Hello friends. Today, I have been thinking about our limiting beliefs. I think I have already told you about the story of how a wild elephant is tamed by the trainers to use them in various capacities. The first and foremost is that freedom is limited. In the wild, they are wild and free; they can do whatever they want. They roam around as they like, and elephants usually live in groups, they are social beings, very intelligent beings. When an elephant is caught, it’s tough to discipline it. What these trainers do is to tie a very tight rope on their hind legs and leave them like that. The elephant does its best to break free, pulling at the rope all the time. And it starts getting injuries because of friction. The frictional injuries start to grow as the days go by. The trainers do not try to heal them; they just leave it like that. And the pain would be tremendous; continuous and consistent pain because of injuries in the hind legs. Then and the elephant stops pulling it because it hurts when it pulls. The elephant drops it and doesn’t pull anymore. It understood that these ropes could not be broken. And if he pulls, it gives pain and suffering. So, the elephant surrenders.
Afterwards, the tame elephant is used for various entertainments or utility matters. But they are tame; they obey the tiny human much lesser in size, and much lesser in strength than itself. But the initial limiting belief, which the trainers were able to give the elephant, stays on forever. Limiting beliefs are the point. We all have limiting beliefs, just like this elephant. Some traumatic memory from the past, its corresponding agony, the feeling, the helplessness and associated emotions and memories that we carry leads us or binds us with our limiting beliefs, and it works through the whole life.
We shy away from many things of life. We fail to achieve only because of our limiting beliefs. This is the truth. We must understand that all these limiting beliefs apart, we are as wild, free and strong as a normal elephant would be in the forest. We should be successful in our daily life. And we should also be a significant part of our society by delivering as per our capacities positively to society. Sometimes these limiting beliefs are so hidden that we don’t even recognize them. It needs introspection, needs contemplation.
How many times, how many situations we could not handle because of our limiting beliefs? Try to understand. Sometimes limiting beliefs are given by our parents, our teachers or society. Sometimes limiting beliefs are given by religions; all of them create an almost similar effect. We have seen that over history. Limiting beliefs have taken away great opportunities for great progress in human existence. This is very important to understand, limiting beliefs exist, and limiting beliefs are really, really important to understand and come out of.
We are supremely powerful. Nothing can stop us from doing our good work in the world. I always tell my people, the people who believe in me, we are powerful as a team, and our intention is always pure. We do not want to harm anybody; we have no violence in us; we do not have anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge in us, because they contaminate our inner space. We only have love; we have compassion; we have kindness. This is very strong. And these are very powerful. Compassion is powerful; kindness is powerful.
To have the strength and to have discipline – power without discipline can create havoc. Power without discipline creates atomic bombs which destroy an entire race. We saw the devastation that happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But today, we have much larger, much more destructive atomic capacities with us to wipe out entire mankind. We must observe restraint, we must accept love, and we must be compassionate and kind. Just imagine having great strength, great power and exercising great kindness, how it will be. It can be very transformative for the entire human race. Having great power, and having great strength and capacities, but using it for dividing, harming, or destroying, literally shakes the root of our species.
Nature has given us all the options. Nature has given us everything. And nature continues to provide us, to experience and execute it. We have to be realistic. We have to be responsible. And we have to lead a life of purity and harmony, like one of those great Lamas, who was arrested and imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese authorities after they invaded Tibet. When he was released, he told about his time in the prison. Apparently, it was very torturous; it was very disturbing for him, for his equilibrium, because they tried their best to break him down. As always, as a prisoner of war, he was tortured almost every day for 25 years.
When he was asked, did you have fears, he said yes because a truly spiritual person will have no fears. There is no room for fears. If you’re really walking the path of purity, you should be fearless. God can be loved because God sits in you as your soul factor. God is to be loved; God is love. So, Lama said, I had fears. Three times it appeared in the canvas of my mind. Each time it was the fear that I may end up hating the oppressors, the guys who are torturing him. And that can cause inner contamination. I didn’t want anything to do with inner contamination. That fear happened trice.
To maintain the purity, you need constant vigil. You’ve got to make sure every day, every moment that anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, or any emotions which are draining and negative by nature should not enter your mind. You should be free from all that. This is important. This is vital.
Fear binds you, so you must practice fearlessness. Anything which gives you the fear of anything should be avoided because one fear leads to another fear. Fear binds, and fear distorts our vision. It’s important to know to understand that we are born free, and we have every right to exercise our highest potential and possibility of existence while we are living on Earth. Life has got to be lived. Life has got to be experienced. Life has given us an opportunity to attain the highest possibility of human existence. We must make use of that, not existing like bricks on the wall. It’s living a full life. We have the capacity, and we have the ability.
I’ll leave these thoughts in your plate today. Contemplate on it and discuss it.
Question: Is suffering so important to the soul, to undergo change, even if it harms? Another person, has a powerful Guru, can’t he remove all the suffering?
Mohanji: Suffering is connected to your waking state mind. Pain is connected to various factors such as injury, body, going through certain processes. Pain can happen, but suffering is your choice. Suffering happens when resistance happens to the pain. When we resist situations, when we resist emotions, when we resist people, places, time, we have suffered. But suffering is not a permanent thing. When you are experiencing pleasure, necessarily, you may not suffer. But sometimes even during pleasure, at the time of pleasure, we may suffer because we worry that this time also may end. So, we may fail to experience a situation because we are afraid of something finite, connected to that situation. In the time of sorrows, some people have great pleasure. They say sorrows are good because they remind them of their life. In the time of pleasures, they fear sorrows may come after the pleasure, like a pendulum, like two sides of the coin. So they fail to experience a pleasure. This is human nature. This is one of the patterns that we constantly entertain.
So there is no need to suffer. When you go beyond your mind-matter, there is no suffering. Your soul has no suffering. It’s witnessing your happiness and sorrows, and all the games of your life. Your consciousness which operates in three levels – waking state, dream state and deep sleep state is not suffering. It’s happy to witness what the mind-matter produces, churns out called experiences. We categorise these experiences as good or bad. Consciousness is just watching it. At any point in time, consciousness does not tell you “Don’t do it. Don’t experience it.” It never tells. It just witnesses. It just allows you to experience anything you like on Earth. Nothing is good; nothing is bad. You experience whatever you want. Who categorises situations as good and bad, who categorises high and low, who categorises do’s and don’ts? Mind – Mind-matter.
I always tell one thing, do not enter into the realms of violence. Do not entertain violence in thoughts, words and action, because it breeds more violence. It contracts you; it shrinks you. That’s not our original state. Our original state, as I explained earlier, is expansion, inner richness. This is our actual state, but we fail to see it because our mind entertains itself with anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, kind of silly things. And then it suffers because it’s like a person who smokes a lot and then suffers from lung issues. This is exactly similar to that. The person gets addicted to something spurious, and then health is affected. Who caused it? They themselves caused it. So we don’t have to suffer.
There is no suffering in life, except in our mind. Our mind has decided that there is suffering and then we suffer. The mind has decided, “This is okay; this is not okay.” And we suffer. The mind has decided. “This is right, this is wrong”, then we suffer. So, this is all minds’ game. I always believe that there are zero sufferings, even when people betray you or cheat you, etc., you don’t have to suffer because for doing that, they are paying a huge price. For them, it’s an experience. You have an experience of getting cheated, getting betrayed; like that the people who betray you, have an experience of betraying somebody. And when you ask for such an experience, you got a price to pay, a very high price to pay. Sometimes that price takes you to a level of debt, which lasts lifetimes.
That is why Mirabai says, “When you betray a guru, you carry the debt of that act of betrayal for about 80,000 lifetimes,” such a big, huge debt. So if somebody really wants to do that, they’re paying for it. You need not worry. They chose it. If I decide that I want to have a Rolls Royce car and choose to go ahead and buy it by taking a bank loan, I have to pay the bank until it’s over, as long as it takes. I cannot say that I will not pay any more, because they will catch me and will take the car away from me. So this debt is chosen. Our own anger, hatred, jealousy, selfishness puts us in debts.
Why should we worry? If we are instrumental in creating it, we should worry. Otherwise, we need not worry. If somebody is cheating you, if somebody is betraying you, you are only at the receiving end. You are not spending on it. So if you develop that level of maturity and you start seeing the reality all the time, you will see this drama at work. You will see this whole drama of life. And this drama is very interesting. People play roles, and we enjoy those roles. They keep experiencing them time and again. Sometimes they come in different costumes, and they play the same role. You get surprised that this is the same guy who was doing this before. When in another costume, sometimes we don’t recognise them. But this is the reality.
Everything that is connected to our life has a reason. If we chase the reason, if we try to understand the why’s, we do not move forward. Just experience it as it comes and leave it, unhook from it, and let it go. Time changes everything. Time changes situations. Change is the only thing which is unchangeable. Change is the only thing which cannot be changed. Change happens in life. Everything changes, everything evolves, everything has to evolve into various forms and dimensions. So, if we flow with those changes, you will be experiencing a breeze like life. Life would be like a breeze. But all these factors have value. Some of them are lessons. Some of them are warnings. Some of them are experiences, good and bad, whatever you wish to call it. But when we boil it all down, we call it life. Life has everything. It’s important to understand that.
Question: How to recognise my future partner? Also, I want to open a vegetarian restaurant, but how to conquer the fear of failure and how to succeed?
Mohanji: Three questions – your future partner, vegetarian restaurant and fear of failure. I think all are interconnected. If your future partner is a disaster, you will experience failure. And if you open a vegetarian restaurant, maybe you will get food to eat. (laughter)
I do not understand the correlation between these two. But, understand that fear of failure has its root in inertia (Tamas) and most of us entertain it because we all have inertia. We always say that we must be appreciated, we must be accepted, and for all that we do, we should be rewarded or recognised. This is our wish, our desire. But life is not like that. There are failures in life. If you look at my life, I have failed enough and more times. At one point in time, I was an eternal failure. In everything I do, I was failing. What I understood from that is, all that gave me experiences. If you do not resist it, do not reject it, do not fight it, do not put it under the carpet, then that means it becomes lessons for you. Everything in life will not be successful.
We cannot rehearse in life. We cannot rehearse something and do life. So, we have to just do it as it comes. We have to live it; we have to do things as it flows. I would say if you are fearless, you will have tremendous success because we do not know what is around the corner. So if you don’t take a walk, we will never see it. If there is a failure, you slip and fall, or you fell down, what do you do? Get up and walk. In fact, if you take your whole life, you are born alone, you will die alone. You neither took the permission of the society to take birth nor will you take the permission of the society to die. So what is the bottom line? Your EXISTENCE is the bottom line. You are YOURSELF. You are the EXPERIENCE.
You are here to experience; you are here to express. EXPRESS. Don’t worry about failure. If it fails, you start again. Look at people who have succeeded in life. They have failed tremendously. I think Walt Disney; he went to about 20 or 25 banks for financing his project called the Disney cartoons. But nobody believed in him. They said, “You are making some cartoons, and you want money?” They were ridiculing him. And finally, one banker decided to give him a soft loan. Rest is history. He created Disney World, and it became a huge success. Likewise, this Spider-Man character – Stan Lee, I think; he offered Spider-Man story for print, and the publisher said, “Ridiculous, this story will not sell.” Look at how famous this Spider-Man character became. Now, all the countries, all the children know Spider-Man.
The ability to believe in your work, ability to believe in yourself, the conviction that you have on yourself, ability to invest (the investment) in yourself, is basically the faith and that will take you forward. So, if you focus on failure, like the options of failure, the possibilities of failure, what will four people think, society will think, you will never move forward. Instead, we take the step forward, let us fail. No problem. Let there be failure, and that failure will give us a lesson. The failure will guide us to success because we know if you walk this path, there will be a failure. So you might as well change the path, deviate, take a detour and achieve success.
Whether it is a vegetarian restaurant or a husband, it’s the same thing. You got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince, right? So you can never say that this is going to be the right man because we are talking about karmic beings. We are talking about bundles of patterns. We are talking about bundles of concepts. We are all baggage, huge baggage. So, how can you say that this is the right compatible person? If you are extremely tamasic, another extremely tamasic person might be compatible because you both can sleep all the time. If you are extremely tamasic and you get a person who is extremely saatvic, then you will have struggles at home as one person will sleep, and the other person cannot sleep. So this is how the combination works.
