Paying the price for gossip

Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. Hello friends, hope you are doing well. 

Today, we’ll talk about the anatomy of gossip. We are used to it, right? People talk bad about people. People gossip about people. We read a lot of stuff in the sleazy magazines. And it sells well; people are curious to know who’s sleeping with whom, who’s got more money, how he made it, so many different things we are curious. We love scandals, right? But there is a price for all this. The main price is the contamination of our mind, internal contamination. Whatever we consume, leaves an impact on our system. If we consume negativity, our mind becomes negative; the residue remains in our mind. If we think positive, talk positive and do positive things in the world, our inner space gets purified. Our existence is between this contamination and purification.

Now we take a step further, let’s analyze it a little bit. What are gossips? Why are they happening? A) It is the curiosity that we have about other people, their lives, their ways. Secondly, it could be jealousy we have, or we feel underprivileged than certain people, so we would like to know that they are not all right. We would like to know the bad news because we feel better when we hear this bad news. This is a sadistic pleasure. Another reason could be the appetite for negativity. Many of us have an appetite for negative things, so we like to consume them by default. It’s like a smoker, we keep smoking, and we don’t know that it’s bad for the body, or any addiction, for that matter. We keep doing it, and we think it’s fine until we become so heavy. Another problem with this is, as I explained earlier, what we consume, we become. So, when we consume negative things, we start looking at the world through the eyes, which it has provided. Gossips, scandals, all kinds of thoughts, actions, talking bad about others, character assassinating people, especially in public; these produce heavy karma, a huge price for doing this; because we are talking about another karmic being, just expressing and experiencing their own karma, in their life. In fact, we have nothing to do with it. But we interfere, intervene, we think, we talk, and we pay the price for it. Everything has a price; nothing is free. 

When somebody creates gossips, scandals; when somebody character assassinates another person, who’s responsible? Primarily, the person who’s initiating it is responsible. He or she ends up paying the real price. And it’s quite a huge debt, based on the impact it created. First of all, the person who initiates it has to pay a huge debt. Maybe it will take various lifetimes to clear. It’s absolutely not worth it. Secondly, the contamination that it creates in the minds of various people, who gets to pay for that? The person who initiates pays for that also. If that person whose mind has contaminated the reader, the listener, and they transfer it further; they also end up paying a part of it.

This is how it works. That means the initiator pays the maximum. Then whoever is contaminated is also the responsibility of the initiator. He or she has to pay for their contamination, or their state, whatever happens with them. And if they further transfer it to others also, they have to pay, to some extent.

So, every level of contamination has a high, big, huge price; this should be very clear. So, it’s not just a very ordinary thing, a simple thing. It may sound very simple. And it is sometimes even pleasurable. We talk bad about people spontaneously as if it’s nothing. But there is a price to pay. With our contamination, there’s a huge price. Our mind is contaminated because we are the producers. Then, when we write it, and we contaminate other minds, we pay the price for that as well.

All of these are very complicated. Personal contamination is vital. Because when you sow something like this, you have to reap the same thing. It means, other people may contaminate you further, or people may go against you, you may experience the same thing which you have initiated. People may talk bad about you, say that you are very bad. All those things are possible. All that I’m saying is, what you initiate, you end up consuming. What you cook, you will end up eating. You may share it, and some people may eat it; some people may reject it. The price is vital; this has to be clearly understood. Don’t think that you can talk anything, do anything, say anything and even write anything and you will be out of it. It’s absolutely not true. Whatever you initiated, whatever you sowed, you have to reap, the price has to be paid. 

What is the reward for the victim? This is also an interesting subject. Imagine you contaminated or you talked bad about somebody; automatically, they get purified. The people whom you are talking about will have a sudden level of purification because it’s like some bad energy has happened in somebody’s body and a mosquito came and took it away, or some insect came and took it, or released it. Leeches suck the bad blood, and the bad blood is gone. Like that, a person about whom these people are talking, these people are also taking their bad energies out. An element of purification happens to the victim; the victim is purified. So, that way there is a bonus, there is a good thing. But that’s not the intention of the talker, the sayer. 

The intention of the sayer is to contaminate, tarnish the image, character assassinate the person, for which they have to pay a very, very huge price. It will go into debt, and also it goes into the lineage. We talked about the lineage earlier. This is bad karma for the lineage. The lineage ends up paying for a long time because of the bad actions of this person. It says that when a saint happens in a lineage, at least seven generations before him and seven generations after him, are purified, are benefited, are elevated. The birth of a saint in a family is a big deal. Likewise, the birth of a negative person in the family is the opposite. At least seven generations before him and seven generations after him or her will have to pay the price. 

It is not only the contamination that you create within yourself; it is also that you create in the world outside, as well as you create in the family lineage. Understand this very clearly, and before you spontaneously gossip or unconsciously scandalize somebody, please remember the price that you have to pay. It is not ordinary, it is invisible, but you will know in real life how it takes place. You will experience either the same thing or a much more serious thing. Or you will see that as various types of blockages in your own life. Don’t think this is something silly and just enter into a bad company and talk bad about people, gossip, write about them and scandalize them; a very, very big price to pay. And any friends who are influencing you to do such things should be immediately thrown out. If you’re doing this under the influence of somebody, please remember that person will not take responsibility. It will entirely come on your shoulder because you are in the firing line; you are exposed. People know that you are doing it, even if you don’t put your name, they will know you are doing it. And the person who instigated or inspired you to do it will not be responsible, will not take the blame; they will not take the burden. You have to sort that out yourself.

I leave you with these thoughts. Please be careful how you interact with what you do. If you dislike something, if you dislike somebody; walk away. Go away. Stay away and leave them alone. They will handle their own karma. Karma is always truthful; karma always pays. If you have done something wrong, you will end up getting the rewards for it, positive or negative; you don’t have to worry about it. We do good work in the world. We spread positivity, we spread love, we spread compassion, kindness, selflessness, and that will keep us elevated at all times. I hope this is clear. If you have any questions, I will clarify further. 

Lots of love. This is Mohanji, for you.

Listen to an excerpt of the podcast here

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Practical Steps for Challenging Times – part 2

Satsang with Mohanji  
16th August 2020

Question: We have multiple tasks being done at the same time; managing the home, children, etc and there is no time for spiritual practice. This is causing irritation. I would like to understand how I can make it more efficient.

Mohanji: We have a feeling that we have many tasks. We do have various responsibilities; home, office and a variety of responsibilities. Why don’t you take these as Sadhana or practice? It is possible. Do everything as an offering. Your work itself is worship! Everything can be worship. Breath is worship, thoughts are worship, actions are worship; everything can be an offering. Imagine like that – then it is perpetual meditation; all the time you are meditating. Don’t try to compartmentalise your life. It is one life, in which you are playing various roles; you are playing the role of a wife or a mother or a child or a father or uncle or any other role. You are playing these roles every day and it is part of your responsibility. YOU MUST! But there is a YOU in the middle. There is YOU who is playing these roles; connect to that you, who is no role, but the actor. Not the role you play, but the actor. Connect to this actor, the real you and meditate on that actor. Not the role; roles will change, even in a day it changes many times; let it change, play all the roles. But at the same time, connect to yourself, the actor. And you feel how it is. You will start feeling very peaceful and meditative.  The actor is not changing, roles are changing. You are everything. But you are NOT anything. You will understand that experientially. You will understand and experience that.

That will make a difference in your life.

Question: What is the significance of special occasions, like certain times for deities?

Mohanji: Every time has its significance, just like day or night. Similarly, there is significance to seasons, certain planetary configurations which shift the energy frequency, and we perform certain rituals at that time, all of them have significance. Each of these, as you connect to it, is transformative, even if temporarily. When you participate in a festival, you feel excited. You forget your sorrows, wear new clothes, eat good food, and you feel great! The purpose is to rejuvenate you, to press the restart button! So what happens is you look forward to these holidays, those experiences. Whether it is spiritually significant or not, what happens inside is the real story. Are you happy? If you are happy, it is worth it! What is life for? Happiness. We want to experience what is happiness on earth. We want to experience ecstasy, bliss, love, great things in life which makes us feel good. All these festivals that society has created are for that purpose. If you really understand that you will start appreciating all these things.

If you look at festivals connected to Lord Krishna, all joy and dance and singing, etc. Why is it so? Because life should be a celebration ! Life means celebration. Janmashtami happened a few days back. Everybody celebrated the birth of Lord Krishna. Krishna was born about 5000 years ago. But we celebrated as if He was born now!  What happened in the minds of people?

A rebirth happened! Reborn, Rejuvenated, in a way, Reinvented!

This is the beauty of festivals. We must celebrate, Datta Jayanthi , Sai Baba’s Samadhi day, and so on. We celebrate everything and it is worth it. We sing, we chant, we connect, we rejuvenate and then we reinvent and we restart ourselves.

Question: A person who has always helped others, and never harm others still suffers greatly. How can this happen, is it karma?

 Mohanji: Life is a flow. We must flow with life. Two things life is a flow through bodies life flows. That means through rebirths life flows. So, we do not understand the flow completely. What has happened in the past lives? What did we do in the past lives, what is happening in this life, is a reflection of what happened, or what we did in our past lives. And so, we only experience this life right now. You will not understand the cause. That is why this question, why is something like this happening?

In fact, imagine somebody did all sorts of atrocities in another life; anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, betrayal. He did everything possible in that lifetime. Then he produced a new lifetime based on the karmic wealth, he accumulated in that lifetime.

He took another birth. So he came in this life but he can’t remember what happened in the previous births, which caused this life.

Probably in his previous life, at the end of his life, he regretted doing all those things. He died with regret and he took a wow, “ I will never do these bad things anymore.” And he took a new life, a good life. This life is good, doing all the good things, but the karmic bank balance keeps following him.

In a Mirabai bhajan it says, if you betray a master, a spiritual master, it takes you about 80,000 lifetimes to come back to where you have been before. That means betrayal, criticizing, scandalizing, gossiping all these have a price to pay. Don’t think that,” Oh I can gossip about somebody and it doesn’t matter”. It matters.

Appreciation and honoring, expressing gratitude – these are good, because then you have reward. But if you gossip, talk bad, character assassinate, betray, all these things have huge price; you may end up paying that over lifetimes, many lives.  Because it’s as if you took a huge bank loan, gambled and lost everything. So you end up paying your entire life. It’s almost like that but in the case of betrayals and character assassination, and such issues, the price goes through many, many lifetimes. I always tell people do not engage in any gossip. If you don’t know, just forget it. Don’t talk bad about anybody; even if somebody has done something bad to you, leave that person to his karma; karma will take care of it. Don’t worry. You should not keep thinking about it and creating your own future.

There are people who will come to you as problems, because you might have been a problem for them in another life. As I said, life is a flow, it is a continuous flow. Bodies are temporary and to each body. They have experienced something, then this body is gone, another body, they experience many different things. This goes away, then,  another body; like this, we have taken many bodies.

We will take more if you don’t dissolve into the Supreme Consciousness in this life, we will take further bodies.

This is why you need a very powerful master to connect to, where you dissolve into him, and you don’t have to take any more bodies, unless you want to.

That’s the difference, birth by choice. Birth for the sake of Dharma is different from birth for the sake of karma. They are  two different things. So we may not understand why we are experiencing certain things but we can assume that if we are experiencing bad things in this life, we might have committed something bad in another life. So it’s come back to us. This life, if you’re done good things, the merits of it will go to another life. Probably you’ll be born in such a family in the next life where you get only the merits of it. This happens. So, what you do today will have its payment later. Means you do your work now and you get paid later. Like that whatever you are doing now, you will have the results later.

But please remember, there is no escape from karma.

If you have done something, if you’re committed something you must pay for it, especially death, destruction, betrayal, character assassination, gossip, the negative aspects. Also, please remember we watch these programs in the television and movies and different forms of entertainment; the soap operas where it’s about bad relationships, criticism, judgment, betrayal, and such in the stories and we occupy ourselves with these; we imbibe those emotions within; we can probably have a similar future, or   a similar experience in the future. This is possible. So please be aware! That this is why all the great Masters insisted on satsang – good company, good company.

satsangatve  nisangatva

nissangtve nirmohatva

nirmohatve nischallatatva

nischalatatve jivanmukti

That is exactly what great masters have said. That means with good company you learn to detach from the wears and tears of life, from the fluctuations of life. When you are in a kind of detached state your desires are reduce, desires becomes fewer. When desires become lesser, mind becomes still. What is causing the mind to be restless? Numerous desires.

That is why I always say let’s get it fulfilled, let’s do it and finish it off,  so that the mind is still.  The mind must be still. When the mind is consistently still, liberation happens to you. Moksha happens; mukti happens. We must understand that we are the source of our own destiny. We are creating it every moment; every day; every moment, whatever we are doing there is a reason, result.

So there’s a past for everything; there’s a present for everything and there’s a future for everything. You should understand this. And when you’re very involved and have a clutter of thoughts; you can’t see the truth. And we start looking at the world through our ears; through other people’s words. That’s the worst thing. We should not see through our ears. Ears are to hear but then other people’s opinion, should not be our spectacles to see the world; which means, we should look at the world ourselves as we are and experience it; and detach from criticizing, blaming, and talking bad about anything, including yourself. Do not criticize others; do not criticize yourself. Do not judge others; do not judge yourself. Like that if you respect everything, life will be better, for sure.

Question: This question came in relating to acceptance. Yeah. So how can we accept, even the bad aspects of ourselves? Why is self-acceptance so difficult?

