, any opinions, any criticisms, is not important.

Anything that helps you to connect with yourself is good. Anything which explores your authenticity is good. Anything which reminds you of your originality is good. And those are the good things of life, not the materials you get, not the positions, or the possessions; they are all temporary. But your own exploration of your authenticity is permanent. And that makes you an effective person and a compelling personality.

You are your own ally. Don’t be your own enemy.

I’ll leave you with this thought today; think about it. We’ll talk about something else, next time. Have a good day.

This is Mohanji for you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopal

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Q&A – How do we best raise our children in these difficult times?

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 is about parenting small children, especially in the current times. The question really centers around, how do we keep spirits alive and help them realize the beauty and goodness in the world, despite having to constantly remind them not to hug others, not to touch articles outside, not to meet friends? And for this person, it’s breaking the heart to see the child indoors, alone at home.

Mohanji: The question is about how to bring the children up the way you expect them to be. First and foremost, every child born in the world is the responsibility of society, not only the parents. First of all, try to get your ownership away from children. When you do not have ownership, then you have a better connection. When you have ownership, you have flavored connection. You own the person. This is my child. I want this child to be like this, etc.

You have to gently bring them to this awareness of how they should be in the world, and you have to lead by example. You cannot avoid the pressure or the presence of the society from the lives of your children. Not even you. That presence and pressure will affect everybody; in a good way or a bad way. Do we have any control over our children? They came through us; that’s okay. But they don’t belong to us. Every child belongs to only themselves. They don’t even belong to the society; but it’s the responsibility of the society, which is a conglomeration to take care of each child. And what we have in the society, what is the mental structure, collective consciousness; that’s reflected in each child of the society – every child.

Parents, teachers, society, if you take all these three, the highest and the most important in the society; then comes parents and then come teachers. All these aspects have to be equally understood. A child is a complete character. A child comes to this world with a character, a constitution, a particular inclination, tendency, and a set of desires. It’s obviously not the same for everyone; each person has their inclinations, tendencies, likes and dislikes, desires, all distinct, even in the same family. What contaminates a relationship is the ownership and what enriches a relationship is freedom.

Freedom is the best message you can actually deliver to a child with your own life. Freedom is not freedom of the senses and mind; it’s freedom from the senses and mind. If you live that in your own household, and if you demonstrate that on an everyday basis, not as a teaching, but as a lifestyle, children will pick it up. If we demonstrate the power of compassion, kindness, unconditional love, selflessness, caring, sharing, every day; and bring your children along with you while you demonstrate it in your own life; not to teach them but to show them that this makes heaven on Earth. Then the child will start connecting to it at some point in time, even if they get influenced by the bad effects of the society for some time, they will have this in the back of their mind that there is a possibility of heaven on Earth. This is within us. We have that power; we have that means and stability to bring forth. So, this is the thing, when we talk to a child, don’t try to give them lessons, instead, try to give them awareness. The best way to give them awareness is through the life stories of great Masters. When I say Masters, do not think they are saints or spiritual people; Masters is somebody who has exercised their purpose against all odds and found success.

Again, as I say, according to me, success means the contentment factor; satisfaction over life. Every moment satisfaction, not like a satisfaction at the time of death, or to the latest stage of life, not like that. For me, contentment is much more important than possessions and positions. For me, richness means contented life. This is real richness; having a contented life is real richness for me. It’s not about what I have. It’s about how I perceive life, how I accept life, how I live my life. Even if you have billions, you can only have one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner; you can only sleep in one bed. You can have any amount of luxury but how would you use it? So, contentment factor is not connected to materials; it’s not connected to relationships. We change relationships quite often to find the right relationship; but mostly we are not contented. It is not about changing relationships; it’s not searching outside, it’s searching inside. You search inside and find yourself. You are contented, and that gives contentment to everything outside.

