Guru Purnima Satsang 2020 – Part 2

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.

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth

Proofread by Rekha Murali

Guru Purnima Satsang 2020 – Part 1

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.

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth

Proofread by Rekha Murali

Faith in your inner Guru – on healing the Earth

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 freedom from the 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,

Yadaa yadaa hi dharmasya
glaanir bhavati bhaarata
abhyutthaanam adharmasya
tadatmaanam srjaamyaham

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 !!

Transcribed by Padmini Ravikumar

Proofread by Geetha Iyer

Guru Purnima Satsang 2019, part 3

Guru Purnima Satsang
Bangalore, 16th July 2019

Part 3

Question: When we give the ancestral offerings and perform the ceremonies properly, that is, the rituals that are  done in Sanathana Dharma for the ancestors who have passed away, I understand that there is a lot of blessings that come along. But what do we do to ensure that this continues even after us? How will I know if I am being affected because someone (say about 16 generations before me) have not done something right and they have not taken care of such rituals/ ceremonies. And we so called “being modern” have not done the Pitru Kaaryas (offerings/ceremonies to ancestors) properly.  How do we  ensure such offerings, if pending, do not affect us?  Also, I also understand that pitrus (ancestors) come again and again, in our clan, so how do we make sure such pending ceremonies do  not affect our future generations?

Mohanji:  Well, how can you ensure it will continue? No assurance. It all depends on individuals of the family. See, every family has all  types of people;  out of which very few actually connect to the higher aspects of life. Many people only connect to the material aspect because they are fine with it. They’re probably successful in material life. Therefore, they decide this is good enough. Very few people connect to the higher aspects and they evolve. But when you come in contact with a master who’s totally aligned, a very powerful master, usually calamities increase because you start moving into a fast forward mode. Imagine something  was supposed to happen over 10 lifetimes; it may get crushed into one lifetime so that you finish it off.  Thus  you are free of 10 lifetimes.  Masters compress it  and people save their lifetimes that way.

Hence in the path of liberation, the right method is “total acceptance”. Okay, this is happening, and then you surrender to the master. So, then the master gives you a helping hand. When you are really connected to a proper Master, the sign is what you lose. You may lose a lot of things. First of all, you may lose impatience. Instead of thinking, “why things are not happening”, you will say, “have patience, it will happen”. That’s a sign of connection. Maybe you lose anger, jealousy, hatred, revenge, etc. Like this, you can count on your losses, depending on how deeply you are connected to the master. So the connection to a true master should be counted with your losses, not the loss of money or wealth. They are all secondary anyway. All that which is connected to your constitution based on your body, mind, intellect, ego and what you have earned from outside, are all temporary. So they come and they go but we try to cling to them.

As I said earlier, we have overwhelming instinct just like any other species. If you look at any species of the world, they have overwhelming instinct – survival instinct. Their food and sexuality are all connected to that survival instinct. For human beings, it is more imagination and intelligence. What we do, what we think, have certain set patterns. When a child is born, we are busy educating the child. After the child is reasonably educated, we have to get him into a job. Once he gets a job, immediately we are looking for a girl or a boy for marriage. As soon as he/she is married, you say, “When is a child coming?” Once the child has come, then we worry about the child. So, the cycle continues. Have you thought about what it is actually?

It’s only the instinct at work. It has no imagination or intelligence. As human beings, have we ever lived like human beings? You should always ask this question. If you have lived like human beings, lived compassion, lived kindness, lived selflessness, the highest qualities of human existence, like purity in thoughts, words, action, then you will automatically elevate from these sorrows and expectations. Otherwise, we are bound by expectations, disappointments, anger, hatred, revenge, etc. We are in that cycle and we are not crossing over. It is expectations that are ruling us all the time. We expect many things and if they don’t happen, we get disappointed. Then we change the guru because we cannot change ourselves. This is the easiest thing to do (laughter). We see this happening in the world all the time, don’t we? Now, when things are not happening well, we change the guru.

Secondly, we go to many gurus thinking somebody will help us. Eventually nobody can help you; because you are not staying long enough to be  helped. It happens this way in life.

There is no consistency in us, but we expect consistency in everything else. Look at look at the irony. We have no consistency, but we expect everything else to be consistent. If we understand that clearly, then we understand the whole story. Ask yourself one question “how consistent am I?” and “how committed am I?” If you are really committed to yourself, you don’t have to really commit to a guru. Guru has no role in that. Guru is your expression of your highest possibility. So you leave guru alone. And don’t worry about the guru. He will take care of himself. (laughter) But you should be committed to yourself.

As I said earlier, “tatwam asi” – you are that. That is your ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is that you are everything. You are the beginning, you are the life and you are the end, death. All is you. You need to invest in yourself, in understanding and aligning yourself.  You then look at the guru as a benchmark, as an aligned state. Instead,  when we go to a person with insecurities and you meet a person with insecurity to support you,  he could manipulate you. Then you will say, “This guy manipulated. He looked like a guru, but he manipulated”. Why did you go to him in the first place and what are you going to him with? – Insecurities.

Understand, most of the times people go to temples to beg. Very rich people coming in Mercedes cars go to temples and beg. You see beggars sitting outside of the temple and beggars inside the temple begging. Look around the whole world, always asking for something, entertaining poverty consciousness, always begging. When you entertain poverty consciousness all the time, poverty will be your reality. What is poverty consciousness? You are always telling the world you don’t have something – “Please give me this; please give me that”; never satisfied with what we have.