Mohanji: Why is self-acceptance so difficult? It’s because we always worry about the bad aspects in ours ourselves. We all have it, 7.5 billion people, have good and bad in them; positive and negative in them. Don’t think that you are the only one who has all the negatives in you; it’s not true. All people have it, so we must understand that this is how creation works.  In every human being, there is positive and negative; and we must really understand that we have to focus, on only positive and ignore the negative. We have to ignore the negative. We have to focus on the positive, and that’s the way we can accept ourselves better. Let the negative be there with us, and don’t look at anybody in the world as only positive; it’s not possible. It is just not possible. There will be some negative in everybody, and don’t focus on the negative; because then we are missing the whole thing.  Focus on the positive; let’s strengthen the positive; we unite together; work together; be together like one family, and then it will be glory for everybody. We have that power!

Question:   Is there a way to dissolve past karma, and also what’s the consequences of any parent’s actions on the child destiny?

Mohanji: Past karma – We’ve taken this life to exhaust past karma; it means pending desires and our, our driving force, or our inclinations are our vasanas. Vasanas are our driving force, tendencies, and inclinations. And we are going ahead with experiencing our pending desires at each point in time in life, right from childhood till death. This is what we are doing. Part of it is lineage karma, that’s coming from the lineage, from our father and mothers’ side, coming together; that merges with us.  Each individual has personal karma, pending desires of personal nature, and also pending desires of the lineage nature; they are coming together. They come together, and we are experiencing that in life.

So, how do you exhaust them? Automatically, without your knowledge you’re exhausting it. Whatever you’re experiencing each day that’s exhaustion; every experience amounts to that karma. If you block it, it stays postponed. If you experience it and move on, then it’s done. So the best way to come out of all these karmas are, by being good and doing good; so that when you express your best in everything, whatever you can, as per your capacity ; and be kind; be compassionate; be generous, and then this karma gets dissipated. So the more good things you do; by good things I mean because of your existence, you help all the beings of the nature; then automatically your karmic configuration starts changing; and improvement happens, and you reach a level where there is no ownership of action.

When you have ownership of action, you have karma. If you, if you surrender everything to the Almighty, then there is no karmic binding. When you get up in the morning itself have the right attitude towards life; surrender attitude and connect to one master; seriously and consistently, whatever happens let it not change. Again as I said before, the Master and the man should be different, considered different; a person has his needs and requirements, but a Master is the settled aspect of that person; so connect to the Master aspect. You don’t have to connect to the person, so that you can avoid an illusion. That is why I said so. So, connect to the Master in that way, as settled consciousness; after you have sufficient proof for yourself for that sake. Don’t just look at the picture or somebody words and follow somebody; it won’t work, because if you look at just the picture and the words of opinions of somebody it may not be suitable to you, but you need to know whether this person is stable within. If it is not, don’t follow.

Once you start following; don’t leave. This is your integrity. This is how it should be. Then somebody else says at some point in time;” Oh! He’s not good or this is that. Don’t change your mind!” Your experience is true to you; your experience is most important for you and you follow that whatever happens in the world; then you will have progress. So this is an individualistic journey; it’s an individual journey. You are the traveler; you are the journey; you are the destination. You are the experience of the journey; everything is you.

So if you understand that clearly, you will not have lot of distractions, or distortions. This is the truth.

Question: How can we be liberated in this life, is it possible, with nothing pending that needs to be taken forward?

Liberation is possible right now, right here! How it is possible? It is possible firstly, by keeping that as your priority. Your top priority should be liberation. And then second is increase your awareness; increasing awareness is very simple. It means just be aware of your thoughts, words, actions; be aware and slowly start detaching from them, by just being aware. I am not the thought; thoughts are happening through me. I am not the doer; actions are happening correspondingly through me, so there’s no ownership. I’m not the action; actions are also happening through me. I’m not the doer, but it doesn’t mean that you go and kill somebody and say, “I didn’t kill, it happened through me.” Not like that. You should be responsible as well. You have to have responsibility. So, everything you do, you’re responsible; so only good actions, good thoughts, good words, and then no, no negative feelings or expressions or any of those kind of things. And then you have clarity that everything that is born will die. Everything has a duration. Whatever is born, will die. And all things are interconnected, you cannot exist alone. Everything is connected in the world; the plants, the trees, the birds, the animals, human beings; we are all interconnected; we all have something to give and take; so that kind of a total acceptance is essential. And liberation is a state which you experience right now, where you do not have binding on something, or something does not bind you. We do not have binding out of place, a person or situation or emotion or experience. We are not bound by anything. Our desire level is very low, very less.

Once you understand that and accept that and when you are in that kind of a mode; automatically you will start feeling detachment from the world outside. That doesn’t mean that you hate anything; there’s no hatred here, it’s just that, you don’t want it. You don’t want it; which means you have no need for it. When you have no need for something; you are free from it. When you have such freedom, you are liberated while living; and that means you’re not collecting more and more desires anymore. So, what happens? No desires, no reincarnations! Simple, so liberation is possible, just by investing in awareness. Investing in awareness – that is the secret. Invest in your awareness; be aware of who you are, what you are, where you are, why you are; of all those be aware.  Also understand all the things around you during waking state do not exist when you’re sleeping or it doesn’t exist for you when you’re sleeping. When you wake up, they are there. So, what is there? That your experience is connected to you! You can have experience or no experience based on your moods, your situations,  your emotion at that time. Everything is like that. So, this is very simple, it’s easy to understand. When you really know that you are everything; and you don’t need much, then you are liberated. So liberation is a state of mind; it’s an attitude, which you can easily cultivate, just by awareness. Awareness is the fire.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt and Padmini Ravi Kumar
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Pearls of Wisdom – Conversation with Mohanji (Part 1)

 

 

Namaste everyone!

A very warm welcome to all of you! It gives me immense joy to be with all of you today. Today is an extremely special day for me, because I have received the gift of being in the presence of Mohanji early in the morning.

I had some questions that I wanted to ask Him, and He very gladly and sweetly and lovingly came on the show.

For those who don’t know, Mohanji likes to be addressed as a friend to the world. But to a lot of people who know Him, He is much more than that. He dons many hats. In my eyes, He is One with the Absolute One. He is One with the Absolute Stillness, with Absolute Bliss, the sat-chit-ananda aspect of consciousness that we know. The Shiva tattva – that is where He is. So do not get taken in by the physical encasement that He is in.

I invite you to connect with your heart and soul to His energy, and inwardly stay connected with Him throughout the conversation that I play out on the channel.

He sends a lot of love and a lot of blessings to each one of you.

The conversation with Mohanji was pretty long. Hence I have divided the interview in parts. The various segments of the interview will be uploaded on various days. Today, please go ahead and soak in the wisdom and love of Mohanji by watching the first part.

So Baba,  the very first question from the first set of questions that I have, is:

Q: What according to you is the main goal of human life?

Mohanji: Well, the human birth itself is a miracle. Because only with this birth, you are able to perceive the highest possible reality. But not many people are aware of it.

We are oriented to the world outside. When we wake up, we are keeping certain identities and then we are busy expressing our identifications in the world outside. We are busy gathering experiences from this world outside.

In this struggle of expression and experience, we forget our true nature. And almost always, we don’t remember. Even at the time of death, most people die with more desires, that means an inevitable coming back. They have to come back in order to complete – this is human life. This is what you see in most cases. You ask, “What is the goal?” It depends on the person – on how many desires you have, that are of terrestrial nature. That would be your main goal – to fulfill them.

But if you are talking about the essence point of view : we have this physical body, which is the cage or the shell for us to express and experience this world. Express into this world, and experience from this world. Then we have a processor unit called mind-matter (mind, intellect and ego). Mind is processing emotion, intellect is processing information, ego is processing matter connected to ownership and identifications. So these processors are also completely oriented to the world outside. They are busy maintaining your identity. Then behind that, there is an operating platform called Consciousness. Waking state, dream state, deep sleep state – these three states are platforms, they have no interest in the experiences, nor expressions. They are not interested in what you are and what you want. But they provide you the platform, just like earth is providing you the platform for your existence.

Consciousness in three states provides you a platform for your experiences. Behind that, there is even more silent existence. There is something which is even more silent in existence- that is the soul. This is totally neutral, totally peaceful, totally eternal, imperishable. This aspect is the only real aspect in our existence. For a yogi to experience the real aspect is the highest aspiration (but for a bhogi – the normal people, that’s not of interest). Because you got to get away from all the noises of life, you have to withdraw from all the noises, all the identifications, nullifying everything and gain a level of silence, so that you can communicate with the silence inside or the soul aspect. It is not easy, it is not as simple as we think. All the methods, all the practices – they are all to gain this silence.

Some people touch it. Some people touch it and leave it. Some people stabilize. Very few people stabilize in it. It takes absolute effort. From knowledge of soul to the experience of soul – it’s a long walk, it’s a long way. So when do you actually know that you’re getting closer?  The outside noises become something outside of you, which means the involvement changes, your involvement changes. You do not get involved with the noises outside. Whatever happens outside, internally you are stable. That means you have settled inside. You can only settle down properly and eternally in one place – within you, inside you.  In all the other places of our settlement, we are just parking the body for some time and we have to remove it when we die. Somebody will remove it when we die. We come to earth with two people, and we are taken away by four people, who hold us when we go to the graveyard. So between these two and four is our existence – this is our life.

So what is the goal of human existence? It is an individualistic story. The story of an individual. If I say attaining the soul, or self-realization is the true goal, some people may disagree. Some people may say – to have a drink is the goal, work hard in the morning, come back home and have a drink, this is the goal. So it varies. Various people – various goals. One person says that to get a job is the goal, and once they get the job, they say to get leave is the goal. So the goal changes, as the situation changes.

Q: What is your suggestion to parents today? How do you think parents should bring up their children?

Mohanji: You don’t have to bring up your children. They automatically bring themselves up. So the best you can do to your children or give to your children is to lead by example. If you completely, consistently display calmness, coolness , attitude of respect, gratitude and you display that in your life, children will learn from that. Don’t try to teach them. Try to demonstrate with your own life, what best is possible. Like for example you have a choice of expressing compassion, kindness, unconditional love, selflessness, purity in thought, word, action, non-resistance, acceptance.  Like this – so many good things you can demonstrate and explain  through your life. That’s the right message for your children. Otherwise, if you are displaying anger, hatred,  jealousy, confusion, impatience, all these things – children will pick it up and think that this is okay. Your life should be your message, and your life is your message.

Q: Baba, every family undergoes at times, differences between family members.  There is a difference of opinion, there are certain conflicts that may happen. What do you suggest? What’s the best way for people to resolve those conflicts? I mean, what’s the best way of handling that ?

Mohanji: Acceptance of differences is the best way.

Because we can’t be the same. We are not the same. Our creation itself is different. We are all different frequencies. We are different, we have different orientations and we decide to live together. Then what is best is that we accept that there are differences, and we are comfortable with it. So that we respect each person’s difference and we allow the individuality in that order. That will help. Otherwise, we will always be fighting.

This whole system of marriage which is of ownership, is obsolete now. When in  refinement, we must respect individual. It’s not that the husband is superior to the wife. We exist together, we work together for higher purpose. That should be the way. There is no ownership at all. You can’t own even your body because when you die, your body is taken away. You can’t own anything on earth. You can’t even carry one pebble. There’s no import or export possible in this existence, in true sense. You can’t export anything from here. Whatever you earn from here, you have to leave behind. So this mad rush for materials and positions and positions, they are all mind’s matter. In true sense, they have no validity. So, respecting an individual as they are, is very essential. I always feel that a woman and man have no difference, except in terms of purpose. There’s no difference and it should be alike. That is why this ownership-related lifestyle in modern days, has always created negativity – too much of negativity. Then we see that so many people are distracted and disappointed because of relationships. Why do we enter into such things at all? We should respect and live like friends.

Nobody can own anybody, we know that very well. Why do we have inner conflict in that order? This is the whole story. Co-existence, respect, gratitude. These are great things we can practice.  If we practice them, we will not have this anger, hatred, revenge.

See, revenge and anger and hatred are of very, very low frequency. If you fall into that frequency, it is very difficult to get out, to come out. These are practiced only by insecure people. Insecure people will take revenge. Secure people, stable people will have no interest in revenge. What will they revenge for? If somebody behaves badly, it’s not our problem.

Imagine if I scold you and if I am angry, you should not be worried. Because all the poison is inside me. So when people abuse me, I always think, “Why do they contaminate their mind? My mind is not contaminated. I’m not taking it, I’m not receiving it. Let them say whatever they want, because they have a problem within themselves. I have no problem. I’m fine, I’m secure because I’m inside myself. So let them do whatever they want. Let them say whatever they want, I am unaffected.” This is possible in human existence through practice.  We can practice it. I feel that we should respect everybody, whether it is the elected government or the people in the government or in the private companies or our service providers – respect everybody. Talk to everybody, discuss instead of arguing and resolve.

We have great possibilities within our existence. Instead of exploring the great possibilities, we push our image and ego on the other, and then we have conflict. We should not go there.

Q: Parents who are in their 60s and 70s and have fulfilled all their responsibilities, their duties, what is your advice for them? How should they be living the remaining years on earth?

Mohanji: I think everybody should feel as if they are 18, and be enthusiastic about life. There’s nothing called 50, 60 and you’re done. Then I’m already done! Where is our relevance?! I think that there is nothing like age, this is actually a cap which we are putting on ourselves. It’s like an escapism. I feel this talk about age is broadly an escapism. They think that, “Okay, I am retired now. I don’t want to do anything.“ In life itself, they didn’t do anything, and after retirement they really don’t want to do anything. Instead of that, I would say: “Every moment, live ! “ When you are living every moment, be alive. Not exist for eating, drinking, sleeping and going to the toilet, and die. Not like that. We should live every moment. We should express our best potential every moment. Give great stuff to the world.

