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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How do I motivate my children?

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.

This question comes with the title motivation of children.
Q: How to motivate my children to get over tamasic tendencies and put their minds to useful productive work like doing chores, study time, being responsible people within the society? Smartphones, gadgets distract them completely. And even taking them away doesn’t do much to help. So, what can I do to help them so that they do not waste their time and their lives? Or is it that the predestined behave in such a manner?

Mohanji: We should not consider anything as destiny and procrastinate over it. I believe that if we have the right attitude, we can change anything to something positive. How do you bring up your children to powerful personalities? We have spoken about this earlier, but I will give you another dimension. The world has the highest possibilities of human existence and the lowest possibilities of human existence. The highest is existence in compassion, kindness, selflessness, unconditional love; the highest of human qualities. The lowest is just being sense oriented, chasing pleasures, comparing, criticizing, judging, revenging; these kinds of things.

We have this huge variety. Now, where do we position ourselves? This is very important. And that’s exactly where the children will position, looking at us. If we are always insecure, if we are complaining, if we are criticizing judging, if we are positioning ourselves as completely confused in society; children will do the same because they are looking at us as role models at least in the initial days. What do we need to do? We need to bring the stories of powerful personalities who survived all sorts of tribulations, all sorts of tests and express themselves in the most successful way as trendsetters, game-changers. This is in everybody. You got to believe in yourself to do that.

First and foremost, bring awareness of the child in such a way that they believe in themselves. First and foremost is self-respect, belief, faith in themselves, towards themselves, for which we have to respect ourselves. We have to respect other people. We have to respect people, we have to respect ourselves. We have to cultivate respect for everything we do. We have to accept our self; self-acceptance. Respect our self, self-respect.

And we should not ever position ourselves in a position of insecurity or low self-esteem, or things like that. When we have a situation where we are a bit low, we should be able to address it positively. We can go high or we can go low. That’s how human life works, but we should address it positively. Yes, I have a situation where I’m feeling a bit low, that’s fine. That’s okay. And then, the child will learn that everything is okay. If we accept it, it doesn’t hurt too much. If you resist it, it hurts.

This is how it is, and then failures. We do not allow a child to fail because we think failures means the end of life. Absolutely not. Failures lead to success. When you accept failures gracefully, we have found success. Success is in acceptance and non-resistance. This we can lead by example, we should lead by example. Another aspect is that we should not push a child to be perfect. Perfection is a relative thing and it’s a constant thing. Perfection means you got to keep improving. What was perfect yesterday may not be perfect today. We have seen systems, people, situations, materials, constantly getting upgraded. So, a new thing totally eclipses a thing of the past, because it gets upgraded. We must understand that perfection is a relative thing. We should not push the child to be really, really perfect, and some of the backbenchers become very successful because they did not have peer pressure. Just for the sake of perfection, if we put the child into pressure, they collapse completely, eventually.

Many people who are probably successful in life, in terms of money, are not successful in life in terms of contentment. Many people have many diseases, because of this mad rush for something materialistic and thinking that is what is a success. It’s very, very important that we must understand that a child is a unique creation like we are a unique creation. We are all unique. We must leave the child free to be themselves with gentle guidance; with great stories of people who could have had anything, they could have had anything in life but wanted nothing. That means that they were contented inside, and they performed very well and then transformed the society with their existence. Bring the stories of that kind, so that the mind as the child grows will orient to activities which are good to create legends. Don’t try to say the society is not good or things are not good, a sign of times and stuff like that. Society is as it is; it will keep changing. There’ll be differences each day, let’s not worry about that. Let’s see what we can do in this society at this time, in this situation. We must accept ourselves, then the child will accept themselves.

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 Rekha Murali

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Q & A on Suicide

An excerpt from Kriya Intensive retreat in Bosnia, May 2019

Q: Both of my husband’s parents committed suicide, not at the same time. Is their karma inherited by my children or by my husband? Does that affect their or my karma?

Mohanji: The karma that pushes you in that kind of density or pushes the family is usually lineage related. It’s not individual. The individual is part of it, but lineage brings that weight on people. Some of the things which create heaviness in life are unnatural deaths, wars, displacements, betrayals, etc. If you take Balkan, it has faced WWI, WWII, Balkan war. There are a lot of wars which have affected a lot of families in this region.

I’d like you to understand there could be many reasons for suicide, but what happens to the soul after suicide? This is important for you to be aware of. Understand this clearly. Imagine a person has a life span of 70 or 80 years. And this person decides to end his life at the age of 60. First of all, there are 20 years of potential life pending. So everything minus the body remains for the next 20 years; everything – all other sheaths, all other attachments, except the physical body. You cannot do what you can do with your body.

What is the emotion then? Helplessness. Deep helplessness. Then what they do? They have all other emotions, all other feelings except the body; deep helplessness happens. Then they start bothering other beings; because of their helplessness – they have everything except the body. They want to do something, but they can’t. But they have to be here around this place. Any kind of unnatural death causes this. This is one part of the story.

Now imagine this soul is wandering around, it doesn’t know what to do. ‘Soul’ means all other things connected to it such as all the koshas (manomaya kosha, vijnanamaya kosha, annandamaya kosha) which have pending desires, but it can’t fulfil them because it doesn’t have the body. You are carrying all these as a burden but at the same time, there is no fulfilment for 20 years. I am giving you an example. So that is 20 years of wandering. And there are a lot of beings of various nature in this world such as viruses, bacteria, which we know through our microscopes. Like that, there are many beings in various levels of subtlety, existing in this plane, which we can’t see. Animals can see some, humans can’t see any. And these guys can sometimes be bound by some beings who have this habit of capturing and using these wandering souls.

First, there is no faith, there is no connection to a Master. There is no connection to God. That is why they are wandering. They are totally helpless, totally vulnerable. So, they are trying to reach various masters in a physical and a non-physical form, asking for help. That’s a different side. But imagine, they are not connected to anything. Some of these guys are caught by the beings who bind them and use them. Just like we have domestic animals, etc.; we bind them, we control them, of course, we feed them, but they are under our control. Similarly, some of these guys are caught and used. Then there is no guarantee when they can come out of it. Forget about 20 years; because they have no release. Until they get released, they are bound. Then you don’t know when they can actually get liberated. It takes ages.

Devi: Nice subject.

Mohanji: I want you to know this because people do not know the subtleties of suicide. Why I am explaining this is because in case people have depression, you must make them understand the seriousness of it.

Q: What happens to the souls of people who did not end their life on their own will but their life ended because of certain circumstances? 

Mohanji: I will come to that. Let me complete this. Otherwise, I’ll lose the thread.

So these people can be used by others. There is a possibility. Now, human beings, some people follow certain practices, like black practices. What are black practices? Those which are based on control and conquest, not connected to liberation. We do not use this kind of things. Why? Because we aim to attain the highest possibility in a lifetime.

What is the highest possibility? Complete dissolution. Total dissolution. Not even enlightenment. Beyond enlightenment, to become the ocean. That’s our aim.

However, the aim of many practices is not dissolution. The aim is earthly i.e. terrestrial powers. Some people are practising this and I always tell my people, “Never go that way.” Even if you get some powers, it’s eternal binding. You have no idea when you can get out, so don’t look there, don’t go there. Your practices should liberate you. Become one with Shiva, one with Supreme Consciousness. It’s important. Even if you are facing hardships, if somebody tells you, “I’ll sort it out for you fast,” leave it. It’s not worth it. But some of these people use these wandering souls for their purpose. They bind them using certain mantras and certain rituals. You must be very clear about the dark path and the white path. The dark path is for powers of earthly nature – miracles and powers. Not all the miracles. Masters perform miracles too, but that’s different. But these are for powers and they use certain practices, certain rituals for creating that effect. Without those practices and rituals, they have no effect in this world. In the dark path, you are creating an effect using mantras, rituals, using and controlling certain things. On the other hand, in the white path, it’s unbound. You attain the energy and power and it’s forever. Through your alignment of body, mind, intellect, ego, and spirit together, you become one unit, you become fully powerful within and that is what you are expressing in the bright path.

These are two opposite paths. I hope I am making it very clear. I want you to know because many people do not know this. And I have always seen that those who practise these things talk about the white path as unreal, bad. They always do that because it is important for their survival. They should say the other path is bad. So you get disillusioned. Their job is to disillusion you, to confuse you.

Many people don’t know the differences and get trapped. They get fascinated by some kind of power, but they have no idea where the power has come from. They get trapped and then it is very difficult to come out because they hook you.

There are even some methods of healing connected to the dark path. People don’t know this. The moment you get involved in it, they will immediately give you a result. You’ll be very happy. After that, you are stuck forever. Then when will you get out, nobody knows. This happens on Earth. There are so many beings operating this way. I would like you to know. I am not trying to scare you here. I want you to be very clear about the white path and the dark path. The white is only about liberation. It doesn’t have any fancy but it is about total dissolution. Our path is about total dissolution. It means you become brightness where you don’t have existence otherwise. You are fully bright. You are fully light. Nothing else matters. No powers, nothing matters here.

The souls we are talking about here either wander, they don’t know what to do, or some non-physical beings try to control them just like some of the predators who snatch some deer or some other beings in the forest. They are snatched away just like that because they are helpless. Or people who are practising certain things, try to control them and use them as slaves. And they cannot come out of it easily. It’s very difficult to come out of it because they bind them. These people bind even physical people – people with bodies. They are using these people for their purpose. They also do that. This also happens in life.

What is the clear sign of the path of darkness in one word?

FEAR. They use fear a lot. We do not use fear at all. We do not have God-fear, we only have God-loving. There is no usage of fear here. What do you fear? We have no value for fear. Fear means unknown, ignorance. Fear is ignorance. They use fear a lot so that through fear they control people, control minds.

Minds can be easily controlled with fear. These practices are of the dark side. Dark practices, practices of control. It is not only in India. I met one guy in South Africa, he was telling me there are practices like this. These guys practice in the burial grounds, and when they bury the dead body, they try to capture the souls and use them. Instead of liberating the souls, they bind them.

There are some practices in South America. They may look like shamanic practices that look positive, but please remember it is very hard to differentiate between the positive and negative. If at all, fears are being sold. If they are using fear to control, run away. You do not need them. There should be no fear – you should be fearless. You should be powerful. This you should remember always. And only you can save yourself in this context.

If you are deeply connected to a Master or God, very deeply, means unshakeably, then nobody can touch you. Then you are completely safe, but we do not do that. What these people try to do is, they put a doubt in your mind. Correct? Once they put a doubt in your mind, then you are always thinking “Is this real?” That is enough. That doubt is enough. That opening is enough for them to enter and work on you. When you lose trust, the faith, connection; that is the way they operate. But if you are deeply connected to a Master of the white tradition, automatically you will know – when there comes fear you will know – these are the things that are not good for me.

I will give you one example, normally I do not tell what I do but this actually happened in Serbia a few years ago. I was conducting a program and one of the people who attended the program said there is a person who is a teacher in Serbia, but he is completely controlled by these beings. Sometimes it happens, when you try to control these beings for a long period of time, if you do the wrong things, they start controlling you. So this guy was stuck, and he was talking very bad things about me at that time. He said Mohanji is a devil, Mohanji is all this… So that was going on. And then he got stuck. And he told this person, his disciple, “Only Mohanji can help me. So please get me an appointment.” I said I do not have time because I was there actually only for a week. And I said I cannot leave because all these people are here. I have to take care of them, I do not have time for anybody else. Then this person told me, please, if I had some minutes because he desperately needs it. He wanted to apologize for what he told about me. He doesn’t even know me, but he was talking extremely bad things about me. That was due to his own insecurity. Then I said, “Ok, in that case, you come at lunchtime.” I was having lunch and I saw him with a lot of people surrounding him, means pulling him back. He did not want to come in. He was stuck. Then he bowed down from a distance. I said I will come and I went to him. I said, “You come to my room. If you dare to enter my room, I will save you.” I knew he could not come. Because they didn’t allow him to come. I went to my room, I sat and said nobody should come into my room, and then this guy came. He reached the door and he was holding onto the door, he was struggling to come in. But he could not enter. I said, “Come in.” And he could not enter. They did not want him to come. I said, “If you dare to come, I will save you.” And then he jumped, he fell inside, and he sat down, but he was sitting like this (Mohanji showed how he was sitting). He said “Mohanji, you are so powerful. I cannot handle your energy.” I said “Keep quiet, just sit there. Do not do anything.” He sat there, and then everything vanished. After that, he attended a couple of our programs, and he wrote things about me, he apologized in public, in writing saying “I made a mistake, and he is the real one.” This is what I am saying, and why I say this is just for awareness. But a level of helplessness happens when you practice these things. After a while you do not have a grip, you cannot control it, and then the whole thing goes bad. This is why I said – never leave the white path, the Path of Liberation, because all these things are not worth it. Immediately you may get some advantage, but you will pay through your life, lifetimes.

 

Why I am explaining this? Why is this explained in so many details?

Because there are so many disillusioned people. They think of the dark as the white. It is easy because they also use eyes. Why we use the eyes as the symbol is because the eyes are the gateway to consciousness. It is the signature of the stature.

We use eyes as a signature of the stature. If you connect to the eyes, you know who this person is, and which level he is operating from. That is why we use eyes. They use eyes for attracting something else. This is the difference.

We must be very clear that in our path – I think Avadhoota Nadananda has written about using eyes in the tradition – what they signify. Somebody like that lady from Washington DC, she said she wants to see my eyes before she invites me for a program, and she saw my eyes and said you are welcome. Those who have eyes to see the truth they will understand the person through the eyes. So, they are the signature of the stature. And what is the use of these eyes? They connect you to the right path. So you can understand you arrived home. That understanding happens. Today we are in the gadget world, we only see gadgets, we do not see eyes. So, what will happen, you miss a certain reality. You miss a certain truth.

All that glitters is not gold. Always remember the white tradition, the white path, you can easily use the benchmark of the inner silence. Fewer thoughts, inner silence, stability, and Tradition only talks about helping the helpless as a practice, proper practice. The rest is turning the mind, intellect and ego inwards. This is what they talk about. Turn the mind, intellect and ego inwards and do something good for the world. Have a higher purpose. That will liberate you. That will take you all the way forward. Of course, Kriya and those kinds of things help, but when you go for powers and instant something, you may enter into something which is not so good. Then they may not be able to help you later.

I was talking about the souls who are exiting the body with violence, like suicide. I spoke about all the scenarios possible. I told about two or three scenarios, like wandering until the end of their actual life. Another is death. Beings who are invisible can hold them, capture them. Then these beings who practice certain things can hold them, capture them, use them. So, you are very vulnerable in that mode. This should be made understandable to all the people who have these tendencies, self-destructive tendencies. It is important.

Imagine nothing of this happens and they are just sitting. They still have desires, right? They still have everything except a body. So they get connected to people who have similar desires. They get connected to the people with a body who have similar desires. Sometimes, they enter them and use them. They have emotions, they have desires. When they cannot express those emotions and desires, they try to connect to those bodies who have similar emotions and desires.

One Master was standing and looking at a tree, another came and asked him, “What are you looking at?” He said, “Three people are sitting there on the tree. I am just watching what their plan is.” The guy said, “I cannot see them, there is nobody there.” “These three people do not have their bodies, you cannot see them, but they are sitting there, waiting for somebody.” Then they saw one man walking down the road, fully drunk, in a half-conscious state, walking. And that guy did not see these people. But they saw him. He walked and then he went around the corner and went. While walking, he was falling down and getting up, totally drunk. The Master said, “Okay, let`s go”. The guy asked what happened. He said, “Those three people joined him. Four people went together.” Then he asked, “Why did they go with him?” “He went into a brothel around the corner. All these three people also wanted to go to the same brothel but they did not have a body. They are using this body.” This is exactly how it works.

