10 on 10 on 10 – An interview

Pareen (Host): Good morning! Good evening to you if you are joining us from across the world! Welcoming you all to 10 on 10 on 10, where we all come together on the 10th of every month at 10 O’clock to meditate for 10 minutes; to merge with our collective consciousness!

Today our guest, who is guiding us, is none other than the world-renowned humanitarian, Mohanji, who believes that Humanity is our religion and Ahimsa is the way to practice it. He has devoted his life to making people aware of the higher goals such as kindness, love, and compassion and continues to strive to do this, each day.

I am very grateful to him for agreeing to guide us through this meditation today. So without much ado, Mohanji, please take it away!

Mohanji: Thank you, Pareen. Good day to all you who are listening. Without much description, I will start with the meditation.

Mohanji starts the meditation process (3min-13.08)

Pareen: I can feel a wave of calm gushing through me. We have one or two questions which we would like to ask if it is allowed.

The first question is a lot of times; people are not in touch with the compassion that resides within them. Is there a way that we can assist people in looking within and finding that compassion within, especially when it comes to expressing it towards animals?

Mohanji: The best message you can give to the world is your life if you live it. Like we talk about Mahatma Gandhi, we talk about various great leaders or legends of the past, because they lived what they believed in. The preaching and talking about it to people may have very little effect. But when you live it, it has a great effect. The biggest lesson, we can give to the world is ourselves. 

We have to invest in, what we believe in; that will become a message to the world. 

Mohanji

So, if we really want the world to be compassionate, we should exercise it, and we should do it, and deliver it to the world, consistently. And also, sometimes when we express compassion and kindness, unconditionally, the society may not accept it. But society will remember it. Initially, people may ridicule; people may not appreciate it; people may not accept it. But eventually, people will honour it, saying that this man or this woman was consistent in his or her conviction. 

Our biggest message, the greatest message is ourselves; how we live; what we believe in, and how much determination we have, in expressing our conviction.

Mohanji

Pareen: Yes. That’s indeed a powerful message! Be the change you want to see.

Mohanji: Yes

Pareen: This will be our final question. Today being the World mental health day, it’s really important that, as activists, we take care of our mental health. Our activism comes from a place of caring, a place of love. How can we give back to ourselves and keep reminding ourselves that we need to sometimes, maybe hit reset ourselves, as well?

Mohanji: Mental health has become a question in the world because we have become unnatural, most of the time. The society or the education system has created people who are conducive or compliant, to the social, religious or other structure we have. But we are not like that. 

We are a flow; we are like a river. We are natural, like a child!

A small child, is always natural, always happy, being itself. The moment we started growing up, we decided that we are adults and hence have to behave in a certain way. We have to present ourselves in a certain way, maybe even in a hypocritical way; we can see the hypocrisy also. We are projecting what we are not in various situations. All this has made us unnatural. So, we have to get back to our natural state;  being ourselves, being totally ourselves. 

How do we measure that state? It’s very simple. When you are natural, you’re effortless. When you are unnatural, when you have to wear a mask, you have to make an effort for it. Like for example, anger is not natural. Anger is something that violates the inside, right? But love is natural; it doesn’t violate anything inside; Kindness is natural! Compassion is natural! 

So, we have to go natural, and what expands you, what makes you happy, liberated, and free, that is exactly what we should perform. 

And as I said earlier, not everybody may accept you as naturally as you are, because people bring expectations. This is their problem. We are not here to cater to the expectations of other people. We are here to demonstrate what we believe in; that is our expression. Our natural expression, or what we are, as we express it, that’s the most authentic thing. But if you try to be somebody else, if you try to pretend, if you try to adapt to some requirement of the society, which we are not; then it will all go crazy.

The basic reason for the mental or emotional fluctuations is because of these unnatural things; because of compulsions. We are compulsively doing things, or are compelled to follow certain principles or methods, which is not suitable for us. I always believe that mental health is a serious affair; we have to start from the school days. 

When we put a lot of pressure on a child to study that which a child doesn’t have a taste for, a child is never natural. And we bring up a child to study for the sake of a job or career or money. The child has no time to be himself or herself. This is a fundamental issue. That is why we have to discuss mental health. Such a problem leads to depression and various complexes. It also leads to a feeling that life is not good; that life can never be justified, and so on. People commit suicide, right? All these extreme situations are happening because we have not identified the imbalances happening due to social pressure.