See, a 60 year old man has a wealth of experience which nobody can take away from him. He should share it with the world. No retirement. I don’t believe in retirement. I don’t believe in holidays. I have not taken any holidays recently. I don’t take holidays, I work. Because if you are able to work, you work. If you can’t work, you don’t work, finished. But you don’t wait for a stage where you don’t have to work. I think that’s escapism. It’s laziness in disguise.

So I say: Work and do your best in the world, and enjoy and experience life. Let it come. Bring it on. I like to live the life of a lion, not a rat. That’s exactly what I recommend to people.  Since you’ve taken birth, live a royal life, inside at least. It’s not about money. It’s an attitude. The right attitude. This is very important.

Q: Baba, a couple of people have told me that I should ask you this question and this is related to karma. If you could throw some light on what is individual karma, family karma and also collectively, there is something called the Nation’s karma as well. Would you want to share some insights on this?

Mohanji:  Nation’s karma is collective consciousness built up over time. Individual karma is individual desires, individual orientations, individual comfort zones, individual inclinations and tendencies put together. An individual has lineage karma coming into them because they have their parents’ and their parents’ stuff. That which they collected, part of it comes to us like our inheritance. Also we collect something from society. What we wanted to experience in this life, we have brought it forward. This is a mixture. So that will stay as long as it takes. This means that from birth until death, we are experiencing the individual karma. Social karma is from a conglomeration of numerous beings, a collective consciousness. The whole life has a karmic boundary, and that boundary has to be respected and appreciated. And usually, one will not know the karmic boundary until it happens.  It is linear to time, so we do not understand.  When our desires are less and detachment is more from the world outside, our karmic weight reduces.

Q: Baba, how can people lessen the effects of their past bad karma?

Mohanji: Doing good work, social service, helping the helpless, feeding the beings of the water in nature – the fishes and the beings of the seas, the rivers and ponds, basins and lakes. Feed the birds in the air – the birds in nature, in the air. Feed the beings on earth – like the animals on earth. Give food and clothing to old people, sick people, abandoned children, abandoned women. So like that, the more you give, the more you clear. The more you share, the more you clear. That is the best way. I believe in sharing and releasing of the karmas, more than the rituals. Because mostly we are not doing the rituals, it’s being done through somebody. But while we are serving the society, we can do it ourselves and we can actually feel the weight reduction.

Q: Baba, how does free will and destiny come into play? How does this work – free will, free choice and destiny?

Mohanji: Free will is connected to our awareness while at work. Destiny is the main platform, the main thread until death and beyond. Free will is your awareness  – you are aware that this is happening, and your acceptance level, that’s your free will. You can accept or reject. You  can accept or resist, that is your free will.  When you resist – it stays longer. When you accept it, it finishes that time.  Free will is your state of mind. It’s your attitude, where you are comfortable with your life. You’re content, you’re happy and then you are accepting things as things happen. There is no resistance. You are free.

Q: How do people deal with the expectations and conditioning that society puts on them. Even if they personally don’t want to take it, at a certain stage of their life, they are expected to have achieved certain things, to have done certain things. How do people deal with this, when they want to exercise their free will?

Mohanji: Just like you go to the supermarket, where there are so many things for sale. What will you pick up? Whatever you need in the house, what is within your capacity, and what is necessary for you. Just like that, all the people outside of you, all the people of the society are selling you something – it could be expectation, it could be requirement, it could be necessity, it could be whatever. You buy only what you can handle. That’s the right balance.

Wish you great success with your YouTube channel. I wish you great success!Thank you for interviewing me. And I wish you a very happy birthday! My love to all those who are listening to us or seeing us.

Host: Thank you very much!

 

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic

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

Open the Door for Grace, part 1

Satsang with Mohanji in Canada, part 1
26th June 2019

Q1: In the chanting of Om, why does one say AAA – AU –  MMM?
Q2: How does an aspirant know if he or she is progressing spiritually – what are the signs?
Q3: So Mohanji, when you say fear manifests, how can you prevent that?
Q4: Mohanji, what is destiny and what is the role of destiny in our life? How much can we change it? People say that certain things in your life are ordained because of past karmic or past life thing. I’ve read a lot about sanchit karma. You see people who have led righteous lives yet are suffering a lot, and some others say it is good that they are suffering because they are cleansing their karma. Sometimes my logical mind has trouble understanding this…
Q5: You spoke about lineage and pitr dosha – is that something that can be eradicated? Is it is like a loan/burden that you have to carry alone no matter what, and go through suffering? Can it be taken away?

Q: In the chanting of Om, why does one say AAA – AU – MMM?

M: The actual structure of Om has three parts. These three sounds can be uttered even by somebody without a tongue. And these sounds combined together produce OM, the primordial sound.

So when you start moving towards silence, your mind that is usually focused outside for emotions, your intellect that is focused outside for analysis, and ego that is focused outside for maintaining personality, all three will start focusing inside. Then all you will see are the stored data, the things that you have collected.

Of this data, first and foremost are the fears. They all come out of insecurities, and insecurities are all really coming out of survival instinct. So the source is instinct – the survival instinct that is common to all species. We all want to survive, and it is from there that all these fears and insecurities come. So the mother of all these things is survival – for all species, not just human. We all want to survive. And so this overwhelming feeling of insecurity is from where so many things come.

So we will start seeing all these things that we have trapped over time. We may not even be aware that we probably have developed this from our childhood. Developed means we collected it when we interacted with the outside world. When we are sleeping, we are not collecting. Only when we are awake, when we are interacting with the world outside, is when we are picking up. This happens without our knowledge – it’s not that we are deliberately picking it up.

Not only do we pick up from our own lives, we may pick up in other ways. For example if we are watching a feature film, we may feel so connected to the film that in fact we may be ‘living’ it. Though it’s not our life, though we are only watching, yet we may pick up some emotions without our knowledge. Likewise somebody may have told us something: “Hey look here, in my life this kind of situation happened.” Although this may not be our own experience, yet we may pick it up. All this gets stored and not consciously – but unconsciously. Then finally what happens is we will have a lot of stored data that we will start seeing  when the focus comes inside. Otherwise we don’t see it. And this is because we are usually looking outside, always collecting whenever we are awake.

But at some point in time when you meditate, when you start connecting, all these faculties look inside. At that time, the outside world has no value. This can be compared to the sleep state, except that in the sleep state you don’t have awareness, and here you have awareness. That’s the difference, and in that mode all these things start coming, and they start coming and they start leaving. Because they are not doing anything. They come and they leave, but they have to come because they are sitting inside.

After a while when all the clutter of the noises have all slowed down to the level where there is only OOOOMMM – the sound inside, then even that sound becomes insignificant. So this sound is your natural sound, the sound of creation. The whole cosmos has this sound plus all the clutter. Everything, every sound has come out of absolute silence. Even now if you see, when you stop talking, it’s silence. From the ocean of silence, the sounds come and then they go back to the deep like a wave. Waves come out of the ocean, then they return back. They can’t stay like that, and so no sounds can exist forever. They go back to the silence. So everything comes out of silence and goes back to silence. We come out of consciousness and we return back to consciousness. This is life, you always live like that. We don’t have an isolated existence  – we belong to Consciousness. You can call that Parabrahma, Allah, Father, Viracocha, whatever you want to call it. You can call it the Source of pure energy, brighter than a million suns, out of which the manifested universe came, and into which the manifested universe will dissolve.

So this is the story. In that story, the sound is like a confirmation of the whole creation as well as you as creation. You are creating your destiny every moment. You create destiny mostly when you suppress things. When free flowing expression is suppressed it becomes your pending desire. Likewise, you have emotions connected to thoughts, expressions, actions, and these emotions catch these things and put them inside. With these two ways of suppression, we create destiny every moment. And then whatever you can’t manifest now, and whatever you can’t experience now, goes forward to another life. Very simple. That is how we take more births.

Q: How does an aspirant know if he or she is progressing spiritually – what are the signs?

M- The main sign is that the outside world stops bothering you. The outside world will remain the same, but internally you are peaceful. You will look at them, you will feel them but you will not be affected by them. This is a primary sign. Secondly, no matter what happens, on the inside you are very silent. Though you may be participating in much of the drama of life, at the same time you have stillness inside.  So this is a sign of stability. It’s called spiritual maturity. The things outside are not important for you. But as a human being, you will continue participating in all of life’s parties. Yet you are not dependent on them. If the parties happen, that’s fine and if they don’t, that’s also fine with you. By ‘parties’ here  I mean the events of life.

So you will reach a stage where you will feel that everything is fine and you have no problem with anything. The silence is a very clear example of stability. Silence means less thoughts. Less thoughts means less desires. That means less inclinations. If you don’t have an inclination for ice cream means you will not have a thought for ice cream. (And, if you hate ice cream you won’t even think about ice cream.) So inclination is the cause of thought and thought produces expressions. “I need an ice cream”. Expressions lead to action, so you have to eat the ice cream. Actions lead to the experience of eating ice cream and then you think about flavors : ”Oh, this is chocolate flavor, strawberry, vanilla….”.

The feeling of all these things are connected to experience and that then becomes memory. Experience becomes memory, you have stored the experience: “I went to that particular shop and that ice cream was very tasty”. So when somebody says, “Can we have ice cream?” You can say, “Oh, let’s go to that shop”.  What makes you go to that shop? Memory, stored memory. So, stored memories are caused by experiences, as you experienced it. This is important to understand. Your life is per your experiences. It’s not as per life as it is. Life can be busy. Now so many people are here in this room, but each person will listen to me differently. Why? Because you see the world as you are. Some people might be thinking while I’m talking. Others will be feeling peace. Like that, everybody as per their orientation, connects to everything in life. All things of life we connect as per how we are, as we essentially are. And that’s the way we experience. So that is what we store.

You may have had a good experience but then somebody will come say that was not so good! As per their mood they will probably not experience what you experienced. If you are in a very happy mood, you will experience great things. If you are not so happy, what will you experience? You will experience as per that day, that moment, and that is what you will store. Then those stored data become impressions. The impression that is transcribed is written in your subconscious. That can cause a desire. One day when you are sitting quietly and nothing is happening, suddenly you may remember, “That day I went to that shop and had that ice cream”. Actually it’s not contextual – it’s not that somebody showed you a picture of ice cream or anything. You are sitting quiet, but this memory is sitting inside, and it comes as a thought. Then you say “Hey, lets go to that shop”. Thus out of no plan you make a plan. Then you have the ice cream, so again you have an experience.

So, thought comes, word comes, expression comes, experience comes, memory comes, impression comes. This is the cycle and if you repeat it often, it becomes a pattern. Good pattern or bad pattern, this is how patterns are made. A pattern could be that of anger or of hating something or somebody – it could be anything. Any aspect of existence if it is repeated, becomes a pattern. And if you look, the strongest patterns in the system are connected to survival. Because survival is the main thing, and is connected to things like betrayal, cheating, stealing, injustice etc. All those things you tend to store more and repeat  over and over with time –  have you seen that? You store those more, the other things you do not store. We take it easy with the good experience, but the bad experience we remember. Why?  Because we stored the bad experience deeper. The deeper the emotion, the deeper the storage. Simple. If emotion is not so deep and is a light pleasure, or if the happiness is light, you don’t keep it. But the pain you keep inside very deep and it can make a pattern if you repeat it. Similarly, a fear repeats itself. Not that you asked for it. Yet it keeps coming back. What you fear most keeps coming back. This is what happens in life. Not that you ask for it – it’s sitting there waiting for a manifestation.

Q: So Mohanji, when you say fear manifests, how can you prevent that?

M: Awareness.

You need to understand first of all that you have a limited time on earth. Whatever is born must die. See, we feel that we are doing great now, right? We are sitting here talking, we are healthy, all that. Maybe 50 or 60 years later, we will not think so  – we may not even be here. So during our existence, we should always be aware of all these agonies and ecstasies – that everything is coming and going, that nothing is staying. Isn’t that the truth? Happiness and sorrow – they come and go. Whatever is happening is like a wave – it doesn’t stay, it goes back. Life is like that – waves of thing after thing that keep coming. Like that it goes.

Once you are clear about that, you will understand that all these fears and such things have no permanent value – only a relative value. Most of the fears you have, are connected particularly to a certain time, space or a certain effect. Like for example, in the 24-hour day, when you are in dream state and deep sleep state, these fears are all absent. Where are those fears then? They are not there. In waking state too at certain times, fears are not there – for example, a fear of darkness will only happen in the night. In the morning you won’t have the fear, but after sunset that fear may appear. So when you look at how situational these fears are, this is awareness. When you start looking into the fears and see the whole vital statistics of the fears, you then realise they are just shadows. What is darkness? Absence of light. What is fear? Absence of awareness. When you really aware, you will know that this is all temporary, it’s all shadow, and that “I’m not shadow. I belong to light, I am light.” If I am light, then where are fears? That’s the point. What are all these fears connected to? Certain insecurities.  And insecurity is connected to survival instinct. So it’s an instinctual thing. Every animal feels fear. Every animal feels love. And every bird the same. You know this is built into them – it’s like a survival instinct. Security, safety, they feel it.

Q: Mohanji, what is destiny and what is the role of destiny in our life? How much can we change it? People say that certain things in your life are ordained because of past karmic or past life thing. I’ve read a lot about sanchit karma. You see people who have led righteous lives yet are suffering a lot, and some others say it is good that they are suffering because they are cleansing their karma. Sometimes my logical mind has trouble understanding this…

M: Destiny has two major strains. Sanchit karma has two aspects. One is lineage karma: the karma that comes from your parents. The lineage from both father’s and mother’s side join you. It is said that when the embryo is formed at the time of conception, the coating is this lineage karma, and not what you have brought from another life. You can call it inheritance for the sake of easy understanding. Just like you inherit your father’s and mother’s property or wealth, in the same way the lineage inheritance comes to you. It comes to everybody, before the soul enters the body. Understand that as soon as you decide to take birth in a particular womb, you are automatically required to buy the inheritance. The bill has already been given.