These are fundamental things which we can guide children into with our own life, not through teachings, not through messages, not through punishments. I hate punishing children; there’s no need to do that. Instead, you can live a great life and show this to children. For a small child, the father and the mother are great personalities. They admire them, they should admire them with their own lifestyle. And don’t ridicule or gossip or talk bad about any spouse in front of the children. When you say that “Your father is not good”, or when the father says “The mother is not good”, the child develops conflict within. The child doesn’t understand; he feels that there is a betrayal going on here. (Not exactly in those words but that’s the effect) A child looks at a relationship, in terms of love, (a small child) hug, love, feeling, kissing, very much understood; but disparities, enmities, revenge, not understood. And if a child grows up seeing that; how can you expect a better society? So, it’s important!

A child is the responsibility of everybody, the society, as well as the parents as well as the teachers, in a different order. When we consistently show compassion, kindness, love, the child will be stabilized in that. By the time the child is five or six, he would have established himself in love. And he will not choose any other option because there’s no better option than love. So, this is the point, when a child comes up in love, basking in love, swimming in love, filled in love; he will not express anger, hatred and jealousy, in the world outside. Even he would probably transform the world with love. And this possibility is always there.

So how do you groom your children? Very simple, you have to lead by example. You have to be love, you should never pretend, no hypocrisy because children catch it very fast. You got to live it yesterday, today, tomorrow, day after; that means, every day, live the same thing; love, compassion, kindness. And always understand that discrimination of any kind, including racism, speciesism, and all kinds of ‘isms’ which discriminates people and beings and every creation; is not understood by a small child. They don’t see the life that way. But as we grow up with our conditionings, we start looking at things in that way. So, don’t bring this to children. You should live a life beyond every ‘isms’; beyond man-made barriers that will give stability to a child.

We need a society rooted in absolute compassion. We need a society away from corruption, selfishness. We need a society rooted in selflessness. “How can I help you?”, should be the question. “Can I help you? How else can I help you? How else can I serve you?” This should be the question, and let the child see you performing this all the time. And the child will transform itself into a powerful personality, filled with compassion, with kindness and love. This is the best thing you can give to the world – great child, a great son or daughter rooted in compassion, kindness and love, with the ability to transform the society with it. There is nothing more powerful than love. And here, you are creating legends, great personalities. You have the capacity, every parent has the capacity. Do not restrict the children, do not bind them. Instead, give them freedom; as I said, again, freedom is not freedom of senses; it’s freedom from senses, and give contentment, with what you have. Love as you are, and leave the world better, much higher than you got the world from the past.

Thank you for listening to this podcast. Do contemplate on it, do discuss with your friends, and let me know what you feel. If you have further questions, do send them to me.

Thank you. This is Mohanji for you.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Padmini Ravikumar

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Q&A – Is it possible to be totally unselfish?

Mohanji: Dear friends, 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 comes from a listener who asks, “How to be totally unselfish?” So, on the face of it, for him or her, people may think that they’re quite unselfish, but deep down, they know that this isn’t 100% true. The heart cannot even feel 100% gratitude or 100% love. So, it’s not total. What can be done to correct the situation?

Mohanji: Nobody is unselfish. We all are selfish in an absolute sense. But in daily life, we can choose to be selfless, that’s our choice. Why did I say that we are all selfish? Only one main reason, because we are karmic beings. What is karma? Primarily, unfulfilled desires. Unfulfilled desires mean desires which seek fulfillment. That means it’s selfish pleasures or selfish fulfilment, contentment, completion. In that context, all of us are selfish, right from childhood. From birth, till death, we are pursuing the completion of our own unfulfilled desires. So, when you look at this, every moment, it’s our satisfaction, our gratification, whatever the activity is. It could be any kind of desire; minor, major, small, big, easy to fulfill, difficult to fulfill, any type of desire, you name it. But it’s all for personal gratification. Where is contentment? Inside us. Where is satisfaction? Inside us. Where is happiness? Inside us. Where is joy, bliss? Everything is inside us. It’s our satisfaction, it’s our gratification. That means we are selfish.

Then, there is this exaggerated version of selfishness, that is connected to things outside of us. Our need for things which are not ours, by merit. It means, we have a desire but we do not often deserve it. What comes to us is what we deserve not all that we desire. What we desire may happen at that time or may not happen as per our eligibility. Sometimes, what we desire happens immediately or sometimes in space and time, much later. A desire, if it is strong enough, if it cannot be fulfilled becomes a pending desire. And that’s the ingredient for further existence.