Don’t look at life too seriously. Flow with life just like water, like a river, keep flowing. Whenever you are looking at small things like relationships, (I’m not saying relationships are small, it means when you are occupied by relationships, etc.), you become short-sighted. Instead, you look for the larger life. Try to look at life in a much larger perspective. What are you trying to achieve from this life? What do you want out of this life? You should always dream big, think big, or have a larger vision. If you have a larger vision and take one step at a time each day, you will reach there. All the other things will fall in place. But if you do not have a larger picture, and if you are searching in a linear level in the market, to find a right man, like this guy looks okay, or that guy looks okay, this or that etc., this will always be confusing. That’s not the way. Instead, you walk your vision, and the right things will come to you. They join you because your frequency is set for something larger, something huge.
I have created this Mohanji platform with that context, that all the people who are associated have the possibility to have great expressions in this platform. I created it in that mode because everybody has a need for actualisation, a need to be fully themselves and completely blossom. So, this ground has to be set in that way. I cannot set a ground where nobody gets actualisation, and all are like robots, not possible. So, this is created in that way which is why so many countries, so many dimensions, a variety of activities are happening. All this is created because of actualisation. Look at how many people are blossoming with this platform.
The point is, we should not think in a tubular way or within a frame. We are not bound by frames. We are not to be put in frames. We are like a flowing river, flowing as per time, as per various desires and our karmic patterns. But when we have a higher vision, when we are walking towards it and when we are bound by purpose, not people, (clear purpose, a purpose with clarity), it will open up the doors for you. Nothing can stop you, and everything will come together.
When you are talking about a restaurant, you look at the chain of restaurants; you have the vision for that. What do you really want to express in the world? You should have that picture in mind, and you should dream it, you should feel it every day. And you should feel it is alive, means you should actually see it in the world, in your mind, in your inner eye. Then it will happen eventually because you are energising that positive thought, a great image, a great plan inside you. That is how it will happen.
Question:How do I seek blessings and stay connected to Guru and the Guru Mandala?
Mohanji: Guru and Guru Mandala are the same. Guru is the representation of Guru Mandala, that means the world of elevated masters. There is no world of elevated masters apart from your master. It’s like a small transformer in your house that gives electricity to your house. Outside there is a huge transformer which is much more powerful. If you decide that my house needs the power from that transformer and you connect directly to that, your house will burn. So, what you need is a regulated energy flow where you can actually come in contact with it, and it can help in your transformation.
In the Datta tradition, the whole nature is your guru. If you are considering a person as a guru, in the tradition of Datta, everything is guru, life is guru, your SELF is the guru, and your INNERSELF is the real guru, personal guru. But if there is an external guru who has lived the freedom, walked freedom, expressed freedom, given freedom even from themselves (means no binding), that is the path. There is no binding on rituals, no binding on people, places, time, FREEDOM. That is the Datta tradition. So when we walk that path, how do you get connected? You have to connect to YOURSELF. You have to go within and connect to yourself, assimilate yourself and then through YOU; you can reach the whole world. After that, when you look outside, everything will become a reminder of who you are. And that’s how it should be. All the things happening in you, around you, they are all reminders of who you are. When you are deeply connected to that feeling of oneness or experiencing that feeling of oneness (It’s all experiences end of the day. If you cannot experience it is not real), you are unmistakably connected, unchangeably connected, permanently connected.
So, your connection with yourself is extremely important in our path and the path of liberation. Your connection with yourself is the truth. And that connection will take you to similar frequencies. As you raise your frequencies, you will come in contact with people of the same frequency. That is how you can actually grow and evolve. This is very important to understand. You are the final thing you need to connect. That is what we were talking earlier. You are the thing, you are the matter, you are the being, you are the person, and you are the personality. This is your connection. And this is exactly what we are trying to tell all the time. But then you look at somebody as stable as a rock, established in themselves, who’s not bound by the emotions of the world, not bound by time or space, not bound by any philosophies, totally free, then that becomes a reminder to you on how to walk the path, what will be the situation, how it can be. That is a reminder to you.
Now, you have a benchmark, you have a point of contact, or you have a destination which you can put into your GPS, so you know where you are going. And that’s exactly the whole point of the tradition. The tradition gives you these locations, these benchmarks, these pointers, the destination so that your journey is effortless. Also, you know where you are going, and that’s easy. So on this day of Guru Poornima, we must understand that connection is extremely important. When you stay connected, remember one thing very clearly, doubts are the detrimental factors. Doubting yourself always alienates you, separates you. Doubting the master separates you. Doubting the time, doubting the practice, doubting the environment; doubting separates you. Don’t take doubts lightly. Take doubts seriously. And don’t ask why this is happening? It is. So when you stop asking WHY all the time, you save a lot of time because acceptance takes ‘why’ away from our system. “Okay, this is happening. There must be a reason for it. Whatever the reasons are, if I’m supposed to know, I will know. Otherwise, I don’t have to know.” Every time you think like this, you are free. Each time you stop asking why, and you start connecting deeper and deeper into yourself and assimilating the experience that has come out of that situation; it means you are actually experiencing that situation fully within, each time. That experience becomes a validation of your life. That itself is your final and gives you stability, gives you freedom, complete freedom. So this is exactly what you should do.
Stop doubting; stop asking ‘why?’ and stop asking, ‘Am I progressing? Am I regressing?’ All these are unnecessary questions. Keep doing the same thing. Keep repeating, keep assimilating and keep investing into yourself. Then what comes out will be something brilliant. It may take time because you have no idea how many baggages of patterns you are carrying, how much is removed, how much has to be removed. So, when we don’t know the whole drama of life and when we can only see two dimensions, we are completely controlled and bound by mind-matter (mind, ego and intellect). Hence stop asking why, stop doubting and just keep practising. And whatever you practice, you should believe in, otherwise don’t practice. Whether it is Kriya, Meditation, Contemplation, if you do not believe in it, there is no point in practising. It is a waste of time. And don’t practice for the sake of a Master. Master has nothing to do with you. A master’s job is to show a clear mirror to you so that you can look at the mirror and you can see yourself, where you stand. That’s the job of the master. Master’s job is NOT to TAKE you to yourself. His job is to show you that you are everything or tell you that you are everything or GUIDE you to yourself. But you have to walk. You have to find yourself and go within. If you doubt yourself, if you doubt the master, if you doubt the practice, if you doubt the time and space if you have excuses all through, where will you go? That brings a waste of time. That takes a lot of our time away, and it is a waste of life. This is the problem. It wastes lifetimes. We have wasted lifetimes already. Now let us use this lifetime to find ourselves and settle down.
The inner space is the only space which is yours. All the outer spaces are not yours; they are temporary. End of the day, all you need is only six foot of ground. If you are very tall, maybe eight foot of ground. That’s about it. You don’t need any more ground to keep your body, that’s it. We are chasing so many things of life, and finally, we are tired. We are still unhappy because we want more. And that is a waste of time. You should have something which gives you a good shelter, food to eat, peaceful life so that you can spread your energy and light into this world outside. When you assimilate yourself into yourself, you become brightness, and that brightness will reach the society and make the society brighter. That is your biggest contribution to society, not your teachings, not your noises.
The society has plenty of noises. It does not need any more noises. What the society needs is silence – a pregnant and deep silence, where silence talks much more than words. This is what society needs today. And what you need to give to this society is yourself. This is the only thing you can give. The only authentic thing you can deliver to this society is yourself, nothing else. You give your flavour. That’s the only thing which is expected. You cannot give any other flavour because you are already yourself. You cannot do anything else about it. So you give the society, your own flavour and that’s good enough. That means you are giving the society your unique flavour. And when you do that, don’t expect anything back. Don’t compare, don’t criticize, don’t judge, don’t character assassinate. Don’t betray, don’t cheat. So your conscience will be clean and bright. When your conscience is clean and bright, you are only giving pure stuff. You cannot give contaminated stuff. So this is important. What you need to give to this world is yourself and that you give as clean as possible, conscience clean, and deliver it with your full conviction without expectation.
On this day of Guru Poornima, this is the message I wanted to give you. Please remember – you are unique, you are important, you are significant, and nobody else is like you. Don’t underestimate yourself. Don’t criticize and judge yourself. Don’t compare yourself with anybody. And please don’t blame others because whatever you do, will have an effect on you. Your own activity, whether it’s done now or done in the past, it will create its own effect. Any action and every action will have a result. So do not blame others saying that because of him, I am suffering. That is not true. It’s all because of our own actions.
We must understand that whatever we do, whatever we perform, whatever we say, speak, think, everything creates vibrations, frequencies, and that will create results. So, understand this clearly, and assimilate and be together, support each other, help each other. We got to have a whole world – one world, one family. One world and one family is the truth – Vasudeva Kudumbakam – that is the truth. We are all together; no caste, creed, country, culture, colour, language, religion, nothing, just people, one species FOR ALL species. This is what we should be. Then we are living purity. We are walking, talking, eating purity, everything pure. That is the highest you can give to this world. And it’s not a small thing.
I hope I have given you the message. Thank you for coming together, and we will stay in touch. Wish you a great Guru Poornima and wish you a great life ahead. I’m always with you, and I love you.
Question: What is the real purpose of a disciple to do worship of a guru on this auspicious day?
Mohanji: Where does the Guru sit? This is the first question we must ask ourselves. Look at our whole life. We are only looking at a life which has happened from our birth so far, until our death in this life. This is what we consider as life.
All the masters, all the great traditions have said time and again that you are the thing you are looking for. I have mentioned that in my Guru Purnima message also, that you are the very thing or the very subject you are looking for. That means you have got to find yourself inside you. That means you got to do manana (contemplation). When you contemplate more and more, you will start finding your dimensions first. Eventually, you will come to a level where you will see yourself as a beacon of light and the rays spreading as dimensions; that means you have become one with your source, the one that is inside you. When you start connecting to the source that is inside you, you will start feeling the various possibilities beyond birth, beyond death. It means the possibility of the atma tatwa or the soul factor, which has no birth or death.
Once you understand that, you will see all your lives of the past and all the lives that are going to be in one spectrum, in one canvas. What happens then? That means you can see the whole role-play; various lifetimes you have played certain roles, and there is a continuation in between, like a stage in the drama. You go out, you change your dress, and you come back. It’s almost like that, very simple. That means you are almost going out and coming back. There is no birth, no death; just changing over, transitioning. So, once you understand that, the principle of Guru and the principle called YOU become very clear to you.
So, where is this Guru sitting? Inside! Then why do we worship a guru outside? That Guru is a reminder of what is sitting inside: just a reminder, nothing else.
So, when you respect (not only the Guru), the Guru in everything, which is the soul factor of all things, of all beings of nature, you will keep seeing the Guru. This is the main factor, the unchangeable factor. One who has actually recognised that soul factor and decided to settle into the soul factor; one who has found that soul factor from the physical factor, an emotional factor, consciousness factor and still further the witness factor, ( once you have settled down in the witness factor), you will see everything in the form of witness hood. You see everything as a witness. In that state, there is no caste, country, culture, colour, religion, language, nothing, just witnessing the whole thing.
When you start witnessing the whole thing, then you realise what exactly is awakening. That awakening only simply means you are a total witness of everything. You see the whole tapestry, not just the scenes of the drama, not the emotions, not the situations, not even the people acting; you see the whole picture. This is the journey that can only be achieved through our inner journey; you got to go within. You got to go inside, within.
When you are worshipping a master or when you are coming in contact with a master, who has already settled down within and he is fully established, your worship, (forget about physical worship), even thinking, even remembering, even your meeting, connecting, all that amounts to one thing. What is it? This is the state I’m looking for. Give me that state of yours. The state makes a master. The state where the Master rests makes that person a master. If the person is resting on emotions of life, that’s not mastery. The mind is dragging us like a slave.
When our awareness rests in the body, we are in waking state. When our awareness rests in our mind matter, we are in dream state. When our awareness rests in deep sleep state, we are in a state like death; we are detached. We are only in consciousness. When our awareness merges with consciousness, we start witnessing the state of the soul. That’s the only time we really witness what the soul is experiencing. That is the journey.
So, if you worship a guru, do you think the Guru needs worship? Guru needs nothing. Why does the guru need worship? Guru is not dependent on things outside of him, because he’s fully established in the witness hood, peaceful, stable and happy. He or she doesn’t matter. When you go within, and you start connecting to your own soul as I explained just now, you don’t need any worship. You are happy; you are settled. You are not dependent on the world outside for your pleasures of senses. Instead, senses are existing, but the senses are not demanding. Senses are relaxed, the mind is relaxed; there is no thrust of desires, no push of desires; tranquillity, peace. This is the real state.