Then the second part is the prarabdha karma: the karma that provoked the incarnation. This means that were unfulfilled desires that caused the incarnation. Unfulfilled desires need time and space for execution. The thing that has to happen at the age of 10 cannot happen at the age of 20. Or vice versa. So it’s laid out on time. And every activity and every experience has a beginning, a middle and an end. Beginning of the experience, the experience and the conclusion. This is true for every activity. This is like a mala or rosary or garland, in which the beads are the experiences.

So the garland called destiny connects all these beads. When you see from the outside, you only see the beads – you don’t see the string. The string is the destiny that is from the beginning of life till the end of life. It’s linked by unfulfilled desires. As I just explained, unfulfilled desires have their roots in impressions. Impressions mean what you stored in your system. Impressions have their roots in memories. Memories are experiences of life as you, as an individual, experienced them. Then before that experience, there was an action which caused the following experience. Thus the cause of a memory is an action, and stored memory is an impression, and that causes unfulfilled desires. When these unfulfilled desires get mixed with praana, there is some kind of a chemical reaction. Breath.

You need waking hours to experience – you can’t experience while sleeping. Of course you have feelings when you are sleeping but that is not within your boundaries, since waking state mind is not there. You do experience dreams, since dreams also have the same source. What is the source? Stored data. Dreams are coming out of stored data, definitely. But you have no control over it – you don’t even know that it’s stored. In the waking state experiences, your mind is interfering.

This stream is called destiny. It has a beginning and it has an end. This is already decided: how many years you will live, and how many breaths that you will take. This is already stored, it’s destined to happen. In this flow you cannot make much difference. What is free will then? That was your second question.

Free will is the way you approach it  – your level of awareness. You can look at it as a problem or you can look at it as a possibility: this is your free will. See it as a situation. All of life is nothing but situations. I don’t think there are any problems in life. But when you resist something, “Oh I don’t want this, I don’t want that”, it becomes a problem. When you accept it, it becomes a possibility.

Imagine you are experiencing something completely bad and you are like: “Ok, now this is happening in my life, things are not so good”,  then you just start riding that wave, like a wave rider. When things are not so happy in this type of situation, what is our usual way pattern however? Resistance. If you push them away, then what will happen? It will be postponed. The destiny that you are supposed to experience cannot be changed. Its intensity can be reduced with a Guru’s role or due to your connection to a powerful Master, because a Master can definitely dilute intensity though cannot take it away. The Master will not take it away because that is your original free will.

Please understand: destiny or praarabdha is not created by conscious decision. This has to be very clear. By conscious decision here, I don’t mean the type of decision like, “I want to experience an ice cream”. What causes praarabdha ? Cache memory. That is what I explained earlier. It could even be a memory that is from watching a feature film, or even a memory of someone close to you or something conveyed to you or an experience that was somebody else’s. Or all of these put together.

Cache memory.  This cache memory causes praarabdha. Otherwise there is no memory. No memory means you are not consciously deciding. Some things can consciously happen, for example your hatred: “I hate this fellow, I want to kill him”. Things like that – that can become a conscious decision, and because you can’t kill him sometime in that life you may have to come back in another life to kill him. So these types of intense emotions become the main flavor of the praarabdha karma.

Likewise with suppressed addictions and suppressed habits. Imagine that you were not allowed to smoke at all in another life. So you were always thinking, “How can I smoke”? Somebody was watching so you couldn’t smoke. And then finally when you take birth in the next life, you will start smoking as soon as possible. You see that in the world: addictions and compulsive habits, all connected to suppressed desires. This is the sum total of your structure.

Cache memory is just like the hard drive of your computer. You are not storing in there but as you surf life, it gets stored. Surfing life means watching films, interacting with people, reading the newspaper, your opinions about politics…The talk about Justin Trudeau – that will also be in the memory. Like that everything has its cache memory. Sum total is destiny and destiny you cannot change.

That is what the great avadhoota laughed and told Maha Kaali when he saw Her dancing with ghosts and ghouls. Kaali replied that she had never seen any human being who was not frightened at this sight. Then he said, ”You are an amazing dancer, wonderful.”

It’s a funeral ground, where Maha Kaali and all her entourage are dancing and singing, shouting and screaming. And this guy, this avadhoota, this great master, is watching.

And Kaali said,” You are not afraid?”

He said, “I’m not afraid, I’m happy… amazing dance, it’s been a long time since I saw a dance like this”.

So Kaali said, “I’ve never seen any human with no fear! So you must ask me for something –  I’ll grant it to you. I want to give you a boon.”

He said, “No, no, no …. your dance was very entertaining, that was fine for me.”

Then she said, “No, when I feel pleased with somebody, I give them a boon. This is my usual level, the way I operate.”

So he said, ”Ok, in that case give me one more year of life.” She replied, “No, that I can’t do, your last breath was decided already when you took the first breath.” Then he said,” Ok then reduce my life by one year, I want to die early.”

She replied,” No, I can’t do that either.. Your last breath was decided when you took the first breath.”  Then he said,”How about one month extra?”

“No.”

“One month less?”

“No.”

Then he said, “I don’t want any blessing. This is basically why you can’t mess with me.”

Again she said, “No, ask me for something that I can give you.“

So he asked, ”What is the range?”

“Something physical.“

He had elephantiasis – a big leg. One leg was swollen, it was very big and painful. So he said,” See – this other leg doesn’t have this problem. One leg doesn’t experience this problem, it is not justice. It is injustice, why only one leg is enjoying and the other is suffering. It’s not fair right? Both legs should suffer or both legs should enjoy. So why don’t you transfer this problem to the other leg? Now let this one suffer and that one enjoy a little bit. “

So she said ok.

He didn’t ask for a healing.  What did he say – he said just transfer this problem to the other leg. And Kaali blessed him with that.

My point is that not even an extra breath happens in the path. So what is the obvious thing Gurus do? Imagine you are connected to a very powerful master, connected to the master’s consciousness. Usually gurus do not interfere because they understand this matter very well. Whatever you are experiencing in life is because you have earned it. Whether it was earned consciously or unconsciously, it doesn’t matter, but that you did earn it. So gurus don’t interfere.

What they do however is – they guide you. What I usually do: I say feed the animals, feed the birds, feed the fish and take care of nature. Things like that. And that completely dilutes your weight (of karma). Because annadaan is mahaadaan always. The scriptures have said that, and I follow the same path. So by feeding the birds, animals, fish and nature, much gets released.

Guidance happens very rarely, if you are just a few steps from total liberation and there are not many life times pending, if you have already lived 100 or 200 lives and you have reached a level where you are done with all your lives and you are now going towards liberation. That sign is very simple: if you can understand that you are in a mode when the outside world is not affecting you. It is not depression – do not think that it is depression. With depression, sometimes you are completely cut off from people. This is not depression – though you seem to be enjoying life yet at the same time your dependency on the outside world, like relationships, emotions, people, places, time, materials, position, possessions – is very low. And that’s a clear sign that you are already on the path of liberation. A clear sign that you can trust, and there is no need for any one to come and tell you this.

Secondly, your dependency on materials will be very little, including food and water. Forget about intoxicants and other things, even dependency on food and water will be very low. You will eat, but only for the sake of it. That’s why I often say, if you eat one time a day,  you are a yogi. Two times a day you are a bhogi, and if you eat three times a day,  you are a rogi. (Laughter) You know what being a yogi means? A yogi is someone who is healthy and fully attuned to the Supreme Consciousness. Bhogi means a lustful person, born to eat. Third one is a rogi, a sick man. If you consume three times a day, you are sick.  Today you can see that most eating is emotional eating. Since we have so many emotions, in order to cover the emotions we eat a lot of food. Not that we want food, it’s our way of revenge. We take revenge by eating more, though we may not need it. But still we do.

So what does a guru do?

A guru will guide you, divert you to something which will lighten you, make you light. So that your karmic load is reduced. Imagine that you are in the last stage of something, and you are deeply connected to a master. And the master should be very powerful. See, many people are not masters. When I say master, I mean somebody whose mind, body, intellect, ego and spirit are together as if it is one egg. Not scattered, but one unit. That master is fully occupied in himself – he has nothing to do with anything outside. Those masters can make a lot of changes in us just by their presence. Alignment is the main change. By alignment, I mean that when you come in contact with that master, you will feel completely aligned and liberated – physically strong, emotionally strong, intellectually strong, egoistically ‘strong’. I don’t mean a strong ego here, it means a balanced one. So this way you will be fully aligned.

Then what happens?  This karmic load suddenly drops. Because the best way to reduce karma is with alignment. What is karma, where is it coming from? Unfulfilled desires, so its natural expression is fulfilment. That is the right way – the normal way. But what if you don’t need it? If you have desire but you don’t need fulfilment? That happens In the presence of a powerful master, so this karmic load is reduced. That means from 100 it might become 80, and if you still remain connected to the master and your focus is on the master, it will become 60. But you have to be consistent. The secret is that everything should be connected to the master, and it doesn’t matter if the master is in the physical body or not. There is no problem if he is not. You see, no true master ever leaves  – Krishna is still there, Jesus is still there, Rama is still there. All the great powerful masters don’t die –  they are already immortal while in the body. What do they do then? They expand, and attain maha samaadhi. Maha samaadhi is the state where they have already become a unit already while living, and they have expanded. Then they just leave the body, which means they give up the body, and then they maintain their expansion. This is how they are in maha samaadhi. Ordinary people die and need to come back to get another body. For great masters, there is nothing to come back to. Even if they do take a birth, they do so only for the sake of dharma, not karma. And in that mode, there may be numerous births, purposeful births.

How do you know if a birth is for dharma or karma? If it is for purpose! Right from the beginning, they are being purposeful. An example is Aadi Shankaracharya. At the age of 8, Govindapaada asked him, “ Who are you?”  He replied, “manobuddhi ahankaara chittaani naaham….. chidaananda roopah Shivoham Shivoham.”  If somebody could say this at the age of 8, what could Govindapaada teach him? That is why Govindapaada said, “One who can contain the ocean in his kamandalu (water-pot), is eligible to teach about brahma jnaana or knowledge of Brahma. It can only be taught by one who can contain the whole ocean in a kamandalu. That means the macrocosm can be contained into the microcosm. And when you are realizing the macrocosm in the microcosm, then you can teach about the macrocosm. This is exactly the point.

So destiny decides the duration of life, birth and death and it has a duration that is unchangeable. But as per your shift of awareness, the impact becomes lower so that number of lifetimes must become fewer. This is the short answer to that question.

Q: You spoke about lineage and pitr dosha – is that something that can be eradicated? Is it is like a loan/burden that you have to carry alone no matter what, and go through suffering? Can it be taken away?

M: Dosha is always connected to injustice or atrocities. What can be seen to happen in all families is that three generations or more (up to 5) are flourishing, then stabilising, then declining. Then from utter poverty they come back up to reach a status, then they maintain that status for some generations, and then start to decline. This wave pattern you can see. So with this whole picture in mind, imagine that some people, who when they were in the powerful stage, insulted or harmed many others. For example, somebody is running a money lending company, and because somebody could not repay their loans, he probably seized their houses or possessions or property. Though this would have been part of his business, yet he carries the karma. When I take something from your pocket to my pocket I also transfer the karma that way, unless it is a transaction. Actually what is allowed in the scriptures is that when you get something, you give something – then it’s closed. But that we don’t do, we only look at getting something. So there is an accrued interest connected to it. And nobody can repay it like that unless they are living a very disciplined life. In our family, you will see some people who are highly liberated – they do not accumulate or take anything from anybody. Instead they are fully benevolent and  giving, so they will bring good things, brightness, into the family. Some people are right the opposite. They don’t care about others, they cause harm, they talk bad about people, they disturb, they destroy. Also all those things happen to some people. All these types of people are in the lineage. So this collectively becomes pitr dosha.

There are some things that can cancel pitr dosha. Like when some people do a lot of good work, it auto cancels some of the bad effects. Then finally what is pending distributes over everybody – it’s almost like you have a huge property/land that is divided over many people, and you get a piece. But the original property is much bigger. What you receive may be small, but you still get it. Now the “papers” connected to this may not be clear, the legal bindings etc –  all those things you will still have to handle right? Because it has come to you. Similarly (karmic) inheritance is like that.

But the best thing you can do is to do something good all the time. I tell people very simple things. First, when you have a house, make sure that the creatures around your house have eaten, before you eat. Give food to the birds, insects, and animals. Then after they have eaten,  you consume. That way you automatically dilute a lot of karmic burden. If you continuously do that, you will actually be light. Secondly, always be benevolent to people. If somebody says, “I’m hungry”, first stop and feed that person. Give them food. I don’t really recommend giving money – because sometimes they go and drink alcohol. But if someone says, “I’m hungry”, don’t worry who it is – give them food immediately. Feed that person. If you follow in this way, the lineage karma becomes much less, the burden becomes less. Eradication may or may not be possible, but the weight will become less. This can be really taken care of.

I would say that a disciplined life is a good idea. It’s not about how many times you went to the temple, how many gurus you met  – it’s not like that. It’s about a lifestyle, an attitude, an attitude of giving, of sharing. I usually don’t recommend giving money to people, because we don’t know what they might use it for. But you can give in kind – give a sandwich for example. Once Devi and I were in Belgrade on a very cold day. We were feeling hungry, so we thought of going for a sandwich – a vegan cheese sandwich seemed like a good idea. While I was sitting outside the shop, she went inside to pick it up. I saw a man and he was walking towards the cars, as the red light was on. And on all the cars the window glass was raised. It was very cold, maybe about 2 degrees, so nobody was pulling the glass down and giving him anything. He was going around, then the light would change and then he would have to come back and sit down. I saw this happening a few times, Devi was inside ordering the food so I went inside and told her to get me one more sandwich. She brought it and I gave it to this man.  He said since the morning, nobody had given him anything (it was 2 pm). Nobody had even wanted to bring the glass down because of the cold. And that was the first meal he had eaten that day.