The feeling of contentment is the actual richness. With just one meal a day, if you are contented, you are very rich. Richness is your prerogative, your birth-right. You can be rich with what you have. Accept how things are happening and connect to one master, one path, one practice and one tradition, you will find success. Dig in one place long enough, you will find water. But we don’t do that today. We dig in lots of places and finally there is no water. But the effort was there, isn’t it? This is the reality today. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Paramahamsa or Brahmarishi or a Maharishi. You are not going to buy them and take them home, isn’t it? So, it doesn’t matter really. You will only connect with the ones you are eligible to connect with and those with whom you connect are the only ones you will be able to understand, feel and accept. Else you cannot connect. If you go as per somebody else’s wish, when the other person changes their mind, then you will also go away.

We see that happening many times. Somebody comes through because of somebody. If that person goes, this person also goes. Like one cow following the other blindly. We have herd instinct. One person goes, everybody goes. One person says, “Well, he is a bad person”. Everybody says, “Oh, he is a bad person”. One fox loses its tail, it tells the other foxes, “it’s amazing to have no tail”. Then all the foxes try to cut their tails. Herd instinct – we all have that. This is the true situation. No Guru is dependent on any disciple. No disciple should be dependent on any Guru. Because Guru is a benchmark, a road sign and a sign of alignment, sign of your highest aspiration, sign of stability.

Question: How to see our progress?

Mohanji: By looking inside. You can’t look outside and see your progress. Clear sign of progress is less thoughts, more silence, stability and fearlessness. You will be stable, you will be purpose bound. Your activity will have clarity; you will know what to do in life. That increased clarity is a sign of connectivity. You will know what to do when you wake up in the morning. There will be no problem. You will be eager to wake up. It is not like, “Oh my God, I’ve woken up. What will I do now?” Many people are like that. They do not know what to do when they wake up.

Question: I heard we make progress by learning lessons in life.

Mohanji: Who said lessons in life? I never said that. I feel that you have no lesson to learn. Because what you are experiencing each moment, is your reality. What will you learn out of it? It’s only experience. We call it good experience, bad experience. That’s just how we see it. But at the end of the day everything is experience. I don’t think we have any lesson to learn and can we learn lessons at all? We have too much of ego to learn anything. Our ego will not permit us to learn anything, will it? It’s all experiences. Look at everything that is happening to you as an experience, so that your connection with it will be very less. Everything is experience, everything comes and everything goes. Whatever is born will die.

It’s a short life. In this life, be happy with what you have, and don’t harm or hurt anybody. That’s why I said “Ahimsa” (non-violence) is my religion. I always say, “I don’t have a particular religion. If you want to do something for me, then go out and serve the people, the sick and the old birds and animals.” Because then you will experience purification, you will experience inner richness.

How do you feel richness? When you share what you have. When you are always greedy for more, you will never be rich. There are many rich people in the world; they only have money and nothing else. They are in fact very, very poor. Poor rich people! You can see the poverty. When you talk to them, they will always complain, “Oh, I got more taxes, I got this, I got that…” Come on, you have the money, pay  the taxes.

Devi Amma Speaks:

There’s a story… Once it seems Lord Vishnu came to meet people. The people complained that they had  many problems and that Shri Vishnu should solve them. Vishnu addressed two groups, one group of millionaires and the other group with very poor people and said “On this specific day, make a bundle of all your problems and come to me, I will solve them.” On the destined day, all the poor people came with a small bundle and sat on one side; the rich people also came and sat on the other side, but with empty hands. These poor people talking among themselves said, “How happy the rich are. They do not have any problem. We are all carrying a bundle. However they are so rich and they don’t have any”. One of the poor asked the rich, “how come you don’t have any problems?” to which the rich said, “Your problems are so small that you can carry them with your  hands; we cannot carry them, and they are coming in the lorry.” (laughter)

Mohanji: Being yourself is the best gift you can give yourself. Accept your reality and always remember that you are the most wonderful creation you have ever seen. All of us are indeed wonderful creations. There is nobody higher or lower. The real realisation is that we have value in this society and that is not to eat, drink and sleep. We can do something in this world as per our capacity. We can always deliver something. I do not believe in good and bad. I believe whatever enhances you is good for you. Whatever diminishes you makes you feel sad or makes you less, is bad for you.

So  anger, hatred, jealousy and revenge are  bad for you because they   shrink you. But acts of kindness, compassion, unconditional love, selflessness and such are good for you. Because they expand you, make  you rich. It’s very simple. You don’t have to really complicate it. Also, in every situation, only ask one thing, “Does this this activity expand me or reduce me?” If it is expanding you, go for it. If it is shrinking you, don’t do it.

Even talking about people; sometimes close friends are talking about other people. You should decide whether you should participate in it. Don’t listen because they are talking. What it creates inside you is your benchmark. If somebody tells you bad things about people, if you feel shrunk, if you feel less or drained, don’t listen to them. Just say, “I don’t have interest in it”. I always say that. “It doesn’t suit me. Whatever you’re discussing about another person or people is not my cup of tea”. We have to say that so that, as much as possible, we are always being clean and pure. That is all we can do.

Question: How to experience liberation at the time of death?

Mohanji: Be consistent and we’ll work on it. Liberation is something which you should experience right now and not just at the time of death. If something cannot be experienced now, there’s no guarantee it will be experienced in the future. So, when the seed is sown now for liberation, and if you really cling on to it, it has to happen. When the concentration, conviction, commitment happens on one thing, it has to happen. It must happen. Then the grace will support you. You take the steps and I will support you.

Question: In life many people whom we come across say, “You are the creator of your own destiny”. Sometimes they also say, “There is a mystical power and nothing is in your hands”. Some say, “Whatever  was  supposed to happen, happened”. So what is real in this? How do we correlate this? How do I know what I created and what is not in my hands?

Mohanji: I’ll clarify in simple terms, try to assimilate it, catch it while you can. First of all, Subash (the name  of the person who asked the question) was born. You have a time of birth and a time of death defined. This is set. You are born at some time; you will die at some time. Now in between this birth and death, is life which has various aspects to it.  One is that you are not stable. Your size changes, your body changes, mind changes, everything changes. Thus there are waves of change that come and go and changes are constant. Change is a must. This is number one.