If somebody is resting in that state, what would he feel and what would he say? Just be. JUST BE. The highest is achieved through that state of being YOU, being YOURSELF. BEING; only being. That’s the beauty.
When somebody says you have to worship me, that person only displays insecurity. That person is insecure. Why is he insecure? It is because he’s still dependent on the world outside. For a person who is stable within, whether somebody respects, somebody worships or not, it doesn’t make a difference. But if you want to experience that feeling of connecting in your way, as you are, you can do that. You can do whatever and for the Master, it doesn’t matter.
Sai Baba displayed that all the time. As the disciple came, Baba allowed them to perform their chosen ritual. Baba just allowed it to happen. He never said, “I don’t like it”, because there’s no like or dislike; just being.
Question: I want to know, for somebody like me when I’ve not met you in person, how could I understand that you are helping me and uplifting in spirituality? How do I know that I am growing in spirituality?
Mohanji: Do we actually need any help? This is the fundamental question. What help do we need?
In fact, a true master always remains as a mirror, undistorted image. That’s what he gives us. So, he always remains like a mirror, stable and still, and when you look into the mirror, you see your own true reflection. You see yourself in your true form, as you are. And that itself is a big deal because, in the outside world, you are only getting opinions of people. Some opinions are good, some opinions are bad, some are criticism, and some are praises. But between this, there is a reality. You never get that reality from the world outside. When you come to a master, the mirror is so fresh, perfect and clean; you get the real picture. That’s the biggest thing a master gives us your true picture.
So how does a master help? It is by giving your true picture; you realise this is where I stand; this is what I am. The moment you understand what you are, correction is easy. Diagnosis is difficult; the cure is easier. Similarly, when you come in contact with a pure mirror, an undistorted image happens. You automatically know where you stand and where you should be. The Master becomes a road sign with his own life.
What is the main thing happening here? Amidst all the varied dimensions of existence, emotions, changes; HE remains unchangeable, still. So, when you look at that Master, and you see a zero change, unchangeable, steady, then you realise this is the state of happiness; not pleasures, which are changing every now and then. Pleasures keep changing. For some time they remain, then again, you need more. But here, happiness is a state where you are always happy, stable and happy. And that state is what you are looking for. That’s when you realise, this is the state. So a true master’s life itself is the lesson, message and path. And when you come in contact, how do you know that you are being helped? Are you attaining silence in the mind? Or are you continuing to be restless and affected by things around us around you?
If you are always affected by things around you; that means you are only expressing your inherent patterns. It means, patterns or habits have formed, and it’s like a cycle going on and on and on. But a master shows you, that there is a possibility of being still, being out of the patterns, overcoming them by accepting those patterns and not resisting them. By holding the hands of the Master, (as long as it takes, maybe it takes lifetimes we never know), you come out of your patterns of life, including habits, likes, dislikes, opinions, prejudices, etc. and you become free. When you become free; fewer thoughts, less desire, less wear and tear from life will be the result. If this is happening, that means this relationship is working.
Relationship with a master does not have boundaries when I say boundaries, not bound by time. It is a continuous process. What brings you to a master is eligibility, YOUR WILL to experience the higher aspects of existence such as happiness; this brings you to a master. (And again as I said, it is not pleasures of life. We have many pleasures in life. It keeps coming and going, and we are not happy. Because one time it comes and goes, you crave for more, desire for more, and this is a continuous process.)Then you are in a tranquil state, and you are happy by nature and contented. So the contentment factor is the connection factor; you can actually assess your connection with your level of contentment.
Question: If people take advantage of unconditional love, how do you handle such situations? Is there a boundary to draw when you give unconditional love?
Mohanji: We are unconditional love by nature. That is our nature. We are love by nature, and we expand with love. We contract with hatred, revenge, anger; it makes us shrink. But with love, we expand, and that’s our nature; our nature is to expand. So love is our natural process. Love is our nature. But the world outside, of seven billion-plus people, is of every dimension. They are of different dimensions. It is not easy to say or categorise them at all.
Everybody is a mixture of various types of people. So, in this whole mixture, how people respond is completely based on time, space, their moods or the fluctuations of mind as per that time, because of various reasons. So, we cannot predict. We can only generalise a person based on the most predominant attitude. We can never say, “This person is always like this”. Each day could be different, moods could be changing, and everything could be changing. So, we must never judge anybody and say that he/ she is always like this. So, we have to understand that the world operates in such a way where the gunas; the Sattva, Rajas, Tamas gunas are fluctuating, flowing.
That changes time and again based on various aspects of existence, and that causes swings in moods. Sometimes Sattva is very high; people are tranquil and peaceful, then Rajas becomes high, they become very active, very explicit, and when Tamas becomes high, they procrastinate. So, this keeps going up and down, and according to that, a person will respond. Sometimes when the person is filled with Tamas, they may respond illogically, procrastinate. Procrastination brings forth anger, hatred, various types of feelings: feeling of separation, feeling of lack of love, etc. When that happens, maybe a disconnection happens between the person who loves them fully and the person who takes advantage of them.
Sometimes people think that the people who take advantage are good people because they fail to see the truth. At the same time, a thought may come that the people who love them unconditionally, but pretty rigid in their attitude are bad guys. In such cases, they hate the people who are truthful, and they follow the people who are manipulative. We have seen that in life. Sometimes people go after people who are manipulative, and they realise it much later. By the time too much of water would have flown under the bridge. That means time would have changed, and it would have probably become irreversible. Then betrayals happen, revenge happens, so much of bad blood happens. At the same time, the estrangement takes root; it means separation takes root, so this might become a trauma. But a master you are connected to, the Master will remain unconditional.
In the story of Victor Hugo, the Bishop gave food and accommodation to an ex-convict. When nobody wanted him, the society rejected him and did not want anything to do with him; at that time, the Bishop invited him to the church, gave him warm food and accommodation. But the convict in him could not accept it. The convict in him accepted himself as a bad guy, and decided, “This is not possible. Nobody can love me”. Because the inherent feeling or the concept or the state that he was in, rejected the kindness which the Bishop showed unconditionally.
What did he do? He stole the silver candle holders and ran away in the night. The police caught him, brought him back to the church because he had those candle holders which had the mark of the church on it. The police asked the Bishop, “Did this man steal something from the church?” and showed him the candleholders and few other things. The Bishop said, “No, I gave it to him”. Thus, he saved him again. That transformed the man.
So I always believe CONSISTENT KINDNESS transforms minds. So all you have to do is, not to have any expectation if you are brimming with unconditional love. If you expect people to appreciate, people to accept you as unconditional etc., there could be disappointments. Whenever there is an expectation, there is a potential for disappointment. So, express unconditional love consistently and be kind again and again and again, and you raise yourself in stature, not status. Stature is your ability to be unconditional love all the time. Then what happens in society? Society cannot ignore you anymore. Society will come around you, respect you and glorify you and make you a legend or legend hood comes to you because you have been consistent.
Consistency is a big deal. Many people do not have it. It is because they pitch expectation into an activity, and suffer sorrows and disappointment. So, this is something which we must remember. Be unconditional, but have the maturity to have no expectations. So you keep giving. Examples are Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi; we can find so many examples. They did not do things for the sake of earning glory, and because of that, glory came to them. Nelson Mandela, for example, He was behind bars in one cell for about 30 + years, that is, for most of his life. But when he came out, he was not affected. He created the platform for a peaceful society.
How can that happen? There was no revenge in his mind. Likewise, various great masters whom we have respected over time, they have been kind consistently, been compassionate, and been selfless consistently, and expecting nothing and that made them legends. Being unconditional is a beautiful thing. But it should have one more ingredient added into it. That is, zero expectation, and that will give you glory.
Question: How can we be sure that we are doing Consciousness Kriya correctly? And how do we know we’re making progress?
Mohanji: Well, any practice for that matter, say a normal physical practice, how do you know whether you are making progress? In simple terms, your proficiency increases. But in spiritual practice, the idea of spiritual practice is to give you a certain level of stability. So one of the criteria if you are doing a thing right, with the full application, full commitment, with conviction, faith, and consistency; if you are doing it properly, the result would be stability. Automatically, you will be very stable, and you will not be affected by the things around you too much. Things will be happening around you as it would, but it will not affect you as much as it usually would. So that’s the real sign that you are actually in the right track; we can extend it to say with fewer thoughts, less desires, etc.
End of the day, when you are practising it right, when you are consistent about it, and you believe in it, (if you don’t believe in it, if you are testing it, it may not work that much.) then you will realise that there is a kind of stability happening inside you. You are not fluctuated by the fluctuations of the outside world. The outside world will remain outside; the inside world will strengthen. When the inside world strengthens, the outside world cannot affect you anymore.
This phenomenon, you can see if you are getting more and more stable inside that means the external world will not affect you as much as it normally would. So, this is a clear sign of knowing you are doing it right. Sometimes, you know the method very well, but the effect is not happening because you do not trust it. Secondly, when we go to a guru with expectations and the guru gives you certain guidelines, but then we neither trust the guru nor the guidelines, we fail in the whole thing. It is because of one reason; we have not connected, we have not accepted. So, it’s important to accept wholeheartedly, experiment it, keep trying it, and after a while, it will start working. Maybe initially it may not work, it starts working as you go further and further.
There should be some kind of consistency in your practice; this is very important. If that’s not happening, the results may not happen. We become busy with our thought processes, so we do not have consistency sometimes. Then, that affects us, and we feel dejected, depressed because we are not progressing. Progress means less thoughts. Less thoughts means less desires. Less desires mean more detachment and more freedom.
Less thought = Less desires =Less needs = More detachment = More freedom.
That’s a benchmark which you can actually look for. But for that, you need to connect to your inside world more than the outside world. When we are running behind the pleasures of existence, entertaining the senses, entertaining the mind, etc., it may not work easily. On one side we are chasing things outside, but on the other side, we are trying to come inside, this struggle will continue.
So you must spend enough time with yourself. And I have always done that between 3 am to 8 am, early morning. That is because that time, the world is relatively free from you or you are free from the world. After that, you got to give yourself to the world. Maybe you are working, you are doing things, and then you are probably busy with your life outside. And that will take its toll. It’s okay, that’s part of life. But we got to spend time with ourselves, a personal time. That’s the time you should practise consistently with faith, faith in yourself, faith in the activity and also be clear that you are not keeping expectations ahead of you.
What are you doing? – Just practising. Just doing what it takes. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad. Just by focusing on the activity with full surrender, the results will start happening because you are starting to connect with yourself. End of the day, whether you are a Bhakti Yogi, following the path of devotion, or Jnyana Yogi, following the path of knowledge, or Karma yogi, following the path of service, or Raja Yogi, following the path of consciousness, it doesn’t matter. Everything leads you to yourself. Eventually, you will have to come back to yourself, and that’s the whole path. That’s the whole tradition. So this will happen anyway. This has to happen. So it doesn’t matter whether this practice is right or wrong, etc. I would say wrong practice means you need to put pressure to do it. Right practice is a pleasure. You are happy to do it. This is very simple.
Question: What would strengthen and help the awakening of consciousness?
Mohanji: Consistency strengthens our purpose. When we are consistent, what is our priority? We must ask this question some point in time. Imagine you came in contact with a very powerful master. But you contacted him for some personal gain or personal benefits, such as a job or a marriage or a relationship or some money or a position in the world, something like that. That’s very shallow. It may happen anyway.
But why did you associate with a very powerful Master? What brought you to him? It is your eligibility. What kind of eligibility brought you to a master of that kind? It is the eligibility for liberating yourself from the mundane existence of likes and dislikes, happiness and sorrow; this kind of duality. It was time for you to come out of it. That is how you came in contact with the master. Now, imagine you are still expressing your patterns, expectations leading to disappointments, ownerships, anger, hatred, jealousy, etc. What happens? You stand still! Your patterns are more powerful than your association with something really powerful (the master). That means your patterns become a wall in front of you, which disconnects you from that master.
Then that connection is wasted. You cannot use it because there is a wall in front of you. Your own patterns, concepts, prejudices make a wall, and the wall grows, because your ego enters. Ego sometimes manipulates you. Ego tells you, “Hey, look here! This is not how it should be; he should come forward to you, not you go to him” etc., all those things and it takes you away from reality and detaches you from reality and what happens is that the whole connection is wasted. So, when you come in contact with a master, you should have the priorities set right. And you should have extreme flexibility, flow like a river, and flow like water. Extreme flexibility helps you to progress in drastic speed.
