The only time we have is now

Welcome to Mohanji speaks.

Hello, my friends. Today, a very deep thought came to me, I was experiencing that for a long time; so I thought I would share that with you. I’m quoting an old story and a very relevant story for our times and all times. 

A very successful, rich and generous king was cursed, or he went through misfortune, and he became the keeper of a graveyard. Sometimes, misfortune strikes people so bad that a king can become a pauper. This happened to him. And this particular incident, which I’m talking is from the place where he was the keeper of the graveyard, and he was walking around the cremation ground where they have burned many bodies over time. There are many bones, including skulls lying around. So he picked up one skull. And he looks at it, and he thinks to himself, “This graveyard is the real school. Look here now; this skull belonged to a head, which somebody would have taken care of with a lot of attention by applying pastes and ointments to keep itself beautiful; to preserve the face, to remove the wrinkles of the face. And this is the same skull which was talking various great things to the world, and this is the skull, which carried great hair/mane which was probably brushed, washed and kept beautifully. The skull belonged to a young person or an old man or an old woman, a young woman, it doesn’t matter; it’s just a skull lying around in the burial ground. The owner of that skull might have spent hours maintaining it and finally discarded.”

This was the skull, which once roamed the world, to conquer the world, using his skills and intelligence. It was on a winning spree, or probably trying to conquer many aspects of the world, foolishly believing that everything will belong to him one day. And he may not have waited to know that nothing can belong to him. So, the King says, “Oh, my dear skull, I don’t know who you were when you were alive. But I understand all your aspirations have become ashes and you just became a skull.” 

It’s a very relevant truth that we must ponder. We only have this time on Earth, just this time; we do not have another time. We don’t know whether we will be alive. And instead of pursuing glories, accolades, appreciation, so many different things which you can probably put on the wall or shelves; if we think, “I know my life is limited. I don’t know how many more breaths I will have. So, why not I give something to this Earth at this time.” This is the only time that we have. We have not seen the future, and we don’t have the past. It’s done. This thought should happen. We must make ourselves as beautiful, as handsome as possible so that we can communicate what we have to communicate to the world. Life is the message; life is the lesson. Life is the only expression possible. 

Whatever we do, or whatever we perform during our waking hours, defines us, that tells the world who we are. We all have our individuality, our presence, power, purpose while being alive. Once we become the skull, we become another skull. Numerous skulls have merged with the Earth; Earth is a huge graveyard. And once we are gone, nothing ever matters. 

So, we need to think now, is it worth criticizing, judging, comparing, gossiping, maligning the spaces, people’s reputations, all those things, is it really worth it? Live and let live because it’s a short life anyway. Sooner or later, we will all become those skulls. No glory, nothing, what will remain? Just what we have done, or we have delivered to the world, which has consistent value over generations. That’s why we remember Shirdi Sai Baba, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira and people like Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, and numerous other people who have given something new and original to this world, even years after they died. What they delivered to the world was something which was beyond time. Otherwise, whatever time has created, the time has also dissolved, time creates and uncreates in time. So, where is the room for pride and ego, and ownership of action, craving and attachment for possessions and positions, ownership over people, me and mine? I hope you’re able to see the foolishness behind all these while being alive. After death, it’s all gone. You don’t have them; everything vanishes, we become completely nullified.

I leave you with this thought. And I would just utter the lines from this poem about this King called Harishchandra. You can read about Harishchandra, through Google, you can search and find, and that tells the story. How a king became a pauper, and then, later on, he regained everything. He was tested, very, very bad. But he survived his test because of his honesty and truth. He never complained when he had to serve in the graveyard. He served as he would have served in the palace. That’s a story, but that you can read, I’m not explaining. I’m just explaining the foolishness of our daily life, where we are proud of our possessions and positions, our accolades, and our appreciations that we receive, disappointments when we don’t get it, all those things are absolutely silly. I just wanted to give you this thought. We’ll talk further.  Let me know if you have a question connected to this and we discuss further. In Malayalam, this song was very popular at one time; it’s many, many years ago, almost eighty years ago probably. 

Thilakam chaarthee – that means adorning vermillion or sandalwood paste on the forehead.

Cheekiyumaazhakaay – that means well combed and well-groomed hair. 

Palanaal pottiya punnya sirasse, – Oh sacred head, which was well kept and well cared for many days. 

Ulakam vellaaan uzhariyanee yo, vilapidiyathoru thalayodaaayi – that means, are you the same face which was at one-time running and trying to conquer this world? Oh, you have become just an unwanted skull now. Are you the same face, which was a world conqueror at one time? But now you have become a useless skull, which nobody wants. 

I leave this thought on your plate. 

Have a great day. 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

Invest in awareness

Hello friends.

Today, let’s talk about a personal bank account. What is a personal bank account? We all know bank accounts; we invest money in our accounts. And we are confident because we have that bank account. We have money in the bank; we can withdraw from it when we want. This bank account is like our confidence, our self-esteem, and our security. So, this is the bank account.