That is why if you have anger, the beings who accent anger enter and they accent your anger. If you have jealousy, same thing. What your basic things are, that will be accented by various beings surrounding you. So, you may have ten units but it becomes eighty when three or more people join. This happens. When somebody commits a crime and something happens, usually maybe it is not only that person. It is a collective thing making a scene. Why am I explaining this? Everything is not as it seems to be. It is not what is obvious. There are so many other factors connected to it. Therefore, you cannot blame anybody. Maybe there are so many beings working through him, because of his vulnerability. We must be very clear about this. That is why I said, we should be compassionate, bring people out of it. The moment their attitude changes, these guys leave. Only when jealousy sits, a being of jealousy will enter. Only when there are deep anger and frustration, such beings enter. The moment it changes, they leave because they have no room there. They’re not interested anymore.

So what should we do? We should elevate the awareness to the level where all these emotions drop off and you are clean and serene. All these beings leave you, they are not interested. Who is interested in the liberation that way?

All these things are created. It is important to understand before you marry depression. It is not worth it.

 

Accidental death

What happens to those beings who have an accidental death? Many times the accidental death, which is also untimely death, is caused by the karmic combination because that’s the way they exit. In karma, it might be equal to natural death. Because time ends there. Sometimes accidental deaths are not as bad as deciding to kill yourself. Not as bad, but again it is an unnatural death. Sometimes, in unnatural deaths, accidental deaths, the soul hangs on until there is time for the next life, next birth. And what causes accidental deaths? Usually the trapped fear. Trapped fear of an abrupt ending.

So, whenever we have emotions trapped, it’s an effect we do not know, we cannot predict. It is important that in this process what we have to do, we have to do, and also we have less emotional bindings. Emotions can become diseases, or even can become death. When there is a fear of theft in the house, there is usually a theft in the house. When you fear attacks from unknown people, it happens. In all these things, there is a trapped fear as a cause.

Likewise, sometimes we have visions and images of certain situations. Even as simple as going to a restaurant or something like that. Whenever there is a suppressed desire or denial, then they manifest even as a dream, and it can get fulfilled there if it cannot happen in real life. So it is not as we read. There are so many factors creating those effects in life. It can even happen in a dream state. In a dream sometimes, we fell down from something and we died. Then we wake up in the morning and we realize we are not dead. But we had that effect at least for some time. So those things are all stored emotions, what you have packed in your system.

The animal trainers will tell you, some dogs and some animals have perpetual fear because somebody was ill-treating them when they were babies. Then the whole life they carry that trauma of ill-treating. We also have that. It takes a lot of effort to burst that thing off, completely destroy it and be free. I try to hold hands of such people, I try to help them. And usually as a thumb rule, Mai-Tri healers can say better, for women, everything is connected to the uterus. For men, it is below the ribcage. This is a kind of a focal point. From there, everything goes into every dimension. All storage, attractions, connections. So, the healing for a woman’s body is uterus-related and for a man, below the ribcage. The difference is there. The trapped fears can affect anywhere. It can be all trapped fears in all the places. The root cause of many of these things is trapped fears. Trapped emotions.

Q: I work with a child who is very suicidal, how do I tell this to a child? 

Mohanji: When the child is very peaceful, you can tell like a story. “You know what happens when the soul leaves the body?” Like that, gently. Not like a detrimental thing. But it is good to give awareness. It is not like “You end this body, you do not end” story. This has to be told properly because it is important to guide. Very small things happen, an emotional thing and people hurt themselves. That is very, very bad. And you know sometimes, they provoke as well. “Why are you living? Why don’t you just come and commit a suicide?” It is like the fox who lost its tail, “It is very nice to have no tail,” and the fox convinces a few of other foxes to lose their tails.

These things happen with these disembodied spirits. They sometimes try to tell things. That is why you need to have FIRM faith. Let me tell you a remedy. FAITH. Connection with the Master. You will never deviate. But it should be unconditional faith, strong connection. People will try to put doubts in your mind. “Are you sure? Is this the right Master?” Things like that. Does not matter. You say, “Even if he is a donkey, I do not have a problem. My faith is firm.” The moment you have firm faith, you cannot be touched.

A lot of emotional decisions are connected to lack of faith. They do not trust themselves and they do not trust another. I always tell people; the first preference is to trust yourself as a complete incarnation. If this is not possible, trust a Master. Master will do the job. But it should be firm. 100% firm, unshakeable. Weak trust has no value. It’s almost like no trust. Conditional trust has no value. Today, I am happy, I trust, otherwise, I do not trust. That is of no value. It is actually a mind game. It does not work. But it should be firm; if it is firm, nothing will touch you.

These points which I said, I meant it. Because all of you should know the path. Whenever you follow a path, you should know the path and follow. Do not get fascinated. Do not get distracted. It is important because lifetimes can get wasted like this. Going in the wrong directions, detours. In chasing something which you do not know. Somebody can manipulate you, and those who manipulate will say others are manipulating. They will not say they are manipulating. It is always the case.

What is manipulation? Manipulation is telling an untruth for their benefit. You can easily understand manipulators. How? They will need something from you. They are using the technique for their advantage. This is a manipulator. If the path is liberation, the Master will need nothing from you. This is a benchmark you should remember. Master needs nothing from you. Their only way is to take you forward. That is the benchmark. If you can understand that, all you need is average intelligence to know. A manipulator will need lots of things from you. They will trap you so that they can always milk you.

The real, true Master of the path of liberation will need nothing from you. Their only aim is to take you forward. Thank you.

 

Spirituality v. Religion

Hello friends, welcome to Mohanji Speaks. Today, I would like to read out a very meaningful message, which was forwarded to me. I liked it very much. So I thought I’d share it with you.

A learned man was once asked to explain the difference between religion and spirituality. His response was profound.

Religion is not just one, there are many.  Spirituality is one.

Religion is for those who sleep- spirituality is for those who are awake.

Religion is for those who need someone to tell them what to do and want to be guided- spirituality is for those who pay attention to their inner voice.

Religion has a set of dogmatic rules- spirituality invites us to explore within and get attuned to the Universal rules.

Religion threatens and frightens – spirituality, gives inner peace.

Religion speaks of sin and guilt – spirituality leads us on the path of emancipation.

Religion represses everything, which it considers false – spirituality transcends everything; it brings us closer to our truth.

Religion invents – spirituality helps us to discover.

Religion does not tolerate any question – spirituality encourages searching questions.

Religion is human, it is an organization with rules, made by men – Spirituality is divine without human rules; it leads us to the causeless cause.

Religion divides between us and them – spirituality unites.

Religion follows the concepts of a sacred book – spirituality seeks the sacred in all books.

Religion feeds on fear – spirituality feeds on trust and faith.

Religion makes us live in external reality – spirituality lives in our inner consciousness.

Religion deals with performing rituals – spirituality has to do with the inner self.

Religion feeds our internal ego – spirituality drives us to transcend beyond self.

Religion makes us renounce the world to follow a God – spirituality makes us live in God, without renouncing our existing lives.

Religion is a cult – spirituality is inner meditation.

Religion fills us with dreams of glory in paradise – spirituality makes us live the glory and paradise on earth.

Religion lives in the past, and in the future – spirituality lives in the present.

Religion creates cloisters in our memory – spirituality liberates our consciousness.

We are not human beings who go through a spiritual experience we are spiritual beings who go through a human experience.

Friends, these are very important thoughts. I liked them very much. Whoever compiled it, they are beautiful. Think over it; listen to it again and again. Try to understand and assimilate.  It will do a world of good to you.

I leave you with these thoughts. Have a great day and a great week ahead. Lots of love. This is Mohanji for you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

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ASK THE MASTERS

Shlloka: We are kick starting, Ask The Masters. It was a long time coming. And it is such a privilege to have all of you here. I am Shlloka, your host and with a lot of pleasure, I introduce my co-host, Dr. Nidhi Kumar.

Dr. Nidhi Kumar is the lead anchor for Doordarshan. She’s a rubicon of journalism, very iconic and she has been championing various social causes and spiritual emancipation at many levels. And this is one such initiative. I would also like to mention our co-host “Mystics of India”. Mystics of India is a platform which endorses spirituality. And it talks about the tales of mystics through their platform. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge our partners for this episode – Mohanji Foundation. It’s truly a blessing to have you associated with us through this medium and with our first episode. So thank you to all of you for joining…

Dr. Nidhi Kumar: Thank you, Shlloka. And before we introduce Mohanji, it’s time to greet all our viewers here. Namaste, Sairam and welcome, as we kick start the first episode of ‘Ask The Masters’ and go inwards.

By the way, a few questions. Did you know?

• 70% of the content online is pornographic
• India is the hub of student suicide in the world.
• You know what is trending on Google these days? How to cope with anxiety, depression and stress!

These rates are off the roofs. The initiative is to challenge the strength. We can do better and we will do better. The intention is to shift people from ill-being to well-being at the touch of a button. And hopefully, by the end of the series, you would have the solutions that you need to have, to have a happier, healthier life. I now request Shlloka to introduce Mohanji.

Shlloka: So who is Mohanji? This is my first time hosting any event, so I was reading a little bit about him on his website. The core of who he is, is that he is a renowned humanitarian who is focusing on positive human values that we can add in this world and without expectation, through our existence.

But what struck me the most was that Mohanji does not exist. This really caught me because the description that I read was him being an everyday man. So what is it about Mohanji that makes so many people gravitate towards him? It is the fact that he does not exist! And whenever anything does not exist, it doesn’t have a frame, it doesn’t have dimensions, it doesn’t have personalities, it doesn’t have qualities. It is empty, there is nothingness. And because of this emptiness, Mohanji becomes a doorway for something bigger and larger to happen through him.

Mohanji, it is such a pleasure and privilege for a seeker to be associated with you and be in your midst. So thank you for gracing the occasion.

Mohanji: Thank you so much.

Shlloka: We have people joining in from all across the globe. And the first thing that I would like to ask you is about your spiritual journey. What led you to this? What got you started, can you talk a little bit about that?

Mohanji: Well, after going through all phases of life – the different phases, physical, emotional, intellectual, the many phases that we go through, right from childhood, (and mostly unconsciously, because we don’t know we have shifted to various levels), at some point in time, this question comes to you. What exactly are you looking for? Since I had been working in the shipping industry earlier, I could taste whatever money could buy. But it wasn’t happiness. So I was literally searching for happiness for a long period of time. I used to go to the Himalayas often. Whenever I used to get leave, I flew to the Himalayas. But the problem was that when I went back, I couldn’t carry the Himalayas with me!

So at one point in time, I started asking myself, “Is this really what you want to do?” When you have time you’re going to a place and that place has peace. But you’re not carrying that peace with you. So you need to find peace amongst all activities or amidst everything. So that’s when I literally started focusing on myself. And it continued for a long time, about five or six years of deep penetration. My path was very simple. I didn’t have a guru. So I was literally connecting to my spine and just switching off from the front-orientedness.

We are generally front-oriented, because all our sensors are in the front and we tend to go to the front and hence everything is front-oriented. That is how we are made. Usually we don’t even think about our spine in our daily life because we don’t have to, unless there is back pain. I simply tried to connect to my spine, started feeling my spine and that literally took me inside – meaning I used to connect to my spine and breathe through the spine, etc.

Even if you just remember your spine, you will know that your connection has gone to your third eye. This was my practice and it took some time. From the world of sounds which I was totally involved in, like everybody else, I started going into the core of sounds which is silence. Like the ocean, from where the waves are coming out and going back to the ocean, all noises come out of silence and they go back to silence. So I could go down deeper and deeper after a lot of effort. Don’t think it’s easy, because it takes time, and because we are used to sounds. We are used to noises. And we think it’s natural for us to be in the noises. I was one of the noises in the world of noises.

But then 3 am to 8 am was my time. The rest of the time I had sold for money because I was working. So from 3am to 8am, I used to focus on myself, on the spine, and then go deeper. Silence used to be in the form of less thoughts initially, and no thoughts eventually. Once I touched silence, I realised I didn’t need to go anywhere. So in the midst of activity, I could penetrate to the world of silence. Then later I came back to the world of noises as silence. That was the difference. That’s why Shlloka said a little bit earlier that I don’t exist, because I don’t exist as a noise. I exist as silence which is probably not so visible. You have got to have the ‘eyes’ to really see that, but that was fine with me. Everybody need not connect because many people connect to the world of noises easily but silence is very difficult. From the world of noises to the world of silence was the transition for me. And that created Mohanji.

Shlloka: The iconic Mohanji as we say.

Nidhi: Absolutely! We resonate with your views. Because the purpose of ‘Ask the Masters’ is to go inwards and introspect, especially in these quarantined times/ lockdown times. However a lot of people are very stressed because of the current situation and there’s a lot of anxiety in their minds.

In the present times people are suffering both on macro and micro levels. On the macro level, people are losing their jobs. They are starving. And on the mental level, some of them are going through a lot of hell. There’s a lot of mental abuse happening as we speak and the statistics are quite alarming. Then there is domestic violence also on a different front. On a micro level, people are stressed, angered and their relationships are actually getting strained. How do we tackle this suffering?

Mohanji: I would say don’t try to tackle situations, instead tackle yourself. That’s the right thing to tackle. Because externally, we do not have control over various things since we are only participants. However, internally we can control everything. This is a God-given time, to be ourselves; to really penetrate within and understand this thing called ‘us’.

You have got to really take time and look at your structure and try to segregate yourself and say, “Okay, this anger, agitation, confusion, insecurity etc. is not me.” You can take various aspects like, “I’m not the anger, I’m not the hatred. I’m not the comparison” etc. and start detaching yourself from all that you are not. All these emotions are connected to the world outside.

In actuality, the world for us is only after we wake up. There is no world for us when we sleep. So the world that we are talking about i.e the people, materials, time, space etc. is only when we are awake. When we are sleeping or when we are dreaming, we don’t have that world. Hence we should understand “What are WE amongst or amidst this world?” We should then try to understand yourselves in that context. The moment you start recognising who you are, you will start witnessing yourself in the whole situation. You will not be JUST a participant, you will be a reliable or a relevant participant – meaning, you will actually tend to add value to the situation.

Many times I feel we don’t have to speak. Silence is a good idea. We don’t have to react, speak or get involved every time, but we do it habitually. It’s our habit. If somebody calls us by a bad name or bad thing, we react immediately. But we don’t have to. We can just watch that person venting the anger and becoming calm after that. So in many places, we don’t need interference. If we are able to see that in ourselves, and we look at the world, like a mirror, I think most of these things can be sorted out.

Second point, we should try not to analyse situations. In general, we have a deep wish to know why something happened. We always try to put the blame on somebody or blame the situation. And it costs us a lot of time, stress and also spoils our mind. But as human beings we do have our (limited) life – if we live 80 years, it’s only 29,200 days, it’s not a lot of days. By the time we realise we have lived, we are (almost) dead. So in this lifetime, we have the right to be happy and content. We can’t and we should not give that possibility or that key to somebody. WE should keep that key.

That’s why I say, “Any situations in life are only a reminder that they exist and that’s an experience.” So apart from the experience point of view, we should not interfere. I’m not saying that you need to be an escapist. You be there. But be there as stillness or an icon of peace, where you do not have to react. You say, “Okay, this is the situation. We’ll talk about it, let’s sort it out”. Then, we try to help them come out of it. Just as we clear a roadblock. This is possible for us. We can all be policemen sometime, but non-interfering policemen.

Dr. Nidhi Kumar: Yes, like you said we need to handle these kinds of situations with a lot more equanimity.

Question: How to be positive, healthy, stable, peaceful and relaxed in such challenging times like the one currently? What is going to be the duration of this situation? How long do we need to stay stressed and why are we stressed? How do we be positive?

Mohanji: Being stressed is our choice, but being observant and being calm in any situation is our right. We can be very easy and non-stressed. But have we observed what brings this stress? Number one is expectation. We have a lot of expectations everyday – from the time we wake up in the morning.