So these are the type of things you can do. And if you look around, you will see –  there is no dearth of this need.  I would say this is more important than the organized sevas. You know sometimes you do organised seva, the people may not be deserving too, they may be thinking, “Since you have brought it, I will take it”… So I will say that this type of (spontaneous) seva is more important and this really dilutes your lineage karma. If all the people of the family do this, just imagine what a lot of grace will be falling into the family. Grace is connected to your openness, to your faith. Faith opens doors for grace to flow in…

Transcribed by Sjarn Mansoor
Proofread by Geeta Iyer

Cultivate Change, part 1

Mohanji Speaks Zoom satsang
on 09th June 2019

Q:  What is more important in spirituality – faith or being objective?

Mohanji: Being practical. This is very important in spirituality. Spirituality is not apart from you. Spirituality is your connection with the spirit aspect of you, which is the consciousness aspect. It has three dimensions, the waking state, the deep sleep state and the dream state. In these three states, you are experiencing this incarnation, your life on earth, through three states, every day, 24 hours. So while you are awake, it is very important to be practical. For example, many have come to me and asked, what is the right path? You can’t generalize the right path, because it is individualistic;  because it is as you are. Some people love to experience devotion, bhakti, because their orientation is bhakti. Some people like the path of knowledge, the questions and the answers, because they operate from their intellect. You cannot deny that. That is the way they are, so when somebody is operating from their intellect, they need answers and that is the gyana marg –  the path of knowledge. Then there is path of service. They are very kind at heart. They want to serve the world. They love everybody. They have lot of compassion. The kindness overwhelms them. All these are signs of a Karma yogi, somebody who is there for the world. So it is very important to recognize our orientation and based on our orientation, we should choose our path.  Hence, no generalization is possible.  That is why I said practicality is very important. Objectivity is not as important as practicality. Even if a guru or spiritual master gives you something that you can’t use, guides you to a method that is not suitable to you, you should be very practical about it. You should say that this doesn’t suit me and instead choose something which suits you, because the entire spiritual journey is about you. This is similar to a situation where someone gives you an outfit that you can’t wear; you don’t try to somehow fit into the outfit. You can have a million questions, but the answer is you. Everything starts with you and everything ends with you. When you wake up, your world wakes up. When you sleep, your world sleeps. The world exists, but the existing world has no value for you, unless and until you wake up. If you don’t wake up, you don’t see the world. It is as simple as that. So we have to be practical. If you are not practical, you miss life because we are based on concepts – concepts and opinions of others. They are others. They are as per what they are, not as per what you are. You need to have a life as per what you are. This is very important. Only then, it becomes realistic. If a life time goes without full conformation, to your nature, to yourself, then it is a wasted life. You were trying to become something, you were trying to compare or you were trying to position yourselves your whole life. It does not work that way.

We are born with a particular frequency and that frequency can be changed only with change in awareness.

Change in awareness is completely dependent on how much you accept yourself.

Awareness will not shift, if you don’t accept yourself.

So accepting yourself has a big value here.

Accepting yourself – this is very important. It does not matter whether you accept the many things around you; because when you sleep they don’t exist for you. You exist as a dreamer, as a person who is in deep sleep. You exist as a person who is awake. So “You” have a lot of value.

You should definitely attend to yourself. If you don’t attend to yourself, you miss a lifetime.

So my opinion is that being practical should be first, before trying to be spiritual. You are spiritual anyway, whether you like it or not. Because being spiritual means your connection with this awareness or connection with the awareness that the spirit in you is running the show. This whole show is run by the consciousness, the energy behind it.

Consciousness operates and it has three distinct bhaavs (forms), which are waking, deep sleep and dream.

Once your awareness is above these three states of existence, it shifts to the fourth. It’s called Turiya – the fourth state.

Turiya is like witness hood. It is objective witnesshood of these three states. So this is all part of you. And everything starts with you.

If you do not recognize and don’t conform to what you are, then the journey is affected. Please understand this very clearly – spirituality is not activity. It is not about activity. It is not about doing so many things. It is not about meeting many masters or going to places. They all help you, but everything is you.  Spirituality is about transforming you to higher awareness, to the level of awareness where you only see consciousness in operation, nothing else. Nothing else matters. It is consciousness at work, through plants, trees, animals, birds, everything – consciousness is working. And that becomes your experience. Your experience becomes consciousness at work.

Then you start understanding yourself, “Oh this is the show! This is the drama, which is being played out. I am an actor; I am playing various roles, just like any actor who would play different roles in a feature film.” We play various roles – role of a father, a child, a husband, a wife, maybe the role of a pedestrian, a shopper or a shopkeeper, whatever you are. You are playing all these multiple roles and you play them well.

Even situations, such as a situation of confusion, where your clarity is very low, be that situation of confusion 100% at that point in time. Because that is your reality at that time. Otherwise in some situations you are excited and happy, very happy. Be happiness at that time. Be happiness. Not the situation, the essence of the situation is happiness. A situation has provided that state, or the opportunity to be there, become that. Sometime we are in deep despair and sorrow, be sorrow at that time. Be the essence of that. Each point in time as per what is provided to you, be that. That is the height of fulfillment you can have in a life time. Each moment fulfillment. No resistance. No comparisons. No criticism. Don’t judge. In the path of liberation, judging yourself and judging another are equal. Because when you start looking at yourself as a karmic being, when you take a step backwards and look at yourself, you will see that you are also another actor in this whole world, another player, another object, with duration; we have a certain time on earth. So you don’t see much difference between other people and you. All are actors. All are going around in this world doing their act, and in that point in time you will know that criticizing yourself, judging yourself, blaming yourself, having guilt, all these things are same, as if you have it for other people. There are no other people. It’s all expressions. Numerous expressions. It’s all time bound. 100 years later, we will not be here. So everyone is just a player and an actor. There should be complete harmony in this operation, the entire place, all its people should be in harmony. A person includes other species too. All beings  in all species are people, because they have personalities. Whatever has a personality is a person. So that way we will see this whole Maya – the role play. When I say Maya, it is something that gets transformed, which changes. When I say Mata, it is something truthful and unchangeable. “Maya” – we see the operation in this world, with complete Maya, beautiful drama being played out each moment and you will know that you are witnessing. This is the objectivity. It happens to you. You are not creating it.

When you create it, you are involving your mind. When you involve your mind, you have ownership. When you have ownership, you have Karma. Ownership is the main ingredient for Karma. When you have ownership, possessiveness over the possessions or positions, that creates Karma. That creates emotions. Emotion is the glue which attaches the thought or word or an action to your subconscious which eventually becomes your habit or need, desire or pattern. This has to be very clear. So being objective is important, but being practical is ultimately important and also please understand, don’t connect to a master or a path or an exercise thinking, “Oh this is now going to change me.” You are changing, not the thing. Anything outside of you is but a guide, a mirror, a road map. How you benefit from it depends on how well you use it. If you don’t use it, it remains as it is, not a problem. But if you use it well, it will transform you. So your transformation is the ultimate aim. Nothing else. Nothing else can be the aim. Your transformation is your sign of spiritual stability. Being spiritual should be transformative.

­­­Q: Anything bad that happens in the world is attributed to Karma. This includes the atrocities that happen like raping young children, killing people in holy places etc. Are we using the excuse of Karma as a way of escapism from our Dharma towards the society?  Why weren’t the souls protected by the Supreme?

Mohanji: I think it is an incorrect way of looking at the issue. I do not think our judiciary system ever talks about Karma, at least I haven’t heard of it. It is we who are talking. Judiciary is taking care of various things of the society with law and I think that’s the way it should go. There are certain reasons for creating certain effects, one of them is collective consciousness. Collective Consciousness is the awareness of a group of people. Again it boils down to each individual. Your world is how you are; your world is a reflection of yourself. Now to answer why some people have certain perversions, certain psychological disorders, usually in a generic manner you can say it’s suppression – suppression of something. Human beings and all other species are driven by instincts.

Instinct is the basic driving force of creation. What is the major instinct? Survival instinct. Survival instinct has major two aspects, the first is our need for food to sustain the body and the second aspect is the need for sexuality to sustain the species. These are two important aspects. Besides these,  there are numerous other aspects. If you are able to look at the larger picture, you see that every animal, every bird, every reptile, in fact, every being has the survival instinct and they also hunt for food. The survival instinct depends on their orientation and species. They have clans and boundaries. They keep all these for the sake of survival; human beings too. But with human beings, there is a difference. They operate also on intelligence and imagination. This is the difference between human beings and other species. All the developments you see in this world are connected to intelligence and imagination where instinct is sometimes considered inferior. It is considered lack of refinement. Then what happens is suppression. Suppression causes disorder. You can see that young children do not have such problems. That is because they are very natural. As you become more natural, you also become more relaxed and in tune with nature.

Dharmic law– what is the Dharmic law? Dharmic law is based on naturality. Everything is natural. Being natural. Being one with the nature. One frequency.  Frequency means there can be various frequencies rooted in one frequency. Dharma is the large substratum, based on which Karma is the operating table. Karmic law means desires which need fulfillment; it causes birth, events, experiences and death. This is Karma based on Dharma. Dharma is the substratum, the ground. Karma is our operating pattern or our road map for existence. Third is the human law. Human law is connected to social well-being and again it is all connected to survival. If you look at all the human laws, they are based on peaceful survival. Now in this society, there are various types of people, 7.5 billion people. They are all universe of their own. They are all in their own world or they are a world of their own, in their own right. So in this world we can’t have uniformity because they have been created by Karma, unfulfilled desires.

Now if there is a suppression of some nature, their predominant interest will be to fulfill that. So whenever we suppress, deny, avoid or make it sinful, associate guilt with it, etc. that will definitely stay within and become something else. When you continuously and consistently suppress something, that will become your predominant emotion, need or desire for fulfillment. That is the way it is. Because in your own life you see, if somebody says, “Hey you can’t have that!”, that would be your only thought. The main point is we will always think about  that which has been denied, even if it is not significant in life, it. That is human nature.

Thus with this kind of structure, creation has made us like this. Certain things when suppressed over time, for example, an abuse happened in childhood, that person grows up with the fear of a potential abuse. Some people have the fear of a theft in the house and they attract that. They attract that effect. So whenever you fear something, you suppress something. When you think about something as unhealthy or not good, (I am not talking about healthy food or unhealthy food), something which is not good, a taboo, that is what we are trying to move towards. You remember that. We always remember and we try to get that. This is human nature. Hence with this nature, the only solution is  the right awareness. The needs and desires are unending, but you can bring your awareness to the level where the highest human potential can be experienced in a lifetime, which is compassion, kindness, unconditional love, selflessness, companionship without comparisons, togetherness. This, we can nurture.

Also I believe very strongly that from childhood, at the school level, you should have more counselors – people who talk to children. Many times we don’t talk to children. We are busy making them bricks on the wall just as we want and that is causing a lot of calamity in them. They are not natural because they are chasing something. They are always running after something and that’s what we train them to do. We train them to be more and more result oriented, not fulfillment oriented. Fulfillment does not happen in this manner. While going through education, everybody is learning how to earn money. They also are later trying to earn money. But what is this money for? They believe that when they have a lot of money they can have great life. That is not true. There is no guarantee. You can have lot of money and you can be completely unsettled. We can see many like that. Insecurity can grow with money too. But we do not train children to be content. Hence we are not attending to the mind factor.

Till date, we are busy attending to the physical ailment part. What causes physical ailment most of the time? An unsettled mind causes a physical ailment. An unsettled mind, insecurities, suppression, depression, all these kinds of things are connected to mind.

We have three faculties to experience the Earth – mind, intellect and ego. Mind is the seat of emotions. Intellect is the seat of knowledge or it needs answers. Ego is the seat of personality. These three factors are vital for us. When someone respects you, honours you, appreciates you, applauds, your ego is happy, ego feels settled. When you get answers, intellect is happy. Intellect asks for answers. And sometimes intellect will need answers that it will accept, which means, the answer is not the truth, but one that suits it. That is based on the stored data, what you are. Likewise emotions, romance, love, various emotions of life – these are food for the mind. So in this mode if you don’t attend to the mind matter, which is mind, intellect and ego, we miss life. That is the reason for calamities such as wars, displacements, bloodshed, the expressions of anger, hatred and insecurities; you see a tremendous amount of insecurity. If you are not insecure, you will not criticize another. This is the simple truth. If at all we are looking at someone else as bad, it means we have that insecurity in us. We are eager to prove ourselves. Who wants to prove to other people? Those who are not settled inside. If you are settled inside, you don’t have to prove. People will recognize you as stability, stillness. If you are unsettled, you are insecure, you feel the need to prove. We keep proving and ultimately become tired of it too. We become more and more tired and unstable because of that. So it is very important to understand, the entire society has come out of us and also every child is the responsibility of the society, not just the parents. Every child is being groomed by the society. Society grooms each child, not just the parents or the teachers, it is society. So it is the responsibility of the society to bring children to the right path.

Now you had asked a question about what god is doing. God is doing exactly what your soul is doing – not interfering, but aiding your life. Once the soul leaves, you call it a dead body, which means this body, this constitution has no value. God is the larger soul, the whole universe is inspired and energized by this large soul, called supreme consciousness. And God does not interfere in your micro matters. He does not script your life. It does not even write a script for the world. What he does is that all scripts are accepted, which will have a hero, a villain, a comedian and every role there is. All these roles are perfectly accepted. As long as the drama goes on, the entertainment goes on. And that’s about it.