As I told in the beginning, imagine you have a lot of lifetimes, let’s say 200 lifetimes. As you come closer to your soul, you can see these 200 lifetimes in one frame, like in the zoom, we can see all the people on one frame, all the people who are connected to us are all in one frame, and they are all in these frames. Like that, we can see our various lifetimes in one frame and then we will know that we have been expressing almost similar patterns. Maybe, we have been a man or a woman or a child or anything in each life, that doesn’t matter. But in every life, we have been expressing similar patterns, insecurities, prejudices, all the things which you are experiencing now have been the same in all those lives and the coming lives as well.
So what you are really doing is that with each death, you are just going out, changing clothes and coming back into a new life. So it’s like a new scene in the drama. We are acting scene by scene by scene. If you take a drama, in that kind of boundary/frame, you are enacting a role. And you keep coming back in a new costume, and you play the role. In between, you are coming in contact with a master who says, “I will take you out of this. You had enough of roles in life, you have played a lot of roles, and I’ll take you out of it”. But then again, you have been used to certain patterns all these lifetimes, similar patterns. So what will you say? “Okay, I would like you to take me out of it. But you know what, I have something more to settle because I have left some things on another screen, another time so that I want to go back to complete that. That man cheated me. So I must go back and cheat him. He betrayed me. So I must betray him.” Like that, we have scores to settle.
We have things to complete, which provokes further lives. So in this whole bargain, in various lifetimes we have come in contact with people who have come out of this drama; they have finished their acting, they have already settled within themselves, they’ve understood there’s no need for this drama. They’ve experienced everything connected to this whole life, and they don’t want it anymore. They know it very well, and they have come out of it. These people still hang on to guide others to come out of it. But then our patterns are so strong, that we may even blame the people who are already detached from it, saying, “No, no, this guy doesn’t understand, I have to take care of this thing. This is more important for me.” ‘I’ am important. I factor. ‘I’ is the association with the role not with the actor. This is the problem. We associate ourselves with the role.
If Mohanji associates himself as a guru, then Mohanji has a problem. I’m not a guru all the time. When I play with Mila, I’m not a guru. I’m her father. Like that in every scene, I play a different role. And the sum total of it is what is called this incarnation. So, that acceptance should happen. With extreme flexibility, when you play the role, you play it well, good enough for an Oscar. You play it supremely well, and when you come out of it, you have nothing to do with it. That is the detachment we talk about. We have that experience every day.
Remember, when we go to bed, we shut off from this external world. We are completely detached. We shut the screen; there is nothing on the screen, no world outside. Then we connect to the internal world, and we see the drama of life as dreams. We get tired; we shut that also. Then we go into a deep sleep where you shut off everything, body, mind-matter, everything is shut off. You are totally sitting in consciousness with consciousness. You are sleeping with consciousness. Then you come back again to the waking state, where you and the world come alive. Again you wear the costume of this incarnation as per your projection, and the world recognises you as you are known in this incarnation. But is that you? Ask this question – Am I this? This role play is important in this act for sure, because you play that role, but is that you?
Why do you set boundaries? Why do we have boundaries? This question will happen, and that time we will start understanding the role play. So, everybody’s life is just acting, or role plays and patterns are guiding. The inclinations, tendencies push them to express what they are into this world. That means we are projecting what we are into this world. That means we are seeing or experiencing this world as WE are; we cannot experience the world as it is. We are not experiencing the world as the world is. Instead, we are experiencing the world as we are. What do you see around? What do you get from this world? – Opinions, concepts, prejudices, and so many factors of that kind. Think about it.
The world is full of opinions; it may not be the truth. Somebody says, “This person is not good.” That is his perspective. That person thinks that the other person is not as good as per his criterion. But another person may say, “This guy is very good.” So who’s telling the truth? Nobody is good. Nobody is bad. It’s our perspective; it is the way we see it. We see a person, and if our frequency is not matching with something, we call it not good – For whom? – For us. So, when we tell another person, “That person is not good, stay away”, are we missing heavily here? Definitely. We are missing a lot because we fail to see the truth. Our opportunity to see the truth or our opportunity to be neutral and have clarity is taken away because we see the world through our ears, not through our eyes. Eyes are given to see the world, to see the truth, but eyes cannot see the truth because ears work more.
We experience that in life. So this has to be clearly understood. The world is as it is, but we see the world as we are. And then if you see this whole 100, 200 lifetimes of our existence, you can see the same pattern at work. But because we are getting involved in the drama, we cannot really come out, because each person changes the costume and comes back and we must be there. We are addicted to this play, and we keep coming back: the same people, different costumes, and different order. They all come back, and they all provide similar emotions because they’re all coming with patterns; similar emotions. We enter into the drama, and we really suffer from that drama, sometimes happy sometimes sorrow, but do we see this drama? We must. The moment you start seeing the drama, and then you realise, “Oh, this is the story.”
Do you know why we have assassinated most of the people who spoke the truth? The people, whom we assassinated like Jesus and Socrates, were great masters who saw the truth and told the truth – undistorted truth, but we killed them. We character assassinated them. Why did we do that? Because we do not see, we can’t see. We are blind to reality. We only see what WE are, what is our pattern through the eyes of the pattern. We only see through the eyes of the pattern, through the eyes of our prejudices and concepts. Through the spectacles of what we have carried forward and what we have collected, we are watching this world. We are witnessing this world, and we don’t see the truth. We do not even accept the truth. All these people are like that. That is why racism, speciesism is all because we are eating concepts right from our breakfast till we sleep.
Somebody says, “It’s okay to kill an animal and eat” and we eat. We do not think that they have a life. They have a right to live as much as we have. The right is the same for every species which we don’t see. Likewise RACE. Each person is born in a certain community, and that’s about it. Nobody is higher or lower. Nobody can be higher or lower. Experience wise, everybody has the same right; the same kind of experience. If you touch fire, your hand will burn. The same happens with every race, everybody.
If we start seeing beyond all these seeming boundaries that we have created for ourselves and we fail to see the truth, then we realise, ”Oh, so there is a pattern”, but when do we get to see it? Even when somebody who has seen it tells you, we may not accept it. We may ask mundane questions. What will happen to me in the future? Does that mean you are asking what is the script? Or ask what will happen after my death? You will come back in the same way. It doesn’t matter. What you can do right now is your only reality. Try to connect yourself and try to see the truth now. That can change your future. Not that the future can change by sitting doing nothing, or entertaining the patterns now. Future will not change like that. Future will be future, patterns will continue, and patterns are ruling us. Our inclinations and tendencies are ruling us, which we don’t know. Even if it is told, we do not accept, nor do we understand. We do not allow changes because we are too bound by the patterns. We don’t even see. I have to sleep; I have to eat; I have to do this. I have to do that. You are completely preoccupied and bound by patterns, where your freedom is lost. As I have explained in today’s message, freedom is freedom from the senses and mind, not of the senses and mind. But unfortunately, what we have always been told and what we tell others is that I have freedom because I can go out and do whatever I like. That means being a slave is freedom. When you say, “I have the freedom to go out and do things that I like”, you are saying, “I can exercise my patterns and I call that my freedom”.
That is not freedom. Freedom is a state where you are free from your own senses and mind. Senses are pretty much sensors; they cannot operate on their own, the mind provokes them. So when you are free from your mind-matter such as intellect, ego and mind, then the senses are in control. If they are not bothering you, if the mind is not bothering you and if you are detached from your mind, and in the state of witness hood and mind is not really provoking the senses to go out, that’s the only time you experience freedom. Otherwise, you don’t. Whatever we say as freedom: freedom of choices, freedom of doing things; that is not freedom. That is just another word for living your own patterns.
Freedom is when you need nothing from Earth. Freedom is when you are free from your mind. If you understand that clearly, you have understood the whole tapestry. You have understood the whole thing. So when you are coming in contact, or when you are fully in contact with your own soul factor, then you see life in the whole picture, the whole frame, every life, and all the lifetimes together. That time you realise, if I miss the chance to get out of this drama, I’m stuck again. That’s the time when we realise this connection which you have received in the path of spirituality is worth millions, or it’s totally priceless. That’s the only real thing in Life.
Forget about the patterns and other things. You want to get married; you want to have children, a house, etc., all these are patterns. But look at the reality now. Look at the truth which you have come in contact with. The truth of being you, the truth to be you, connect to you, accept you, understand you, assimilate you, align you, be you and realise you. We call it self-realisation, and that is priceless. You cannot put a frame or a price to it. And the role of a master is to bring you to this awareness, not to force you into this awareness. No master will force you, why should they force you?
A true master will show you a mirror, “Look here, this is where you stand”. “Then where should I go?” – Into yourself. Which way? You connect to yourself through contemplation, understand yourself, and accept yourself. Acceptance is very important. You have to accept yourself with all your weaknesses and strengths. You have to feel yourself as you are and be yourself. This life is a golden chance. Do not chase the rainbows now because we have been chasing it always, in all the lifetimes. Now, we have got an opportunity to be aware that reality is at hands reach. We have come in contact with reality. And this is worth anything. That should be the first priority.
Destruction of patterns should be your first priority. But you can’t destroy something and stay empty. You got to catch something higher. How do you catch it? What will you catch? TRUTH. The Truth inside you; the truth is what you are catching. That truth is inside you. That’s the real you; the witness who needs nothing from Earth, nothing from anywhere. Beyond relationships, beyond time, space, beyond matters, materials, possessions, positions, this is you. You start connecting to that; you will see immense power happening inside you, overwhelming power.
Because you are free, you feel the power of freedom. It is great freedom to feel that power. That power is not to display to somebody, not to show off. The power is big, the power of beingness, the power of being you, you have nothing to prove on Earth. There’s nothing to prove; there is nothing to ask for or nothing to gain from Earth. Instead, you are giving the Earth all your brightness. Imagine, this is the truth of liberation. This is a liberated existence. If we understand that, we have understood everything. This is within you; it is not something which is kind of unreachable. It’s not a tall order. It’s within you. It’s you, connecting to you, assimilating you, aligning you and being you.
The connection with the master is to bring that spark, to light that fire. Then the fire catches, burns you and reduces you to yourself. All other things go away; all the patterns, concepts, everything burns into ashes. Then you become you. If this is really understood, you have understood everything. This opportunity is right at hand, and you have it. This Guru Poornima is the right day to think about it. Sage Vyasa, Vashishta, Saptarishis; everybody came to tell you this story, that human birth is extremely important. And in human birth, you have this opportunity to recognise, understand and assimilate your true self, the truth.
It’s not a linear existence. Life goes linear from birth till death, but that is only for the sake of experience. However, truth does not go linear. The truth remains vertical, always vertical. All the time, the truth remains the same. When you are a child, the truth is the same. When you are an adult, the truth is the same. In your old age, the truth is the same. Truth never changes. But in linear time, experiences changes, perception changes, body changes, mind changes, intellect changes, everything changes. And we confuse ourselves by thinking, “I am changing.” However, nothing is changing. You are the same, you cannot change, and truth cannot change.
So, if you’ve really understood this, you will start recognising the truth every moment. What you get out of it? – Immense stability, peace, tranquility, freedom. You will experience the real meaning of freedom only when you reach that state, where you are connected to the truth yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after. It doesn’t matter what your moods are, what your surroundings are, what your emotions are. Not a problem. Nothing matters. You could be anger, hatred, jealousy, lust, anything. Not a problem. It is a state of freedom. That’s exactly how great masters existed -consistent, stable, integrity, unchangeable because you are connecting to the unchangeable.
Questioner: Who is a Guru? I’ve heard a guru is like a GPS. Can we progress without a Guru?
Mohanji: Thank you very much for inviting me and thank you very much for this opportunity. My gratitude to the Healing Our Earth team and all of you.
About the question about guru – I follow the tradition of Lord Dattatreya who had 24 gurus. When somebody asked Dattatreya, “Who are you?”, he said, “I am just a worshipper of nature”. So, the fundamental is that anything and everything around us is teaching us something. And the greatest and the highest Guru is life itself – life gives you lessons.
And if you consider 24 hours, we have three distinct dimensions that we go through without any choice:
1) One is the waking state where we interact with the world outside. We gather experiences and we project ourselves into the world (and as per our projection we get experiences).
2) Then we enter into a state of the dreams, the dream state where we completely shut off the world outside, close the eyes and then go within the world inside. Then what we process here is from what we have collected and stored.
3) Then that is also shut down when we enter into a deep sleep state where we completely nullify all the experiences.
So when awareness is connected to the physical level, we have the waking state.
When awareness is connected to mind-matter (which is mind, intellect, and ego where mind processes emotions, intellect processes information and ego processes things connected to ownership), when we connect to that mind-matter and become fully immersed in that, then what comes alive is what is stored by these faculties inside.