Today I heard something – the time between when you wake up and when you get out of the bed is your amount of success; that means if you wake up and still lie down without getting up, it means you have earned laziness – meaning your success rate is affected. So this is something to think about. I would say, “Be purposeful”.

Also understand that situations are probably not engineered by us. A situation happened – it was given to us. What can we do in this peripheral? We have time, space, certain awareness, certain intelligence and certain people involved. In this context, we have to act. You can actually imagine that you are an actor playing a role. You can really play the role very well. So, this is your option.

In the current condition, Nature has told you: “You have no control”. An invisible particle has created a lot of havoc amongst us (the visible particle, for we are visible in this world). An invisible thing (we don’t even know what a virus looks like) has actually created a scare in the whole world. And it put everybody indoors. In this context, we need to spend time to understand and assimilate ourselves. It’s a very good time for us to know how we react to situations. Because this kind of thing has not happened in the last 200 years as far as I know, or probably ever since mankind started. We have a God-given opportunity.

There is a lot of stress connected to finances, stress connected to activity, stress connected to choices, we can’t travel (movement) etc. All the stresses have come together. And secondly, we may have to live together with people we really do not like, for example: our relatives and friends etc. in one space and being forced to see them. So this is something which is giving added stress.

Now you have every chance to re-wind yourself, recycle yourself, reset yourself. This chance should be well used. This is what I feel. And then there are so many methods and practices which great masters have given us including pranayama, the hyper-ventilations, connecting to yourself through certain meditations etc. But contemplation (manana) is very good. Manana makes a Maanav – this means that one who is able to think and contemplate, is a human being (man).

So we have a lot of opportunities to penetrate and contemplate: “Is that me?” Like Adi Shankara said….

Mano buddhi ahankara chittani naaham

Na cha shrotra jihve na cha ghraana netre

Na cha vyoma bhumir na tejo na vaayuhu

Chidananda rupah shivo’ham shivo’ham

But the point is that you can actually think, “Am I the body? Am I the intellect? Am I the ego? Am I the Spirit? What are we?”

So this will really make you fully collected and composed. And the moment you start realising you are very powerful, that you’re completely the universe, you will stop looking at the whole world through a keyhole. You will realise that you have the opportunity to see the whole universe. The moment you understand this, there ends the story. Then there is no stress for you anymore. There is no confusion, there is no agony, anxiety, anger, etc. It will all leave because you very well know that we are the universe and that nothing outside can touch us actually. Unless we are only external, then we get beaten up. In other words, we give the remote control of our happiness in somebody else’s hands, like neighbours or friends or relatives. Keep the remote control with you and use it wisely.

Question: I get scared very easily. I am scared of death basically or scared of what could happen to me.

Mohanji: Faith is the antidote for fear. Whenever we have fear, we understand that faith is lacking. So firstly, it should be the faith in ourselves; faith, not on something outside because your own personal Guru is inside. When you connect to yourself and assimilate yourself; when you understand that body, mind, intellect, ego, spirit, it is all within and that our body is just a case (shell), we start connecting to ourselves. Then we will feel peaceful.

As I said, first you have to have faith in yourself. You are born and you have a space here, you have relevance here. So in this relevance and space, you do what you can, within your given capacity. You don’t have to compare, you don’t have to compete. There is nothing to compete or to compare with. You are being yourself and that is exactly your contribution to this world. So whenever you feel fear, understand that fear has no basis. Fear is like a shadow where light exists. So connect to the light, which is you. Then you can connect to any guru, any master, any god which you like to follow.

But essentially, it’s all about you. The whole spirituality is about you. “Tat Tvam Asi – You Are That”. That is exactly what the great masters have said. Over a period of time, you have been trying to find yourself. This is the only point here. If we understand this, there is no confusion. But if you are chasing something and if you don’t get it, there is disappointment. Please remember that when we have found ourselves, there is nothing anymore to find. This finding ourselves needs time, and we have to accept ourselves. Acceptance is very important. Most of the time, we don’t accept ourselves even if others accept us. That’s where the problem lies. If somebody has an opinion about us, we buy it and think it is real, and that it is true, then we have stopped accepting ourselves.

We all have weaknesses, we all have strengths. We all have everything. We are a mixture. Nobody is higher or lower, not even equal. We are all unique. We should remember that we are a unique creation and this uniqueness is what we are giving to this world. The world may accept it or reject it. That is not our problem. We are existing today. This is the real celebration – that we are alive. This life is the celebration and this presence is the celebration. When you remember this, there will be no fear. Fear cannot exist together with light. Darkness cannot exist together with light. Fear cannot exist together with faith.

Dr. Nidhi Kumar: As you said, I’d like to reiterate the same thing….O Light of Exceptional Glory, enlighten the darkness of our minds, for dark is the path and you hold this light. The next question is..

“I am a stay at home mom and I wish to work again. I do not know what career to choose and do not know how to figure it out. My mind is in a quandary.”

When we were speaking yesterday, you told me that you’re getting so many calls from the US where people are losing jobs. It’s the same kind of apprehension.

Mohanji: I feel that the job loss situation will be all over the world because of the economic meltdown. But my answer to that is – let us not focus on the negatives. If you focus on negatives, there are plenty. Let us focus on the positives. First and foremost, how do we know what’s good for us? It’s very simple. It depends on our nature. What is our nature? We all have our unique nature. Some people have a nature for being a doctor. Some people like that profession, because their nature suits that kind of profession. Some people like to be a lawyer. Some people like to be in the sports field. Hence all these are connected to one’s individual nature. If your nature is not suiting that profession, you won’t be successful there.

So first and foremost, sit down and understand which profession suits you. That’s the first right step. Then you go towards the profession with full confidence. I would first say, “If you really want to be successful, you have to really apply yourself”. There’s no other way. Working smart is accepting yourself and applying yourself fully and doing only what you have to do. You don’t have to do the whole variety of things. Don’t try to multi-task and spoil your entire career. Instead focus on something which really suits you and dig deeper and deeper until you finally see water.

What suits you is what you can do effortlessly. That means if you like something and if you’re effortless about it, that shows that the profession/work suits you very well. That’s a sign of it. It is very easy to understand. If you are feeling stressed to even get up in the morning and if it is a pain or pressure to go towards your work, implies that you are doing something which you do not like to do or doing something which does not suit you. It’s like wearing a shirt which is not your size.

Even in spirituality, what suits you is your path. Some people like devotion. They like to sing, chant, praise etc. Some people like intellectual stuff. They would like to listen, analyse, understand and only then they accept. Some people like Karma Yoga. They go out and they serve the world. Some people are a mixture of all this, but there will be some predominance and that is your path. Whatever is predominant in us; that’s exactly what we are. That’s our path.

Dr. Nidhi Kumar: That answers our question. I would like to add a little thing to it that it’s good to be rooted to your values. Let us move on to our next question.

Shloka: In extension to the career question, there are many individuals who talk about or who write about being compelled to be on a career path because of certain constraints. The constraints could be like financial constraints or it is too late in life to change career, or have a family to take care etc. So how would you advise those people to go through a career and the profession effortlessly?

Mohanji: The Upanishad says, “The food that came to you today is the medicine for you, even if that’s the food you never chose.” This means the food was delivered to you. Sometimes you are compelled to do something just for survival. In that situation, I would suggest you to always do the work with full dedication, but at the same time, have a hobby on the side, which you would like to do. So it compensates. For example, a person likes to be a photographer, but instead he is working as a government servant. So be a government servant fully for the sake of earning but at the same time practice photography as a hobby, so you don’t really miss it. And that gives equilibrium.

Sometimes life provides us with things which we may not have vocally asked for (but probably we may have been ‘eligible’ for that, we don’t know). If such a thing lands on your lap, accept it, then deliver your best. When you get something, you should do justice to it. Otherwise it’s not worth it. By rejecting or by resisting, it stays further. But by accepting it and by fully involving in it, maybe you will start liking it. Actually, the dislike starts with resistance. We keep pushing it away to an extent that it becomes painful. Then, we suffer. We don’t have to really suffer. Through acceptance, we can remove the suffering. We do not really have to cope with it – instead we dive into it and say, “Okay, what best can I do about it?” Plus, we take up a hobby which develops our other side, which blooms us through doing our chosen activity.

Question: How do we effectively use our time during this period amidst the stress and fear?

Mohanji: Go online…(laughter). Very simple. We can’t go outside the house, right?

Question: How do we motivate ourselves in this situation to begin and continue daily meditation and practices, especially early in the morning despite our busy schedule with family and work?

Mohanji: We have an Early Birds Club now. That’s the reason why I started this club recently. We have to start early in the morning at 4 am. Then have a pattern of activity until 6 am. By the time you reach the usual waking time, you have actually covered a lot of distance. It’s not easy to just start the day early and do nothing, because then the usual habits pull us back to bed. So we have started the Early Birds Club for that purpose. And this is really creating a difference in people’s lives. Now people have actually written back saying that they now have a lot of time and there is a lot of peace, contentment, etc.

To start early, you need a bit of effort initially, but eventually it becomes a pleasure. You will feel quite good because you’re not just wasting time sleeping, procrastinating and then being lazy and feeling wasted. Instead you wake up early then do something. Some people have started writing their own stories. People say that it looks like another life or feels like another life. You can do so many things in this time; you can be very creative. As said in the beginning, there are so many domestic issues going on. I would like everybody to inspire people. It’s not the prerogative of spiritual teachers alone to do that.

All of us have our stories, have our history. We have a lot of wealth inside. We are not short or small. We can always share some insights with people, with the world outside and give some kind of a consolation or solace to people outside. It need not always be the teachers and the masters. Sometimes people get bored with these spiritual people (laughs) Normal people in the world can also talk. I always inspire people to share their experiences. You share your story, it might resonate with some because some people have actually survived total hardships like displacements, wars, etc. Many people who follow me around the world have gone through wars, they have been displaced, lost their houses, family members, etc. So I tell them to share it, even if it is painful to remember. Maybe it will be purgatory sometimes, and you may get purified through it. And that happens. People can be natural and be themselves in this time because you cannot go anywhere. You can use the online facility and communicate, which will help people. I feel that we all have a great potential. All we have to do is accept ourselves, and then we’ll realise that we can do a lot in this world.

Dr. Nidhi Kumar: Absolutely. Now we take the viewers to the next segment, which is on emotion. One of the greatest forms of suffering is to deal with death. So we have a lot of questions on this. How does one deal with death because it becomes an overwhelming and imaginable sense of grief, to deal with death.

Question: How to overcome the anxiety and the debilitating feeling that happens after some loved one passes away. How do you deal with that?

Mohanji: This is a traditional fear – the fear of death. For all the 7.5 billion people in the world, the biggest of fears is the fear of death. And the next fear is usually the fear of failure and society, fear of failure etc. But the fear of death is a part of us.

The driving factor of all species is instinct – that’s the driving factor. While for human beings, the driving factor is usually the inclination or vasanas, and of course desires. But the instinct part which is common across all species is the main instinct for survival. So this fear of death is connected to survival instinct, because we like to survive. Every being likes to survive, and the other side of survival is death. So we fear something which we do not want to happen, but it’s true and inevitable that we will die.

As human beings, we have the capacity to understand and assimilate the idea that we are deathless. That is only for us because we have that capacity to connect to something which is permanent. So we have that thing inbuilt in us, we have that capacity. So what is the antidote to fear of the inevitable death? The death that we are walking towards every day, even at this point in time when we are speaking, after our conversation, we are closer to death. It goes like that, right? Every moment we are taking one more step towards death that is supposed to happen.

So how do we come to terms with it, with the inevitability? It’s very simple – we must understand that we have something within us which is deathless. And that’s the reality. The shell that we carry, the form that we carry, the name, the position and the positions that we have, are all temporary; while there is something which is bright and brilliant, which is real and that’s hiding behind this whole paraphernalia or this structure. So we start looking at it and we say, “Oh, this guy doesn’t want anything. He has no interest in life. He has no interest in death. He is deathless. He is a time rider. For him, time is like a horse. He rides time.” Because time doesn’t ride him, time only rides the body, the body, the mind, intellect, ego. But the thing which is bright within us, it’s beyond time. So, the moment you start connecting to that, then death is just a phase.

In fact, every day we are dying for a few hours. That is the deep sleep state, where we do not know whether we are a man or a woman, time or space, whether we are a guru or a disciple, we know nothing. Then when we wake up again, we realise that this is the garb which we have been born in. We are born in this life and we come to know and then we start behaving like this particular role, this personality. So every day we are experiencing that and every day we are coming back to life in the morning. That’s why it’s a new life every day. So what happens in actual death is that we come back in another body, or we don’t come back at all – we dissolve. So this is the option. When we have awareness, awareness is the antidote – it is the antidote to the fear of death. This is the way it is.

Nidhi: How do we free ourselves from the bondages of emotions and become mentally strong? How to overcome negative emotions like fear and negative energy?

Mohanji: We have three processors in our system which are mind (processing emotions), intellect (processing, information), ego (processing personality matters like positions and possessions, role in society etc.). So this together is what we call as mind-matter. Actually it’s one material or one processor, but we segregate them so we can understand. The body has three processors and these three processors need food. The food of mind is emotion, but when we have so many emotions to handle, the mind has obesity. When we have so much information to handle, intellect has obesity. When we have so many positions, possessions and ego stuff to handle, then ego has obesity. If you eat a lot of food, the body has obesity. So obesity is part of our existence and the 7.5 billion people around the world have some obesity in some way.

So what do we need to do? How do we handle these emotions etc.? Emotions are coming in all the time. But we need to understand – like our stomach for example, we need to know how much we should eat, what we should eat, and what quantity etc., so that we are in control of our food consumption. Like that, we should be in control of our emotions, and emotional consumption as well. Emotions are available outside; this is all coming from outside. We need to control what comes inside and don’t just get involved in emotions habitually, because that’s what we do normally. And the same with information, so much information is coming that is mostly negative in nature – like 200,000 people died, so many people are in quarantine, this country closed the doors, that country closed the doors; so many people lost their jobs. This is what we hear from television.

What we need to do – we need to have an antidote. We go and search for something positive and read that, basically the life of great masters. In India we have a great tradition with the tradition of liberation – moksha. If you look at the whole world, the purushartha (dharma, artha, kama, moksha), these four aspects out of which moksha is defined only in this country, and that’s well-defined. And out of this many religions came out like Sikhism, Buddhism, all these came out of one aspect called moksha. So we have that big, huge tradition and depth of wealth. So if we read or assimilate materials or things connected to moksha, the highest potential, we can superimpose that moksha on mind, intellect, ego everywhere. And with the benchmark of conscience – our own conscience, which is like a guard, like a firewall, which protects us from all the impacts. So we do not compromise our conscience, and we use the potential for liberation for all of us. We all have it as the benchmark. And if we don’t get involved in things which we don’t want to get involved in, we will always be safe.

Suffering is in the mind. It’s only a waking state thing. Pain can be in the body. Like what Ramana Maharshi said when somebody asked him, when he had cancer, “Swami, do you have pain?” He said, “I have pain, but I have no suffering. I choose not to suffer.” Suffering is always connected to resistance. We try to say, “Oh, why did this happen to me? Why am I such a good man? Why are bad things happening?” All these confusions leave us with a lot of junk and suffering. So this we can definitely avoid – self-pity, sympathy all these things should be plucked out and thrown away. Life is happening. Take life as it comes. And when emotions are coming, which you don’t want….. like when we go to vendors or vendors coming home (when there is no Corona situation). When they come home to sell things, what do we buy? We buy only what we need in the house. We don’t buy everything. When we go to the supermarket, what do we buy? We only buy what we like to consume, otherwise we don’t buy. So this is what we should do all of our life. Whenever we are awake, we should be controlling our consumption. We should not indiscriminately consume, because if you do that – obesity happens. And this is a continuous thing, and sometimes we are so helplessly involved in it, and that’s a big trauma for us.