How can we change the selfishness which we display in the world outside? We can change the way we look at the world. We look at whatever is outside of us, as outside, even if that thing comes in our life or does not come in our life. End of the day, it’s only about a certain set of experience, regarding that object, regarding that person or in association with that person or situation.

Summing up, our life is a bundle of experiences of various levels, various times, various situations. Experiences are the essence of our existence. When we realize or when our awareness grows beyond the selfish feelings of ownership, we understand that end of the day it’s only experience. Like for example, you’ve got to have a place to stay, you need a place to stay, whether it’s a rented house, or it’s your own house. It really doesn’t make a difference as long as you are comfortable, you’re okay. A good place to stay is good enough. But the mind will definitely tell, “No, no, no, but you don’t own it, so you should own it. What if somebody asks you to leave.” Okay, those kinds of things, yes. But finally, when it all boils down, it’s your experience of being in one place or having the shelter. So, this is the way we can look at everything in life. You’re hungry; you have food. What food comes is not important. Did you like the food? If the experience is good, you should accept it.

Like that, if you look at life, narrow it down to the necessity level in terms of experience, then you should be okay. That takes you off the selfish attitude, “I must have it all. I should have better than other people.” Then the competition, the comparison, all those things will not happen; provided you’re happy, you’re contented. That doesn’t mean that you are lethargic. That’s not the point here. It’s not lethargy, it’s not that you don’t do anything at all and think that everything will fall on your lap, it won’t happen that way. But we need to work hard with full awareness, keeping the awareness intact. We should be fully aware, that we are only experiencing life here. We are not owning anything, we can’t own anything permanently. Awareness is the best antidote to tackle selfishness. And compulsive acts of selflessness totally takes it away, eradicates it.

Thank you for listening to this podcast. Contemplate on it. Do discuss with your friends. And let me know what you feel. If you have further questions do send them to me. Thank you.

This is Mohanji for you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Q&A – Overcoming health issues, keeping the faith

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.

Q: This question is about health. This person is struggling every day with health and on many days wants to give up.

The question is, “How do we keep the faith that our health could be cured. How can we learn to live with it? This person knows that people have overcome their diseases. But could you please give some advice on how to keep the faith and be strong when facing such pain?

Mohanji: Health is your right. It’s your birthright. When we talk about health as a birthright, what is the other side? Lack of health. Lack of health means somewhere some blockages are happening. Now you have asked the question between health and faith. They are not the same. Faith is an all-important thing like faith opens the doors for grace to flow. So, faith is a very fundamental thing. Primary faith is to yourself as an incarnation. With your health or without health, you’re an incarnation. All the great people have transcended their limitations and found the truth, found completion, found satisfaction.

We can transcend any obstacle in life. When you have that attitude of survival, which is an instinct inbuilt into every creation if you intensify that intensity for survival, health becomes all right. Everybody who has really, really done what they could in life, have strived for it. First and foremost is to stop the attitude of giving up. Instead, bring an attitude for survival. And then, you will automatically reach the right doctors, the right guides, and the right people who will guide you out of this situation. What created this? Probably various emotions suppressed for a long period of time became blockages. We can call it karmic blockages, patterns which we have carried.

Sometimes we are used to diseases and we think this is essential to living. It’s ironical but that’s the truth. Sometimes we carry the diseases; we entertain diseases because we think this is part of us, part of our existence. It’s important to detach from all these things and connect to your consciousness, which has no disease. Diseases are connected to physical or mental. Otherwise, there are no diseases; your soul can never have diseases or illnesses. The soul has no high or low, the soul is always the same. You have within you a faculty, which remains the same, in a very contented mode, all the time. What fluctuates? The mind fluctuates, intellect and ego fluctuate, and the body fluctuates. Now you understand how you can come beyond it. You are not the body, you’re not the mind, you’re not the intellect, and you’re not the ego. What are you? You are the Supreme Consciousness taking a human experience on Earth.