And then we connect to the consciousness aspect when we have deep sleep, and we don’t know whether we are a man or a woman. We don’t know the time or space, we are completely not accessible to this world, and we don’t have the world to access.
We take a rebirth again every morning – we come back. So we go through this process, almost like a pattern. And then we decide that we are this personality that we have projected in the world. We are also trying to figure out what we are in this world, based on our positions and possessions.
So at some point in time, we realize that this is not really giving us the whole satisfaction – we are actually roaming around for pleasures.
At some point in time we realize there is something permanent and perpetual. That’s a time when we start associating – that the first level of physical, second level of mind-matter and then the third level of consciousness : that it has got these three states, we start thinking about it. It is called manana, not dhyana (meditation), it’s contemplation. That is why various masters have time and again repeated that it is important to contemplate, not meditate. Meditation will happen spontaneously but contemplation is very, very important. The more you contemplate, the more you realize that there is somebody witnessing the whole show. And then it is a quest for knowing who is the permanent, unshakable witnessing this whole show and is always unattached. So this question happens inside. And then we start going within. And it’s an inner journey, it’s definitely not an outside journey.
So as far as the tradition that I follow is concerned, you’ve got to find yourself, and that’s the whole thing. When the student asked the teacher, “I can’t really understand all these scriptures – Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Shrutis, Smritis, and 33 crore Gods! I can’t really go through all this. I can’t understand. Tell me in one word what this whole story is”.
The teacher said, “YOU! You are the whole story. Tat Tvam Asi”. (You are that)
Then the quest is to find this You, who is actually making all this experience possible. That’s the way the connection happens.
So the Dattatreya tradition has great masters like Sai Baba who everybody knows. He lived as a fakir and a Sufi saint. And though he was living in one place, his energy and power radiated in several places. As a perfect avadhoota, he had fully turned inward the faculties like mind, intellect and ego, and started finding himself. And then he finally found the soul aspect, the atma tattva, stabilized there and settled down. Then what you see outside is your own reflection everywhere. So all the leaves, plants, trees, people, animals, birds, everything gives you a lesson. Because you see yourself in everything. And then you become one with the whole universe. So this is the guru principle that we are talking about.
Guru is definitely not just a human being. Of course we talk about Lord Krishna, as jagath (world) guru. Definitely because he lived the detachment. What he lived for is valid even now, because he was in everything and he was in nothing. Perfect detachment. So like that, there have been masters who time and again came and displayed the possibility of existing without boundaries and full freedom.
Freedom means freedomfromthe senses and mind, not freedom of the senses. We have misunderstood this concept too much. When we talk about freedom, we talk about freedom to do anything we like to do or to say whatever we like, that in society we can be ourselves as we are. That is not freedom. That is just an expression of patterns. What freedom is, is the freedom from senses and mind where we do not have any kind of binding to anything around. So this is exactly the freedom which the masters have lived, and expressed.
Now when you talk about guru principle, the job of the guru was to live it and the job of the disciple was to connect to that principle of freedom and walk towards it, inside. Go within and find yourself. So this takes time. In my earlier days, I used to go to the Himalayas quite often when I was working in a company as well. And I was trying to find out this me and it took a long time. I did not have a personal guru at that time, but I connected to my spine – being aware of the spine when I’m walking, when I’m doing things, I’m still aware of the spine. And then automatically things started shifting, awareness started shifting, it took me many years. But the point I’m trying to tell is that if you really want to find your guru, you have to find yourself. If you have found yourself, you found the guru. Then everything around is your guru. All the gurus brighten up when you brighten up. So this is already sitting inside. So that is why Tat Tvam Asi has a lot of value. That means, this is the fundamental principle of all the scriptures. If everything were put together and crushed and a juice made out of it all, you get one thing called You. That is the final thing you can get.
When we walk this path, don’t think it will be easy – because our patterns have become too strong. We have been used to so many things, we have been literally entertaining ourselves and our patterns for a long period of time. And we have forgotten that we are bound by patterns, bound by concepts, bound by prejudices. When we look at a person we decide that we don’t like him, or we like him. This is all connected to how we see the world. Basically, there are no enemies, there are no friends, it’s just as it is, and the world is as it is. We all have our space, we all have our relevance, our activity, we have to do something here and all that we are doing is projecting ourselves to the world and getting it back. That is what we are doing. But once you start assimilating yourself, once you find yourself, then you stop projecting, as there’s nothing to project. Instead you start reflecting like a mirror, you will be like a mirror. When somebody comes in front, you reflect that without prejudices, without expectations, without any kind of flavors – as it is. So that makes you a perfect master, total reflection. That is why great masters like Haidakhan Baba said, “When you come to me with anger, I become anger. When you come to me with love, I become love”. That means that you do not have flavors to project, instead you are being a reflection of the whole world, and that is a very sincere reflection, there’s no flavor. And that is consistent, no change. So when you become like that, you become like a huge magnet because you have no flavors. You become every flavor, you are everybody, you’re everything! There is no discrimination, you see the atma tattva in everything, the soul particle, the soul aspect factor which is in all things, and you connect to that – no barrier. So this is exactly what the soul principle is. And that is exactly what the guru principle is.
On Guru Purnima day, all I would like to tell you that whatever you are searching for is already within. And when you realize that, it is called self-realization. The realization is only of what you already have and what you realize at some point in time is that you have it. So that’s very simple, and all you need to do to achieve that is to spend time with yourself, not in books, not in rituals, not in activities, not with people. You’ve got to find time for yourself, assimilate yourself. For all that you need to accept yourself. Most of us have a big problem accepting ourselves. We judge ourselves, criticize ourselves, we doubt ourselves. And that creates the distance between ourselves and us. We find it difficult to come within because our acceptance is conditional for ourselves. And then the same thing gets reflected in society – you don’t accept everybody, then we don’t accept situations either. And then we sometimes have a lot of opinions. The world is full of opinions, but we have to go beyond opinions and realize the truth. Opinions are flavored because they are situational, and they are a play of duality. But reality is totally detached from opinions. So we got to really cut out all this, these kind of fringes. And then you come inside. And then you feel okay : ‘I’m complete as it is, I’m unique. I’m neither higher, nor lower or equal to anybody. I’m unique, and this is exactly what I’m supposed to express in this world, nothing more’. And then you start connecting to yourself.
So total acceptance is the first step, and complete liberation is the result. Thank you very much.
Questioner: My god, that was so enlightening. My eyes were glued on your eyes, trying to focus on this message. My question for others. Freedom from senses and mind is one of the most difficult things to go through. How would you recommend this for individuals to go through?
Mohanji: Thanks very much. The first step is always acceptance, self-acceptance, self-respect, self-love. See, the most criticized person in our life is ourselves by ourselves! We judge ourselves, we compare ourselves, and we criticize ourselves when we try to compete with other people, and then we dilute our uniqueness in that way, and that’s the detrimental factor. We say – I am not good enough because of X number of reasons – this is not true.
We are good enough, we are unique. Nobody is like us. Our thumb impression is unique to ourselves and our retina is unique to ourselves, and we are unique creations. This has to be accepted, the first and primary step. And that is the moment we start accepting ourselves, we stop competing and stop comparing. Then we start connecting with ourselves with wonder, like a child. Like you know, when a small child is given a toy. The child will be playing, touching the toy and feeling the toy and literally enjoying the toy for a long time. And then it really is fully occupied, full concentration Like that, we have to accept ourselves as a unique creation and start experiencing ourselves with wonder, not as somebody in the society (that is only when we are awake).
There are two things to understand: one is pratheethi and the other is anubhoothi.
Pratheethi means we open our eyes and we see things outside and we connect to those things, and we have an experience.
Anubhoothi means even if you close your eyes, you have that experience inside, you don’t need an object. For example, when you wake up in the morning and you say, ‘Oh, I’m happy, I slept well’, there was no material, there was no person, there was no interaction, but still you’re happy. So we realize that for happiness, you don’t really have to interact with the world. So that kind of awareness takes you to yourself and you start exploring that aspect of yourself. This is all simple awareness that we should have. Awareness. Bodh!
Awareness is the key, when you are aware of yourself and you accept : the 2 A’s (acceptance, awareness.) You do that all the time – when you’re working, when you’re traveling, when you’re sitting in one place, when you’re interacting, just be aware of how you are, what you are, and be fascinated by yourself. So then after a while, you will be fully connected to yourself, and you will be very much linked and happy with yourself. See, all our frustrations, anxieties, insecurities everything is connected to the world outside – all of them will have no value anymore, because we have a lot to see and a lot to feel inside.
And that’s the way we come inside. There are techniques defined by various traditions such as concentrating on the heartbeat, concentrating on the breath, and also assimilating, you are controlling, the pranayama kind of stuff. All those things are there. Anything which is suitable for you is good for you. That’s no problem. But fundamentally, everything should start with acceptance. And there you go, and then be aware. When you’re angry, be aware of the anger, when you’re jealous, be aware of the jealousy. Always be aware but do nothing about it. When you’re constantly being aware, already your witness. You’re taking a step backwards and seeing it. When you are seeing it, that thing loses its intensity. When you are experiencing anger and you’re witnessing the anger, the anger will happen, but you are not angry. This is the difference. So when you take one step backwards and start looking at it, you know that you are actually powerful, you’re not a victim of all these emotions. Instead, you are experiencing all these emotions and you’re still the same, you are completely a witness. This is possible. It takes time, but the first foremost step is acceptance. That is why I keep insisting on acceptance because if we don’t accept yourself; society will not accept us. So this is as simple as that. When you look at the whole society, so many people love you so many people hate you – so you have an element of non-acceptance, which is getting reflected. Whatever you get from society is your own projections. And when that projection ends, then you become a reflection, then the society loves you because they only see themselves in you, they don’t see you. So, there you become lovable. You’re one with the world. You’re part of the world, part of the universe in fact. Everybody enjoys your presence because you are Brightness. You’re like a mirror!!
Questioner: That was a very strong answer! Something I picked up from there was self-recognition, self-appreciation, self-approval. It is so vital to do that, to actually recognize yourself that you are the person you are. That’s awesome. Now it’s interesting, this philosophy, this concept is amazing. I will read the message. I will take home this message. However, to live this message on a day-to-day basis : how strongly do you feel the power of association is? Because if you engage with like-minded people who think this philosophy, live this philosophy, breathe this philosophy, it’s that much easier to be with them in order to think that. Now, can you reflect your message on a day-to-day basis? What to do, how can we make this a part of our life, our breath?
Mohanji: There are two parts to this question; one I feel that we should not detach from anything that comes our way, we must accept. Because when we detach, there are two things happening: one is suppression, other is escapism, and these two are equal to postponement. We should not postpone – we are postponing to some other time. When fears happen, we look into the eyes of fears. When situations happen, accept them. Some situations may not be very easy to accept. If you don’t accept, they hang on, they stay, they persist. So whatever we resist, persists. So I always recommend acceptance in everything: ‘Come, come, we look into the eyes. Bring it on.’ And that makes you free, liberated, because you’re not hiding from anything. You’re not avoiding things, you’re not escaping nor are you trying to manipulate things. It is as it is. We are taking it, as it is.
And secondly, often we can’t avoid many situations in life. For example, workplace situations – one can’t change them. So, being yourself there is the right answer. And always one thing in every situation, we do not have to respond. There are two ways you can interact with a situation. One is to react emotionally, which we usually do – egotistically, emotionally. And the result is usually regret or guilt. Or the other way is to respond using the intellect and just take it easy, take a foot back and look at it and then respond with awareness, and with intellect so that it will not create emotions. These are the two major ways we can interact with society. I always recommend responding, not reacting. Reacting always leaves some bad residue, which is not good. So if you constantly respond, and you have your time, your space and you respond, then you are always light and free. And then you do not have to handle so much of the hangover of regrets or guilt. So that itself saves a lot of time, because we have to handle a lot of all these kinds of things.
So in this society, whatever happens, let it happen. We are not trying to change it. We can’t change it. So we interact in our social life, in our family life, in business life – it’s all one life, but in all the situations we are playing different roles. And in those roles, just be ourselves, keep responding. And our equilibrium, our inner stability, our peace quotient is very vital for us. The peace quotient, and that’s inside us, we already have it. Peace is a state of the soul. Soul is always peaceful whatever emotions we go through. In turbulences, and similar situations, the soul is not affected. So we are coming in contact with our inner core all the time. Or just be reminded that there is a situation inside, which is completely unaffected and try to imitate it. And then we respond and not react. And this is also connected to ownership a lot. Means we own our actions that” I do this , I do this” , this I factor is sometimes very painful. So instead, like what Krishna said, in the Gita,
That is what He said: “I happen”. He did not say, “I take birth”. “I happen”, He says.