So as a general answer, I can say to control your consumption: physical consumption, emotional consumption, intellectual consumption, and also ego things like pride. Don’t try to consume everything that you get.

And also, you do not have to prove anything in life. Because people who love you will accept you; people who do not love you will not accept you. That’s how the world is. Not everybody will accept you. Those who have eyes to see will see you; those who do not have eyes to see, can’t see you. That’s fine, because that’s the way creation has happened. So let us be realistic. And let us say that we don’t have to prove to anybody. We are living our life without violating or without violence. We are not trying to harm anybody so that we are on safe ground. We contribute what we can contribute. And we always ask the question, “Can I do something for you?” so that our purity is always maintained. If you focus on what you can deliver and not what you consume, you will feel peaceful. This is the right time for understanding that.

Nidhi: To add a little bit to that question, there is societal judgement that comes in, you know. You say to live in the moment, but sometimes society kind of judges you on a lot of things, and a lot of you (viewers) have been writing to us: “My mother-in-law or my so-and-so..” You have to get over that judgement somehow by realising that it’s your life and you can live it whichever way you want to, because God ultimately wants you to be happy. So what may be a sin in say, the eyes of society or your friend circle, may not be a sin in your own eyes.

Mohanji: Well, the minds of the other people are in their own bodies or their own systems. We do not have much control over it. But I would say that if we have not been affected at all for a period of time, then the impact becomes less. If we’re reacting to everything, it will be increasing because then there is a pleasure on the other side. Like if somebody is abusing us, or judging us, criticising us, which I have experienced many times. I don’t respond, and say to myself: “okay, this is their opinion, my reality is totally different.”

So we must have trust in ourselves, faith in ourselves. We don’t buy things which we don’t agree with. Because we can’t change people, change other people’s minds. We interact with many types of people every day, right? And we don’t have many choices for it, because society has a variety of different types of people. We have to interact with them consistently. We don’t have any choice. So while we’re doing it, make sure that we remain clean and unaffected. Unaffected means – let them say whatever they want. If they have pleasure, it’s okay. I believe in that. If somebody abuses me, I think: “okay, maybe because of me, he has that pleasure.” So this is okay. He has the right to have pleasure, like everybody. So even if he is abusing me, it’s fine. As long as I don’t buy it, it stays with him. You know, I normally say this to people: when people try to gossip about others to me, I say, “You must have done a lot of hard work to get this information. This is precious for you. Keep it with you. Don’t give it to me.” So they don’t tell me again.

Q: Can you kindly share with us at what stage of your sadhana (with regard to the number of months or years) you first started experiencing the state of blissful existence? As someone who has recently started to meditate, I would like to know more about it so that I can be not immediately bothered about such expectations hindering the entire process.

Mohanji: Yes, I would say that, first of all, we should not keep any expectation. This is the first point. Second is that the experience is usually individualistic, because we all have our own constitution. We can’t say that another person had this experience, so I should have it. It may not happen that way. Third is that for me personally, I did not know what I was looking for. Because as I told you, I was working in a company and I was practising.

So one thing I would always say is that you have the same place for meditation or practice every day. Don’t change locations. Because what happens is the mind gets occupied with it. So I used to keep one room and I had covered the whole room – I made it like a cave, so that there was no light entering from anywhere. And I only had one lamp, no pictures, nothing in that room, so that the distraction level was less. Initially there’ll be a lot of distraction because we have habitual thoughts coming in, and things like the pleasures, which we like to indulge in. That comes like, “I need to have coffee or tea”, or, “it is time to check the mail”, things like that. But for that I used to start at 3 am every day, but I don’t recommend that because that was my own style. I used to have my time, my own personal time and that was 3 am to 8 am every day. That is when I was practising – means I was actually trying to explore myself. I’m not asking you to replicate anything – I’m just telling you in a broad spectrum, one space, always. One space, one kind of environment and one lamp (with flame) or one thing to connect to. Plus one practice – same practice. Sometimes it’s so boring but you still do the same practice. If it’s a mantra, chant the same mantra again and again and again. So what happens is the mind finally breaks up. Mind can’t hold it anymore. Mind likes variety. The repetition kills the mind, and that moment when it breaks is when your whole identity is broken.

So for me, it was consistently about six months before there was a slight change in the whole thing – where I could assess the difference by not getting affected with the world outside. That means whether a thing is there or not, I’m not affected. Earlier, I used to have certain requirements every day. If I get up in the morning, I take a bath and once I’m done, then I do my prayers. But then after that, I need to have a coffee or something. But all those needs became optional. So that was the first step. So like that, eventually, tremendous detachment happened with the world outside. When you start touching the silence deeper, at that time, the world of noises is somewhere far away. You can hear the noises, but that’s not yours – so far away. Then you feel totally separated from it. If you want to go to the noises you can go. But again, you are not affected. It’s like with some people who smoke a lot, who can’t handle being without cigarettes. Then after the moment they decide to stop smoking, after a long period of time, even if somebody smokes, it doesn’t matter, because they have overcome that – like that. The world of noises is probably a temptation for some time, and then the temptation also goes. So, I would say it took six months before I could actually start connecting to myself by crossing over the tendency for searching for noises, because that was my world like everybody else’s. This is the world of noises. We are used to it and we think that’s natural for us, but it’s not. We think it’s natural.

Nidhi: There was a question regarding the sadhana, is it traataka by any chance?

Mohanji: So, one technique as I said, I was looking at the lamp but I was not looking – my eyes were open and connecting to the lamp but I was connecting to my spine. I didn’t practice traataka.

Nidhi: Shlloka, let’s take the next question and then move on to the next segment liberation.

Shlloka: The next question, as you’ve touched upon it earlier in your segment as well. You know, it’s a very natural tendency for people to want to tide over suffering and reach a state of pleasantness, pleasure, enjoyment, whatever you may want to call it. You have stressed upon awareness as being that seat of pleasantness and enjoyment. You’ve also spoken about how presence is the highest practice. So if you can tell our viewers who are watching you for the first time as to what is the importance of awareness and why so much stress on it?

Mohanji: Yes, awareness starts with very small things like for example, we are talking. Just be aware of every word you utter. That means no absent-mindness, first of all. Then we are moving our hand or we are doing something – be aware. In other words, let the mind be present with everything, every word, every action so that your mind is right here in the present. This is the number one thing. Then you can go deeper and deeper in awareness and eventually you are aware of your heartbeat, you are aware of your breath, you are aware of your aura; you can be aware of everything. You know, it’s very interesting if you start connecting to yourself and start assimilating and you will know that the heart has a particular frequency; that the liver has a particular frequency, that every aspect of you has a different frequency. And it’s like an orchestra inside. You know, every organ is playing in the orchestra, that’s a synchronisation – it’s like a huge beautiful melody. So you start connecting to yourself and then you realise, “Oh my God, I’m a big universe, what I was looking at outside is nothing compared to what I am or what I can see inside”. So awareness takes us there. Awareness is so important. Now, in daily life, what happens is that we get so involved that we lose that awareness a little bit – because we forget that we are the actor. We forget that we are not the role. We are the actors but we forget that thing. So, what happens is – we get involved with the role and we believe that we are the role, not the actor at that point in time. We get affected and that’s where suffering happens. Because the role has suffering, you also have suffering. Otherwise, if we always remember: “I’m an actor and this is just a role I’m playing and this is temporary”, then there is no suffering. So, suffering is connected to our deep involvement – then we tend to blame the other actors. We are in these role plays every morning till evening.

Nidhi: I am reminded of Shakespeare’s saying, Mohanji. He said that famous line, “Today, we have our exits and our entrances. So each of us is a player and it will be curtains down soon for everybody. That’s what he said.

Mohanji: Yeah. So this awareness is that, but consciousness is different; awareness and consciousness are different. Consciousness is our driving mechanism which has three distinct aspects every day: the waking state, the dream state and the deep sleep state. So the same consciousness operates in three dimensions each day in 24 hours. But awareness is that we stay over all that’s happening to us – like a view from above. So you can see all the role plays, but at the same time you remember you are always the actor. So that gives you that immunity as well as power. That makes you powerful.

Shlloka: So we have a question from someone – you just spoke a while back about sadhana. And you mentioned that there is so much resistance. As a spiritual practitioner myself, I experience that as well – how every day, one doesn’t want to get up and do sadhana – there’s so many things to do, don’t do it. There is so much resistance and one sometimes succumbs to the mind. So the question is being asked:

How does one conquer the fear of limitations in the way of one’s sadhana?

Mohanji : That’s only in the initial stages. In fact, after a while you will not even feel anything if you avoid expectations, if you avoid agenda. For example: “My friend who was doing sadhana achieved a level of silence. So I should also do that.” Don’t do that. You just be yourself, don’t compare, don’t compete and just follow. I never used to tell anybody what I used to practice – that’s a very good idea. Because if you try to share with people, then they would all have opinions and sometimes they derail us. So I would say that keep your own practice close to you, do it as quietly and consistently as you can, and after a while, this becomes a usual thing.

See, the subconscious mind reproduces what you do repeatedly – like for example, if you do 21 days or 41 days. That is the point of the Early Birds Club that I spoke about earlier. That means people wake up at a certain time and do a particular sadhana. After a few days, they automatically wake up because they can’t sleep. Then that becomes enjoyable. And if you’re not competing and comparing, you will have no sorrows connected to it. So I would always say that you must consider that you are not the mind, you are not the intellect, you’re not the ego and don’t analyze and don’t keep on digging the seed out to see if the roots have formed. The root will happen at its own time – everything has its time. But I always believe that everyone has the clear potential, like everyone else, to touch the highest consciousness or to touch the state which is consciousness. So, all of us have that power and we are never higher or lower than anybody.

Shlloka: Mohanji, in connection with this, can talk about the importance of sadhana, what are the benefits of sadhana or yoga for that matter? You know, there’s so many people who are non-practitioners who have written to ask :

Why should one be pursuing the path of sadhana? Are there any other ways to achieve the ultimate, or is sadhana the only way? If it is the only way, what is the benefit?

Mohanji: Well, sadhana is nothing but a systematic practice. That means something which you’re committing to. And anything you are committing to, you should have conviction about it, you should believe in it. Not because somebody else said or is doing or not doing. We should check whether it suits our nature, whether it is natural for us or whether it is suitable for us, and then we follow that. For example, a person who’s devotional by nature cannot follow a guru or path of knowledge or jnana yoga. This person can only follow bhakti, and that’s what suits a person of that type. So this is the first point – that when you practice something, make sure it suits you. Don’t just follow like a cow; a cow’s tendency is that if a cow goes in one direction, every cow goes in that direction too. So we should not do that because we are human beings. We should not have herd instinct. Instead, we should look at what suits us and choose. If something doesn’t suit us, we should be happy to say that’s not our cup of tea. That is the first thing about sadhana.

Secondly, consistency as I said earlier. Then the question about why one should have sadhana – it’s very simple, otherwise you miss a great personality!! Instead you will be immersed in the world outside, a world of noises with so many things, varieties, colours etc. And it is never ending because you will always have more and more desires. And finally get tired because all this while you’ve been running after so many things and materials, you got so many things but are not still happy.

So, how do we find happiness instead of going for various pleasures? We come to ourselves and then we realise, “Oh my God, I never needed anything, I am happy otherwise.” So, for understanding this you need to have practice. I always say two D’s — one is Discipline and the second is Determination. The other side is distraction. So to overcome distraction, you need to have discipline and determination. Determination is to connect to yourself. As I said earlier, the whole spiritual path can be crushed and the essence of it can be said as — “You are that. You are what you’re looking for.” So this ‘You’ is a great story. We know that we only connect to ourselves as incidents based on what we have experienced. That’s not us. We have so many other things, other faculties and factors. We are a conglomeration of all that. So if you do not connect to yourself, you miss that great opportunity.

Nidhi: Mohanji, we are completely out of time now. I’m just going to take two more questions. One person said that she’s been praying to Sai Baba and she’s been seeing your face. There are many more questions like that. Another one is:

Why is Sai not answering my prayers? What should I do? It’s been a decade. What would you like to say to such people who’ve been asking plenty of such questions?

Mohanji: How can I say why Sai is not answering? But I would say that Sai always answers. We have living Masters and we have had great Masters who have lived here as beacons of light and power. And they always respond, I believe so. Because the thing is that we are probably asking for something which can’t be delivered, something personal or selfish. They don’t cater to it.

Or secondly, they would have delivered something which we fail to see because we are focusing on something else. This happens many times. What we got, we may not see. But what we don’t have or what we thought we should have, we will see. It is the same with the gurus, you know. The tradition says or the scriptures say, “The one who has appeared in front of you is your Guru. Connect to him completely.” But then we have probably an image of Babaji, an image of Sai Baba and we say, “Oh, that form did not come to me. So I don’t accept it.” So you miss it. This happens in our life.

I would say that no master ever denies anybody. This is my experience. All true masters are here to serve. They’re not here to earn or eat and eat more etc. They are here to serve. If you stop asking, maybe you get much more, maybe you are supposed to get a Mercedes but you asked only for a Maruti!

Nidhi: How lovely! How beautifully you summed it all up, Mohanji. And I think we’re going to have many more sessions with you. It’s almost time now to wrap up. It’s truly been a very insightful, incredible journey packed with so much wisdom and this intersection with you has been wonderful to begin with. We have many, many more questions, which will not go unanswered I’m sure. To wrap up, I’d like to give special thanks to you, Mohanji for gracing us, to my team Union, for producing and marketing this show headed by our volunteer Ajay. Thank you so much. Thank you to the Mohanji Foundation. We thank you for making it see the beautiful light of day. Now, I leave it to Shlloka to end this session for today.

Mohanji: Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to all of you.

Shlloka: It’s been a pleasure. And you know, the viewers have flooded us with questions.

Nidhi: I think even ten sessions with you will not be enough. There were hundreds of questions, and you have thousands and millions of followers. So we have to have this again very soon. That’s a promise to our viewers.

Shlloka: Mohanji, people have written to us, of course with their questions, but you know, it’s also just amazing to see the kind of profound gratitude that they have for you. For example, we have an individual who talks about and thanks you for your protection and for your grace – and many more messages.

We wish to have Mohanji back once again, so please keep your questions coming, viewers. And in the meantime, we would urge you if you have more questions, you can always visit Mohanji’s website, Mohanji’s Facebook page, it’s flashing on the screens. You can always stay connected and be answered to the best possible way, until we meet again. Thank you Mohanji once again, see you in the next one.

Shlloka and Nidhi: (To the viewers) We hope you would take all the answers and implement them in your life and we do hope you’ve liked Ask the Masters.

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic and Rakshitha Ananth

Proofread by Geetha Iyer

Be Committed to One Master and Path

Mohanji is a Spiritual Master whose awakening was graced by Sai Baba of Shirdi. He guides many on the path and works tirelessly to spread His teachings. Mohanji speaks about the necessity of being committed to one Master on the spiritual path.

This whole concept about many Masters is one of the highest illusions. We need to look into ourselves. We need to connect with ourselves. We need to concentrate on the reduction of thoughts. That is only possible through acceptance – self-acceptance. When we constantly work on connecting with ourselves, we raise our frequency. We increase our frequency, or automatically the frequency increases. Then we get in contact with such Masters.

The whole idea of this Guru, that Guru, my Guru, another Guru etc. are all external factors. They are all illusions. In fact, there is only ONE GURU, which is the Supreme Consciousness. And THAT does not need Forms. Anything that has a Form has come for a purpose and for a duration. That is something we must understand. None of the Masters is dependent on you. The real Masters will be the most unassuming of the whole lot. They would not even care if someone follows them, respects them, or criticises them. As in Shirdi Sai Baba’s case – when somebody threw a stone at Him, it hit His head and blood started coming out. When people asked Him, “Is it hurting?” He replied, “The injury is here, but the pain is there.” (The pain is with the Tradition.) It is as simple as that. That means Masters live in a very unassuming way, fully surrendered, and with zero ownership.