In this whole journey, what faculty have you actually controlled? You thought you controlled it but you have controlled nothing. That means a force was driving it. This force is called destiny.

How is it laid out? It is laid out based on unfulfilled and pending desires – . We don’t know what it is because we cannot see our  past life. Now of course through regression therapy, etc. people are going to past life, that’s a different story. But normally,  we cannot see past life. So the flow of life has happened; and is still happening; and you have no clue as to what will happen the next year, or the year after. You have no clue on what will be your thought process, what sort of situations you will be in, the financial conditions, engagements, relationships, etc. You do not know anything, do you? So where is the control over it?

Question: Can’t someone extend life and postpone the time of their death? There’s anti-aging, medicaments…

Mohanji: Try. Everybody would buy. There are many rich people.

Know that there are so many people very, very rich people and they have had everything in life, which money can buy except the time duration or the extension of death. Some people have pumped themselves with machines and have been  in the hospital. That is not called life. I am not saying extending the life is not possible. Extending the life is possible provided you have nothing to do with the body. In certain states of Samadhi, it is possible. But that’s a different story, first you need to reach that state and then you should have nothing to do with the normal worldly activities. There are certain ways of prolonging the body for any number of years, hundreds of years. That’s a different story. I’m talking only about the terrestrial life, the usual way.

There are various masters who have defied deaths, which is definitely possible. And there are certain methods of holding the breath in certain areas and controlling, these are all there. However, this is not the platform for discussing it. Right now, the question is coming from the mind level, from an average person – using mind matter (mind, intellect, and ego) like, “why can’t I do that?” Of course, you can do that. But how?

If it were  easily possible,  medical science would have done it. Or rich people would have definitely chosen that. Also if they had a clear definition, to transfer whatever they earned in this life to next life, they would have done that. Every Arab oil baron would have done that. It is not possible that way. The thumb rule is when you are born, you will die. Whatever is born will die; whatever has birth, has death; whatever is created is uncreated. This is the rule of nature. Because everything has come out of energy, everything has to return to energy. When you have already become energy, you maintain a form; that form, existing in the form, doesn’t matter.

Question: If I let go of everything, who creates karma then?

Mohanji:  Are you letting go of anything? You are the one that  is creating. That’s why I said earlier, what creates your karma, what creates your destiny – emotions with thought, word, action creates destiny, isn’t it? Who creates it? You. Nobody else has anything to do with it. And also emotions with thoughts, words, actions happen only during waking hours. Now, if you surrender all this, then Krishna said, “You surrender everything to me, I release you from its  karma”. There are numerous higher powers, there are great masters, there are beings in energetic plane, so many different faculties, there are billions of creations and all of them  have their frequencies, they have their existence. So definitely all these exist,  but how much do you connect to them? You can’t connect to them with the mind matter. You have to connect to them with an increased frequency, which is beyond the mind matter. You have to reach a certain state to connect to them. Otherwise, you do not even know that they exist.

And we don’t believe it. We don’t believe it. We only know the transactional side – like and dislike, why I should connect; why not I connect; and so on. These are  from the mental plane, mind plane. You have to grow beyond the mind plane to actually connect to frequencies, which are of higher nature. There are frequencies that are non-interfering. There are also frequencies that are interfering.  Like the “controlling beings”, the beings that control you when you are tuned into their frequency. For example, if you have anger, similar beings of that nature possess you and they control you. If somebody has jealousy, beings or the energies, which are jealous by nature, can get attracted to you. These are all definitely there.

But you can also very well connect to higher sphere, higher frequencies;  just like  there are  many channels or frequencies in the air and according to the capacity of the television, channels are picked up and shown on the screen. Otherwise, you won’t get some of the channels on the screen, even if you have the gadget. You need to have that facility and the faculty to tune in to higher, and you will definitely experience it. This is for sure. But the flow of life is controlled by destiny. That is why you are experiencing certain things only at a certain point in time, not before, not after. What you are supposed to experience tomorrow, cannot be experienced today. That is because it’s laid out over time.

Situation, place, person, possibility, everything is laid out on time. Every moment is like that. That is what Srinivasan Ramanujam talked about – “The time-space-junction point”.  Everything happens at a particular time at a particular space to a particular set of people. If that is changed, the outcome will change.

That is why I said, “This is fully laid out”. Where do we have grip over  it? We think that we are controlling it. It’s not true. Certain patterns are happening in life. Like, we wake up in the same bed if possible every day. Every morning when we wake up, it’s the same place. That is possible. However, that’s a pattern. That’s something which destiny has provided. See, I never sleep in one bed for more than 10 days. I’m in a different place. So I don’t have the luxury of sleeping in one place for long. This is also part of destiny. Everything is created by destiny.

The best thing you can do is accept it saying, “Okay, this is what’s happening”. Therefore, when you connect to the situation  with full acceptance,  you overcome it. That is the only way to overcome.  Resisting or  thinking you can change it, won’t work.

You can change things, provided the awareness shifts. The same awareness that created a problem cannot create a solution. It has to be different awareness. You have to look from a different angle. That is why when you are in a deep problem, people say, “Go for a drive or go for a walk, come back and solve it”. That is because you are changing the whole structure so that you can address the problem in a different way.

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Guru Purnima Satsang 2019, part 2

Guru Purnima Satsang,
Bangalore, 16th July 2019

Question:

Devi Amma has described our master, Mohanji as JagatMitra and VishwaMitra, that is, friend of the cosmos and friend of the universe. The highest master Agastya Maharishi has delivered this revelation about Mohanji. I am asking this in the light of the fact that he is delivering a few things that no other master had done before. When he went to South Africa, he delivered Shaktipat for sharks and crocodiles. He is a VishwaMitra not only for human beings, but also dogs, crocodiles, sharks, tiger cubs and lions.