Life is about happening. Happening means you are actually happening, or life is as it takes place; not that we have created it. There is of course a history for everything, something has produced a situation and something will happen to the situation; there will be a result, but at the same time everything is sprouting. So we understand that. And we assimilate that, and we accept that. We are not the owner of the action. Ownership of action creates pain, disappointments and also karma. If there’s no ownership, the karmic structure is different. When you do not own it and you are surrendered, (like kaayena vaaccha manasendriyairvaa). And there you are detached from your action, and you’re flowing through. When you are flowing through, you are always free.
And that is what Vyasa said when he ate all the sweets, which the Brajvaasis (residents of Braja) had brought. The Yamuna River was overflowing and Krishna was on the other side. The Brajvaasis said, “We want to cross to the other side but can’t go as no boatman will take us, because the river is overflowing”. Vyasa asked, “What did you bring for Krishna?” They showed him all the sweets and he started eating them. They were embarrassed to tell him not to eat because he was Vyasa. And then Vyasa said, ”Come with me”, and when they reached the shore, he said, “If I have not eaten anything, let the river part”. And the river parted. The Brajwasis went to the other side but were surprised as they knew Vyasa had eaten all the sweets in front of them. Finally they found Krishna sleeping on a bench in the garden, and they waited. And Krishna got up and asked them, “What did you bring?” So they said all these things. Krishna said, “Sorry I can’t eat them because my stomach is full after eating the same things a little while ago”. That means when Vyasa was consuming it, he was offering it to Krishna, and though it was going into the mouth of Vyasa, it was going into the stomach of Krishna. So this is exactly the point.
The point is that if you are absolutely, completely surrendered to existence, then karma cannot take place. The other side I’m saying is that, when we know that everything is happening in life, and you are completely floating through it, like you’re cruising, there will be turbulences, but it doesn’t matter – the ownership and the pain connected will not be present.
Questioner: This was an amazing tip that you’ve given, and this is why they say that we need a guru who can guide us properly so these are some amazing tips that you should share, thank you very much for sharing !!
Mohanji: Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them, keep sending them. I will try to answer them as best as I can.
Speaker: This question is about parenting small children, especially in the current times. The question really centers around, how do we keep spirits alive and help them realize the beauty and goodness in the world, despite having to constantly remind them not to hug others, not to touch articles outside, not to meet friends? And for this person, it’s breaking the heart to see the child indoors, alone at home.
Mohanji: The question is about how to bring the children up the way you expect them to be. First and foremost, every child born in the world is the responsibility of society, not only the parents. First of all, try to get your ownership away from children. When you do not have ownership, then you have a better connection. When you have ownership, you have flavored connection. You own the person. This is my child. I want this child to be like this, etc.
You have to gently bring them to this awareness of how they should be in the world, and you have to lead by example. You cannot avoid the pressure or the presence of the society from the lives of your children. Not even you. That presence and pressure will affect everybody; in a good way or a bad way. Do we have any control over our children? They came through us; that’s okay. But they don’t belong to us. Every child belongs to only themselves. They don’t even belong to the society; but it’s the responsibility of the society, which is a conglomeration to take care of each child. And what we have in the society, what is the mental structure, collective consciousness; that’s reflected in each child of the society – every child.
Parents, teachers, society, if you take all these three, the highest and the most important in the society; then comes parents and then come teachers. All these aspects have to be equally understood. A child is a complete character. A child comes to this world with a character, a constitution, a particular inclination, tendency, and a set of desires. It’s obviously not the same for everyone; each person has their inclinations, tendencies, likes and dislikes, desires, all distinct, even in the same family. What contaminates a relationship is the ownership and what enriches a relationship is freedom.
Freedomis the best message you can actually deliver to a child with your own life. Freedom is not freedom of the senses and mind; it’s freedom from the senses and mind. If you live that in your own household, and if you demonstrate that on an everyday basis, not as a teaching, but as a lifestyle, children will pick it up. If we demonstrate the power of compassion, kindness, unconditional love, selflessness, caring, sharing, every day; and bring your children along with you while you demonstrate it in your own life; not to teach them but to show them that this makes heaven on Earth. Then the child will start connecting to it at some point in time, even if they get influenced by the bad effects of the society for some time, they will have this in the back of their mind that there is a possibility of heaven on Earth. This is within us. We have that power; we have that means and stability to bring forth. So, this is the thing, when we talk to a child, don’t try to give them lessons, instead, try to give them awareness. The best way to give them awareness is through the life stories of great Masters. When I say Masters, do not think they are saints or spiritual people; Masters is somebody who has exercised their purpose against all odds and found success.
Again, as I say, according to me, success means the contentment factor; satisfaction over life. Every moment satisfaction, not like a satisfaction at the time of death, or to the latest stage of life, not like that. For me, contentment is much more important than possessions and positions. For me, richness means contented life. This is real richness; having a contented life is real richness for me. It’s not about what I have. It’s about how I perceive life, how I accept life, how I live my life. Even if you have billions, you can only have one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner; you can only sleep in one bed. You can have any amount of luxury but how would you use it? So, contentment factor is not connected to materials; it’s not connected to relationships. We change relationships quite often to find the right relationship; but mostly we are not contented. It is not about changing relationships; it’s not searching outside, it’s searching inside. You search inside and find yourself. You are contented, and that gives contentment to everything outside.
These are fundamental things which we can guide children into with our own life, not through teachings, not through messages, not through punishments. I hate punishing children; there’s no need to do that. Instead, you can live a great life and show this to children. For a small child, the father and the mother are great personalities. They admire them, they should admire them with their own lifestyle. And don’t ridicule or gossip or talk bad about any spouse in front of the children. When you say that “Your father is not good”, or when the father says “The mother is not good”, the child develops conflict within. The child doesn’t understand; he feels that there is a betrayal going on here. (Not exactly in those words but that’s the effect) A child looks at a relationship, in terms of love, (a small child) hug, love, feeling, kissing, very much understood; but disparities, enmities, revenge, not understood. And if a child grows up seeing that; how can you expect a better society? So, it’s important!
A child is the responsibility of everybody, the society, as well as the parents as well as the teachers, in a different order. When we consistently show compassion, kindness, love, the child will be stabilized in that. By the time the child is five or six, he would have established himself in love. And he will not choose any other option because there’s no better option than love. So, this is the point, when a child comes up in love, basking in love, swimming in love, filled in love; he will not express anger, hatred and jealousy, in the world outside. Even he would probably transform the world with love. And this possibility is always there.
So how do you groom your children? Very simple, you have to lead by example. You have to be love, you should never pretend, no hypocrisy because children catch it very fast. You got to live it yesterday, today, tomorrow, day after; that means, every day, live the same thing; love, compassion, kindness. And always understand that discrimination of any kind, including racism, speciesism, and all kinds of ‘isms’ which discriminates people and beings and every creation; is not understood by a small child. They don’t see the life that way. But as we grow up with our conditionings, we start looking at things in that way. So, don’t bring this to children. You should live a life beyond every ‘isms’; beyond man-made barriers that will give stability to a child.
We need a society rooted in absolute compassion. We need a society away from corruption, selfishness. We need a society rooted in selflessness. “How can I help you?”, should be the question. “Can I help you? How else can I help you? How else can I serve you?” This should be the question, and let the child see you performing this all the time. And the child will transform itself into a powerful personality, filled with compassion, with kindness and love. This is the best thing you can give to the world – great child, a great son or daughter rooted in compassion, kindness and love, with the ability to transform the society with it. There is nothing more powerful than love. And here, you are creating legends, great personalities. You have the capacity, every parent has the capacity. Do not restrict the children, do not bind them. Instead, give them freedom; as I said, again, freedom is not freedom of senses; it’s freedom from senses, and give contentment, with what you have. Love as you are, and leave the world better, much higher than you got the world from the past.
Thank you for listening to this podcast. Do contemplate on it, do discuss with your friends, and let me know what you feel. If you have further questions, do send them to me.
Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them. Keep sending them. I will try to answer them as best as I can.
Speaker: This is the final podcast in a three-part podcast series on the topic of unconditional love, based on questions from a listener. This one concludes following on from the question, how does the unconditional love of a master operate?
Mohanji: The basic thing that chains us are our patterns, our inclinations, tendencies. That’s what we entertain. We fight to keep it. We don’t allow it to be broken. And that’s exactly what should go to connect to yourself. You are not your patterns. You are not your patterns; you are not your inclinations and tendencies. You’re not your desires, they all come and go. They don’t stay. So, once you understand that, just imagine your freedom.
When a master has understood this, that is what is mastery. He has understood life, he has understood the patterns, he has understood the likes and dislikes, inclinations, and all those things. When has he become freedom? When you become something, how do you look at the world? As you are, right? So, he has recognized what is real freedom. He sees the world as freedom, acceptance happens. So, he accepts everybody as they are, not as he wants them to be. That is their job. If a person wants to evolve beyond their mind, a Master is available as a benchmark. But Master never says, “Become me.” What will a Master say? “I’m available, like a mirror, you can look at me and find yourself.”
When you look at the mirror, you don’t see the mirror, you see yourself; the image in the mirror and the mirror stays neutral. A mirror never says, “You must look at me”, or “You must look at the mirror”, it’s your choice. You go and look at the mirror, you’ll find yourself; you see yourself as you are at that time. That’s exactly how the Master projects you back. Master gives you yourself as you are, at that time. You come to a Master with anger, the Master will reflect back anger. You come to a Master with love, the Master reflects back the love, as it is, as you are at that time, that’s what is getting reflected. Another time you come back with a lot of affection, love, care; a Master becomes that.
So, the Master will be a true mirror always, because he has no expectations. He is total freedom. Just like a mirror, he’s totally free. If your face is not acceptable to you, a mirror has nothing to do with it. Just like that, if you’re not really acceptable to yourself, the mirror will only project that, and you blame the mirror for your face? That is stupidity. That’s non-understanding. A Master operates that way like a true mirror, reflects you as you are without expectations. And mostly we don’t like a Master, because we don’t like our own face, not because the Master is bad. Master gives you what you are. Master reflects you as you are. Same thing. Society judges a Master, “Oh, you should not reflect exactly what he is, or she is, you should give something different.” That is said because society manipulates thoughts. General mind manipulates thoughts, which means pretense; pretension happens, right? Pretension. You have a thought, an original thought, you think again. Can I actually express this? Then your mind will say, “No, it’s inappropriate.” So, what happens? Manipulation happens. Society has masks, face caps, they mask and provide to the society, only what is acceptable, which is manipulation basically. But it is like a small child. You’re able to express to the world, your likes and dislikes, like small children, toddlers – they have no worries about society, they will cry if they need food. They want to sleep, they will sleep, they wouldn’t care what the society thinks. That’s the true innocent existence and a Master becomes like that.
When you have crossed over your mind, your attachment to the world outside, your likes and dislikes are in control, you have no particular interest with the world. But at the same time, you are enjoying the world unconditionally. Then the Master becomes innocent. That is mastery. A sign of mastery is innocence, like Shiva, we say Bolenath – innocent. Because he’s mastered everything. And he is spontaneous, flexible, flowing; that’s mastery. So, they can only reflect what is in front of them. They cannot be different. So, if you ask a Master, “Why are you doing like this? Why are you not trying to change people coming in front of you?” That’s not their problem. You don’t have to change anybody. You don’t have to convert anybody. You don’t have to transform anybody. You are the transformation. And that’s the message you’re giving to the world. You are contentment. You are peace. This message is what you are living and portraying. Looking at it, connecting deeply, integrating into their consciousness, anybody can change to the same state. That option and provision are given, but they are not sitting to convert anybody.
Conversion is a very, very ugly thing; you just change your shirt, inside you are the same. That is conversion. Here it is not that. Transformation.
Transformation is finding yourself. One who has found himself is a Master, and when connecting to that person, you found yourself, then you attained mastery. Who will connect to the Master completely, as he is? 1%. Rest are all coming with expectations, so they get only as per their capacities. That’s why conflict happens. Society accuses a Master because society expects things from the Master. It puts frames, saying that Master should be like this, talk like this, walk like this, behave like this, dress like this. But once you become freedom, you’re a flow, you are flexible. To maintain a frame, you need to have all those – mind, intellect, ego stuff. You have somehow crossed over.