If you wish to connect to such Masters, you must develop that kind of eligibility. Eligibility is simply a lesser number of thoughts and more emptiness inside. For more emptiness to happen, there must be fewer desires. So one definitely needs a lot of:

– Self-acceptance

– Contentment (being happy with what you are given; with what is available)

– Doing your utmost in any given circumstances and;

– Acting with surrender – without ownership and without expectations.

These will help inner purification and emptiness. Inner purification is selfless action and emptiness is connected to acceptance – which means no resistance. No resistance means no postponement; no residual memories. Everything is accepted. As they come, they go. Everything that is born will die. Then, you are connecting to a Master only as a complementing frequency.

The Master delivers what He is, or as per your eligibility, the Master’s energy liberates you. Also, do not look at various Masters; it is only one Master in various Forms. You connect to the Master who has appeared in front of you. There could be a better Master, bigger Master, higher Master and a more reputed Master elsewhere. But he is not near you. You do not have to worry about that.

Always remember: the one who has come to you is the one for you. The one whom you are connecting to is the one for you. It is not about the Master, it is all about you.

How deeply will you connect?

How consistent will you remain?

How much conviction do you have?

These are the benchmarks. Then, the Master’s presence is complementary.

The Masters at the level of Sai Baba (who is a perfect Avadhoota), are not worried about anything. The great Masters will never try to prove something to the world. That is not important for them. This whole idea of having to prove something is from the mind level and they have crossed the mind. They are not worried about whether people accept or reject them, whether people appreciate or criticise them.

We are the same society that took Jesus to the Cross and took Baba to the Court. The society is the same and is full of variety. People look at others in different ways. When Baba was alive and living in Shirdi, many tried to harm Him, ridicule Him, criticise Him, or gossip about Him. This is how life is. You cannot change it. People are of various types.

However, what we need to do is, maintain purity through selflessness – CONSISTENT selflessness. We need to connect to ourselves and increase our emptiness within. Also, ensure you do not have expectations and do not have too many desires. The usual things like food, clothing, and shelter are fine. But apart from that, the greed factor (that I must have many houses, many relationships, and many other things, Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Mada, Matsarya, kind of things), anger, hatred, possessiveness, positions, possessions, jealousy etc. are all binding factors.  Have nothing to do with any of them. Accept everybody as they are, and understand that nothing happens in life without a purpose. 

If there is an incident that occurs in life, there is a reason for it. For every EFFECT, there is a CAUSE. For every CAUSE, there WILL be an EFFECT. Therefore, it is collective, and there is no point in blaming anybody.

People go to a Master with various expectations. It is a very nonsensical thing. It is foolish to go to a Master thinking that you will never die. You will die. There have been various people connected to various Masters. If you look at history, you can see that they have all died. When something is born, it will die. Everything that is born will die at some point in time. Even the Master cannot stay in the body forever. We should understand these fundamentals.

“Oh, I am connected to a Master, but then I am not well.” That is because you have collected all these residual things over a period of time and it is affecting your health. What has the Master got to do with it? When you are deeply connected to the Master; when you are not resisting too much; when you increase your acceptance with the energy of the Master; most of the diseases and blockages drop off. That helps to heal. Otherwise, you need to be consistently serving the society selflessly and increasing your eligibility/ frequency, so that Masters can connect to you, and transfer whatever is possible to you. And, that should come without asking. I have always maintained this. This is one of the benchmarks that I had when I was practising.

Firstly, I never thought that I would come out and speak in public. I always thought that I would work in an organisation; I would work for a living so that I would never be dependent on anybody and I would do my Sadhana (practices) without telling anybody and without anybody knowing about it. This was my idea. I was happy and contented. But later on, it so happened – Yoga, the appointed Duty; I started talking to people, people started coming to me, I started operating in public, and my public life began. But one of the benchmarks I have always kept is :

 My PRESENCE should be more powerful than my teachings.

Therefore, the intensity that I was looking for, or I was trying to collect and assimilate, was THAT FREQUENCY, which will be TRANSFORMATIVE.

Transformation is equal to inner silence – more silence, more stability, more stillness, more peace. That was the idea. Likewise, I never went to any Guru or asked something from them. I have visited various Masters, but I have never asked them for anything. I never asked them for a title. I never asked them for any Siddhis (spiritual powers). I never asked them for any favours. All of them helped and supported me, to the extent I was eligible. I was very much contented with it. So, when you are approaching a Master, go there just for the sake of blessing, just to connect to that energy and that is all; just as you go for a pilgrimage, or to a place of power.

A place of power is of a particular frequency. Therefore, when you go to a place of power, it helps your alignment. It helps you to align yourself. Align yourself means the Mind, Body, Intellect, Ego and Spirit come together. Thus, when you go to a Master who is already aligned, it helps your alignment.

When you sit in the smoker’s room for five minutes, everybody will think that you smoked because your entire body will smell of smoke.

Like that, when you are connected to a great Master, you will automatically start assimilating yourself and start integrating yourself more. That way it’s fine, but otherwise do not look at various Masters and keep wandering, believing that you will get more from everybody. It is quite the opposite. Nobody will take responsibility for you. Always understand that it is our insecurity or the display of insecurity that is visible when you wander. Our insecurity takes us to various Masters, thinking that everybody will bless us and life will be better. In fact, you will be more insecure, because you will have a lot more insecurities by visiting Masters with expectations and that will affect you more.

Please understand that the great Masters were the most unassuming Masters. The greatest of them all looked like nothing. “The glitter and the show are all for the sake of the stomach”, as Adi Shankara said. However, the great Avadhootas wander like madmen, sometimes in rags, sometimes in clothes that people don’t really appreciate, or sometimes not wearing any clothes. This is exactly how a true Master looks. They all look like ordinary people, one of the crowd, or probably not even connected. Because they only have the inner world, they do not have the outside world. That is why when you give them food, they may not even touch it. Because what will they do with the food? Now if you put it in their mouth, they may eat it.

Neem Karoli Baba

Like the famous story of Neem Karoli Baba. Many times when Neem Karoli Baba was wandering, he was hardly aware of his body. When he was wandering, somebody asked him, “Babaji would you like to have some food?” He asked his companion, “Did I have food?” The companion replied, “No, you didn’t eat food.” He then said, “Yes, I am hungry, I want food,” and then he ate food. Five or ten minutes later, he was in another place, where another person asked him, “Would you like to have food?” He again asked his companion, “Did I eat food?” Then the companion got curious and thought, “If I say ‘No’, then what he will do?” So he said, “No, Babaji, you didn’t eat food.”

Actually, he had eaten, but this companion was testing him. So, Babaji again ate food. It happened seven times in one or two hours. Then the companion understood that Babaji does not have body consciousness and he is actually reflecting other people and just following.

Many of the Masters do not have body consciousness, because they are already in a state of bliss and their external world is just a drama going on, the play of the Divine. They are fully occupied with themselves, in a state of deep Samadhi.

With a person in this kind of state, people may not even connect, because people connect with those who can predict the future or materialise something, miracles, or similar things. But that’s just the shallow part of this whole thing.

True spirituality is not about show; it is about TRANSFORMATION. Transformation means you connect to yourself more and more so that, because of your present incarnation, you do not take more incarnations. That is true spirituality.

True spirituality is that you integrate into yourself all the way, fully, so that you do not have to take any more lives. That means you come in compromise with all your patterns, emotions, feelings, notions, prejudices, etc. Then, everything dissolves and finally, there is nothing. Then the whole desire factor itself dissolves, so the mind-matter dissolves. Then you only exist in Consciousness. In that mode, when you die, you only expand. You do not die. You do not leave. The body is there, and in the body, you are already a unit. Not scattered, because the mind-matter has dissolved. Then when you finally leave the body (your Mahasamadhi), you are not leaving the body, you are expanding from the body. That is why the place where the body of such a Master is kept becomes a shrine. Because they have not left, they have just expanded, their unit is still remaining. And it will live for thousands of years. It depends on the intensity of the Master.

As we see in Sai Baba’s case, a hundred years after His Mahasamadhi, we are discussing Him; we are experiencing Him; we are seeing various temples in His name, coming up in various places. All this is connected to the intensity of the Master, at the time of His existence. Do not connect only to the behaviour of the Master; such as what He was doing, how He was, etc. Baba used to smoke chillum. Probably He was smoking just to feel His body. He may not even be aware that He has a body. At the same time, He had to interact/ talk to so many people who came to Him. For that, he had the need to probably bring Himself to Himself, bring awareness to His body unit and talk to people.

There are so many such occasions, where you need something else to feel your presence, your body; because you do not feel the body.

When your practice becomes deeper, when you start assimilating, you will all experience that state; a state where you are not aware that you have a body. It is not an unconscious state; it is with full awareness.

You have a full awareness state, but you are not bound by the body. Your boundaries are different; your boundaries are beyond your body. That state happens. The point I am emphasizing is, we do not know how the Master operates. We should never judge, we should never criticise, because when you judge or criticise using your limited awareness, the Guru principle in us dies, or its frequency reduces. Then the ability to connect to subtlety also reduces.

Instead, you should develop greater acceptance.

“Okay, if there is a cause, there is an effect. If there is an effect, there is a cause. There will be some reason. Maybe we do not understand the reason. No problem! But because there is an effect, there would be a cause”.

Also, you should leave all those things to Karma. If something wrong is happening, Karma will equalise it. If something right is happening, Karma will reward it. So allow Karma to have its course. We are nobody to interfere. In case it is society, the law and order will take care of things. You don’t have to worry about it. We have a man-made law and order system to maintain discipline in society. We trust it and we leave it at that. Then we have the elected members of the Board, an elected Parliament, etc. We trust them; we give them the full authority to look after us. We should not interfere in any of these things. Also, we should not judge, criticise, gossip, talk ill, etc. because it immediately reduces our frequency. To gain frequency, it takes time. It takes a lot of effort, consistency, and conviction. To reduce in frequency it takes no time, it happens just like that; you will drop like you do when on a slide. Then it takes a lot of effort to climb up.

While practising, such instances will happen. First of all, your connection with the Master (is important). Then you may start judging. There are various Masters who are/ were very aggressive in their behaviour. Even Shirdi Sai Baba used to shout and scream at people sometimes. He would even beat up people. There are many such stories. As for Bhagwan Nithyananda of Ganeshpuri, people used to be frightened to go near him. They used to be afraid because sometimes He was very aggressive. However, that was to remove, to ward off many things sitting in us.

Bhagwan Nityananda

We have collected many things over time. We have no idea what have we collected. Just like the viruses and the germs in the air, we do not know what enters our system through our nose, mouth, ears etc. Like this, many things are coming into our system. The Masters will see what is in you, and they may try to completely flush these out. If you are afraid or if you are scared, and if you hold on to what they are trying to remove, you lose. They do not lose.

I always believe a reliable benchmark for spiritual awakening is, “What have we lost by connecting to a Master?”

Have we lost our Anger Quotient – the amount of anger in us?

 Have we lost our jealousies, pride and ego?

Have we lost whatever we were clinging on to, as part of our personality?

Has it all been diluted?

Then the connection with the Master has worked. It is not how much he taught you, or what you gained.

The gain in spirituality is in losing. The gain is in the loss.

In spirituality, what you give up is your gain. In spiritual terms, whatever your share and whatever you give to the world, that’s your gain, because you have earned grace with that, an abundance of grace. A great amount of grace happens when you share what you have.

Share skills, share love, share time, share money – whatever you have, you can share. That will bring more and more grace. This grace will not only help you in this life, but it will also help the ancestors, the lineage karma.

I have explained about lineage karma, it is called the ‘Dhananjaya Prana’, which enters the system when the sperm meets the egg. That means before everything else, when even the body is not formed, before that, the lineage karma enters. And it leaves only after every other Prana has left. So, the Dhananjaya Prana leaves much later, after all the other Pranas have gone. That is why during cremation, when the body is put on fire, this Prana leaves immediately. Therefore, when you burn the body, at that time this prana immediately leaves, because the body is burnt to ashes.

In case of a burial, this Prana is the last to leave. When there is a body, this Prana stays. Until the body completely disintegrates, it stays. This is something we must understand. Lineage Karma is very vital. So when you share what you have, when you do plenty of it, such as feeding birds, feeding animals etc., it has a great effect. I always like Annadaan – giving food, serving food. When I say fishes and birds, I am talking about all animals in nature; feeding birds, feeding animals, feeding fishes, which are in nature. That will give a tremendous amount of grace to you, and in turn, it helps the lineage karma. Thus, the weight is reduced by serving (Annadaan). Similarly, taking care of the sick and the old, abandoned children, abandoned women, etc. also helps. All these acts will help in the reduction of lineage karma.

That is why I always say that if you want to do something for me, take care of these people. I always call all the species as ‘people’, because every being has a personality, every creation has a personality, so every creation is a person. Therefore, I call them ‘people’ – people of various species. They all have their distinction. They all have their personality. They all have their purpose. Coming back to the point, taking care of the people is one way we can probably reduce the whole impact.

The interest of the Masters is always to elevate you to the highest point and not just to give you some gift or some entertainment. Also, whenever we keep on asking, indirectly we are demonstrating our “Poverty Consciousness”. When you keep on saying, “Please give me this, please give me that”, it means we are telling the world, or the substratum, that we don’t have it, we lack something. When we constantly say we lack something, it means we are expressing a state of ‘not having something’, that means Poverty Consciousness. Such an expression will bring more of that state. This has to be very clearly understood.

Abundance cannot happen when you are expressing poverty consciousness. For abundance to happen, the best prayer is the prayer of gratitude. Say “Thank you!

Thank you for whatever you have given me. Thank you for my life. Thank you for my breath. Thank you for oxygen. Thank you for the system (bodily system) that is function well like circulation, respiration, digestion, functions of the brain, the senses that are working well”. Be grateful and express gratitude, and keep thanking, so that, that richness will remain all the time. By sharing what you have, your inner richness will be maintained. That ensures more abundance. Also, nurture positivity by talking good – only talking good, even if somebody betrayed you or somebody did not behave well with you, etc. You leave it to Karma to take care of them and you concentrate on positivity.

We should not gossip, talk bad, or convey things, which are negative, like character assassination, shaming, defaming etc. All these things are very bad and will come back to you. Whatever arrows you shoot, it will leave a backward residue. Whatever you produce from your desk, will come back to you. Therefore, we should not have anything to do with any of these things. We should only look at the positive side, and only think about what we can do for others (to add value to people around us). Even if there are enemies, you bless them. They are enemies because of their ignorance. If somebody is really aware, they will have no enmity towards anything. Because we are talking only about karmic beings on earth, how can you be an enemy with another karmic being? It is impossible.

If you really are a spiritual person, if you have clear awareness, you can’t have enemies. You will accept everybody.

Each person is expressing his character. People are of all types: good, bad, ugly, etc. All people have their mixture and nobody is perfect, nobody needs to be perfect. God and the Guru are well aware of it. Everybody is aware of it. All beings are aware of it. They are not looking at your perfection. They are looking at your disposition, your attitude. Your attitude should be that of Purity. The pure message, pure expressions. If you are really spiritual, you can never have an enemy. You will never defame anybody. You will never talk ill about anybody. Forget about Masters, even about your neighbours, your friends, your family, you will not discuss, gossip or talk ill about anybody, because they are all leaving more and more dirty, negative residue in your system. We don’t want them because you must cleanse everything you have before you leave.