Nothing has permanent value here. Every creation has duration. Everything has it’s time, space, situation, relevance and death. This includes galaxies and planets; the sun, the moon, the stars, everything has a duration. Thus god has nothing to do with it. God is the supreme consciousness, out of which all this manifested universe has happened and into which the manifested universe will dissolve at the end of the day. And we are like small ants in the whole system; maybe not even an ant, something tinier than that! Our ego makes us feel great, but otherwise we do not have much importance. Thus God does not get involved. But every child, every baby born in this world is the responsibility of the society, not just of the parents. And society has to groom them. Society has to behave well. In a world of corruption, in a world of competition, in a world of comparison, how do you expect each child to be individual and free? It is very difficult. That is what we are feeding the child with! The child is fed with the thoughts of comparisons, thoughts of competition, thoughts of success and success means failure is unacceptable. All these things have created the child in a mode which emphasizes – “Go and kill and win”. This is what we are teaching children.

As I said earlier about our nursery rhymes, “Humpty dumpty fell down and broke the crown…” That was a disaster and nobody could fix it. Hence we are telling a child, “You can’t fix the life, it’s not easy to fix life.” But that’s not true. You are life. Life is about what you see and what you express and everybody is fine. Nobody is higher or lower, nobody is a master, nobody is a disciple, nobody is a Guru, nobody is a shishya (spiritual teacher). Everyone has a role to play in this world and that has duration. I call it effective years. Effective years is the time period you are actually delivering to this world. Rest of the time, the world does not care, neither is it good for you;  the time you used for accumulating wealth. We accumulate, accumulate and accumulate and finally die, leaving everything behind. So what was this whole show about. Usually, the people who chase money, wealth, fame, etc.  don’t realize it is short lived. It has duration.

Also don’t expect everybody to appreciate you. Forget about appreciation, many people won’t even recognize you. Many will criticize you, because you don’t fit into their frame of mind. This is all part of existence. How do we care or what can we do about it? We should do nothing about it. All these things happen mainly because of insensitivity. We are not looking at this whole world as heaven. We can create heaven here. Just be harmonious, just accept, just love. We all have weaknesses, every being has weaknesses and strength. Every being who has walked this earth has experienced success and failure, these are part of life and we cannot say only success or only failure. It’s not so. Only strength or only weakness, this is not so. Everyone has everything – success, failure, strengths and weaknesses. We have to accept them all. Instead if we try to prove to the world, we hide our weaknesses, it is a big disaster and that is what is causing all these events we spoke about.

When we suppress a lot, when we hide our weaknesses, over a period of time, it will bubble up. That will push for a realization. Then what will happen? It will cause calamity in life, be it personal life or in the society. So whatever you suppress for a long period of time, it expresses itself with violence or sometimes in an uncontrollable manner, compared to how it would have, had it been channeled out.

All of us experience excessive anger today, insecurity connected to anger. Why does anger happen? Again it is suppressed expectations. When expectations are not met, disappointments happen. Disappointment causes anger. And this is how it is. There is no other way. We have a tremendous amount of suppressed emotions. We have many expectations about ourselves and other people. We have expectations from the society. We always talk about rights, we never talk about responsibilities. All these things are creating a society which is on an explosive mode. Also ideas such as “my god is better than your god, my guru is better than your guru” are of no value. Each guru, each god, each religion, everything is valuable to somebody, respect it. We need to learn to respect everybody. A person who appreciates his Guru, will feel good about his Guru, that’s why he appreciates it. But that does not mean everybody else is bad. All people have their relevance; like you – you have relevance on earth just like everybody else. We all have relevance. We have our time and our space for relevance. This has to be respected.

I have suggested in many forums that we need to have many more counselors in schools, just to understand children, be with them. Teachers and parents are busy. Sometimes they are not able to complete even their work. So there should be a system of counseling. Just ask questions like, “Are you alright? How are you doing today? Is there anything you want to talk to me about? “I visited Mohanji Kā Aangan in Delhi only two times. I went there on my birthday February 23^rd and I was with all the children. One girl came up to me and asked, “Do you remember my name?” This is because the previous time I had asked her name.  I said, “I remember your name.” She did not expect it. When I uttered her name, she was very happy. Then I asked her, “Are you happy?” She said, “No”. I did not get enough time to talk to her and understand what she was going through. So I called somebody and told them they should go there and talk to all children individually, understand what they were experiencing, ideally it should be a lady. What I mean to say is that we don’t understand what the children of the society are experiencing. We assume that everything is ok, everything should be ideal; these are assumptions. Assumptions may not be the reality. We must face the reality. We must look into the eyes of the situation. Then you can understand. And if you try to strengthen the children of today, society will be much better tomorrow. It’s our responsibility, everybody’s responsibility, not one person’s responsibility. And there is no magic wand to change the whole thing. We cannot change in one day, what we created over time. You need to cultivate change and that will happen over time.

Transcribed by Kishore Mundanat
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Read Cultivate Change, part 2

Completion Within

Rose Bank Satsang with Mohanji in Canada on 23rd August 2015, part 2

Q: Is enlightenment continuous or step-wise?
A: It’s already there. It’s just removing the lid of the mind. The only factor which prevents the experience of enlightenment is the mind. This is because the mind is clutter, right? Agendas, a lot of things, the mind is connecting to a lot of things. So many things are happening in the mind. What happens is that it envelops a subtle aspect called completion. Enlightenment is completion, fulfillment, oneness. Division is maintained by the mind. “Me, I’m different…“ Mind is given to understand the world, to taste an experience and express in the world. When mind is constantly working, it always suppresses the enlightenment in you. However, the moment mind is taken away… How can mind be taken away? You cannot fight directly with the mind. This means you are energising the mind. Mind ensures it becomes stronger, it stays stronger. However when you ignore the mind and do not energise it… for example, let’s say I don’t use this hand for one year. If I don’t use any of the muscles in this hand for one year, what will happen to it? It will become very weak. Similarly, if you are not using your mind, you are just being the flow. You are flowing through life. Whatever happens is happening through you. You are not worried about it. You flow through life. After some time the mind will not know what to do with you. At that time it becomes diluted, and the experience that you will have will be that of silence inside. When mind is not active, you are silent inside. All sound is made by the mind. If this inner silence becomes consistent and continuous for some time, then slowly, slowly you will start experiencing completion within. You will be completely happy with whatever you are and whatever you have. Then you will realise that the mind is what prevents that happiness, and that total happiness is enlightenment – the bliss state, the state of satchitananda, happiness for no reason. Even when energies circulate inside you in an intense way, you will experience the same.
We were doing Conscious Walking this morning. When we were walking consciously, when we were circulating the energy within our auric field, our energy zone, it gave tremendous happiness. One lady felt like dancing! This is because the energy flow which is usually dissipated, was not allowed to go outside. Usually we are like a pot with a lot of holes. Whatever water you pour into it, gets dissipated sooner or later. That’s the way our structure is. That is why we are so tired by evening time. Children on the other hand, are not tired by evening time. We are tired because we have a lot of energy loss. We walked consciously for 30 minutes, and the energisation was much higher than 3 hours of meditation. Many of the participants felt it. Some of them normally could not walk, but today they walked without a problem. Why is it happening? It’s because the mind is not disturbing you, and you are thus perfect, you are full, you are complete. That is why.
So enlightenment is already in you. It doesn’t come from outside. It’s a spark, a kiss from inside. You are kissed from inside. Imagine an egg. If it is broken from the outside, it’s the end of a life. If it’s broken from the inside, it’s a new life. It’s an awakening happening from inside and this awakening is waiting to happen. It’s there. It has always existed there. The lamp is already burning, but there are so many blankets on top of it that you cannot see the light. It’s already blowing inside you. It can’t be coming from outside anyway. If you asked me at what moment it could happen, I would say, at the time the mind is still. Because a still mind is like a still pond – you can see your image clearly. Normally it’s a ruffled pond, which means you cannot see your image clearly. Seeing yourself clearly refers to the permanence in you, to seeing the permanent aspect of you which is inside. That already exists. The reason we cannot see it is because of the waves of the mind. Otherwise it’s there.
Q: Ramana Maharishi said there was no mind.
A: For him there was no mind. Ramana Maharishi’s mind dissolved. But you have the mind.
Q: Now if we give so much importance to the mind, does the mind become a hurdle?
A: Abolutely. Ramana Maharishi’s mind fully dissolved. When you are operating at the level of complete consciousness, the mind dissolves because it has no purpose there. You are not the doer any more, you are not doing, it’s happening through you. Everything is flowing through you. It’s a continuous, consistent flow. Then mind has no purpose. Ramana Maharishi’s mother came to him and said,“Tell me something,“. So he looked at her and nothing happened in this canvas because there was no mind to make an emotion. She thought he was maybe ’in silence’ so she gave him a piece of slate and a pencil to write on. He looked at the slate, looked at the pencil and scratched a few lines. Even the presence of his mother didn’t create anything inside because the canvas was totally empty, still, no mind. So you will operate in that state of mind where there is nothing happening in the brain. Mind creates all sorts of ruffles in the brain. When your mind is totally dissolved, there is no agenda, no plan, no mind, no activity in the brain. It’s absolute bliss all the time, you are always happy. Whether you have something or not, you are happy. Whether you have a relationship or not, you are happy. Everything is ok, and you take it as it comes. That is why Haidakhan Baba used to say,“If you come to me with love, I give you love. I am the perfect mirror because there is no mind.“ Mind maintains your ego, right? When ego is there, you are in a perfect mirror because you have to show you. When you don’t have ego, you are everything. You are the universe. So when somebody comes to you, all you feel is love. When somebody comes to me with love, I express love. When somebody comes to me with lust, I express lust. When somebody comes to me with anger, I give anger. What he meant was that, as a perfect mirror, you look at the mirror and receive what you are. In this way you are always empty and you are always peaceful. There is nothing to prove. Nothing to do. Nothing to worry about. No anxiety, no fear. Nothing. In that mode what you give is just pure love. The mind factor is causing this whole confusion. Like,“I want to take what is in this pocket also.“ This is the mind talking. When there is no mind, there is nothing telling you that you want more, because you are already sufficient. Self-sufficient. So when Ramana Maharishi said that there is no mind, that means that he had no mind. That state is achievable when you are not using the mind. It means that when you are always calculating, creating, when you are worried, when you are anxious, then the mind is active because you need storage space for all these. That’s the mind. When you do not have anxiety, when you do not have fear, you are in full acceptance mode, you are happy with life, you are satisfied with what you have, and mind will become useless. Then you connect more and more to your consciousness, and mind merges with the consciousness, it dissolves.
Why has god given the mind? It is for one reason. Mind has to act a s a medium, as a translator. Mind with your tongue makes you feel the taste. If you are watching TV and eating food, do you think you will know the taste? Mind is elsewhere. When mind is with your eyes, you see. Otherwise you just look. When mind is with your ears, you actually listen. Otherwise you hear, but you don’t listen. When something is on your skin, you feel. Otherwise if something touches you, you may not even know it is touching you. So the mind was created as a medium, as a translator to experience the world. However when mind takes over and takes charge, “I am the boss,“ then there is a problem. It’s as if the clerical staff were given the CEO position without eligibility. It’s almost like that i.e. it makes many decisions and makes you jump like a monkey. So this is exactly what’s happening. When Ramana Maharishi said,“I am not bound by the mind,“ it was true. He was the king. When you are bound by the mind you are a slave. There is the difference. If you want to be the king, you cannot be bound i.e. you should not have the mind.
Q: In the same vein, is mind the creator of thought?
A: Mind is the base of thought. Thought sits in the mind.
Q: If thoughts come out of our past karmas, then we do not have control over them.
A: Impulse of impressions are the basis. They are the seeds. They sit in the causal layer. When the mind evaporates, even the causal layer is burnt. When the soul leaves your body, it picks up the causal layer, where all the seeds of impressions are sitting. It also contains your character. It also contains your constitution. It’s like a bag with a lot of pockets. It picks up the bag and it leaves the body and it pulls this bag on a rope for the next body. That is why every child has a distinct character, a distinct constitution, and awareness level. It is because all of this is transferred. Thus every impression is sitting there. However, these impressions dry up when there is no mind. ’When there is no mind’ means you have no further desires, so you don’t need the mind to execute them. The reason you need the mind to understand a desire is because of the experience factor. For example, if you want to experience fatherhood, you have to become a father or you need to adopt somebody and feel fatherhood. If that is not happening, you can’t experience it. Like that, the mind is kept in that mode, so that you can experience every flavour of life. Otherwise you don’t need the mind. That’s the way it goes. Impressions are all sitting there as long as there is a desire. When all the impressions are dried up, they cannot provoke a desire,and if there is no desire, then there is no birth. If there is no desire, there is no food for karma. Karma cannot be provoked if there are no desires, so there is no further life.
Q: How do you differentiate between a thought and bhaav?
A: A thought is the basis. The first level of creation is a thought. For example, you had the thought,“I must have an icecream.“ Then you told Manjari Babi,“Please give me an icecream.“ Manjari Babi said,“I cannot give it to you.“ So you kept the thought inside. Then you went and told Neha,“Can you please give me an icecream? Don’t tell Manjari Babi“ So the thought is repeated in multiple dimensions in various situations. Neha says,“I won’t tell Manjari Babi, I’ll give you an icecream.“ So there was a communication. A word happened. In both cases you have used energy and sometimes an emotion about it. When there is an emotion, there is a reaction. If there is no emotion, it is just a word, it comes and goes. Then Neha gives you an icecream and you consume it. You have fulfillment.
So thought is the first level of creation, word or expression is the second, and culmination of fulfillment is the third. We operate in these three levels every day, in every moment. This is fundamental. Bhaav is an aspect involved in it. For example, you went to a temple and you felt the presence of Bhagawan Krishna and you really lived the presence, and felt it. You chanted and you had a great experience out of it and came back. This is all because of bhaav. On the other hand, another person goes to the temple, sees the idol saying, “Ok, it’s Lord Krishna, I appreciate it,“ gives the offering and goes back. Two people went to the same place with a different effect. That flavour is bhaav. That has nothing to do with thought per se. The first level of creation is thought – thought, word, action. This is the chronology of karma. And thought, word, action is provoked by vasana. If you don’t have an inclination for something, you won’t have a thought for it. Beyond inclination is impression. Impression creates karma, it is a seed which creates a desire. Desire creates karma, karma creates a thought, thought creates a word or expression and then a culmination, an action. So numerous thoughts, less words or expression, less action. This is how it goes.
Q: How to generate more bhaav?
A: Bhaav always happens when your awareness grows. The fundamental awareness is ’ego is bothering me’. How do you know this? You know you are acting based on ego, when you keep your identity very strong,“I am like this, I am so and so…“ You struggle to keep your image intact based on ego in the society. Then you can change the mode and say,“I am … I am here to experience Lord Krishna, or Bhagawan Baba or something.“ Then you start being aware, “Most of my functions are not in my control – heartbeat, circulation, respiration, digestion, excretion…“ whatever, consider everything about your existence that is not in your control. You have a mind which overreacts to situations, and says,“I am controlling all of this.“ Then you realise, “This is not true. The truth is that all my functions are not in my control. Then what am I controlling?“ Awareness grows. This introspection makes awareness grow. When your awareness starts growing in that direction, you start detaching from the ego plane. The moment you detach from the ego plane, it’s bhakti, devotion and bhaav is spontaneous. When you understand, “Oh, this is all happening through me, how wonderful!“, then you shift from doership to ’wondership’, and you exclaim with wonder, “Oh, God, what an amazing creation!“ Everything you see is amazing. Every person is amazing. Every situation is amazing. It’s all bhaav then. Then the full life is bhaav. That is what Sudha, Krishna Das…are. All these people are embodiments of bhaav. They are of higher awareness. They know there is nothing egoistic to be proud of. It is all happening and we are being unnecessarily proud of something very silly which we don’t even control such as the body. For example, take a big, muscular body. You spend one week in bed, and the muscles all go. So after a lot of effort you created a lot of muscles, yet you can’t maintain it. In this way everything you see has no value because it’s all temporary. It’s all passing. Then we are unnecessarily quoting everything with ego. When this awareness grows to that level, you immediately start feeling that this is not me, this is nothing. What you seem to be is not at all the real thing. Then bhaav happens and you become an embodiment of bhaav.