In Kedarnath, I witnessed this phenomenon.  There was a dog that looked  like a wolf. Nobody would dare to go near it. However, Mohanji gave Shaktipat to that dog! When asked about this, he said, “I want to accelerate the progress of that dog”. The very minute he gave Shaktipat, I could see the transformation in that dog and it is for everyone to see. I would like to hear Devi Amma say a few words about Mohanji on this Guru Poornima day.

Devi Amma:

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was wandering in a forest along with disciple when a tiger approached them. Upon seeing the tiger, the disciple got scared and was shivering uncontrollably but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu remained blissful because, he connected to the tiger at the soul level. In the same vein, Mohanji connects to beings, not from the mind, but the heart, from the soul. So, when there is a soul-to-soul connection, everything is possible.

I will share my experience. We were living in an estate and one day, suddenly a snake came in our kitchen. The labourers working wanted to kill the snake. I opposed it saying, “No, you shouldn’t be killing Naga Raja (king of snakes). You have to take him out.” The labourers refused and wanted to kill it. I didn’t know what to do. I was also scared.  Yet, I stood in front of the snake, took a big stick and just pushed it. He was hissing at me. I said, “See “I won’t harm you or have you killed and I will tell everybody not to harm you. You just have to come and roll yourself in this stick and I’ll take you out”. The snake was staring at me for a moment. I repeated, “I promise you, I won’t kill you but I’ll take you out and I’ll tell my family members also that they should not hurt you”. Immediately, he listened, came to the stick, rolled and he was sitting like this (showing the posture of how the snake rolled in a stick). I didn’t have any fear at that moment. I just took it from the kitchen to the gate. Everybody was behind my back and I was holding him. My mother was scared he might slip off, but he didn’t! I just carried him and let him lose in the road. So it was soul-to-soul. But it happens at times, not always… just sometimes… (Laughter…) hence it is the same soul-to-soul connection that matters.

Questions to Mohanji continue…

Question: There is a cause for an effect. For a cause there will be a cause behind it. I would like to know what that cause is.

Mohanji:  It’s not easy to see the cause. It is like we do not know why we are born. As each moment happens, we realise, “Oh! This was supposed to happen”. Forget about life, even thoughts. Do we know what our next thought is? We don’t know. Last year we did not know that we would be here at this time. Everything is situational in that way. So it’s not easy to see the cause. The causes are many. And the effects are also not equal to the cause. Sometimes it’s conglomerated; it happens that way.

I’ll give you a story. There was a woman who was happily married and had one child every year for 12 years; 12 children in total. Her only prayer to God was, “Please save me from this”. But according to their religion, if there was a possibility, they had children. This lady was tired and she was praying but there was no chance the prayer could be answered. So her deepest thought in that life was to save herself from repeated motherhood. In her next life, there were no children; she had no children because her prayers were answered. She had prayed, “Please save me from this”. But in the next life her prayer is “Please give me children.” This is how life works. Cause and effect.

So, usually you cannot look at the effect and say what the cause is, but approximately. Now I will tell you another story about compound causes. There are numerous beings in the in the sphere around us, whom we don’t see. But they all represent something like viruses, bacteria, so many things. They all have their effects in our life, if they come in contact with us.

So a person, who has anger by default, will attract all the angry kind of silent beings in the atmosphere onto them. Once upon a time, there was a great master who was standing by the side of a village road overlooking at a tree. A passerby came and asked the Master, “What are you seeing?” He said, “There are three people sitting on the tree. I’m wondering what they’re going to do. I am watching them.” Then this man said, “I can’t see anybody.” The master replied “You won’t be able to see it, but I can. I see it. Touch me and look and you will see.” Then this man touched the master and looked and there were three beings without bodies on the tree. Such beings are dead creatures; they don’t have bodies; but they were waiting for somebody. Even though they do not have bodies, they still have desires. This happens usually in the case of suicides, etc. that is, unnatural death, which I talk about later.

They were waiting for something, waiting for gratification. How can they gratify without the body? They waited for some BODY. Then while they were standing there, they saw one man, dead drunk walking through the village road. He was completely drunk, was falling, getting up, falling again and pulling himself up.  He was going somewhere and did not even see these people on the side of the road. He was so drunk, he went ahead. Then the Master said, “Okay, now let’s go”. So the passerby asks, “What happened?” The master replied “Four of them have gone; this man plus three of them sitting on the tree;  all of them joined him in his body, and they  went”. So this man asked ” Where did they go?” The master replied, “Oh! Just around this corner, there is a brothel. This drunkard is going to that brothel and these three beings also have the same desire. So they joined this body and went”.  Thus we can’t say that is only the desire or the cause of this one man; it can be compounded cause.

Imagine a person is supposed to live 80 years, but he killed himself at the age of 40. So he has the remaining  40 years as per the normal agenda. What happens then? The body is gone, but the story is not done. Minus the body, you cannot complete the story. Then it is a desperate situation. That is why, if the proper treatment and proper rituals are not done, it is very difficult. We have some rituals like “Narayana bali” etc. because these beings cannot find their way and it is very difficult. They do not know what to do. Body is gone, but the story is not complete.

That is why all the great masters have said that it is better to have a natural death as much as possible. But if it is an accident etc. and you are deeply connected to a master or a God, that will help. Because that is the way, you exited and you’re supposed to exit. You did not do it deliberately, in other words, it is not a deliberate attempt to kill oneself. In that case, it would be better. In short, what I’m trying to convey is it’s not easy to see the cause.

But when you know the effect, when you understand and experience the effect, we realise there is a cause. Take for instance a stream of thoughts; we don’t know what thoughts are happening. Thoughts have their input from external data that we have collected indiscriminately and stored over a period of time. We don’t even know that we stored them. Yet, they exist in the system and create an effect.