On one side, you should be fully focused on purification like acts of kindness, acts of compassion, acts of love, etc. and on the other side, you are always thinking, “Ok, I am alive, I am here, what can I do for this earth? What can we do here? And so on. “That is why I have always believed in being practical. I do not consider myself as a Bhakti Yogi. I would rather be more of a Karma Yogi, somebody who is practical and out there in the world. Instead of sitting and chanting, I usually like to serve. I like to give people some kind of transformation in their own way, in their own capacity. I tell my people – the people who love me or like to connect to me – if your heart is beating, let it be for the world, we live for the world. And the best you can give to this world is yourself – as pure expression.

In old times, in Bharat (ancient India), before all these locomotives, before the invasions of foreign people in Bharat; in every village, it was a kind of an unwritten rule, that if you are born in the Sanathana tradition, every individual must go to Kashi (Varanasi / Benares) once in their lifetime.

Sanathana tradition/ Sanathana Dharma is the dharmic tradition based on the actual ground rules of existence, based on dharma, righteousness.

The usual practice was that people in their Brahmacharya stage (youth time), learn skills. They learn various skills as per their disposition, as per their orientation. They learn their relevant skills from the mouth of a Master who is experienced. Then the next stage, the Grihastha (householder) stage, is where they execute their skills. They do their job, they earn their income, they make a family, they probably will have children, houses etc.

Then comes the next stage (Vanaprastha or retired life), after everything is done and the children are settled, they are also probably married and have their own children. In such stage, they decide, “Ok, now we should go and visit Benares” because once in a lifetime, one must go there; that is an unwritten rule. When they leave, sometimes a few of them from the village will also go together because you have to walk a lot or use bullock carts at times. I am talking of a time, many centuries ago, when the land was covered with jungles and there was no conveyance. In those days, there was no public transport system. For many miles, there would be nothing available to eat. There would be no shelter, no food.

Sometimes the kings used to build some highway inns, like a shelter where such travellers would take rest and sleep. The wandering people also used such places. The people in the village would give them some rice, wheat, flour, sometimes a bullock cart, a bull, sometimes a cow with a calf etc. These people would take all of them and continue on their journey. It would take months for them to reach Benares. Finally, they would have darshan of Lord Shiva in Benares – Kashi Vishwanath. By this time, they have already detached from their family. It is almost as if they will not come back, because it takes a long time to reach there, especially from the Southern part of India. Then, they stay there in Kashi and often leave their body in Kashi too.

Look at this whole journey. First, they had a childhood, a meaningful childhood where they were taught the skills for an existence. These skills are usually useful for the village, for the society, such as cobblers, carpenters, doctors, physicians, etc. Whatever the society needs for a healthy lifestyle, those were the skills that were taught. After a while, they had their families. Because of their skills, they had their money/ income. The money sometimes would not just be physical cash; it would be materials to survive, so they got food to eat and other necessary things as well. The people in the village share all these things, so there was a big harmonious existence.

In those days, the temple of the village was the main meeting point. Everybody surrendered everything to the Deity and the distribution to everybody also happened from the temple. So the temple and the temple system made sure that nobody slept hungrily. Even the wandering monks staying in the temple would get food and shelter. It was not just a place of worship; it was a place of distribution. Temples used to have lots of land and local villagers farmed these lands. All the produce came to the temple and they (the people who manage the temple) would take what was necessary and distributed rest to the people. That was a beautiful system. Temples were involved in training people, in distribution and plus of course, religious/ spiritual ceremonies. The temple was of great significance then.

The Deity of the village played a big role, like the Mayor of a town. It was all justified because no one would want to cheat the Deity, for they all loved and respected the Deity. We never had the concept of ‘fearing God’. God-fearing is not our path. Our path is about loving God, being one with God, being connected to the frequency and energy (of god). That was our path. That has always been our path. So, we never feared God. We respected God, loved God, and hence we never did anything against God. This was the structure.

So, when they left after their healthy existence as a Grihastha (family person), or a state where they executed their skills and earned their money, they walked away. Each step they took amounts to detachment. Each step was a detachment from all of what they had earned – their families, their relations, their possessions – they were going away from it. Each step they took, they realised inside, “Now this is over”. It’s learning in detachment. Whatever you have earned and collected – all the possessions and positions – you are leaving behind and you are not sad about it because any way you have to leave it behind. You must go and meet Kashi Vishwanath, once in your lifetime.

They were like the Muslim brothers who go to Mecca today. Like that, they used to go to Benares. It takes time to reach there. By the time they reach Benares, they are already detached from the whole past. Finally, they settle down and only connect to God – Kashi Vishwanath. They chant, pray and stay there. Then, they leave the body there and their body was burnt on the Ghats. It was a very powerful system then. Even now, the first Abhishek or the offering, to Kashi Vishwanath, is the ash from the funeral pyre.

They were totally objective in this whole thing. When they learnt the skills, they knew that the skills had to be executed in a justifiable manner. Not for competing or cheating somebody or trying to make more money. Everybody has had a good existence. In addition, they had a deep connection with Deity of the temple, the presiding Deity of the village and that Deity is like the Lord of the village, the Mayor or the President of the village. They had that level of connection and simplicity, judicious behaviour, good behaviour, a balanced life. Once it was all done, they were going to the next space, where they were detaching from all that they had earned. Everything was distributed and given back. Whatever they had picked up from the village was given back. Every villager supported them, so all these people were participating in the journey. Then they went to Kashi, and by the time they reached there, it might be over two months. By this time, they learnt detachment & were very detached. This is called Vanaprastha (going into the jungle). Actually, you are not going into any jungle, you are actually detaching. Then, the last stage is Sanyasa.

Sanyasa means to be occupied only with God, connecting only to God.

Kashi Vishwanath

Varanasi is the place where they arrive, and connect to Kashi Vishwanath, and only thinking about Kashi Vishwanath, they leave the body. By the time they leave the body, they are totally purified of desires, of everything. There is no junk inside. They are completely empty and purified. That ash of the funeral pyre is sacred enough for doing the Abhishek to Lord Shiva. That level of purification was achieved. Look at our system; it was so grand and so profound. We had a great system in our country and most of us still do not know this. I would suggest that we revive that kind of system. Today, we have access to go to Kailash. In those days, Kailash was very, very far away and one in a million could go there; because it was very tough to go to Kailash, in Tibet. Therefore, Kashi was the place where people went. However, very few actually ventured into Kailash and those people were almost treated like Shiva. If you reached the abode of Shiva, if you had the vision, the Darshan of Kailash, that was a huge purification. This was the structure.

This is exactly what Gurus say about the structure of our existence – the dharmic existence, the dharmic structure – there was depth in it. That is why I say, “Don’t search for Gurus, Gurus will come to you”. However, if you search for Gurus, it is just for your mental satisfaction. If you keep wandering from one Guru to the other, it only shows your insecurity.

PC: Google images

If you are deeply connected with yourself, you will not have to wander. The right connections will come, the right energy will come, the right transformation will happen. Have patience. Baba says, “SABURI”. You need to be stable and steady, and that needs patience.

Always be stable. Always be steady. When you are chasing something all the time, there is a big chance that you are always distracted and never satisfied. Satisfaction happens when you are fully occupied with yourself and fully contented. Be happy with what you have. Appreciate everything. Do not criticise, judge, throw stones or do such things. Because when you throw stones, more stones are coming your way. Always remember, Karma retaliates. Karma gives back the same thing. When you say something is bad, somebody is bad etc., you are actually creating that thing in you. You are actually nurturing that pattern in you. Unless you are supposed to experience something, it will not come to you.

There is a cause for anything and everything that has happened in your life. Maybe there is a pattern, which you have maintained. Even with betrayal, jealousy, hatred etc., you have kept the pattern. Revenge is a very dangerous thing. Because when you take revenge on somebody, you almost die. A part of you dies. When you are attacking somebody, a part of you is dying. The goodness factor is seriously messed up. We need to maintain the goodness factor; allow Karma to take care of all the things that we don’t agree with. We should only focus on purity. That is why I insist that our group of followers practise positivity.

Let that be your benchmark – practice positivity at all times, and forget about negativity. Whenever there is positivity, there is negativity. Whenever there is light, there is a shadow. You cannot do anything about it, and you should not worry about it. When you are consistently focusing on positivity, you are automatically being purified. That is all you need and that will bring all the right frequencies into you. Remain PURE. Remain LOVE.

 

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

 

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How Sai Baba Can Give You Darshan In Any Form

 

To a person who is existing as a unit (this means, he is fully occupied within),  the world outside is only an extension, he is fully aware. For all of us too it’s the same. Our world is how we are; it is not how the world appears to be because we don’t see the real world, the true world.  We don’t see the truth one hundred percent, we only see relative truth. We see the truth as we are, as our flavour is. We have already discussed this. We have seen great Masters like Sai Baba, who attend to the call of all the devotees. None of these Masters, especially Sai Baba,  ever leaves anybody unfulfilled. They always fill them up; they always leave their hands full. Nobody connects to Baba and goes back empty-handed. This is clear.

Some people invite Baba, “Please come home or have food”, or “Please attend the wedding in our house”, or “Please attend a ceremony.” Baba will fulfill it, if the prayer is very honest and sincere, and  with full surrender, Baba will say, “I will come”, and He will come. Probably not as Baba in the form we know. He will come in any form. It could be a bird, a dog, a cat, a cow, a monkey, it could be a person like a beggar, or a wandering monk, or some such form. Often we expect Baba in His known form, and we miss Him.. And Baba has said, “I came to your house, but you beat me”. This means a dog came at the time that  He was supposed to come. He came in the form of a dog.

We must understand that there are two options – one is that you create a form; the Master can create a form for the sake of presence. This  means the energetic presence is conglomerated into a suitable form for that particular event, that particular activity, and then it is dissolved. This is possible. Otherwise they work through a form that already exists. The dog is already there. The Master’s energy enters into that form, for that purpose, and goes to that place. The entire  responsibility of that body is that of the Master; and then He goes to that place to fulfil the promise. But if we don’t see the truth,  if we misbehave or if we don’t respond properly, we miss the chance. It has happened many times.

This is also why it is important that we should not take any being for granted. We must consider all beings as an expression of pure consciousness, and treat them accordingly, so that we don’t miss Baba or the Masters. Whenever I go to places of worship, I  like to feed the poor people, the birds and animals there. I derive  more satisfaction doing that, than in entering the sanctum sanctorum. Of course, you go in and pay respects; but the most satisfaction happens,  grace happens, when you are  making all the beings happy. There is no more happiness than in delivering food, annadaan.

Annadaan is serving food that makes someone  fulfilled, and when they are fulfilled, great Grace comes into you. That’s why they say Annadaan is Mahadaan. Serving food is the greatest of sharing, serving. It’s very important that we should see Baba in every being. Baba can definitely come in any form. It could be a human being, in the form of a beggar. So look at everybody as a potential Baba and serve them.  Just ask them, “Are you hungry?” I always do that. “Are you hungry?” If they are hungry, give them good food, good quality food.

I’ll narrate an experience I had in this context. On the New Year’s Eve of 2014 or 2013, I was in Mookambika with a few others. The temple of Mookambika, is in Kollur, Karnataka, in the south of India. It is an  amazing temple;  most of the great Masters have spent some time there with the Mother Goddess. It’s a  very powerful temple. Mother is really sitting there or Mother’s presence is felt there. So I wanted to spend the New Year there. As I was coming out of the temple,  I saw  a man, decently dressed, but it was obvious  he was asking for money or food. When I saw him, he extended his hand, as if  he was asking for something. I asked him “Are you hungry?” because I was going for breakfast. He said, “Yes, I am hungry.” I said, “Come with me.” So we went to the restaurant, and he occupied a  table, my companions and I sat at another table. I told the waiter, “Whatever he wants, give it to him.  Let him consume, and give the bill to me.” He did not eat much, he only ate moderately.  Once he was done, he came to me and said, “I am satisfied.” So I asked him, “What about your lunch? Do you want to take a parcel from here?” He said, “No, don’t worry, I am ok.” I asked him, “Do you have water?” He replied, “No I don’t have water.” So I bought him a bottle of water.

Mohanji in Shirdi 2016

Mohanji in Shirdi 2016

He then left  and we continued our food and left. Next day, in the morning, the same incident happened. When I came out, I saw the same man, and he was standing at the same place. I asked him, “Are you hungry?” He said, “Yes“.And then the same thing happened. .

That day I was planning to go to the river in the area to take a dip. It’s  a very sacred river.  However my companion and I lost our  way and  went to a different road.  We turned around and reached a temple,  the temple  was not in our  original plan. We were only planning to go to the river. When we came to that place, there was a verandah, a kind of a platform, where I saw  the man who had breakfast.  He was lying down. When he saw me, he came towards me, and  explained a little bit about the temple. Many pictures were taken at that time   but in none of the pictures this man was seen. Then we went to the temple, and by the time I came out, he had disappeared. I never saw him again. Obviously he was not a human being. He was probably a Master or  someone else, I don’t know. Probably his mission was to bring me there, and of course, he did not lead me like a guide; he was already there when I reached. But in all the pictures taken there, he was not there, his space was blank.

I am giving this story to you, just to tell you that at various times, the person  in front of you, the one  coming to you,  may not be an ordinary person.  If we fail to see them,  throw them out, ask  them to go away, or abuse them, we miss a lot. We should never abuse anybody; we should never talk badly about anybody. We should always have the attitude of serving. We share what we have. They don’t expect more than your capacity, ever. Share what you have, within your capacity, and don’t look at whether they are in human form, or in the form of an animal or a bird. That is why we have this custom in our system, that we serve every being. We do that in our place also; before I eat food I will ensure that food is distributed around our house: food is kept outside at  specific places  for the birds,  insects,  and animals such as  squirrels. They come and eat, and only after that I consume. Thus  we first give food to the beings outside the house and then  we eat,  so that the food that we consume is blessed food,  consecrated food. By giving to various beings, we are consecrating our food, then we consume. It can be anybody who is consuming.  I keep some food under the tree, birds will come; animals or other beings will come and eat. They will be satisfied, and then we consume – that’s pure food, blessed food, it will be completely non-toxic.

Mohanji feeling the Saligram stone gifted by Sai Baba to Nanasaheb Dengle

Also always, when you serve, serve good food, not food that you don’t want, not bad (spoilt) food. Even if you are giving it to a dog,  a cat, or any other being  in nature, always ensure that you are giving food, which you will consume.  Similarly with  clothes; we must only give clothes to others that we will use, which is comfortable for us; not that we give something that we don’t want.

Whenever we do things with the right attitude, it enhances our energy, it opens us up, it removes blockages. We must always remember, this is  the path of Baba. When you say you are a devotee of Baba, it  should be the lifestyle; an attitude of service all the time, an attitude of gratitude all the time.

It is not  that you go to Shirdi often, for something. That’s not the way to serve Baba. When you really respect Baba, when you love Baba, when you think you are connected to Baba, these will be the signs of that connection. That means you are here to serve; you will not compete with people, you will not talk bad, you will not criticise, judge, gossip, defame, shame somebody. You will not do any of these,  you will respect everybody. Everything is part of a karmic agenda, everything has a karmic allowance to it, so we respect that. If you don’t want to participate, you can very well not be there, that is fine; but standing there and abusing, criticising, judging, defaming, shaming, these are  not good, because then it is huge contamination entering your system.

You should always remain pure, like a young  child, like  a newborn, always remain pure. Then when you leave the body, you are leaving a pure body to earth, not a contaminated body.  So serving has a lot of value in the system. It’s very important. Always remember this.

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Clarity of Purpose Gives Will-Power, Part 2

Mohanji Speaks Zoom Satsang, part 2

24th March, 2019

Sensitive but not emotionally reactive

Q: How can one practice being sensitive and compassionate towards others without being emotionally reactive?