At the same time, in our old system, we had the balance. We know that children were taught what they are suitable for. They were not taught something as per the social needs. And such people lived well; a person likes to make clothes will make clothes; some person likes to do cobbler work, they will do that; someone will become a doctor. A person’s inclinations will take the person forward. So, this is important. We need to understand; everybody is unique. Nobody’s higher; nobody’s lower; nobody is equal. All of us are unique, and that uniqueness is exactly what makes our minds stable. Understanding that uniqueness, accepting that uniqueness, expressing that uniqueness, makes us stable. We deserve it; we have the right for it.

It is our responsibility as adults to take care of children, and also the society as every child is the property of society. Society has the responsibility; society has to bring up children to be as unique as possible so that the world will be brilliant. Whenever there is inequality, whenever there is mental imbalance; there is violence. We can cut down on all the violence and also set aside the religions and look at Humanity as the most important thing in the world. You know, it’s not about religious dogmas, it’s about Humanity. 

And what we can do as human beings in the world, how we can take care of the world, how can we deliver a better world to the next generation. This should be our only objective in this world.

Pareen: Yes. Indeed, being true to ourselves and following that path and letting everyone else be on their journey as well. 

Mohanji: Lead by example.

Pareen: Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. 

Mohanji: Thank you for inviting me. And thanks to all of you for being here with us.

Please listen to the interview by clicking here

Transcribed by Padmini Ravikumar

Proofread by Padmini Ravikumar and Vidya Rajagopalan

Human refinement

Welcome to Mohanji Speaks, my dear friends. 

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.

Lots of love. This is Mohanji for you.

Listen to an excerpt of the podcast here

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan and Rekha Murali

Subscribe to Mohanji Speaks daily podcast

Change your life, change your attitude, be powerful.

Hello, my friends, we spoke about domestic violence, psychological disorders. Attention Deficit syndromes, all those kinds of things. Where are all these things coming from? We discussed that in the last episode. I decided to take this to one more episode because this is very important. It’s about our stability. If we are stable at home, a house where there is a lot of love, there’s a lot of stability; the society sees that happening as well because these people bring that stability to the society. We need a lot of stable people. We need stability, within us, in our household and in society. We must, while we can.

So, I was talking about how I was experiencing life. Many times, in childhood, in youth, and also during my work life, I have faced failures, in fact, tremendous failures. And each time I faced failures, I realized that there is hardly any company! People don’t appreciate you when you fail, rather they don’t appreciate those who fail. They only want winners. The criteria used to assess winning is money or richness in materials that are visible; even something like a good pen or a car. But how they earned it, we don’t know. Sometimes, some people have compromised their conscience to earn, but people do not have a problem with that.

I have experienced trusted people either cheating or otherwise betraying me. And society sometimes supports them. I am so surprised that society has no problem, even if they do something wrong, such as putting someone down, betraying, cheating or stealing. Society has no problem if they bribe and get their way through.

So, we are looking at a corrupt society with aberrations. We can’t look at society and decide how we should be, because that’s probably not the right benchmark. What we should be is what helps our conscience. Do we feel good? Are we stable in our conscience?This is a good benchmark to talk about because if our conscience is clear, I think we have a good existence.

When we are violent in the house when we abuse our family members, we are angry and fighting with them or maybe ignoring them, disrespecting them, we don’t feel good; our conscience is affected. And we must understand why it’s happening. Sometimes we need external help or counselling. We must get it. We must go for it.

Every time domestic violence is happening, we should not just blame the person; we should look at the psychology of the person. Probably, that person has gone through many sorrows, many disappointments, many betrayals or many rejections. This frustration is boiling within and domestic violence could be the expression of the same.

Beginning from school days we must counsel children. We must reward them for small things; recognize them for their talents, appreciate them and bring them up with confidence, where their own talents are what they need to give to society, not what the society wants. You know, it’s not about the marks in school; It’s not about the grades, not even about succeeding exams, it’s about their own talents, how well they can own it. They will then be peaceful and settled from within. If such little appreciation does not happen early on, then even large appreciations, later on in life will not have value. Every small thing should be appreciated.

I’ve experienced different difficulties. One is the workplace competition, discrimination. I even had a situation where there was a hardship allowance, which is granted when you have to work in countries that are fragile and have difficult conditions. At that time, it was Iraq. Iraq was a very difficult place and they decided to give me a set of hardship allowances and a different set to my colleague who was a British person. When I asked why there was a difference, they gave me some lame excuse, which did not hold water. I had to tell them, “See, this is not good because everybody’s life is the same. All of us value our lives equally. And this is not good; having two different sets of hardship allowances in the same office is discrimination!”