So why do you attach yourself to diseases? Why do you entertain them? Why do you think about them? Of course, if you have it, you accept it. There are certain situations. There are blind people, there are handicapped people. There are people who are brain dead or have deformities on a physical and emotional level. Psychosomatic diseases, they’re all existing. But if you accept your situation, if you’re not in conflict with your situation, and if you do not resist, with awareness, you overcome the blockages inside and questions like, “Why should I live? What is the use? What is the purpose?” There must be a purpose. There must be an experience. There are experiences; your situation itself is your experience.

So, this is the point, acceptance of yourself as you are. And don’t compare, no comparisons with anybody. Don’t look at the healthy person and say, “Oh I’m not like that.” Instead, look at a very, very sick person, and think, ‘Yes, I’m better off, I can be better further.’ If you develop that attitude in life, you will be successful. And you can successfully come out of every disease, or at least reduce its intensity. As I said earlier, you will reach such people who can help you get cured; you can reach many people who have survived these things which will give you inspiration. There’s nothing in life, which is permanent, everything can change. But we must have the attitude, just like all the great people who have fallen many times before they found success. And sometimes society ridiculed them and criticized them, judged them, contaminated them with bad thoughts. Still, they came out of all this, and they walked. They walked until they found success. And sometimes beyond, they become legends.

Legends are created by attitude. Attitude creates legends. It’s not that they are born with it, and they have much support from society, usually not. Society does not accept people easily, especially contemporaries, what society accepts are people who are dead. Most of the acceptance happens posthumously, not at the same time. We must understand that it’s our journey. It’s our life, our set of experiences, our presence, and our expressions. This is what we are, we are ourselves. You have every right to be happy. And you have to be happy by accepting every situation. The moment you start accepting, energy blockages starts getting diluted. When you resist, they stay. When you do not accept yourself, when you criticize yourself, judge yourself, compare yourself with others, blockages remain. Instead, accept yourself. Look at yourself as a unique creation. Never compare, never criticize others, and never judge others. When you do all that you become powerful, purposeful.

Create a large purpose. Let your limitations be your inspiration. We have seen many people handicapped with no hands, no legs, but they motivate people to great awareness that you don’t need any of these. Still, you can be powerful in the world. It’s an attitude; we can decide to be successful. And what is success? Everyday contentment factor is a success, not the money in your bank account, not the wealth and possessions, they all come and go. But are you contented with yourself? That’s a success. If you’re not, that’s your first priority. That’s your best purpose. So, we have a successful person sitting inside, waiting to come out and express itself, understand that accept that, help uncover that. You can be very successful. Diseases or no diseases, ailments or no ailments, doesn’t matter if your attitude is right. Every day will be sunshine. Otherwise, every day will be clouded. This is your choice.

Do discuss this with your friends. Contemplate on it, and increase your awareness, step by step, Wish you great success in life.

Lots of love. This is Mohanji.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan

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A contented life is a successful life

Hello friends. This is Mohanji.

I hope you have enjoyed and digested all the previous topics, especially the last few ones, which was resistance.

Today, I would like to talk about contentment. Contentment is, according to me, success. A contented life is a successful life. Why do I say that? It is because the usual method of human fulfillment is desire – fulfillment – satisfaction – contentment. This is the way we work. Now, we reach a stage where we have a desire, for example, I’d like to have a coffee now. But if the coffee is not available also, I am not dissatisfied. So, our whole attitude has changed if the fulfillment happened or not, we are still fine.

So, we have reached a level of maturity where our dependency on things outside us, has reduced. That means, where are we depending, what are we depending on? Inside. This is a fundamental shift in awareness. We are less dependent on things outside, and we are more contented with ourselves. We are pretty much stable. We are stable on a constant basis.

What can we do about this aspect? A lot of people have spoken about that. The space for peace is between an inhalation and an exhalation; the gateway to heaven is between an inhalation and an exhalation. There’s a tiny little space where it is silent. We concentrate on that silence or we concentrate on our heartbeat. Between a sound and silence, there is a space, so we concentrate on that space. Like that, we have various methods.