Mohanji: I think I explained this matter in the first discussion. It is about being controlled by the three faculties  I spoke about. The mind controls us. The mind is the seat of emotions. It is also the seat of expectations. Intellect controls us when we analyze too much. We try to position ourselves in the society or with people. Sometimes it becomes escapism too. As an escapist, you say “Oh! This is not my cup of tea. I don’t want to be here”.  Then our ego or personality controls us, with thoughts such as, “Am I being respected? What do people think about me?” and so on.

When I was doing my Sadhana, I would never tell others what I was  practising  I was connecting to my spine, I was doing vertical breathing,  but I never discussed this with anyone  because this is not a subject we need to discuss. Sadhana is something that suits you, so you practise it alone, in silence, spend more time with yourself, stabilize yourself and let the practices stabilize you from within  more and more, settling your doubts. This is how it should be.

In any case, whenever you say “I am emotional”, “How can I not get involved with this?”, etc. always remember, there is an expectation connected to it. This is fundamental. If you have no expectations you will deliver and you will be completely detached. And if you are expecting applause, award, appreciation, there’s always a binding. We end up doing our activity only for that sake of the appreciation. If you have given up that aspect, you do everything you can do at your maximum capacity. But at the same time, you are free, you are not bound by other people’s opinions or appreciation or rejection. Be sensitive enough, to the extent it motivates you. The right amount of sensitivity can be a motivation. Instead if the sensitivity is overwhelming, it does not help you in any way. Sometimes, we may stop doing good things and good work because of other people. That is actually our loss.

Please understand that whether you do something or don’t, in about 80 or 90 years you are history. Hence it‘s not worth it to think too much and not do. I believe in POSITIVE ACTION, not just any action. And my beliefs about the do’s and don’ts are based on non-violence. If something is violent in nature it is a complete ‘no’ for me. Secondly, being sensitive is a good idea but at the same time, it should not hinder our activity.

You FEEL, but don’t blame other people, as they have nothing to do with it. They’re only expressing you, as to what you are to yourself because you need to know what YOU are at some point in time. If you are lazy, you can’t expect other people to be fully active as they will reflect your laziness. Likewise, everything in life is connected to how and what we are. And our experiences are also connected to what we are.

This is the entire structure; what you need to do is forget about everything and focus on your action. Within your capacity, keep doing more. That way, you will increase your capacity and keep delivering. Once you keep delivering it in this mode, you will not worry about being appreciated. You may not even look at how many people are looking at you or whether they are looking at you with kindness, they may not. I have experienced that even after doing so many things, some people criticize you very bitterly. They may talk poorly. What you need to do is, stop worrying about it. Just focus on what you have to do and keep delivering. Those who have eyes to see you will see. Those who cannot see you will not see. They should not see either, I say that because it’s not their time yet,  to connect to you, to recognize you or appreciate you. You should never be looking at people for appreciation.

Also, I’ve seen that most of the connections are based on convenience. “If it is convenient to me I connect, else I don’t connect.” So that is purely a mind based connection. Those kinds of connections will happen in life too. Sometimes they connect and then at some points in time, they are just not there – selective or convenience based connection. These are part of life and we should not really pay much attention to it. Those who are supposed to be with you will be with you. Those who are supposed to see you, will see you. Those who are supposed to appreciate you, will appreciate you. Nobody can shake them because their integrity will be steadfast, uncanny and very powerful.  And they are the ones who will walk with you. That is why Buddha made his entire empire with 5 people. Jesus had 12 people with him. They created their empire with a few people, with those who stood steady, despite any situation, without criticism or doubts and without judgment.

In everyone’s case, all of us are walking this earth and doing many things. When you do things, do not expect something. If you don’t do anything, there is no criticism, but then there is no existence either! If we are doing anything, there will be opinions and that is alright. Let opinions happen. We have to accept it and do what we have to do and what we can do.

Overcoming a sense of isolation

Q: Mohanji, I’m surrounded by people, but I’m lacking a sense of belonging. What can be done to overcome this isolation?

Mohanji: The first part of the sentence is equal to expectation. You are surrounded by people and you do not know you are still in isolation. That means you are becoming more and more mind and you are not even looking at people. They are almost like walls or stones. You don’t see them. Then how do you connect? You don’t recognize them because you don’t recognize yourself.

Here, the fundamental question is about self-acceptance. How much have you accepted yourself? If you have accepted yourself with all your weaknesses, all your strengths, then automatically you will connect to the world with ease. This is because you see only perfection in every being. You will not see many people; you only see your own reflection in many forms. So, the first and the last step should be self-acceptance. You have to start with self-acceptance. At the same time, spend time with yourself and try to feel yourself and understand yourself without judgment, criticism or comparison. There has to be complete acceptance with all your negativity and positivity. All of us have strengths and weaknesses.  No one has only strength or only weakness.

So start looking at yourself fully, completely. Look at yourself as a complete being with every quality. In that mode, when you start looking at the outside world, you will have no expectations. If you have no expectation with your own self, why would there be an expectation about other people? If you don’t have any rejection about yourself, you won’t reject anybody else. If you accept yourself completely, you will accept everybody. This is the fundamental truth. This is exactly how life should be. It’s not a rocket science. It’s about how much have you accepted yourself. That’s where everything begins, everything starts.

Dilute ownership, change your destiny

Q: Can FAITH overcome prarabda?

Mohanji: Faith is important. Faith is like oxygen. Faith helps survival. Also when your focus is on a master or a God or a deity, then many of the calamities which are happening around you will not be so strong or so detrimental because your level of ownership will be less. Pain is connected to OWNERSHIP.

If you have more pain in life, it’s connected to more ownership in life. When you have ownership of people, relationships, possessions, positions, materials, etc. it causes pain. Possessiveness causes pain. Now, if you are connected to a master and operating in “surrender” mode all the time, the ownership will be very low. And so is your pain. What is happening in your life now is a creation from the past. The “Prarabda” or the destiny is a creation of the past. Something you did in the past created this existence. All that you are experiencing now is connected to something of the past. So that will have to happen and nobody can change it. Every experience as it happened is what you are meant to experience. But when you surrender, the impact becomes less because ownership is diluted. With diluted ownership, you are freer, prarabda weakens or the impact will be less. That is a beautiful thing.

Those who are connected to masters or certain deities, those that practise a certain type of worship  consistently, with integrity and conviction, have survived various tests. This is  because when there is no ownership, the event that is meant to happen might not even happen. Sometimes it does happen but it will have a much lower impact than what it was originally meant to be. Thus it’s all connected to ownership. Faith is very important, it is wonderful, and it makes your life better. You can breathe well if there is a good amount of oxygen in the room. Similarly, Grace is the very oxygen in our daily life.   When you have surrendered, the grace factor is high. But when you have ownership, grace factor is low. So the factor of grace is very important.

Gratitude also helps. Even if it is a small thing, be very grateful. You have to be very, very grateful for everything;  grateful that you are alive;  grateful that you are breathing. Be grateful that you have all these possessions and positions. Be grateful that you have food to eat. Be grateful that you have shelter, a roof over your head. Be grateful for your awareness. Be grateful for your relationships. Be grateful for everything. Just be grateful. Being grateful brings grace, lots of grace. And your expression of gratitude  in this world should be kindness and compassion. Be kind and be compassionate. Don’t judge, don’t criticize and don’t talk bad. These are all very negative and you are actually attracting more poison by being that way.

A story

As the story goes, there was  a saint who was  looking at a tree.  A passerby asked, “What are you looking?” The saint said, “There are three people sitting in the tree. All three are people without bodies, which means,  they are dead. They are souls of non-bodied beings”. This passerby next asked, “What are they doing on the tree?” The saint said, “They are waiting to enter somewhere, maybe for their next birth or so.” Then they both saw a person coming from the village road, far away, fully drunk. He was completely unconscious of the world. He was tottering, falling down, picking himself up and still kept walking. He was coming that way. The saint said, “Just hold on. Just wait and see.” So this guy came and he didn’t even look at these beings on the tree, he simply walked past. When he walked past, they also went behind him.

This guy who was watching asked the saint, “Where is he going?” The saint replied, “In the same street around the corner, there is a brothel and he is going there.” He also added, “ Not just he, four people all together, have gone to the brothel, and that includes him.”   This means that the three souls who were sitting  on the tree entered him and went with him. They didn’t have a body of  their own and hence needed a body for the experience. So they all went together to the brothel.

It is very important to understand  that when your energies are of anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge and similar negativities, such energies will enter you and  aggravate it even more. We should always remember that walking the path of purity is very important. We shall not criticize. We shall not judge. We shall not complain. We will never be involved in any kind of polluting or negative emotions, because when you are in the grip of such emotions, when you are in such a mode, various energies of similar nature enter you, because they are all looking for a body for expression.

Some of them do not have the power to create a new body. So, they enter a body which is already in  that mode, means “birds of the same feather” kind of situation. They enter this body and work in a negative way. That is why I always insist not to sponsor, not to nurture or subscribe to negative emotions, criticism, judgment, revenge, etc. If you do encourage such negative emotions and thoughts, the energies around you which are of bad nature, will enter you and aggravate your situation. So you need to remain connected to higher consciousness, remain connected to a master who is connected to higher consciousness or worship a god or a deity you like to connect to. In some way, you should purify yourself. Please remember, this is YOUR journey, YOUR body, YOUR path, YOUR destination, YOUR destiny. So, YOU need to nurture it well. Nobody else can do it for you.

What best I can do is  show you the light and guide you. But I cannot walk for you.  It doesn’t  work that way. You have to walk. If you fall, it’s my responsibility, I’ll hold you. But YOU have to walk. Always remember, what brought you here is your prarabda. Your destiny brought you here, to this state. Losing this state is very easy. All you have to do is to enter into bad company, talk poorly, and engage in bad activities. Then more such energies will join you and pull you down.

If you have already managed to reach this level, all you need to do now is,  take one vow, one decision, a firm decision – that you will not take one step backward, because it is not worth it. One step backward means “Punarapi Jananam, Punarapi Maranam”, which translates to, again you are taking birth, again you are dying, again the stage of being in the womb of a mother … Like this, we have existed. So we MUST be very clear about this now.

We will not take a step backward. We are only going forward to the path of dissolution. We are only going in the path of becoming one with pure consciousness, which  has nothing to do with anything, so that we are very clear and focused and this is exactly how we should lead our life hereafter. That is the biggest gift you can give yourself. Even if somebody says something, even if you have many lures around you, even if all the people in the neighbourhood are negative, you don’t have to be. You can still stick with your integrity, stick with your experience, stick with your conviction and stick with your determination to remain pure in thoughts, words, and actions. This is all you need to do and this will automatically elevate you to very high levels of awareness.

Maintaining equilibrium

Q: As I continue with my Sadhana and my awareness increases, I find it very difficult to handle the conflicts and insensitivities of the corporate world. How can I maintain the equilibrium?

Mohanji: Everything has a price. Every state has a price. Nothing comes easy. The challenges of the outside world will always be there, whether it is our relationships or the place of work or our own notions and concepts, those  sitting inside and the ones sitting outside, both of them may fight you. But you need to be very firm if liberation is your priority. Liberation means not running away from everything. Liberation means, having everything but you are not attached to anything. Attachment causes ownership, ownership causes pain. So, we need to be aware that we are the whole story. The whole story is us. We make our lives, we break our life and everything is us. Let things flow. Anything can go wrong. In my case, when I was doing my practices, I went through a series of problems including the death of my daughter, Ammu. All my possessions were stolen. My investments went away when the property dealer ran away. I lost my job. I contracted a disease. All these events happened within a short span of time (5-6 years). So I lost everything that I had ever had and this was challenging. Then there were corporate challenges on the other side such as targets, performance and the related activities.

But I never left my path. I never ever discussed my practices with people. I was alone and practising on my own. And it was purely the Vedic path, connecting to my spine and connecting to my breath. This is the only thing I did, but with consistency, conviction and focus. I never sought  results. Basically you are only giving time to yourself, connecting to yourself, being with yourself.

Later on, when I started my public life, I realized that many people  who come are not coming with kindness. Some people will come, abuse your connection in some way and then walk away. Also, they  contaminate the minds of other people. So I decided that I will have nothing to do with it, let it all happen. But we need to be very firm and very stable. And that’s what I deliver.

Hence your stillness, your stability is your choice. What happens outside is definitely not in your control; you can’t control it. That will happen based on  what our prarabda, what our destiny gives us. Your workplace, where you live, what you have, etc. are all connected to destiny. We have no control over them  because they are predetermined. But you can definitely make sure that you will stick to your tradition and path in this life. Nobody can challenge it. Even if somebody challenges it, if you reinforce your conviction then you can’t be defeated. You are very powerful. Actually, you will know that you are very powerful when you decide that “Nothing else matters, only liberation matters.”  If everything matters to you, then you are scattered. If only liberation matters, if you are fully focused on yourself and your liberation, then it doesn’t matter what your environment is, what concepts or fears you have or what is outside. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters at all. You are focusing only on the path of liberation.

That requires two things: no ownership of action, no ownership of the result of the action. These are absolutely essential to be in the path of liberation. And if you just focus on lack of ownership, that will be fine;  then clarity of purpose as I mentioned in the beginning, and also gratitude, deep gratitude. Always be grateful, don’t allow negativity; rather don’t buy things which you don’t need, especially those that are negative in nature; talking about people, talking about situations, concepts, and so on. You don’t need any of them. In fact, just focus on clarity of purpose, which is, liberation.

As I said, there are two sticks you can hold while you are trekking – no ownership on the action, no ownership on the results of action. Keep walking.

Wish all of you great success and deep love. All the best. Thank you! Love you!

 

Transcribed by Rakshitha and Ananth Sankaran
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Read Clarity of Purpose Gives Will-Power, Part 1

The Naked Truth

Dear All,
Mohanji receives many questions. Questions arise from one’s mind because it is the mind that is suffering in various situations and incidences.  Here are some straight answers by Mohanji to some commonly asked questions.
Love and regards,
BTW Family

My Beloved embodiments of pure love,

Our relationship is not accidental. We have been connected from life times and will continue through time as well. So, the familiarity that some of you are experiencing today has deeper roots than your limited mind can percieve. So, please do not mind if what is given below is a bit too informal and straight. I know this will provoke some thoughts in you. This is extracted out of some of the regular questions that I handle everyday. Remember, I love YOU. 🙂

Q: Relationship with—————— is not working. (Husband, Wife, Son, Daughter, Neighbor, Boss)
A: Is your relationship with yourself working? Sort that out and all the external relationships will work. Connect to yourself first. This yourself is not what you see in the mirror. It is the formless that keeps what you see in the mirror alive. Connect to that formless within you and everything else will work.

Q: What next?
A: It is up to you. Destiny is your creation. You can make it a beautiful garden or a clutter of weeds.

Q: I am confused!
A: You are not confused. Your mind is. Understand the mind and detach from it. Let it be confused, but you are not your mind. Be what you really are and there is no confusion.

Q: What is the reason for excessive stress in life?
A: Ownership and do-ership. Non-understanding or no realisation that “everything passes away”, both situations and people. When this understanding takes deep roots in one’s mind, life becomes an every moment game and each moment would be pleasurable and stress free.

Q: Many paths, which one to choose.
A: Simple. The path that is in front of you. You cannot actually choose anything else (any other path)

Q: Many Gurus. Which one is MY Guru?
A: None of them. Your Guru is your own soul. All else are reminders. Nothing that lies outside of you really belongs to you.

Q: Why are there differences?
A: There are no differences. It is only a distortion that the mind creates. Everything is one. Just different forms. Mind creates differences. You are not the mind.

Q: I am worried.
A: Mind is worried. You are not the mind.

Understand the mind and detach

Q: Can you help me?
A: Do you really need help? You are all powerful. If you feel otherwise, hold on to me until you find yourself. I will help you. You need the crutches only until your own legs become strong enough to carry you.