Question: What does this storage contain? How to deal with what we have stored and exhaust karma?

The Sanchita karma (heaped together) has its roots in three major aspects. One is the Prarabda or unfulfilled desires. The other is the lineage karma, and the next one is all that you have acquired from outside. Whatever you have acquired from outside usually becomes your pending karma, for which you may not have enough time to fulfil, in this lifetime, while you are living.  So it is what you wanted to experience from another life plus what the lineage has given you. These two are usually under consideration.

How do you fulfil karma?

That is exactly what we are doing every day. Karma gets completed through fulfilment (i.e.) cycle of desire and fulfilment of the same. This is the usual pattern of karma. Karma, as I said earlier, is activity along with ownership. That is the only way it can create karma. In other words – thoughts, words, actions with emotion become karma. Otherwise, it won’t become karma. A thought, word or action – surrendered cannot become karma. But, thoughts, words, action with ownership become karma. Thus ownership is the source of karma.

So what can you do when karma happens/ has happened?

The ideal answer or remedy is fulfilment.

How can you ensure that fulfilment will stop the karma there?

By being objective about it; which means, you do not catch more emotions from it.

For example, some people smoke their first cigarette because their friends suggested it or in order to give company to a friend. After a while, you will buy the pack, even if the friend is not suggesting it. That is because it easily becomes a habit. A seemingly innocent activity can become a habit. It is possible. So you should always be alert and aware that this habit is happening and it should end there. When an activity ends, the story should end there. Do not carry it forward. The more memories you keep, the more desires will happen.

If you still have some memory, but say, “That’s okay, that’s done. Now I’m okay”, and thus at each point in time, you fully complete whatever you wanted, then it is over. This is one way.

The second method is through increased awareness; meaning – you connect yourself to masters. When I say Master, I refer to someone who has overcome the pull of the mind, intellect and ego (mind matter). A person who is not bound by the mind matter is a master. He has mastery over the mind, mastery over the intellect and mastery over ego. That is mastery. It is also called alignment.

Alignment means – body, mind, intellect, ego and spirit, together as a unit. Usually mind matter is outside of you. Mind is going outside, intellect is going outside and personality is projected outside. That makes us dependent on the world outside. When you are not projecting your mind outside, you are free. When you are free, you are aligned. If you are aligned, your karmic baggage reduces; your mind is inside and is focused inside. Intellect and ego are focused inside as well. Body is already aligned. Spirit is already aligned by birth. Only mind matter is the problem. Senses have no function without mind matter. Senses are free by themselves. They are being used by mind matter, isn’t it? Mind – intellect – Ego use senses. Otherwise, the senses are completely free, always.

So the second aspect is that, be aware of it. What is enjoying an activity? Ask that question. Usually if it is an emotion, mind will be happy. When you are in romance, which aspect of you gets happy? Emotions – the Mind. When you are become aware of something technical, say you bought a new mobile phone and you have learnt how to use it, found all the possibilities, then intellect becomes happy. When somebody appreciates you, rewards you, honours you or respects you, what becomes happy? Ego.

This is the way our functions are. After a while, you wouldn’t care about any of this. No emotions, no material for analysis, no questions. Question itself dies and answer is definitely not needed. Then freedom happens, karma gets dropped. So first of all, the formation of karma is connected to ownership. Fulfilment is its natural culmination. Beyond fulfilment is awareness. When you are fully aware of all this activity, it loses its value and it starts dropping.

Now the third, which is said in the Raja Yoga path – Integrate into a master, plug into a master, be in the consciousness of the master. The master is already aligned and when you are in the consciousness of the master, then automatically you will be aligned. Then it’s easier. But it’s very difficult to be in-tune with the living master. Why? Because ego will not permit it. Ego will say, “He’s after all a human being, he’s eating, drinking, sleeping, snoring, etc.” Understand that you have power over everything. If you take a firm determination, just a simple decision that no words will happen from your mouth without your mind being present, see how much difference it makes. Likewise, no activity will happen without your mind being present (i.e.) No unconscious activity. If you start doing it, that itself will make you more aligned.

Question: So, as you rightly said, we are the soul, aatman, paramaatman, the supreme consciousness. In the initial state we all are very pure. Then where is the origin of Maya (illusion)? How does one switch over from a pure consciousness state to being caught in Maya? How does this distance happen from our pure state?

Mohanji: I think everybody is influenced by Lord Krishna. He is the perfect Brahmachari (celibate). But he had 16,008 wives. How is that possible? Have you thought about it? Shri Krishna was a perfect Brahmachari. But He was in every aspect of existence. He was totally a Brahmachari, even though he had many wives.

Audience: Isn’t that a concept?

Mohanji: It is not a concept. It is a reality. You’re saying it is a concept. But what is a concept?

A concept is something that you are not aware of, but you believe it is real. But this (Krishna being a Brahmachari in spite of having many wives) is real. I will explain to you how it is real. So far, all these things that you said like contamination, impurity, etc. are connected to which state? The waking state, which is only one of the three states.

You still have a dream state, a deep sleep state, where this is all invalid. So, your whole concept is connected to one state, is that correct? In that waking state, say, you are fully withdrawn inside, all the activity that you involve in outside, is not yours. A 2 or 3 year old young child is into all sorts of activities,  whatever he can handle, how impure is he? Imagine he is playing in the mud. Is he impure? Isn’t impurity a concept in this case?

Understand this clearly, it is how you perceive it, it becomes the truth. Veda Vyasa impregnated two women. Did he get contaminated because of this? How can a great saint impregnate somebody? Did he get contaminated? PURPOSE. He had a purpose to do that. There was a reason to do that. So when you perform something with the right reason and without ownership, your purity never gets affected. But many times it is your mind that is pushing you, such as your likes and dislike, your fancies and fantasies. That is where all this contamination happens. But even that contamination is only during waking state. Your dream state and deep sleep state have nothing to do with it. You are unnecessarily storing the data, you’re surfing the web, all the cache memory comes into the hard drive, you never store it, it happens. It comes just like that.