Such things happen. I was not feeling good about it at that time but still, I did my job. I decided, “Okay, forget about all that. A job needs to be done and it should be done”. I don’t believe in protesting and ignoring my job, so I did it well and that earned the company money. I believe that we should not ignore our work and we should do what we have to. I continued despite workplace difficulties.

The point I’m trying to make is, we can do a lot in the world, in OUR world, to bring balance in people’s lives. We can easily implement in our life, qualities such as equality and equanimity, where nobody’s higher or lower; where everybody is appreciated for their good work. You know we appreciate, we respect, we reward, we recognize; all these things can help stabilize.

And society brands you very easily. When I lost my daughter in 2000, I also lost many other things of life in the following years. The best of friends were not available then. They were busy with their own lives and did not really want to spend time with a loser of society. I experienced all this and was wondering how deep is our love? How deep is our friendship, commitment, conviction? How deep is our companionship? How deep is our ability to love, unconditionally or against all odds? All these questions were happening, and I decided, they are not worth a thought. What you can do is work on what should stabilize you; your expression; that’s your stability. I was completely focusing on myself. I ignored the world around me and that stabilized me.

The questions that came are connected to domestic violence. I will not deviate from that, I will talk about it and conclude. Suppose you have no appreciation from home; what would you do? You have to love yourself. You have to accept yourself; you have to really consider and respect yourself as a great personality. It has nothing to do with other people’s appreciation or rejection. So, if you really believe in yourself, if you really appreciate, even small aspects of yourself, such as your heartbeat, your breathing, that you are eating, you are sleeping and you have so many good things happening in your life, such as shelter; you have a roof over your head, you have food to eat. All those things can be considered as merits. Just count on what you have. Or even the Mohanji platform; the platform gives you a lot of opportunities, connections, visibility, and so many other good things.

If you are looking at what you don’t have, you will always be sad. Instead, look at what you have and start walking; that’s the only place from where you can start walking. This is what I did. When adverse situations were pulling me down all the time, I got up and started walking again. Many times, I got knocked down but I got up again and walked. And that’s exactly why you have Mohanji today. It wasn’t easy. Because many whom I trusted the most, betrayed me and decided to go against me. Yet, I continued to walk. I didn’t ask them why. I didn’t even discuss with them. “If that is the experience you want with me, go ahead, have it”, I thought. I can’t change whether one chooses to love or hate me and I will have nothing to do with it.

If somebody hates you, abuses you, have nothing to do with it. Instead, you can be kindness. Your answer to this world should be your kindness, your consistency, your compassion and your conviction in what you do. If you answer in this way, eventually, the world will look at you with the same effect. This means that all that you express, will come back to you. My suggestion is, do not believe, ”I can’t do these things because my family does not approve, etc.” You can still communicate. If you have a laptop, if you’re talking, if you’re using your phone to communicate, communicate, If you can’t do it at home, because the people at home don’t approve of your meditations and other activities, you still have a phone, you have an internet connection, you have your laptop. Talk about it, connect to people, network, and communicate. Now today, you can’t really go to a place and meditate because of the COVID-19 situation. So, we have to use our internet facilities, our Skype and all these portals where you talk to various people through the internet through the laptop. We have to keep looking at what we have, not at whether the other person approves or not; then fight, get frustrated and then depressed; that’s not the way to live. We have to just keep flowing like water, like a river; we should keep flowing, and this is our ability, we have to really keep flowing.

When I felt discrimination in my office, I did not stop working. I did not protest, I just told them, “It’s unfair!” Then I left it because I expressed my thought to the concerned person. And then I left it because then it’s up to them. But I did not stop working. I worked hard and proved myself. I did my best. Similarly, in every situation, you can prove yourself. You can actually make a difference in your own environment, by expressing conviction consistently, with a lot of determination.

 So, we can change anything. I think there is nothing we can’t change. Change your attitude. If you change your attitude, you can change anything. If we don’t change our attitude, then we will just sit and complain. I believe that there’s no room for complaints. God has given us so many facilities. We must appreciate them. What we don’t have, leave it. If it comes, it does, if it doesn’t come, no problem. But what we have we must appreciate, and we must really use it well. We have that capacity.

 You have friendships, great friendships in the Mohanji platform also. So this you can use very well. And then, collectively, you can create great things. There is the Early Birds Club and through these, you add value to the lives of many people. Your life too will have more value; you will feel that reciprocation, rather it will be reciprocated. This means that when you deliver, you also get a lot of rewards. So, if your family cannot see you as a great personality, society will see you; that is compensation.