Q: I have faith.
A: Do you? Is it conditional or unconditional? Think again. Do you really have FAITH? How much faith? The word faith has become a cliche’. Faith is not just a word. It is a state, a perpetual state. Most of those who say “I have faith”, doubt themselves and certainly even their faith. And their faith is often conditional and sways with others interference, opinions and words.They need to work harder to achieve a total state of absolute faith.

Q: I surrender
A: Do not decieve yourself. Surrender means leaving out whatever you surrender completely from your system. Do you do that? Total surrender needs absolute faith. Complete surrender is a complete state of annihilation of a certain aspect of you. It is a state of dissolution. You are removing something you do not need in your constitution. Karma gets trashed. Think again, when you use such words. Do not deceive yourself.

Q: Whom should I trust?
A: Yourself.

Q: I Love You.
A: Do you? You should love yourself first. Love your family. Love your neighbors, friends, colleagues. I am total. When you love totality, when you become unconditional love, you do love me. If you think I am this form, this is non-understanding. When you hate someone, you do not love me. Loving me means loving the universe. Loving me means loving unconditionally. When you see me in every being, you DO love me. You will feel my love too. I love you through all beings.

Treading the path of faith and surrender

Q: Sometimes I feel disconnected.
A: You are never disconnected from me. Your mind is. You are not your mind.

Q: I want to be always with you.
A: Being with my physical body will never ensure proximity to me. If you are one with my consciousness, you are always with me and totally as well as completely connected with me. This is more permanant as well. Do not have the misunderstanding that those who are physically close to me are actually “close” to me. Some of you who are far away physically from me are more close to me (through unity of consciousness) than those who are physically near me. So, the desire for being with me should not be being physically with me. And many of you will not be able to handle my physical proximity because chances for disillusionment is very high. Read the blog “Living with a saint”.  I may kick your ego from time to time. I will tell you things that you may not like to hear, with the intention of shaking you up and liberating you from some samskaric bindings. You may not like it. So, beware. When you have tremendous maturity to handle whatever is given, you will automatically reach me. This is for sure. Otherwise, it is just infatuation. It has no spiritual value. Being in physical proximity, and at the same time being totally ego-less and in complete surrender, like Shama or Mhalsapati to Shirdi Sai Bhagawan is a real grace and blessing. Then the disciple and the Guru are one, though in separate bodies. This is possible and achievable, if you have consistancy in effort and total determination and a will for the annihilation of individual ego.

Q: How can I ensure my spiritual progress?
A: Strive to be always in 360 degree awareness. Watch your limited mind and ego. Be always detached from them. Be steadfast in your devotion as well as conviction. Do not only listen to others. Listen to your own soul and understand your own experiences. Understand and grow into yourself. Grow within. Be rich within. All external expressions should be expressions of your inner richness and not your limited mind. As Gandhiji said “Be the change that you want to see in the world outside.”. Be Unconditional Love.

Be always in 360 degree awareness. Be unconditional love!

Q: How can I see you in your real form?
A: See you in your real form. You will see me.

Q: Where is Good and Bad?
A: In your mind. It starts in your mind and ends in your mind.

Q: I cannot sleep.
A: Good. Practice awareness. It is better than sleep.

Q: How do I know you?
A: Know yourself, you will know me. What your mind says, is not me. What your soul says, is me.

Q: Who is a real saint?
A: One who has nothing to do with earth and knows it well, while being here.

Q: Even if I have one desire?
A: You will stay here.

Q: Aum Poornamada Poornamidam…. what can we equate this with for easy understanding’s sake? (question from a school teacher to explain to her students)
A: To a lamp. It never sheds its shine, brightness, even if a thousand lamps are lit from one. Everything is complete. Only completeness exists. Mind does not understand it, soul does.

Q: Why we wander?
A: Becuase you follow the mind. Mind always remains dissatisfied. It drags the body along. It delivers fears and alienations. It keeps you running for one thing or the other, through disillusionment and non-understanding.

Q: When ego takes over?
A: Men perish.

Q:Spiritual evolution is inevitable or guaranteed in each lifetime?
A: Depends on one’s karmic baggage.

Q: Is spiritual inheritance possible?
A: Yes.

Q: What is our hope for tomorrow?
A: Today

Q: Am I really alive or am I dreaming?
A: It depends on which level you are operating from. “Wake Up”, you will know.

Spirituality is awareness

Q: I believed spiritual masters are invincible. (Discussion point about fall in spirituality)
A: No. On the contrary, they are more vulnerable than others. When existence shifts to unconditional love, they trust everyone. This could be quite detrimental at times. It is hard to climb the ladder, easy to fall.

Q: Can an evolved being fall?
A: Depends on how he manages his ego and mind. If mind controls him, even duality of existence will pull him down. Unity cannot be percieved by mind. It is beyond the mind. To exist in unity, one should cross the boundaries of mind and ego.

Q: Man’s quest for knowledge
A: Waste of time, unless it helps his shedding.

Q: What is worth pursuing?
A: Silence.

Q: What is worth investing in?
A: Awareness

Q: Siddhis?
A: Candies.

Q: Why?
A: It wastes time. It maintains duality. It could nurture stronger ego. It forces detours. It alienates man from unity.

Q: Ultimate destination of man?
A: Narayana, the destination of man.

Q: Is it Lord Vishnu?
A: Parabrahma, the supreme formless GOD. The one who Generates, Operates and Dissolves. All forms are formed out of Him and dissolves in Him.

Q: Why do we visit holy places?
A: Urge to bathe in higher energies.

Q: What do we carry from there?
A: Depends on your stature. The ideal is to carry higher awareness, silence of mind, if you could. Usually, you only carry some photographs of your own form against some divine backdrop! This only tells you that you were indeed there and makes you feel worth the money well spent. Ability to experience gets enhanced with surrender and silence. Silence brings you more awareness than any book-knowledge. Expectation kills the fragrance of every experience.

Q: Why cannot everyone experience the same thing?
A: Each one experiences only as per each one’s capacity, stature and constitution. Each according to his ability, each according to his eligibility. There is no point in comparing. Comparisons means non-understanding.

Q: Where do you really exist? In which realm?
A: In your heart. In the realm of your consciousness. I have no other existence.

We will talk again.
Love You Always
M

BACK to BASICS

Mohanji receives many mails with many questions and problems from various parts of the world each day. Usually, he makes it a point to reply to each one of them, even though it is not easy. What we have here, is the essence of his replies for about 150 such mails. Straight from the heart, with deep concern for our evolution, to make us understand our purpose on the earth, Mohanji is showing the eternal mirror on our face, with a request, to ask a few questions to ourselves, think, contemplate, shed baggage and evolve. Have we forgotten something – some basics – on the way of our materialistic walk? We are proud to present Mohanji’s words as he expressed… each word is a pearl, makes one re-think…..

Love and regards, BTW Team

Even this one will pass away. I own nothing. All I have – I give you. I keep nothing for myself. I am fluid. I represent the consciousness that you came from. My love for you is complete. I embrace you as myself. I am indivisible. I am Yourself. I LOVE MYSELF and MYSELF is YOU. Love Infinite, M

Dear All,

Look at yourself. Are you taking your life more seriously than you should? Are you becoming more and more rigid and inflexible as the time flows? Is it worth it? Have you missed some of the most important experiences of your life either because of your fears, phobias or because of your binding conditionings – or even because of others’ words based on their set of fears and phobias? Are you a slave of your own mind or habits? Is constant postponement bothering you, destroying you from within and eroding your own self-esteem? Just remember, You have very limited time on earth and it is a matter of time before you exit from this scene on earth too, at least temporarily, irrespective of whether you believe in re-incarnation or not, death is for sure – sooner or later. Even if you may re-enter this drama at some other point of time and space, you may not remember the previous role that you played at all, just like you are totally ignorant about the lives that you lived in the past. So, once again, is this over-acted seriousness worth it? Is this anger, anxiety, fear, hatred, inflexibility and insecurity worth it? It is high time we contamplate on this. It is high time we looked at ourselves, considered ourselves, loved ourselves and cared too.

When is the last time we laughed whole heartedly, sincerely? It is time! Have we actually lost our childhood or the wonder-fuelled child in us? Have we lost our laughter? When is the last time we sincerely and guiltlessly appreciated a thing of beauty? When is the last time we complemented our spouse, our children, sincerely? When was the last time you consciously decided to abandon your nagging guilts as useless emotions and get on with life honestly? When is the last time you chose to be yourself? Do you feel that you control or can control others’ lives? If yes, first try controlling yourself, your own mind, before you attempt to control others. Is your guilt based on sexuality? Yes? Why? Isn’t sexuality an integral part of the life of every species? Sexuality is an instinct provided to sustain the species. Why should we be guilty about sex at all? Have you considered this thought ever? Guilt binds man as much as any other habits and conditionings do. Awareness and understanding truly liberates from all kinds of bindings.

Are fears of any kind necessary at all? Why? What is there to be afraid of? Are we afraid of ourselves? Are we afraid of society, name, fame, money, position? Are we rebelling? Against whom? Are our expressions constant acts of ignorance or helplessness? Can’t we choose to grow beyond it? Do we consider food and sex as recreation, get away or escape? Are we bound by any addictions at all, how ever innocent they may seem to be? Are we slaves to anything? Does it help at all? I believe it is time we considered our lives differently, as time does not stand still for anyone.

Are we passively accepting or suffering the company of people of negative nature who instill fears, phobias and hatred in you? Do they influence your thought process and make you ridicule, criticize and condemn Gods, Gurus and even your parents? Are you afraid to leave the company of such people? Are you mechanically, almost helplessly acting on their command, suggestion or manipulations? Why? It is time to think. You have the full right to choose good friends, those who bring brightness, sunshine and love into your life. You have the right to choose Love and freedom, as much as you have the right to choose hatred and further bondage. Remember, you are creating your own realities, and the inevitable destiny.

Have we ever considered contributing something creatively for the lesser privileged children of Mother Earth? Have we consciously decided to make our existence on earth more meaningful than the clock-work life comparable to that of animals, or a life bound by compelling habits?

Have we ever considered that war and peace happens in our minds first, before it gets manifested in the world outside?
Have we ever considered with gratefulness that we have three square meals a day and numerous past-time snacks in-between and have we ever really thought about the hungry, dying and deprived children elsewhere before we wasted the precious food and water? Have we ever considered that the grains that we wasted had the potential to become a plant and produce many more grains of its kind? If not, It is time to consider. Better late than never.

We are usually leading an unconscious existence. We live mechanically, clock-work. We repeat our inherited constitution quite mechanically and even become proud of it. We boast on others words, wealth or “borrowed feathers”! We boast about our inherited character or conditionings. Is it worth it? What are we proud of? Is there anything to be proud of at all which are not temporary in our life? It is time we thought about ourselves, before we think negatively about others. Is it because of others that we are suffering or that something (negative trait or tragic flaw) in us, that repeatedly brings such people and situations into our lives – what we are tired about? It is time to consider this carefully.

Have we actually lost our childhood or the wonder-fuelled child in us? Have we lost our laughter?….

When is the last time, that you experienced and expressed sincere and whole hearted FAITH towards yourself, your Guru and ultimately GOD? What is the use of entertaining conditional FAITH at all? Are we not wasting the precious moments of our existence on earth by being unreal? Time to think!

When was the last time we broke our patterns consciously? When did we consider ourselves as infinite – at least potential-wise? When was the last time we explored ourselves and re-invented ourselves? When was the last time we stopped complaining about something and decided that we have the courage, power and strength to change that matter that was bothering us? When was the last time we consciously realized that we are eternal creation machines and we create our own destiny? When was the last time we paid attention to who or what is running this body, fuelling our thoughts, and making us experience various thoughts, words, situations and events? It is time. I strongly feel that it is time you started looking at yourself. Look at others, judge others only after you have understood yourself fully. If you have not understood yourself fully, how can you understand another at all? How can we ever decide the walking space of others at all? We have no right to put others in frames, nor do we have any right to treat another being – not only human – with contempt.

I am sure we have always been discontented with life in general or at least many things in life. We have not been happy about others either. We constantly complain. This is usually because we compare our situation with others. When was the last time we counted our merits rather than our defects? When was the last time when we considered, with gratefulness, that most of our vital functions such as heartbeat, circulation, digestion and secretions are not controlled by our conscious mind? When is the last time you considered, with gratefulness, that the most important functions of your own body are, thankfully, not controlled by your conscious mind at all? Did you ever consider not to abuse your own body? It is time to think. When was the last time your recognized with gratitude that this was the precious body of a live animal/bird, which sacrificed itself to give you sensory satisfaction, before you devoured its flesh?

When was the last time you decided not to postpone a vital action, breaking the cage of your own conditioned mind? When was the last time you kept your promises? Primarily, you are not answerable to anyone except your own conscience. When was the last time you broke your own pattern of delaying actions? When was the last time you ever considered that your own mind is blocking your own progress and nobody else can be blamed for it?

When was the last time you dared to act and you believed in what you did, irrespective of the fear of possible consequences,  others’ words and further actions? When was the last time you trusted your own experience rather than others words and felt proud about it? Why are we afraid to leave our comfort zones? Isn’t the whole world your arena? Why are we locking, confining ourselves to one space at all? Why are we so afraid to confront our own fears? What exactly is there to lose, as death is inevitable in everyone’s existence? Have you ever considered that none else but you – are blocking your own path towards a successful existence? Isn’t our own ego getting on our way?

Why are we disappointed? Why are we depressed? Why are we angry? Why do we hate and abuse ourselves and others? Why do we lie, cheat and contaminate our own inner space? Why do we make ourselves helpless? Do you believe or feel that your own inner space is the temple of your own GOD? It is time to contemplate on that. Can we contaminate our own inner space, the temple where our GOD resides?

When is the last time we have not asked, requested or begged something from the God or Guru and instead just uttered from deep within, “THANK YOU for EVERYTHING“? When is the last time you asked the God or Guru, “What can I do for you?” instead of “What are you going to give me?” (True Guru or God will need nothing from you.) When was the last time you honestly said “I AM HAPPY“? When was the last time you decided to be real and not to pretend what you are NOT? When was the last time that you discarded ownership of your own actions, but acted sincerely and said with conviction, “Lord, Let YOUR WILL – not mine, BE DONE?” and whole heartedly embraced the fruits of action, whether it was good or bad?. When was the last time you whole heartedly accepted realities of life without resistance? When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror and uttered with absolute sincerity “I LOVE YOU.” and “You are truly WONDERFUL“? When was the last time you felt grateful to be alive? When was the last time you touched the “skin” of mother earth and gratefully uttered “THANK YOU“? When was the last time you touched the leaves of the plants in your house and uttered with deep love, “I love you. We are closely related?” When was the last time you consciously discarded negative thoughts and swapped them with overwhelming optimism and love? When was the last time you truly loved someone without expecting love in return? When was the last time you could bring smile and hope on a stranger’s face? When was the last time you looked into the eyes of your teacher, Guru and said “I am not separate from you. You and I are one?” When was the last time you embraced HONESTY and SELF-LESSNESS whole heartedly?

When was the last time you considered – “How many more years will this body walk on the earth?” Did you consider “These people around me will also disappear sooner or later forever“? Did you also consider “Now is the only time to express unconditional love, wholeheartedly, sincerely and gratefully?”. Did you ever consider that “You came empty handed and will leave empty handed”? Did you consider that “All that you actually need is a bit of shelter, clothes and food?” What else can you actually use? What is permenant? We actually own nothing on earth!. Everything will pass away….

Have you considered…………………………. It is time. It is time!

Even this one will pass away. I own nothing. All I have – I give you. I keep nothing for myself. I am fluid. I represent the consciousness that you came from. My love for you is complete. I embrace you as myself. I am indivisible. I am Yourself. I LOVE MYSELF and MYSELF is YOU.

Love Infinite

M

When was the last time you considered – “How many more years will this body walk on the earth?” …. Mohanji