Reaction vs. Response

Q: When we know things are not correct, and we expect them to be proper, how do we react? Sometimes we get angry, sometimes we feel bad…
A: Understand your response levels. You can handle your life in two ways. One way is to get angry, upset, etc. That means you are operating from emotion. Emotion is directly related to expectation. There is another way of operating – which uses the budhi, intellect. When you use your intellect, you respond. Ok, this situation is happening, let me handle it. This is a practice. You have to train yourself for it. Always train yourself to use your intellect, and do not react using your emotion. Most of us react using emotion, “I knew this person couldn’t do it, bla,bla…“ It goes on. It’s reaction. Reaction always weakens you. It makes you dull. It sucks more energy. However, at the same time, you can say “Ok, you have a problem, sit down. Let’s discuss.“ That is response. Response is from the budhi. Budhi always responds, mind always reacts. So if you consistently use your intellect, there will be less catastrophes. Life will be smooth. There will be no fights, no anger, no hatred. All those things won’t be there. However, if you are constantly using your emotion, then all the reactions and all the catastrophes will be there. This is the point. Train yourself to use the intellect more. Take a step backwards and look at every situation.“Ok, let the situation that is unfolding beyond control, happen. I am looking at it objectively, and responding.“
Q: Do we do this later?
A: No, immediately. Take a little while. “Please, let me understand what the issue is“, so that you are using your brain, and not your emotion. Usually every reaction is from emotion. Emotion also contains prejudices, such as “I knew this guy was an idiot“ etc. These are all prejudices. When you’ve already branded a person in a particular mode, you react. You do not allow the person to be different. That is why some people say, “Ok, I knew this guy, I used to meet him at the pub. Now he is in saint mode. How could he be a saint?“ Why do you underestimate somebody? Enlightenment can happen in one night! We can never underestimate anybody. When you say you know the person, that itself is fundamentally wrong. I know you as an identification. I do not know you as a person. I know you by your name, that’s the name given by your parents and by which society knows you. Apart from that, do I know you? It’s not possible, because you are a constitution, you are a karmic being, and you have a particular agenda of life. This is all you. Thus we can never underestimate anybody. Reaction always happens when ignorance is very strong. It means we are prejudiced, we have decided this person is like that, etc. Many times certain situations cause a particular response in people. A person may be very cool, and very nice, but in a particular situation, with a particular set of people, that person can be very violent, because the environment creates that effect in the person. So can you brand him as always having a violent personality? This is the point. In this way various situations, as well as character, cause a difference in a person’s level of response. We can never say,“This is the person and I know him/her.“ It’s not possible. Everybody is a karmic being and all have their own unique flavours. You have to accept a person as a situation or a surrounding. It keeps changing. Allow that flexibility in everybody. Next time I meet you it could be different. Maybe you will have reached that silence inside, who knows? Everything is possible, right? Life is never stagnant. Life is always changeable so anything can happen. There’s no guarantee also that I might meet you next time. Because I’ll meet you only if I’m alive. That is what Lord Krishna said in the story.

A STORY OF KRISHNA AND YUDHISTHIRA on promises

Krishna and Pandavas water their horses

Upon meeting a beggar, Yudhisthira told the beggar to come again to the battlefield, and that he would give him something then. He said,“I can’t give you any money now, come again, and I’ll give you some. Krishna was laughing because Yudhisthira was so confident that he would still be alive the next day to give the beggar some money. Krishna said,“I am not too sure because I am in the battlefield.“

(Read the story about Krishna, Yudhisthira and promises also in the blog in Fight Inertia Your Inner Enemy)

See, the avatar says he is not sure that he will even exist the next day to give money to beggars, while a person who has no awareness is absolutely sure saying, “Come back, I will give it to you tomorrow.“ We are operating in that level. That is why I have said, even if you are promising something to a child, you must deliver as soon as possible because we haven’t seen our future. We do not know how many breaths we have left. If you do not fulfil what you have promised, you will have to come back and start the story again. Instead, if you complete every moment and go, there is nothing pending. This is liberation. If you cannot do it, do not promise and do not even think of it. Even if you think you want to do it, you must do it because thought is the first level of creation. It’s written in the canvas. For example, you want to help him. Though, it is not articulated, the first level of creation has already happened. Then if you use the words, “I want to help him,“ that means you have already committed. Then you must help, otherwise it’s incomplete. This is how it works. That is what Lord Krishna said, “Even if he is a beggar, don’t underestimate him. He may come and ask you in a different form, probably in a different life. So if you can’t give, don’t promise.“ Better not to promise, that way life becomes simple.
Before I close the satsang, I would like to say something which is can serve as a daily practice. Every day when you wake up, just have one thought, “Am I asking for more from the Earth or am I giving more to the Earth?“ If the answer is that you are giving more to the Earth than you are asking for, then you are on the right track. If you are asking much more from, than you are giving to Earth, then do something about it. That track is not the right one. That is the track towards disappointment and sorrows. If you are asking more and more from the Earth and giving nothing to the Earth (which means giving what you have, what you have you share), if you are giving nothing and you are only using the earth selfishly for your gratification, then you are on a collision course. You are heading towards more and more sorrows. This is because the more expectation, the more disappointment. This thought is an important thought in the path of liberation. Please understand. “Am I giving back to the Earth more than I am taking?“ I am sure most of you will be surprised if you are honest with that answer. Don’t think that going to a temple and doing bhajans, etc. is for the Earth. That is for you. What have you actually done for the world? When I say earth, it includes all beings on the Earth whether it is human beings, animals, birds, plants. Everything is part of Earth. Your family, other families, consider everything. Everything is part of it. What is your contribution to this world? Is it spiritual? It is very, very important. If you are clear about this question and if you can give an honest answer, then you have started the journey to the path of liberation. If you are asking more from the Earth and you do not care about giving back, please understand that more lives are coming for you. You are definitely going to come back here. Definitely. Because if you have to use this earth for your gratification, for your life, you must pay. There is no free meal. It has to be paid. How do you pay? Through compassion. The best cash is compassion. The best medium of compassion is transaction. The more compassionate you are, the more spontaneous you are to the world outside while living, and you will definitely reduce life times. You don’t need any guru to tell you this. This is something which you can handle yourself. No guru needs to tell you that you have got so many marks. This is to mark yourself. No need to share it even with your family, in the sense that you don’t even need to compare with each other. It’s an individual journey. You be compassionate. Don’t think, “My wife is compassionate, I can be something different.“ It is not so. Everybody is individualistic. Just ask the question, “Am I taking more or am I giving more?“

Life is never stagnant. Life is always changeable so anything can happen…

Transcribed by Biljana Vozarevic
Edited by Caroline Moscato

Q&A in Dubai – 25 June 2010

Experience vs. suppression; Does Jnana (knowledge) increase the ego; At which point is a person ready to become Guru; Path of annihilation; Why do we change Gurus; Whatever you deserve, you will get; Shaktipat is changing your software; How do we know that our Guru is the right one; Should one ask people to come for meditation; We can only start walking from where we stand now; Why is surrender so difficult, etc. 

The most loving communion is possible only at the depth of one’s consciousness

Three levels of creation are thought-word and action. The fourth level of creation is collective consciousness. A team of people thinks that you are a good man. That affects you. Thoughts, words and actions are coming from vasanas, basic inherent desire. Constitution creates thought, word and action. Behind the vasana is the Karma. This is the clock … karma – vasana –thought, word and action and again it creates karma. That is why we keep taking birth after birth. We cannot stop it because we produce a new karma every moment. Then more desires happen and more thoughts happen. The ingredients of one’s karmic baggage will also consist of the baggage of the clan (inherited from ancestors), family as well as society. But, we could say that all these are our chosen baggage as we chose the parents as well as the corresponding experiences among a set of people and places.

If someone does not have a desire to smoke, he will never smoke. If you suppress something, it will sprout at the right point in time. You cannot suppress something in life and move ahead. You cannot suppress something for a long period of time. It is like a spring. If kept pressed for some time, one time you have to take your hand out. It springs up. It bounces back. Similarly, whatever you suppress, desire will spring up and will become a reality in your life at some point of time. You must experience things and move on.

Each person expresses based on the consciousness that he exists in. If you require lot of knowledge to satisfy intellect, then you will read a lot. You will join classes to acquire knowledge. You will be provoked to attend classes. Desire makes you move from one place to another. Desire for an ice cream will take you to the place where you can get ice cream. When you want an ice cream you may also pull your friend with you. ‘I do not like an ice cream and he also should not!’ It does not happen like that. Each individual is complete by himself/herself. You come together because karma brings you together. Otherwise you cannot come together, you will not express anything together.

The place where you are born, the events you went through, everything is predetermined through your Prarabdha karma, the karma which provoked an existence. Uncompleted desires at the time of death, provoked this existence. You went to the right womb and right place, where you can complete this journey. We take birth and go through the journey. While we are going through, we add more karma. But we do not have enough petrol to complete the added journey. Your agenda increases. So we take another birth with more fuel (breath), and continue our journey in a new car (body)!

What is jnyana? Jnyana or knowledge is only for the mind or intellect, mostly intellect. If jnyana becomes a rope to climb higher in spirituality, then it is good. If jnyana creates ego, it becomes a burden. Craving for understanding of the fabric of life is in everybody. When we take birth, we operate from limited consciousness. Mind, the intellect (or buddhi) is from this life. The consciousness is from the other lives. The soul which is the petrol of your car, cannot operate on this level if you do not allow it to. How will you reach your soul? The same mind which goes out with the senses should be brought back. Sheath by sheath it should penetrate. Then it reaches the soul. That is why sadhana has to be intense. Desires may be intense in the beginning, then, once fulfilled, they will drop off. When you achieve Shiva, desires are not there.

Q. If Jnyana creates Ego; and it blocks the progress, how do we stop it?

A: First understanding, then observation. Observe your thought, word and action. You have two choices to deal with the society- 1. to react, and 2. to respond. 

Reaction is always a consort of emotions. It always originates from emotions. When you are agitated or someone abuses you, you react. Buddhi or intellect is out of focus at that time. Buddhi becomes blurred and does not exist at the time of reaction. This is why whenever you get angry, since intellect is not there to control it, you will regret later.

When you respond, buddhi is working. Emotions are not circulating. Response will have longevity.  Reactions have a short life and also it leads to catastrophes of life.

Life gets deeply affected when person is in the reactionary mode all the time. It creates a lot of guilts and calamities. All this needs – is to be observed. When you express something, observe. E.g: When you get angry– you have to express anger, so that the other person understands. Express anger, but do not get emotionally involved with it. A child is sick and is not taking medicines. Mother gets angry and says, “I will not give you sweets if you do not take medicine!” Here, mother is not angry with the child, she is doing it out of love.  At the same time, if you are emotional about it, or you behave in an authoritative or ownership way, the mother-child relationship gets strained.

Knowledge or jnyana is not a burden, provided it is useful for your further journey. Knowledge is a burden if it becomes intellectual weight. If knowledge is a key to open a door, it is good. If you are using knowledge to “show off ”  in front of others, or using it to express your ego, it is a burden for you.  “In the feast of EGO everyone goes home HUNGRY”. No one is satisfied with ego. We all live this way!