But today, we are on a very fast track board. We are doing so many things. Many things we do unconsciously, so do we get satisfaction? I doubt. We don’t even know that we are doing all these things. So, how do we maintain satisfaction? One of the methods is to concentrate on the work, focus on the work. Do it as perfect as you can. Dive into it and do it with your absolute attention, full application, and full concentration, then leave the result. Where does the result go wrong? When we have an expectation and if the result did not meet that expectation, we have disappointment.

So, human disappointment is connected to expectation usually. But if you just leave it like that, concentrate on the work fully; full application, full concentration, full dedication, then whatever the result is, we are happy with it. So, our focus is diverted to the activity, not the result. That is a very, very big shift, a major shift in our life.

 

 

As I said earlier, the success factor of life is contentment factor. If we don’t have contentment in life, we don’t have any success. We may have money, we may have properties, we may have so many materials in the outside world, but no inner satisfaction. That’s not a successful life according to me. Also, I feel that we should concentrate on just the activity, with full good intention. The intention should be good, pure and we should make sure that it’s not harmful to anybody. We should not create anything which is harmful to others. We should only do activities that are beneficial. You know, when I say harmful that means it is sadistic, destructive, or it leaves a negative balance or negative impact in the society. That’s what I call harmful. We should never do that. And we should concentrate on ourselves to maintain this purity of intention and purity of action. That means the results are also pure.

What you sow, that you reap. So, if you sow the seeds of purity, you will reap purity. So, this is exactly how it is. So, our selfish pleasures, our selfishness, our insecurities, the various things that we have stored inside; we should not even look at it; instead, we focus on good work, positive work, good action, and then it would be something bright and positive.

So, I leave you with these thoughts now, because these are fundamental thoughts. And you can actually build a positive attitude with these thoughts. We will discuss more such thoughts later. But I don’t want to talk too much. These are foods for thought. And please think about it, ponder it, discuss it and try to make a system out of it. It is a positive action and less dependency on the results, and more dependency all within ourselves.

I always say, if you want to read one book in this life, the book that you must read is called YOU. You are the book, you must read. This is very important. I leave you with this thought. Perfect yourself which you can. Only you can. Let’s take it forward like that.

I love you and I’m always with you, and this is a good way to interact. I’m sure you’re enjoying it. And if you have any suggestions, please write to podcast@mohanji.org. And our people will analyze those messages and we’ll also reply. I may not be able to handle it myself all the time but I will get those messages which are relevant. And if you have a particular topic, if you have a particular subject which you want me to talk about, I’m happy to do that.

Lots of love.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Why do we fail to help others?

Hello friends! This is Mohanji.

Today, I would like to answer a question from a young man. “How do you make other people successful when you have lots of things to do?”

Well, it’s a beautiful question. I liked it. It is because making other people successful – that’s a very big thought. To be honest with you, I never thought of it that way. I did not think I am making other people successful. I made this platform called Mohanji and so many people are finding fulfillment with this and I would like to attribute it to the Tradition. I always attribute everything to the Tradition. I do not take any ownership.

Having said that, where do we start? It’s a big question, right? We have to start somewhere. We have to help ourselves. We have to be stable to hold the hands of another person; who’s probably looking for help or maybe he may have not explored himself, in any way. We can guide a person to himself or we can give guidance to those who need guidance; all these are possible. Anyway, everything is fine.

I was looking at how did I help myself? So, I went back to my own life; my childhood, my youth, my working time – working in a company, at these times, what was l doing? I was helping myself. I was basically helping myself and in the bargain, I might have helped others. But what are we doing actually in life? This question we should always ask. It’s a very important question. I was looking at this whole perspective in a very logical way; not spiritually but just logically. The building-up stage, I have received a lot of assistance; we all have – from our parents, from the teachers, from everybody.

So many factors have built us up. This being which we call ‘us’ today have a lot of background. There has been a lot of support from many people. First of all, starting from your mother because a mother has always nine months more relationship with you than anybody else in the society; you stayed in her stomach for nine months before you came out into the society. So, a mother has a deeper connection. Starting from a mother, step by step, stage by stage, we have received a lot of help from the people, from society, from the environment, from nature.