Think about another bank account; the bank account that is inside you. You have a personal bank account within you. What will you invest in it? Have you thought about it? There are so many things you can invest in it. And that’s the only thing you can withdraw as well; only what you invest, you can withdraw. If you invest goodness, if you invest righteousness, if you invest kindness, compassion, positivity; if you invest beautiful, large vision, great goals for the improvement of the society; if you invest the things which are regenerative and rejuvenating into it, what you can withdraw is the same. What you sow, you reap. 

So, this bank account is very important, much more important than the physical, monetary bank account. If you do not have much bank balance in this bank account, what comes out are insecurities, addictions, self-hatred, lack of self-esteem; and so many things which make you feel pretty insignificant or low in your own eyes, just like a poor man. But if you have great things in your bank account, then you will behave like a rich man; very happy, you have your money, you can fulfill your wishes, like that. I hope this is very clear.

The bank account inside is your choice. What do you want to put in that? It’s almost like your own personal locker; you can keep anything you like in it. But what is put there determines you. I always recommend people to put your highest aspirations in your bank account locker and take away all the fears and anxieties and those kinds of stuff and discard them. You don’t need them. I always used to tell people the best investment in a lifetime is in awareness. When you invest in awareness, it grows. When you concentrate on your own awareness, it reflects in the society as brightness, as kindness, as compassion, as positivity, as reliability and so many other good factors, positive factors. When you invest in your own awareness, you will stop complaining, you will stop comparing, you will stop all those things which drain you. You can easily come out of your addictions, which are bound by inertia, tamas, and you can look at your own life, fresh and as a great opportunity.

If you invest in awareness consistently, you will be brighter, you will be lovable in this world and you will not have complexes. Usually, people have an inferiority complex or a superiority complex; both these things will be alien to you. You will be fine; you will be happy; you will be stable in yourself. So, investing in awareness is very important in a lifetime. And that’s the best investment you can ever do in a lifetime. This investment matures and gives rewards, just like a bank account; you get some interest for your investment, like that, the investment on awareness, gives you clarity in life. The clarity that you get in life is your interest. When you continuously invest in awareness, in your own awareness, in your bank account, your goals will be clearer, the purpose will be clear and there will be clarity in the activity, in planning, in the road map because you are consistently investing in awareness.

Awareness is vital in anybody’s life. Life is always an opportunity and awareness is its oxygen. When you consistently invest in awareness, you will always be optimistic, bright and energetic. You will start seeing life in everybody because you have life in yourself. You will see life, in life. It’s not a heavy, depressive, disappointing life; instead, it’s a bright, positive, rejuvenated lifestyle every day, every moment, self-inspired. When you wake up in the morning, there will be only one question; what else can I do for this world? And the answer would be instantaneous. It may differ each day but it will be fulfilling. When you continuously invest in awareness, your life will not only be fulfilling but will have immense contentment each moment. A successful life is a well-lived life filled with happiness and contentment. We will love everything, we will love everybody, we will not judge, criticize, talk bad about people, about situations. Instead, we will only see, what can we do now in this situation? What best we can do now? How can we improve this? You will not talk about people, instead, you will talk about situations!

Imagine, you are working with somebody, and the attempt failed. There are two ways you can respond to this situation. One is to blame the other guy and say, “Because of him, I couldn’t complete it, or it was not successful.” Or you can say, “I can do better homework, and I can improve on it, along with this person; or I can give him better awareness and put him on the same page as what I think, and we can do it together.” Which is better? It is always better that we upgrade ourselves with every situation. This needs awareness. Awareness each moment; awareness over each activity, so that when you face situations, you will see, okay, this is the situation. What can I do now? How best I can do now? Here I am not asking you to reinforce your ego aspect, here I’m asking you to consider, what is your best potential? Then there are other people also, you cannot expect them all to see what you see or come into the same frequency as you. So, what can you do?

Discussion. If something has not worked, discuss the options, the pros and cons and say, “Can we work it out together?” And then attempt again; if it fails, again you make an upgraded version of the same situation and try. A few times later, it will become successful. Sometimes our own consistency, our own determination and discipline, this brings success. Our own self-confidence and ability to rise beyond the usual or ability to rise above each situation brings success. That needs awareness.

So, investing in awareness will never go wrong. You will start looking at everything, you will understand its value, you will understand the merits. If there are certain things which you don’t have to do, you will discard them, and you will not feel much about it. Only when you don’t have awareness, you are afraid to discard the unwanted. If you are fully aware, you will discard what is unwanted; you will keep what is required so that there will be clarity and there’ll be a clear purpose, while you’re at it. Everything will be visible and then it’s easy to put this together and get on with life. Bringing people together is very, very important and that shows your open-heartedness, large-heartedness. We can’t insist that everybody sees what we see, but we can definitely guide people as per their capacities and expect less, give more. Expect less. So, this is a good combination, just like awareness and flexibility; maturity and flexibility – good marriage. This is all within us. Our world is within us, we see the world as we are.

So, these thoughts might help you to understand yourself, assimilate yourself, align yourself with awareness and you can have a great bank account, very rich inside. This is your choice. Nobody is born poor in this context. You all have your potential, you can have a great bank account; you have it with you already.

Wish you great success.

This is Mohanji for you.