Anger, ego, hatred – everything can be tackled only through observation, clarity, awareness. Mind also can be tackled through observation. Nature of mind is to be restless. You cannot do anything about it. That is the way you are born. When nature of mind is restless, allow it to be restless. At the same time observe and be detached from it. Watch how the mind functions. When you watch how your mind functions for a period of time, it itself will stop functioning. The gap between thoughts becomes longer. The empty space gets extended. That is the place of peacefulness and silence. That becomes you and your character. Your expressions will change.  You will operate with peace in the society. That attracts people to you. When we need something, it annihilates peace to certain extent. When you need nothing, peace happens within and expressions of peace within, happen outside. We will operate with unconditional love. We will love for the sake of love, and not out of any desire. We do not need anything from anybody. Once that happens, we are liberated. All thoughts, words and actions based on unconditional love are liberation. You will not take more births!

Otherwise, we keep coming back. There is so much of pending activity. If you are tired of today’s work in the office, you have to come back tomorrow and finish it! Is it not? Nobody else will help you. Same here!

The happening called Guru

Q: At which point is a person ready to become Guru?

A: A Guru should happen. You cannot become a Guru through doing. You can become an Acharya or a teacher through doing. If you learn  from a lot of books, you can become an Acharya. You can be trained to become a teacher! To become a Guru, it should happen by itself. That means, ‘You becoming a Guru should happen to you’. Guru-ship or Gurudom should fall in place. That time you may not want to talk to anybody. A true Guru is deeply connected to the source and operates in perfect equanimity with no desires. Acharyas (teachers) are plenty. True Gurus are very rare.

Q: Is it similar to Tatwamasi?

A: No. What is tatwamasi? Thou art that! That means You are God. If it is just an intellectual understanding, it means nothing. When you repeat this understanding in mind, it means nothing. You become God by expressing God. What is God? Unconditional love, being  full of love – you have no desires, your existence is for the sake of love. You exist in bliss state, beyond all duality. That is god hood.

Guru is absolutely detached. Look at Bhagawan Nityananda, Shirdi Baba. They wanted nothing. In 20^th century, people were talking of haves and have nots! But, in India, we always had a third class, who could have everything if they had wanted, instead they wanted nothing. Tatwamasi is a great principle. If you understand Tatwamasi, it should be in experience and not intellectual understanding. People most of the time talk about ‘Tatwamasi, Aham Bramhasmi or I am God’ – that is  probably out of intellectual understanding. The real core meaning of Tatwamasi is becoming Parabramha, Father or Allah, whatever name you want to call it by. Become that, be that. It is formless imperishable entity. The representation of that entity in you is your own soul. Be the soul. The soul needs nothing from you. It never interferes in your journey. When soul leaves the body, we call it a dead body. You will call it ‘X person’s body’. When soul exits body, the body has no meaning anymore. Soul takes away the name of the body.

We are such fragile creatures, and still we have a lot of ego. 80% of our vital functions are not controlled by us; heart beat, circulation, digestion, respiration. We take some silly decisions and then become egoistic about it. I am saying this for the sake of awareness. If our awareness level is high, we will accept our daily life as it is, and we will be peaceful. Suppose, someone tells you that ‘at such and such a date and time you will die’ – some people will panic as we are so attached to the body. They  will feel, “Oh!, my body is going, what will I do now?” But, some people will be okay with it. They will accept it as a true possibility, an inevitability and will be comfortable with it.

We are worried about small, small things. Will I get parking today? We operate only in ‘this’ level of consciousness. Baba can give you enlightenment but you ask Baba for vehicle parking space! He can take you at the highest level of awareness. Every day you are asking about car parking! And you do get parking. Faith is working and we do not realize that faith is working.  We do not use the available rope to climb to the highest point in this life, instead, we stay stuck in our mundane troubles associated with our daily existence.

Q: If faith is working, then why do we shift to so many Gurus?

A: There are two things. The first thing is that restless mind takes you to too many Masters. Mind says, “This is not good enough, look at him. Let’s go for somebody higher.”   Usual result is disillusionment.

Second thing is, you elevate yourself to higher level and then the old Guru may not be able to teach you  anymore. When you go from 2^nd to 4^th standard, the same teacher cannot teach you.  In the 10^th std another teacher must come. This is elevation. This way you will change your Gurus or rather, the guru may change. But this has to happen. Here, you are not changing anything. The new Guru is happening in your class. When mind says “I do not want this Guru, he smokes!”  you are disowning that matter which would have elevated your consciousness because of your prejudice -you dis create your requirements from that particular Guru. He does not vibe with your prejudice. Naturally he will not. The problem is not with the available guru, but the mental image that you created for yourself. Your husband, son, daughter will also not obey exactly the way you want. Same like that. Another person who is Guru and you say he should not wear jeans and T-shirt! This is mind’s job. Mind is telling you. Mental images are blocking you. Then we change the Guru. We keep changing the Guru especially if the true guru dish out bitter pills, and finally, we do not know where we are going. Then you surrender. You say I had enough of this. Sometimes it goes to suicidal tendencies because you think you wasted your life. Most people spend their entire life in searching and not finding the Guru. When the actual Guru comes,  you cannot identify him because your mental images blocks recognition!  What a tragedy!!!

You already created mental pictures of Guru. You already bought the frame. If Guru fits into the frame, it is fine. What if Guru is bigger than the frame? We discard the Guru and not the frame. This is how we function. Let’s take a closer look at ourselves. We are indeed like that.

Q: What are the qualities of a Guru? If we are looking for Moksha, the liberation, then how do we know whether this guru will help us?

A: Qualities of a Guru depend on which class you are studying in and from which level you are operating. Do you know the class you are studying in? The Guru which comes in front of you is the right one for you. A student in 2^nd standard cannot decide what kind of teacher he needs because he does not know. This is a basic truth. So, the teacher who comes in the class is the right one for you. If your quest is true, the right Guru will happen in your life. For that, we have to accept and be non-resistant. This is a fundamental principle of spirituality.

“The food that comes on table for you today is the medicine for you. So say the Vedas”.

We may not like the food nor maybe we never chose that food. We wanted biryani but got the dosa! If you accept that food as medicine, then there is no friction within. When there is no friction within, peace descends upon you. When peace descends, you operate at the level of equanimity. This continuously brings you good things.

In our path of Shiva, quality of Guru will be the one who helps in annihilation or destruction of all baggage, desire, vasanas, habits and all that is binding one to earth. More things will be shed from you. Look at all the Masters of Dattatraya tradition. They never wanted anything. They were leaving everything. They were detached from everything and helped people to stay detached or unattached.

Why does Shiva wear ash on the body? What does ash means? Ash means complete nullification of everything. Fire burns everything indiscriminately and forms ash. This is what exactly we are. Liberation happens out of ash. Shiva wears nullification on the body. It means I belong there –  i.e in perfect nullified state. The principle of Shiva is dissolution. This is even bigger than Enlightenment. Do not confuse between enlightenment and dissolution.

The Enlightenment is a shift in consciousness when you develop a much larger awareness.  The Nullification or Dissolution is a further process.

You have to observe each process and detach completely. Perfect ‘shanti’ then falls upon you. If you are on a path of leaving the house to go wandering, Guru for this path will happen to you. That Guru may not wear cloths or may not look crisp, clean or attractive in the terrestrial sense. But in a city like this, if someone does not wear the cloths, you discard the Guru! This is our level of operation. I have written about the Principles of Guru in one blog. I do not like to mince my words.

Whether same or different, love them all

Q: I talk to my colleagues and friends about the spirituality. But I get negative answers from them, most of the time. What is this?

A: You cannot force anybody. If you are here today, that means, you have that particular vasana and karma in you, that brought you here. Otherwise you would have been in a movie theatre. What made you come here may not be the same constitution for another person. That person may not understand what you are talking about.  Do not force anyone. Tell them once, twice, and no more. If they are interested, they will come to you, asking more questions. If not, they are not interested and leave them alone.

My path is a no nonsense path. This is a path of annihilation. This is not a path of ‘feel good’.

This is the simplest possible path. The reason is this path is like a monkey child clinging onto mother monkey. It does not do anything apart from clinging onto the mother. Mother is climbing the tree. Shaktipat is the power that is changing you, not only this meditation. This meditation is just words and will work, if your mind stays within you, following it, without wandering off. If mind is unavailable, if words can change someone, everybody would be changing. The software change that happens within you is also through the Shaktipat. The Shaktipat burns the unwanted chaff or debris of karmas. This clears your path. This works at physical, mental, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and all other levels. It works in various planes. Each Shaktipat has the clear potential to make distinct changes in the receiver. It is life-changing. It is a very serious thing. All the people who are empowered to give Shaktipat have taken big responsibilities.

In answer to your question, if somebody does not come, it does not matter. If somebody comes it does matter, because there is reason for his/her coming here.  We deliver with utmost purity and dedication with no second agenda.

Q: Should we ask people to come?

A: I usually DO NOT ask people to come for meditation. When this whole thing happened to me, I told all Masters that, “I am an introverted person. I cannot invite people and deliver talks”. Masters said, “That is not your problem. We will bring people to you.” So, I always believe that, those are attending my sessions or the BTW meditations, all over the world, are sent by the Masters.

I deliver whatever I can in one go and within your capacity or whatever you can effortlessly carry. Even if we do not meet again in life, I have delivered what I could today. Tomorrow if you bring a bigger bucket, I will fill it up too. Today you have received according to your capacity. What people get out of this class depends upon what sort of utensil they bring. If someone is inspired by you to attend this class, it is because their Karma drives them here. Their eligibility brings them here. We have a lot of desires which do not get fulfilled. Whatever we deserve – surely we will get it. This is the fundamental principle of life. If something has not come to you means you were not eligible for it. But our EGO does not allow us to understand and accept this.  

You can tell people that you had a good experience. I always encourage people to write their experiences. Tomorrow your mind might say that, oh, that was an imagination. You can only start walking from where you are standing, right now. Similarly in Spirituality, start walking from which position you are standing in. If, you are in grade A, start from there and go to B, C, ….. Your mind may ask to jump to F or G; there is no shortcut, you must walk from A to G. This can happen through lifetimes, not only in this life. You have done what you could do in this life. You may continue in next life. Let it be. What is the big deal? Start walking from where you stand.

Guru is holding your hand. You are walking. Guru cannot walk on your behalf. Guru can secure your walk. He will not allow you to fall. He is just a road sign. He gives direction. Walking and travelling you have to do.

When you radiate That, all the friends gather

Similarly for your friends, tell them that it helped you. It suited you. They can try, if they like.

Take it if it suits you. Discard it if it does not suit you. If you approach with equanimity and objectivity, it will stay. But what happens in reality, we say ‘Oh, my Guru is the best and the perfect one!’ We sell the Guru. Then others get bored and probably suspicious. Friends may turn away thinking you are mad.

Q: Why is surrender so difficult for people?

A: EGO. Surrender means egolessness. When you prostrate, heart and head are in one line. Why we touch somebody’s feet? We consider that, this man, whose feet we are touching, exists in absolute consciousness.  This is our assumption.

When we touch elderly people’s feet, that does not mean that they exist in absolute consciousness. We respect their age, experience and evolution. Actually, soul’s age should be considered and not the physical age. Physical age has no value because everyone will get old one day. Consciousness level in which he operates is the most important thing.

Enlightened masters like Shirdi Baba and Bhagawan Nityananda behaved like ordinary people or even like beggars. It confused people. How can he be an enlightened Master? Again, mental images block our vision. Our mind does not allow us to touch their feet.  Mind pushes us to touch the feets of the glamourous, articulate and pompous, than the true and the real!!! Thus we miss great opportunities. He is available!! He is standing there with his feet for you! 🙂

Q: A question about the  Shaktipat process – is it to correct the deficiency in the body or transfer the energy for the purpose of healing?

A: The tradition of Shaktipat is to speed up the spiritual process. You can do sadhana and achieve. Shaktipat aligns the system to receive the energy. The one who gives Shaktipat is able to handle much higher energy than a receiver. The bulb is only of 20 watts but electricity line carries much higher energy. Bulb is tuned to receive only 20 watts. When it is transferred, you receive the quantity that you can handle. So you are not burnt! It operates at physical level because it has healing powers. It operates at emotional level to heal emotions. It also operates at intellectual level so that you think clearly and your awareness can grow. It shifts your consciousness to a plane of spiritual progress. Your awareness is shifting, which you will know in the days to come. The Shaktipat energy works over a period of time. The cleansing is continuously happening. You are evolving. Tomorrow your capacity will change. You will be given Shaktipat or will receive shaktipat according to your capacity.

Initiation – the sacred, eternal mark of Love

To be capable of giving Shaktipat, one needs initiation. The main criterion is that person should be operating from the level of purity, not from the level of desire (desire to become a Guru, desire to have money, etc.). It has to come to you. If you decide, that desire becomes your blockage. When you are pure, the perfection of transfer happens. Receiver and the giver are in perfect mode. The receiver will get what he or she deserves.

Q: What is the purpose of being in Dharma mode?

A: Dharma is not a purpose. It is a pure duty. Animals always operate on dharma mode. Sun. moon and stars operate in dharmic mode. They have a specific system of operation. If there are lot of deers and few tigers, a tiger will never kill a deer for sake of fun or to control the population! Tiger will kill a deer only when he is hungry. We humans do not do that. We kill for pleasure. Thus it becomes Karma. The Sun is rising every day. It does not say “I am tired today; I will come tomorrow.”  Dharma is the base and basis of the universe. Karma is the basis for individual life and its corresponding happenings and experiences.

Love

M