All our aspirations, all our feelings, all our emotions have something to do with something. It’s not just stand-alone. So, if you look at this large canvas of who helped us, we will have to say so many things; uncountable, you don’t know even how to count. It’s been so many. And it will give you a lot of wonders. My God! All these years we have walked on Earth but we never acknowledged anybody, any being. We took almost everything for granted. We never appreciated deeply. Are we right? Probably we have appreciated partially, selectively; that’s all fine. But have we really understood and appreciated? That makes a difference here. We complain, “Oh, this is not right, that is not right. People are not okay. They’re not giving me enough” etc. But have we started appreciating everything that has happened to us.

Everything has contributed; what you are today is a total of all these contributions and experiences; good experiences, bad experiences, everything together. We have understood life. We have understood people in whichever capacity because of all these experiences. Isn’t this wonderful? It’s really wonderful. Then, you reach a level of maturity where you start giving what you have to others; your experience, your time, your love, your money, what you have in abundance. Whatever you have in abundance, you would like to share because you realize that this makes you happier. This is happiness. This makes you happier, this makes you more purposeful. This is life. At that point in time, we don’t look back, we go ahead. Okay, this is what it is.

Likewise, we are born into a family. But do we have a family? Do we really have a family? This question should be asked. Why did we not have a family? It is because we never accepted ourselves in the first place. So, we have to help ourselves. Only when we help ourselves, we can help the world. Only when we accept ourselves, we can accept others. So, it is all about us; how we handle ourselves. If we handle ourselves with anger, disappointment, insecurity, so many factors which pulls us down, then we will handle the world the same way. The world is just a reflection; it’s like a mirror. What you see outside will be this. When we blame somebody else, understand we are actually blaming ourselves. Because we can’t blame ourselves and get away with it, we blame other people and in that bargain, you spoil a relationship. We compare, why do we compare? Those who compare are heavily insecure. Those who are really secure, those who are very happy, very contented with oneself will never compare. There’s nothing to compare. You appreciate another person, not compare.

 

So, when we compete, it’s the same thing. We have some deficiency. We feel that we are not up there. So we try to compete with another; to beat that person in a certain game, in certain aspects of life. And then we feel good. But look at this whole thing. Are we really happy with all this? Never! We are never contented. We become contented only when we become helpful in the world. That gives us perpetual peace. That gives us contentment. That’s very important to remember. So, when we try to help others, when we decide, “I would like to help the world spontaneously”, automatically, we’re helping ourselves and we are stabilizing ourselves. We are being stable; we are being purposeful. So, helping others is spontaneous when you are already stable. You can see that in the world.

Most of the people who are at a great level of awareness, they are always available to the world. They don’t sit at home and have personal enjoyments. Those who are insecure and sometimes those who have not accepted themselves, those who have not helped themselves, or those who have not really groomed themselves, beyond the competitions and comparisons, they have to do that first. They are not available to the world because they are leading a selfish life. They do not agree with people, they do not accept people, they do not really love people. But they expect love. Can you get love when you don’t give love? You can’t. You get only what you give. This is the way the world is made. So we have to understand, we have to look within and we have to find ourselves. And that platform which I think I have provided, that is my biggest contribution; a platform where you can find yourself and you can express yourself freely. It’s not behind somebody, ahead of somebody, it’s together with everybody.

So this is something which I would like to give you as food for thought. Why do we fail to help others? Try to find the answer. Go within, look within, contemplate. And see what makes you not help others, or what makes you compare with others. What makes you compete with others? Understand that this is all sitting within us. You don’t have to do any of this. We are unique. We have all the power, all the facilities that existence can ever provide. And we are unique, absolutely unique. This is the thought I would like to leave you with until I see you next time. Ponder over it, discuss among yourselves. Try to build something out of it. Try to build a structure out of it. All the things I’m giving you are to improve yourself and your standards of living. I would like to leave you with this. Wish you a great day and time and I’m always with you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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