I leave this thought on your plate. Contemplate on it. Improve your life, change your attitude. Be powerful. 

Lots of love! This is Mohanji.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopal

Subscribe to Mohanji Speaks daily podcast

 

 

What we resist, persists

Good day friends, this is Mohanji.

Today we will talk about an internal subject called resistance. Many opportunities are missed because of resistance. First, we talk about internal resistance. We gather a lot of concepts, prejudices, various likes and dislikes, inclinations, tendencies and because of that, we develop certain resistance. Sometimes, this resistance comes out as prejudices, sometimes as fears and phobias, sometimes an exaggerated caution. In various ways, we express resistance.

What happens when we resist something? That thing persists. That thing stays for a longer time. This we have seen in our own life. Whatever we hate, whatever we resist; they stay more. And sometimes, it affects our life adversely. Sometimes, it creates a lot of inconveniences, roadblocks. We see this happening. Some people have resistance to certain things and then they do not even venture forward; they stop. This is our food for thought today.

Everybody, all the people who have done something in the world, who have left a mark in the world, have experienced resistance from society, from the people, from various situations; they have experienced resistance. But their courage, confidence and conviction, helped them move forward. They walked forward. They kept walking, so they turned the resistance into inspiration because they were sure; they knew what they were doing.

Jesus had a lot of resistance in his life. So many people did not approve; and they were influential people, High Priests. And they were very upset that a carpenter is coming and speaking philosophy. People were following him; this annoyed them. And they tried their best to slow him down, or even annihilate him, which they did eventually. But Jesus did not stop. He kept walking. He kept doing his thing. Even when adversities happened; he continued. This is the sign of great men.

We can see that in history, they faced a lot of resistance before their accomplishment. It’s like going and working out in a gymnasium. You have to literally pump the iron to create a toned up body. Similarly, you got to really fight to move the pressurizing society, and walk. Contemporary society may not even understand. What do they do? They talk to others about you. They threaten you and they character assassinate you. All those things they do. But if your conviction is clear, if you know where you’re going, if you can handle resistance; there will be a success around the corner.

So resistance is part of existence, you can’t avoid resistance and live. Think about the resistance inside, prejudices inside, concepts, contamination inside; what have we gathered from the society? Many things we have gathered and many of those things that we have gathered are useless.

But life is about experiences. Every moment experiences. When we are walking, talking, sleeping, eating; everything is giving us experiences. So, why are we afraid? Why are we afraid of people? We have our life, we have our expressions, we have our inclinations, we have our tendencies. If they are harmless to others, we don’t have to be worried about it. If they are harmful to others, then we must check what we are doing. We must stop, think, and correct.

And we have seen people, highly destructive, especially you can see that in politics. So much of mudslinging happening in politics. Sometimes, innovative, good politicians get affected, and they are sometimes removed by some people who do not want progress, who do not want innovation, who do not want to change the country. Their selfishness supersedes the progress of the country because they are more interested in maintaining their selfishness and gathering more for themselves and their families; rather than making a change in the country. So, if selflessness is ruling, if somebody is working with selflessness, often they are attacked, and they are sometimes character assassinated and sometimes they are removed. We have seen that many times in politics.

So, all these things are part of life. But resistance; always remember that what you resist, persists, they stay on for a longer time. Anything new comes to us; we resist. And if they keep on coming, after a while you get used to it, then you accept. But by then precious time is lost.

We should be like a child. Everything is coming, and we accept them. We look at them, is this suitable for us? Take it. If it is not suitable for us, discard it. Everything we need not accept. Any philosophy, any person, any time, space, any material, coming to us; everything is probably not suitable for us. That’s alright because we have our orientation. We have our own character, constitution. So, only accordingly we can accept. So, this is fine. This is okay, but if we keep on resisting people, we keep on resisting ideas, we fail to live. We become like a caged animal; we are kind of caged, our movements are restricted. So, this is very important to understand how deep is your resistance level, or how much you resist, that is the benchmark for how much you will progress.

So, I leave this thought with you. Think about it, how much you resist in life, how much you accept in life. Acceptance makes life smooth. And we accept ourselves, then the people around us, then the society, materials, what has been provided to us; accept them. Be thankful, be grateful, how life will be. I leave this food for thought on your plate.

Lots of love. This is Mohanji for you.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

Subscribe to Mohanji Speaks daily podcast