So, how does the Master look at the world? Simple, as freedom; living, walking, talking freedom. Society may not understand that. Society is bound by social, moral, stuff. The society believes this is how it should be, somebody has read in some books etc. Individual uniqueness is never accepted or understood. Associated freedom is also not understood. I don’t mean that freedom means freedom to go and kill somebody. No, no violence. Ahimsa is ‘Paramo Dharma’, greatest Dharma is ahimsa, nonviolence, so that’s not the point here. Freedom is freedom from senses, freedom from the mind, freedom from intellect and ego, freedom from the world, outside world, detachment. This is freedom. A Master lives that, true Master. Not the people who have learned from books and teaching. Learning from books and teachings are different from experience. One drop of experience is better than a thousand books. So, when I say a Master, somebody who has experienced himself, found himself as a Master.
So, this is approximately the answer. Do discuss this with your friends. Contemplate on it and increase your awareness, step by step. Wish you great success in life.
Mohanji: Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them. Keep sending them. I will try to answer them as best as I can.
Speaker: This is part two of the podcast series of a question from a listener on unconditional love.
Mohanji: Unconditional love is something which you’ve got to feel, where you are able to love everybody, everything, like a mother to the child, mother of any species to its children. How deep is the bonding, how much love, with no expectations? And if you look at the animal kingdom. Their love is far more unconditional than the human kingdom. A mother nurtures a child, just to empower the child to lead an independent life. After a while, the child goes away.
You look at the birds, the mother brings food, nurtures the birds. As soon as its wings become powerful to take the flight, the bird goes away when it doesn’t know the mother or father, it becomes independent. So, the animal kingdom, the birds, the animals, all those beings in nature, they just nurture and empower the children and leave them, then probably there’s no connection even.
But in the human kingdom, we put a lot of expectations, which makes a relationship ugly – ownerships, controls, expectations, suffocation, disappointment. Then anger, hatred, jealousy, all sorts of things. This makes human life miserable. We don’t have to be miserable. We can be free.
Speaker: Here, Mohanji makes a really good point about freedom.
Mohanji: If our expectations are less in the world we are free. Fewer expectations, less disappointment; that is freedom. If you really want to know the freedom, you got to experience freedom from the mind and the senses, not the freedom of the mind and senses. It’s freedom FROM the mind and senses. It means, you’re happy with everything, but you’re not craving for anything. Freedom. So, this is what I would like to talk about; unconditional love. We can discuss much more about unconditional love in various aspects. But I think this is something which you got to experience not theoretically, practically.
Speaker: But to add on to that, and going a bit further, people are interested in how does a master’s love operate?
Mohanji: A Master, Master means what? Mastery. Mastery over what? Mastery over life. Life is a conglomeration of various things, inclinations and desires primarily. And this gives the flavour of existence, everybody’s existence. A tiger’s life, a lion’s life, a human life, take every life; it has its specific flavour of existence; specific method, specific way, inclinations tendencies, desires. They all have distinctions, so each species has it, and in human beings, we see everything, all sorts of desires, all sorts of inclinations. So, a master is somebody who has mastered this pull and push of desires, inclinations and tendencies. He has taken steps, well beyond the mind, well beyond senses, well beyond likes and dislikes, karmic bindings.
So, such a person is pretty tranquil, equanimous. He looks at everything with equanimity. He loves unconditionally. He lives for the world. He has not much personal interest. Of course, he would like to eat food and sleep and do whatever. But that’s not the driving force. The major driving force of his existence is to serve the world unconditionally, without expecting. Mastery is mastery over your mind, intellect and the ego. You’re going beyond these things, their craving is quenched; craving of mind – emotions, craving of intellect – information, craving of ego – ownerships. These three things are in control. Ownership or no ownership – it’s fine, me and mine – no value, likes and dislikes – quiet. Such a person is a master, then what kind of love can he give forth – only as himself. He looks at everybody as himself. He sees only the world as himself.
We all see the world as ourselves, but we put our flavour to the world, we see the world as we are. Master sees the world as it is. That’s the difference.
When you put your flavour, your own likes and dislikes, karmic combination, constitution onto the world; it’s like wearing a glass, which has colour. Wearing a glass which is yellow, would make everything look yellow. If it’s red, everything is red because you’re wearing such a glass. That’s how our life is. A karmic being lives like that. When you have gone beyond the control of your senses and mind, when I say mind it also includes intellect and ego, then there’s no colour. When you cross over there’s no colour. You’re looking at the world as it is. So, you’re only seeing the truth and you will not judge, you will not criticize, you will not manipulate, analyze, you just accept as it is, everything is as it is. Everything is as it is always.
So, you’re pretty free. You are very free. When you experience freedom and that is exactly what you see in the world. You won’t sit down and judge people, you won’t criticize, character assassinate, gossip, you will do nothing, you just accept everything as it is. When you start accepting life as it is, the world as it is, inside as it is, yourself as it is, there are no conflicts. There is total freedom.
So, a Master looks at the world with total freedom, because he is walking freedom. That’s why many times, a conditioned society cannot understand a Master, why he behaves in a certain way, why he has certain opinions because society has kept itself or society functions itself conditionally in two dimensions. There’s a bigger third dimension, which is very difficult to see, the karmic dimension of every individual, which is from the time of birth, till the time of death that runs the show. Time-space situations are provided for experiences to happen. Who controls this? The karmic flow, sitting on linear time manifests it, we experience it, we keep the memory, and we kind of get involved in it, the role plays of life, the involvement in activities of life, which makes us feel that we are the doer. That’s an illusion. Actually, things are happening. And we are participating. Instead, we feel we are doing it, the ownership of action. It is a grand illusion. And if you dive into the depth of it, you will be surprised how much of an illusion we are holding every moment, how much we are struggling to maintain our name, fame and position in the world. We will be surprised to see; we need to contemplate. We need to understand. When we go deeper and deeper and deeper, and we realize, “Oh, this is the world where I’ve been foolishly chasing something external by ignoring what actually I am, what is internal.” That’s the time when you realize, “Oh My God, I wasted a lot of time on paltry pleasures, patterns, and they were running the life, they were running the show.” Patterns were running the show repeatedly, and we were pretty much endorsing it. We will realize all that. We pretty much endorse our patterns. If some pattern is disturbed, we become very disturbed. But that’s the very thing, which chains us, we start loving. That’s the irony of existence. The basic thing that chains us are our patterns, our inclinations tendencies, that’s what we entertain. We fight to keep it. We don’t allow it to be broken. And that’s exactly what should go to connect yourself, you are not your patterns. You’re not your patterns, you’re not your inclinations and tendencies. You’re not your desires, they all come and go. They don’t stay. So, once you understand that, just imagine your freedom. When a master has understood this, that is what is mastery. He has understood life, he has understood the patterns, he has understood the likes and dislikes, inclinations, all those things. When he has become freedom – when you become something, how do you look at the world? As you are, right. So, he has recognized what is real freedom. He sees the world as freedom. Acceptance happens. So, he accepts everybody as they are, not as he wants them to be. That is their job. If a person wants to evolve beyond their mind, a Master is available, as a benchmark. But Master never says “Become me.” What will a Master say? I’m available, like a mirror, you can look at me and find yourself.
Speaker: This concludes part two of the three-part podcast series on unconditional love, which is based on a question from a listener. Do keep your suggestions for topics coming in, send them to podcast@mohanji.org. And we hope you enjoyed this. And the next and final episode of the three-part series will be coming out very soon. Have a good day.
We have discussed about the unrest and the anger that spilled over into the streets of America. We’ve talked about racism, we talked about discrimination, and we talked about masters and slaves. This podcast is to discuss about who the real master is and who the real slaves are. We have always discussed about freedom at various levels, various dimensions. Time and again, various people have spoken about the need for freedom. We have fought for freedom. We have waged wars for freedom. And when freedom of movements is restricted, we have become violent.
But what exactly is freedom? Have we thought? We believe that freedom means freedom of senses, freedom of mind, and freedom of body. This is what we understand. That means, we do have the freedom to do what we like to do. But real freedom is freedom from the senses, freedom from the mind, and freedom from the body. This is your food for thought today. Real freedom is freedom from all the aspects that we consider as ourselves, such as the body, mind, intellect, ego, and the senses. When we are bound by them, we don’t have freedom. The freedom that we have fought for is that freedom where our movements are restricted. Body, mind, intellect, senses are all restricted and ego is affected. That’s the freedom that we fought for. That’s the freedom that we waged wars for. So, if we really, really have to experience freedom, we have to experience freedom from our senses, mind, and the body. That’s real freedom. The senses, the mind, and the body would like to roam on sensory objects in the outside world, fulfilling desires at every point in time. They seek fulfillment. The body seeks fulfillment, the mind seeks fulfillment, the intellect seeks fulfillment, and the ego seeks fulfillment. Senses help that. This is the freedom that we have been talking about. And we thought this is the freedom that we need. But is that so? Think!
When we are away from desires, when we are away from the need for sensory satisfaction all the time, when we are contented inside, when we are away from the compulsions of the body, mind, intellect, and the ego, when we are fully settled and satisfied – that is freedom, beauty and peace of our soul. We do not need any external objects; we do not need any external factors, such as relationships, time, space, conveniences. We don’t need any of those, because we are fully settled inside.
So, real freedom is freedom from the mind. When we do not have to chase sensory objects, we are free. The ability to do something or be somewhere is not exactly freedom. But because we are connected to the body, because we believe we are this personality, we believe that experience, but that’s not it. This is an important thought. So, who are the masters? There is only one master – yourself. Who are the slaves? We become slaves when we are slaves to the wrong masters, such as the mind, body, intellect, and ego. Spirit is always free. Spirit has nothing to do with our completions and fulfillments. The spirit is free. The soul is free. The soul has nothing to do with us. It’s always stable, peaceful, settled inside. And when we settle inside along with the soul, we become the soul. We are also peaceful. There is nothing outside of us. Or there are many things outside of us, but they do not interest us anymore. But if you are fully settled inside, just like the soul who does not interfere in your satisfactions and completions, you will also be disconnected and detached from all these things outside. But you will be there in everything, detached and unaffected. Just like your soul. You can do anything you like but the soul is detached and disconnected. We will be like that. That’s real freedom.
So, if you really want to be a master, you’ve got to be yourself. You cannot be your mind, intellect, ego, and body, and still say you are free because that’s not freedom. If you really understand this freedom, you have understood the truth of existence. This is the truth.
I leave you with this thought today. Ponder on it. Think it over. Discuss this matter. And as you discuss more, you will get more and more awareness.
I wish you happiness, fulfillment, and settlement inside yourself.
Peace is your birthright. So is freedom. Freedom exists when your expectation levels are low. Freedom is when you need less from the world.
Q:I’m trying to see everyone as Mohanji and treat them with love and respect. But when they say and do things that are unlike Mohanji, it becomes very challenging, how can I overcome this?
M: I think the first part is the right part. You see everybody as Mohanji but do not place any conditions. The first part of the statement is fine, but the second part has conditions; but no one person can behave exactly like another. So we can’t expect that everyone will behave just as we want. Remove the conditions and say “let this person behave just as he wishes to, no problem. It is another expression of Mohanji.” When we do not have conditions, when we do not have expectations, we will have a life, which is more complete; instead when we have expectations, we will have almost equal amount of disappointments. This world is a mixture of various things. It is also a mystery. We don’t know why certain behavior pattern happens in people, although of course, there is a root for it. As we interact in the society, we do not understand why certain people behave in certain ways. They have their past to work on. And their expressions are connected to their past. We can’t do anything about it. The only thing you can do is stop being affected. When I say stop being affected, it means that all these things are happening. However, at the same time, nothing touches you. It means your expectation level is extremely low. If something happens, that is good; but if it is not happening, that is alright too. You can’t predict anyone’s behavior pattern.
I have seen that in my life too; you do your best but some people turn around, say it was not good enough and leave. At times they even talk poorly about you. Jesus healed many lepers, (those suffering from leprosy). In those days, there was no cure for leprosy. When people contracted the disease they were left in caves with the doors sealed, because there was no cure. Jesus healed them. Many were healed, but none of them stopped to turn back and say, “Thank you”! They were busy merging into the society as healthy people! This is society. You may respect the society you live in, there’s no guarantee that society will respect you. You may honor the society, there is no guarantee that society will honor you; you may love the society, but there is no guarantee that society will love you too!
However, when you are not expecting any of these, you experience freedom. It’s your birthright to experience freedom and freedom can be experienced only when our expectation levels are very low. Please understand that whatever we do, we usually also place our expectations alongside. So the effect of that activity is diluted immediately.