So we are born pure, we will remain pure and we will die pure. Why? Because we are the SOURCE of all these drama, NOT the drama itself. If you understand that, you understand the story. The energy that drives or empowers this drama is you. If you look at everything from that angle, there is zero contamination. You cannot be contaminated.

The rest of the things such as mind matter, time, space and body changes, and re-incarnations happen. So in no way we can say that we are contaminated. We are carrying dirt and garbage. Why? Because we have collected them. We are storing them. Just like cache memory in a computer. You never store them. It comes by itself because of your intelligence in the in the web world. It’s absolutely like that.

That is exactly what we talk about mastery. When we realise what we are, we are completely pure and we are in this world walking around and playing the drama as per the appointed order. The ownership makes us feel heavy.

No ownership = no weight. That was Lord Krishna. Whatever was the desire in the mind of the person who comes to him, He expressed Himself in that way. That is it. He just reciprocated. And it was not for His gratification. It is a completion at some level. We will become like that. I’m not saying everybody will become Lord Krishna. What I’m saying is that you will understand how it’s all operated.

A story

Here is a small story to explain this further. When the Yadavas (a clan or a tribe to which Lord Krishna belonged) wanted to cross the river, which was overflowing, Vyasa asked them, “What do you want to do?” They said, “We want to go to the other side to see Krishna.” Vyasa asked, “What have you brought for Him – Sweets? Show me”. They showed him and he ate half of it! The Yadavas were embarrassed. This was supposed to be an offering for Krishna, but Vyasa ate most of it. Hungry man!

Vyasa then said, “Come with me.” He went near the river and said, “If I have not eaten anything, let the river part”. The river parted. The Yadavas saw with their own eyes that Vyasa ate the sweets. Is it a concept? So what is concept? These are all truths; how does it happen? Vyasa did not have ownership of food; he surrendered everything and had it on behalf of Krishna. He said, “I have not eaten anything and I have surrendered”.

But we can’t do that by using our mind. It is from the point of view of absolute surrender, that is, unity of consciousness. If you kill somebody and said, “I have surrendered”,  it won’t work that way. There has to be unity of consciousness in order to have that surrender. Surrender then becomes spontaneous.

The river parted and when the Yadavas met Krishna on the other side, they said “We brought these sweets for you”. Krishna said, “I can’t have it. I just had the SAME sweets a short while ago”. This was because Vyasa was connected to Krishna, Unity of consciousness. If we understand this, then there is no contamination. Digest it. It will be very useful to you. If you understand this very clearly, you would have understood the entire science of spirituality.

Read Guru Purnima satsang, part 1

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Guru Purnima Satsang 2019, part 1

Guru Purnima Satsang,
Bangalore, 16th July 2019

It’s a real honour to have Amma here with us.

You know, we have a deep heart to heart connection, probably a connection of the tradition, more than heart to heart. It is silent, hence it’s not visible. Such connections are not visible, you have to feel them. Thank you Amma for physically coming here.

Earlier, I gave you an introduction to what I said today. God, soul and Guru are the same, and I have explained how that is. God is pure consciousness, brightness; brighter than a million suns. Your soul is brightness, formless. A Guru, who is connected to the Supreme Consciousness, is the same. Whatever you are connected to, you become that.

How do you know that you are actually connected to the consciousness?

There are certain signs that you can trust. When you are deeply connected to the energy within you, whether you call it Soul, God or guru, the sign is silence. When you are getting connected to the consciousness, there will be deep silence inside.

What are the usual noises from inside?

They are from all that you have you stored inside, the stored data. You have stored various emotions, so many impressions, so many anxieties, fears etc. inside. Where are they coming from? All these have some root in the outside world, we have picked it up from there.

Actually speaking, what is the outside world for you?

Only when you are waking up and when you are awake, a world outside exists. But can you use that world when you are sleeping or when you are dreaming? There is no outside world for you when you are dreaming and in deep sleep. But when you are awake, there is a world outside and that’s the world you are connecting to.

Why do we connect to the world?

In order to have some experiences. That is our entire life. We are connecting to certain things of life; it could be possessions, it could be positions, it could be relations, etc. But we are constantly connecting to this outside world and we gather impressions from this outside world, which we store. That is what we see in our hard drive (inside). These stored impressions have a link to the outside world. But when silence happens, the dependence on the outside world reduces. That is when freedom begins for your soul, in your life. Until then there is no freedom; we do not even know what freedom is.

Freedom is less dependence on the world outside. Actual freedom means your positions, possessions, relations cannot create any kind of deep impact inside (within). You will reach a stage; a state of Samadhi; a state of Samadhi where you are occupied inside. That is the first step. Your dependence on the outside world reduces and you start looking inside.

What do you see when you look inside? You see all the stored materials through thousands of years. But because your dependence on the outside is less, you will start having less dependence on these things. You may have emotions, but they have no expressions. They don’t need an expression. They don’t need gratification. So automatically, we start detaching. That is when you actually stabilise in freedom. You start being freedom. Then it goes into various stages of liberation. This is the sum total of what I have said today, as a Guru Purnima message.

It is all you, you and you. You are the path; you are the journey and you are the destination. “Tat Twam Asi (You are that). This is the whole story. That’s why we talked about semantic religions where we discussed two boundaries, heaven and hell. Based on your activity, you can go to heaven or you can go to hell. In fact, you go nowhere. It’s here, right here and these are states. When you are not at all dependent on the world outside it is heaven. When you are fully bound and completely restless, chasing things, always insufficient, always in “something is not right” kind of an attitude etc., you are in hell; because you are not peaceful. Your peace quotient brings heaven or hell into your life. It is all RIGHT HERE. It is all happening RIGHT NOW. There is no future about it.

That is why if you make a mess here but believe that you will go to heaven, it never happens; it cannot happen that way because you get the results of what you do. If you love, you get love, if you hate, you get hate. Contaminations such as anger, hatred, jealousy and revenge have their root in insecurity. Insecurity is connected to an instinct called ‘survival instinct’. All of us have it. All animals and birds, every being has this one instinct, which is predominant – the instinct for survival. Human beings also possess this instinct, but in an aberrated way; human species possess great intelligence and capacity for imagination along with this instinct for survival.

When you are focused on imagination and intelligence, you feel that instinct is something mediocre, not real; but survival instinct is very real. We see its manifestation as intelligence and imagination. Therefore, this is real. We cannot say something is unreal. If you are experiencing something, it is real for you. All that we experience is real. But how deeply are you connecting to it; that makes your life different. If you see every situation passing by, everything is going on but you are detached, then you are free. If you are affected by everything; if you are affected by each movement of the outside world, then you are bound. It is as simple as that. Do not go for complicated spirituality. There is nothing complicated about it. You are the path; you are the journey and you are the destination. Everything is connected to how you are.

It is simple. Your world is how you are. If you are very happy, your world is happy. When you wake up, your world wakes up. When you sleep, your world sleeps. That’s all you have. Your world means only so much. What you see between your waking state (when you are awake), and when you are in deep sleep state (when you’re sleeping), that’s your world. Nothing else is your world.

Question: You said God, Guru and soul are the same. If God decides everything, then what do we decide? Why don’t humans have control? It is so confusing. What should we do as human beings?

Mohanji: Firstly, God is not deciding. Is your soul deciding any emotions? Importantly, do you know that the soul exists in your body? When do we really know that the soul existed in our body? Only when the soul leaves the body. But that’s too late. Then we call it a dead body, isn’t it? So, God is very much the same. God is similar to the petrol of your car. It helps your journey, but it has nothing to do with your destination. Your soul also is non-interfering and silent, in fact quite silent, but it gives life. Hence, God is not deciding anything, but God provides the platform. Consider this, this hall (in which we are seated) neither decided who will come here, nor did it decide what discussion will happen here. The hall is called Agastya (name of a sage), but Agastya has nothing to do with it.

Similarly, your soul, God, and Guru have nothing to do with you. They are all factors of existence.

So, what is driving your life? Unfulfilled desires.

Where have unfulfilled desires come from? Memories & impressions.

Memories of what? Activities or experiences.

So, the clock goes like this.

Unfulfilled desires à Inclinations à Thoughts à Words à Actions à Experience à Memory à Impression.

You have unfulfilled desires, which creates inclinations. Inclinations create thoughts. Thoughts create expressions or words, which then creates action. Action creates experience. Experience creates the residue, that is, memory. That memory gets stored as impression in some part of you. It can be in your physical sheath – Anna Maya Kosha, it can be in your mental sheath –

Mano Maya Kosha or any Koshas. We have various sheaths around us. Depending on the activity and the experience, each impression gets stored there.

When it is stored, it asks for more of that thing, that experience. That is why when you become angry, you sometimes do not know why you get angry. But the truth is that you are getting angry. There is a cause. Every effect has a cause, into which the soul is not interfering. Soul is watching, witnessing. The same hold true for God. God does not interfere. God is also witnessing. And this is a drama, nothing stays. Understand that all this is happening clearly between the times you wake up and before you fall back into sleep. This whole drama happens in that 24 hours of time. You have this drama only during the hours that you are awake. Then, there is more drama in the dream state.

Dream state is not connected immediately to the waking state nor to the outside world. Dream state cannot depend on the world outside as well. So, what does dream state depend on? Whatever you have stored inside; that creates dreams. Hence the dream state is equally valid. It has relevance because, what you do not express during waking state, can be expressed during the dream state. In the waking state you are in Bangalore, but in dream state, you could be in America. At the physical level, if you want to go to America, firstly, you need a visa, then you need to book the flight etc. But in a dream, you are in America in a moment. Because it gives you an experience, dream state has validity.

Then you have deep sleep state. In deep sleep state you’re totally dead. You don’t know where you’re a man or a woman. You don’t know the time or place. You know nothing. In deep sleep, you’re dead. Every night we are dying for three and a half hours; then, we come back. Actually, the insomnia affects only that time. Even if dream state is lost, there’s no problem. But three and half hours if you could not sleep well, then your body gets affected. The sleeplessness we talk about, is connected to the deep sleep state. Dream state has no problem even if is fluctuating. After a while when you are deeply connected with yourself even the dream state dies. That is, when the stored data reduces, dream state also vanishes.

So, this is the story… activity, experience, memory, impression, desire, thought, word, action, again experience… our life goes on like this.

In this, God is neutral, Soul is neutral and Guru is neutral. Guru is only showing you the light. What is the guru’s role? He is just like a mirror. When you look at the mirror, what do you see? What you see is what you are. How you are, at that point in time, that is what you see. True gurus are like that. They need nothing from you. What can you give them? Understand – The only thing you can actually surrender to the guru, God or soul is YOURSELF. Everything else that you surrender is from the outside. They are not yours; you are holding them temporarily and we have a false feeling that we own it. But what do you truly own on Earth? We may have houses, cars, people, relations, positions, possessions, but we own nothing. What happens to all of them when we die? It’s gone. So that’s exactly how it works. There is no confusion here. God is providing the platform, otherwise you cannot perform this drama. Soul is your energy, which helps you to perform. Guru is your mirror, which tells you who you are. If you look at all these three aspects, all three are neutral.