When we expect a result, our actions are weak, because we are focused on the result rather than the action. Instead, forget about the result and focus on the action.
What will happen? You will have no stress connected to the result. Do your job well, to the best of your ability; do your homework before you start the work and do it perfectly. Leave what happens as a result of the action to destiny. This way you can be free.
So, definitely look at everybody as Mohanji if you love Mohanji, but without any conditions. Hence I said the first part of the question is beautiful, you look at everybody as Mohanji. You will then try to love and respect them. The second part is connected to expectation, “Because they are not behaving the same way as Mohanji, I have disappointments.” Such disappointments are caused by expectations or conditions and they have to be removed. In fact one has to be trained to remove such expectations; to think, “I do my best. But I don’t expect anything back”. Again, don’t allow people to treat you as a doormat. When you see that someone looks at you as a potential doormat, withdraw from there. Say, “I’m not here to be a doormat, I will do whatever I can to serve you but I’m an individual.” Whenever you feel that you’re suffocated with a place or an activity or an environment, move away and be peaceful.
Peace is your birthright. So is freedom. Freedom exists when your expectation levels are low. Freedom is when you need less from the world.
You have every right to be free,
Every right to be contented,
Every right to be relaxed in this life.
Q: My dog is suffering. And my vet recommends that we euthanize him, I don’t feel comfortable with this decision. Can we make a decision on when our pets could die?
M: I think you don’t have to take any decision in this case. Every being that is born has a plan of death. Do you think that we will exist in the body forever? We will also die! Every being that is born will die. We can’t look at a dog or a cat or any other being connected to us in our life as our property. They are not! They are beings that came to your life because of a karmic collaboration. They took birth at a certain time and will die at certain time. You have no control over it. If you decide to kill them because they are sick, will you do the same to your family members? Suppose someone in your family is unwell and the doctor says that he is not sure if he will be able to cure that person, will you kill him too? Every being has the right to live, as long as it takes. Every being goes through pleasures and pains of life, like us. The need is for extraordinary patience, compassion and kindness.
I do not take any decision on killing any life. That is not the way we should handle life. We should allow everything to be natural. If a dog had been out in the street/nature, it will go through the natural process of life. Life is a flow. Every being connected to us is equal to us, it is not that we can make a decision for them.
Unfortunately, the veterinary doctors and various institutions, only focus on securing the life of human beings. A person I know told me that he had pet birds and one bird was unwell. He took this bird to a doctor and the doctor killed the bird since it was not well! He then suggested that my friend could buy another bird to replace it, as if it is just another object or property! They don’t have that feeling of life in expression!
Hence those of us who are walking the path of spirituality should have extraordinary levels of compassion and we should always nurture life. Also, we should not, ever, promote or support any kind of destruction. That is why I am completely against abortions. I’m completely against any kind of artificial or compulsive killing. I propagate vegan for the very same reason; no torture, no killing. I don’t agree that we have right to do that.
When we cannot create life and give birth to a similar species (I am not talking of womb birth here), we also do not have the right to kill. When we cannot give life, we cannot give death either. This is my feeling.
Q: Along the same topic, how to remain non-violent when I’m dealing with pests and bugs? Is it okay to terminate some of them in order to live hygienically?
M: Well, there are two points we should consider here. One is that everyone has instincts i.e. animals, birds and humans. The primary instinct is the instinct of survival. Then we have intelligence. Intelligence is predominantly for human beings. Most animals operate at the level of a three-year-old human child. As for instincts, there are two to three variations. Most of our behavior patterns are connected to instincts; we have the instinct for survival, for food and for self-protection. We need food to survive. You can see that all the birds and animals possess this self-protection mode. Thus all that we do to try to prevent insects from entering the house is related to self-protection. I would say that self-protection is our right. We must protect ourselves because self-protection is part of the instinctual mode in every species. This is my opinion.
Q: So I read somewhere on Facebook, that when an individual does your Aarati, it helps energize everyone connected to you and the tradition. How does it do that?
M: Every Aarati is a purifier. When we wave the lamp, it purifies the environment and the energy of the place becomes better. It is also an expression of gratitude. Gratitude opens us up for the grace to flow. The nature of an Aarati is to rejuvenate the whole area. Hence rejuvenation happens wherever you are. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that if you do Aarati in one place, people at another place are benefited. I doubt it. It is more a local thing. It helps purify the environment in that area. With continuous performance of Aarati you will see a palpable difference in the entire energy of the room.
Q: Does enlightenment happen to the soul or the mind?
M: Enlightenment is a state that already exists; only the mind factor and the “I” factor – “I” means ego, mind and intellect put together, are not allowing us to believe it. “Enlightenment” is just being aware of something that already exists; it is not something which comes from outside. Hence enlightenment is our natural state; it is what we are, already.
Mind matter consists of mind, intellect and ego and it works in its own way, with the external world. Since we travel with these senses and the mind matter to the outside world, when we look at ourselves, in terms of me and mine, me as an individual and mine as in, my property, my wealth, my relationship, and so on, we do not feel that oneness or fullness.
That is why I say that when you are fully connected to yourself, that is, mind, body, intellect and ego and spirit are all together, what you experience is fullness and completion. That is the state of enlightenment, where you feel yourself in everything, you don’t see any difference, you will not criticize or judge, you will not have prejudices, you will not hate anybody, and you will not take revenge. This happens when you are fully within yourself. You see people, birds, animals and places as expressions. Also you will feel, you will know that you are one with everything, there is no separation. Also there’ll be no egocentric ownership, there’ll be no ownership based on “mine”. Mind dissolves at the state of no thought, which is Nirvichara Samadhi.
When mind dissolves, mind matter also dissolves, and then you start seeing only the truth. The truth is that life goes without the past, present and future, which means there is no dimensional shift, no dimensional difference. Also you are one with this whole life, you are life! You become life; you are no longer in the relative mode, such as me and you, this and that, etc. That will end and you will start seeing the perpetual life, which is static and stable. That is your state of enlightenment.
Q: If the environment is of low frequency, and we cannot avoid the environment or people, how does one cope so not to succumb to these low frequencies such as drugs, alcohol, sensual pleasures, and other terrestrial traps?
M: You can’t control the frequencies that happen in this world. They are at random. But when you start chanting, are connected to your inside, you are occupied within; you will be less affected by the society around you and will be very stable. Nothing can affect you. Those who chant, feel their inside and are stable inside cannot be affected by the outside society.
Today is Easter… when Pilate told Jesus, if you repent for what you said, I will save you, I’ll release you, Jesus said,” No, I meant what I said”. That kind of fearlessness and stability comes from settling within. The only place you can actually settle down and stay stable is within you. Wherever you settle down outside, it is only temporary, that is, until your death.
Q: Is there a sound in silence?
M: Yes, the sound of silence is silence itself. And if you’re talking about physical sounds, which the ears respond to, all the sounds have come out of Silence and all the sounds will dissolve back into silence. So the Sound of Silence is silence itself. The Sound of Silence is the stability which we experience, the contentment, the peacefulness that cannot be explained and the fulfillment.
Q: When we ask God for something, it shows that we are lacking that aspect. But in the Vedic way of worship, when we make the sankalpa, we need to mention why we are doing that sadhana and ask for blessings. Isn’t that an expression of lack?
M: Firstly, is God outside of you? (chuckles) That is a question you need to ask yourself. When you believe that God sits outside, how will you settle inside? The whole point is about settling inside. So, you should clearly understand that God is within and that one aspect of God is already there called the soul aspect, 33% soul aspect. If you really understand the soul aspect and also understand that the God aspect already exists within and you start connecting to it, you will reach the vibrations or frequencies that already exist. When you start existing in those frequencies and you perform homa/ havan (fire ceremony) or tarpan (offering to ancestors), what you’re doing is, you are offering to the fire, whatever you have stored unconsciously. What you have stored unconsciously is something like your cache memory that you now consciously offer to the fire, through each mantra or invocation of the deity. The fire consumes it and releases you from it. So when you look at God outside of you and say, “God, please do something”, we are only expressing our ignorance!
In the Vedic tradition, we have sankalpas, because we are identifying and recognizing the various aspects of existence, such as Earth, wind, water, fire, air and ether. Our great tradition of masters have told us that there is One Supreme Consciousness which is Para Brahma. This Supreme Consciousness has two aspects, the form/ the manifested aspect, and the unmanifested aspect. Both put together is God. So what is tangible, what is intangible, what is created, what is uncreated – all of it is God. Thus God is vast and unfathomable, and you cannot put God into any kind of frame.
Then they said there are 33 crore or 330 million dimensions possible of that God. This means God can take any form, any nature, any emotion, and any frequency possible. From that awareness, the deities were created based on ideals, idols made out of ideals. Ideals can be experienced by you, and by us. Each ideal, each experience has a form, it can be created into a form. So the great masters made forms, frequencies, mantras, structure (structure is like our nervous system), yantras, duration and also worship method. The worship method is the way in which we can preserve it, keep it safe. Thus 330 million aspects were created.
Next the question happened – how can one worship 330 million deities? It’s humanly not possible! They said, “Worship the 33% in you, which is the soul aspect”; the soul aspect is your real aspect. That’s the permanent aspect. 33% is the body or the physical, 33% is mind matter (mind, intellect and ego) and both are temporary, but the soul aspect is permanent. So worship the soul aspect. That way you worship the 330 million aspects of the Supreme consciousness.
In other words, this 33% represent both the manifested and the manifested, “Shivoham”, “I am Shiva”. Based on this, we created the whole structure of existence.
When you understand this clearly, the only place you need to settle down is within and the experience is of absolute stillness and silence, with no sound, and no movement; this stillness is the state of Shiva. We worship Shiva outside or we think about Shiva, knowing fully well that Shiva is within and we already have it. All of us, the 7.5 billion people, the birds, the animals – all beings have it! Hence we are not greater than anyone or less than anyone, no guru, no disciple, nothing! Everyone is the same! It is this awareness and understanding that we need to have when we walk this path. Then, we will not criticize, we will not judge, we will not try to compare, we are all the same.
When you really understand this aspect, you will not be begging. You can only ask for something that you do not have. But what is that you do not have is the question? After all, we are talking about some material things or some positions or possessions. These are temporary anyway because you cannot carry them when you die. You have to leave behind all your possessions and relationships. You can’t carry anything forward. Then what can you actually ask for?
This question will arise in your mind. Then, you will be offering what is stored without your understanding, your cache memory. You will be offering these to the fire one by one and thus emptying yourself. Your entire life will be spent on complete emptying, where you are not accumulating, you’re not collecting, you’re not asking, you are emptying!
In this mode of emptying, you become one with a supreme consciousness, this is liberation. This is complete dissolution.
Above explains the entire process. Now in this mode, the Vedic structure has given us directions, how to do it, how to do sankalpas, “sankalpas” means intentions, how to offer, what to offer, and so on. All the materials that you offer in the fire have something to do with our inside. Everything has a symbolic role to play, while we are offering into the fire.
Through the symbols we are offering what is sitting inside us, such as anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, pride, ego and other emotions. We offer these to the fire and then finally nothing, not even the mind exists. You are then completely empty. You are also completely free and very powerful. And you are being one with the supreme consciousness.Aham Brahmasmi – I am Brahma. There is no Aham also, Aham is I; there is no “I”, even “I” doesn’t exist; only Brahma exists. This means that the drop does not exist; only the ocean exists. In that mode, you’re totally free. This is path that we are walking.
The path of liberation, the path of complete dissolution, doesn’t stop at enlightenment, because enlightenment is only one part of total dissolution. Total dissolution is where you are completely the ocean and you are experiencing yourself as the ocean all the time, not temporarily, not for some time, but all the time. This is the path, this is the destination. Also, this destination already exists within. You already have it, we are the destination already. We have already arrived! The mind matter has to be dissolved.
During this process, if you keep asking for material things, it is a sign of the mind trying to stay alive. All your fears, your prejudices, likes and dislikes are but signs of the mind trying to stay alive! But you are not the mind. You are well beyond the mind. When you truly understand this, you also understand this whole tapestry. It is so simple and so pure. There’s nothing to distract you from this.
Total dissolution is where you are completely the ocean and you are experiencing yourself as the ocean all the time, not temporarily, not for some time, but all the time.
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
Q: So I read somewhere on Facebook, that when an individual does your Aarati, it helps energize everyone connected to you and the tradition. How does it do that? 
Thus Spake Mohanji 