So, God is not making any plans. We are creating the drama. We are enjoying in some way. All the pains, pleasures etc. are our own production. And please understand the mind factor, the mind matter. Mind matter means mind, intellect and ego, the three aspects of this mind. Mind is the seat of emotions, intellect is the seat of analysis and ego is the seat of personality, it is the skeleton of personality. Ego is not so bad. Just as a skeleton gives a structure to your body, ego gives a structure to your personality and that’s okay. So, mind, intellect and ego are the three faculties with which we experience this world. Through mind we experience emotions; through intellect, we analyse all the things; and through ego, we express our personality, which is usually a powerful expression. That is the expression with which people recognise you.

When people say “Mohanji”, they will have some idea of Mohanji; such as what he wears, how he walks or talks, how nonsensical he was (chuckles), etc. They are all connected to ego projection. That is how we are alive. Nothing in this world is by accident. Every bird, every plant, every leaf, every tree, every human, every being, each of them is relevant; there is relevance; there is the power of creation behind it all. So, when you really understand that, you know why they are all here and that we have no ownership over them.

For karma, the source is ownership. If an activity with ownership happens, that causes karma. If an activity with surrender happens, there is no karma. That is why Lord Krishna said, “You surrender your actions and the results of actions to ME; I release you from its karma.” The standard vow is, “You have no ownership, then you have no karma”. Thus, it’s as simple as that. God is giving you all the options without interfering.

Question: Does it mean that we should know our desires?

You won’t know desires, because not all desires are tangible. Also, desires move as per time. Desires you had at the age of 10 will have no validity when you are 20. The same desires will be useless at the age of 30. So, every desire has its time and space. They happen only at that time. Sometimes when you see the children playing, eager for new toys, you wonder, “What’s the big deal?” because you have overcome that situation. We overcome such situations every day. Every morning when we wake up, it’s a new life. So, we would have transformed without our knowledge every day. In this mode, we are continuously flowing. Hence, no desires can be called as permanent. Some desires though could be permanent – those that you reject, resist or postpone; they stay longer. That is what we call as addictions.

Whatever you suppress for a longer period of time, will become your predominant agenda in the future. In some people, you may notice addictions; for example, as soon as they are able to spend money and buy alcohol, they start drinking. We might be surprised as to why these people are drinking so much; it’s a clear sign of a suppressed desire in a previous life/ previous existence. They would have suppressed it far too much and far too long, and it comes back as a very compelling desire. Also, what you are, at the time of death has lot of value. That is why we used to name our children as Rama, Krishna, etc. because then we keep calling that name and that name becomes a chant. The Lord’s name has vibration and every name has a frequency. That is one aspect. But otherwise, calling the name all the time is also chanting.

There is a story of Sage Valmiki; how he turned around from being a hunter to becoming a sage, just by chanting the name “Rama”. When he, as a hunter said, “I cannot chant Rama”, the sage Narada said, “don’t chant Rama, chant Mara”. Mara in Sanskrit means ‘tree’. When you continuously chant Mara Mara Mara, it became Rama, Rama, Rama. Like this, everything has its value.

You cannot control desires and don’t try to control anything, but watch it. Be aware. That is why awareness (Bodh) has a lot of value. Just be aware of everything; don’t do anything unconsciously. Whatever happens in life, be aware; whatever you’re speaking, be aware; for everything, just be aware. When you are being aware all the time, one day that awareness will stabilise and all the desires will become, “Yes, things will happen in life, it will all happen, let it happen, because they are all related to past life”.

Please understand one thing. The lineage Karma, the karma coming from the father and mother, lineage of parents, they are the first one to enter as soon as soon as the sperm and egg meets. It is called Dhananjeya. Dhananjeya means the prana that enters the system. That means you get linked to the father and mother. Thus, lineage karma is the first of karmas, then comes prarabdha, that is, what you brought forward from another life. It comes after the lineage karma. So, as soon as you are born in a family, the family has taken you over. Dhananjeya has taken over, even before you are born, the moment you desire to take birth, before your body is formed. It is also the last parameter to leave after death. It leaves after everything is demolished.

So, lineage, karma has a lot of impact in us. That is why we observe abstinence for certain days, where we stay away (from husband/ wife) after a death in the family. That’s because we are technically connected to all these people in the lineage. Prarabdha comes much later. Prarabdha comes when the soul enters the body, or when the body is formed. Otherwise, we are only lineage. We are in a compulsive way, representing the lineage or the weight of the parents’ side. So, when you do constant actions of kindness, goodness, compassion, the whole lineage gets purified. That’s why all the scriptures say, “Acts of kindness – karma yoga is really essential. Keep doing good work; keep helping people; keep doing the right things”. Such acts clean the lineage continuously and all the people of the lineage get benefitted. For instance, there is a feast in your house, everybody gets all the food you cook, isn’t it? Like that, whatever you do helps not only all the people in the lineage, but also the generations to come. And when you go to the next life, you carry some part of the merit. It is similar to having a positive bank balance for your next life. Overall, it is positive.

This is a time of information. Internet is giving tonnes of information. But until you assimilate information, it does not become knowledge, it will remain as information, like raw food. Until you cook it, it’s not edible. You have to contemplate on the information, then it becomes knowledge. When you experience that knowledge, it becomes wisdom. Until then, it’s not wisdom, it’s just knowledge.

Question:  If we choose to experience that, will that ensure grace?

If you choose to experience, grace will be there. As long as you are not acting on selfishness grace will come. Grace is like sunshine, it’s always there. You have to open your windows and curtains, then you get sunshine. Grace is always there. The easiest thing to obtain is Bhagawan’s blessing or grace. But we don’t strive for it. We don’t work for it. Because we don’t believe in it. Firstly, when people say that there is a thing called grace factor, they would say, “Oh, you’re joking”. When we don’t believe in something, we don’t get it. Earning grace means, consistent acts of kindness, compassion, then we earn it.

 

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Mohanji’s Guru Purnima Message 2019

The blog post moved here