 

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Padmini Ravikumar

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Change your life, change your attitude, be powerful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of love! This is Mohanji.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopal

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How do I motivate my children?

Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them. Keep sending them. I will try to answer them as best as I can.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do discuss this with your friends, contemplate on it, and increase your awareness, step by step. Wish you great success in life.

Lots of love. This is Mohanji.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Behind smiles and frustrations

Good day, my friends.

Today, I would like to discuss a subject which has been suggested by some of the people who are listening to my podcast very regularly.

This is COVID-19 situation. It’s been a few months since we are almost indoors. And we have restricted movements, we can’t travel as we like, we have many restrictions connected to the COVID situation. So, one of the effects that we have seen which even various magazines and news channels have articulated, and this situation has been existing before as well, is about abuses, domestic abuses. We have seen unwarranted abuses happening in households where somebody’s frustration, somebody’s anger is taken on the helpless beings of the same household.

I have always objected to it. I have always been speaking against it. I believe that a lot of counselling is needed on such occasions. Often, it’s not physical abuses. It’s emotional abuses. When I say emotional abuses, it’s like even ignoring somebody in the house, not even talking bad, it’s ignoring somebody. Looking at somebody as insignificant, treating like that, or disrespecting. Disrespect is very common. We can see that in social media quite often. The things which people cannot articulate in their own community or home, they articulate in social media. Character assassination, bad language… This is so much outpouring of frustration in social media. And the people who are producing it, who are doing it, they have plenty of frustrations inside. Unspoken words, suppressed expressions, all those things. So, we are in a society today where we can see explosive emotions inside, like atomic bombs they are walking. And they explode at the wrong places or wherever possible.

So, we must do something about this domestic violence. First of all, right from childhood. I was communicating with the person, trying to bring that person out of a particular mindset and a situation where he has been quite suicidal. I was explaining my story. I have faced so many situations of life, denials, insignificance… Right from childhood, I have faced that, where the criteria of the society are marks in school, grades in school. And if you don’t perform, then you’re not wanted, you feel unwanted. You feel insignificant, you feel rejected. So many children might be feeling that even now. I believe in appreciations, rewards, recognitions. We can easily do that in childhood days. We can appreciate any quality in the children. Not only our children, any children. We have various forums for that, and even without forums, we express our appreciation and through love we can make a better world. Only through love, we can sustain the equilibrium of an individual. So, today I decided to speak about that situation, only because of that reason that it is within us to make a difference.

So, I experienced a lot of insignificance and unwantedness in my childhood. Then, as I grew up, again it is a competition. You got to compete. You got to compete and win. Not easy. Not easy because society standards are sometimes not suitable for you. Like, a person who can run faster will win. If you can’t run, then you’re a failure. Society always has this tendency to ask a fish to climb the tree and call the fish a failure because a fish is not oriented to climb the tree. Just like asking a monkey to swim and win.

So, we have this mindset which we have to change. But if all of us decide, all the people who are listening decide, “I will make a difference in this world around just through appreciating, helping, guiding, and just saying ‘I’m with you’.” Let’s do it by encouraging, appreciating the talents of any individual; everybody has some talent. Because we superimpose our expectation on them, we don’t see the talent. But, there are talents. Everybody has it. If that is appreciated, and we do not talk too much about the weaknesses. All of us have weaknesses, we all have it. I haven’t seen anybody with no weaknesses. Even the greatest of masters may have weaknesses. Weaknesses are part of our existence. And if we highlight weaknesses and say, ‘Oh, this guy is not good.’, we are eclipsing the actual truth about that man, or that person. The goodness factor, the righteousness factor, the qualities, and the capacities we eclipse by just talking about the weaknesses. Thousand good things he might be doing, but people highlight one weakness. So, this is how it is. Shakespeare has said, ‘The good that man does is often interred with their bones.’ The bad things he did or the bad qualities survive his death.

This is how the world is. So, we got to understand that people have goodness. We should appreciate the goodness and ignore the bad aspects. Everybody has it. Nobody is immune to it. You know, we should not worry about or talk too much about the bad aspects.

So, as I was growing up, I had a series of tragedies. Even though I was working and earning money, I had many times shifts from workplaces. Sometimes attempts failed, and I had a vacuum state where I did not know whether I’ll get the job. Then again, I went applied for various positions and got the jobs. So, there have been states of emptiness, no activity. Then I was called a failure. That time society brands you easily. And this sometimes some people can’t handle.

So, why I am talking about domestic violence is because some of these frustrations we bring from society. It could be very detrimental. Sushant Singh Rajput, a great, good actor, beautiful actor, committed suicide. Many people are facing stress, confusion, lack of self-esteem, you know, and they give up easily sometimes. We don’t know what are the reasons for him doing this act. But I feel that this is not an isolated thing. Many people are on the verge of leaving their life or taking that step. That’s because society does not see them, does not appreciate them, does not understand that behind the smile and this brightness there is some pain, some sorrow, which we may have carried from the past. So, we must be very considerate.

I will make another podcast on the same subject because this is getting too long. I would like to leave this thought about how we can improve. Or how we can improve the attitude that we express to this world, to the people around us, by being compassionate, by understanding people, accepting people as they are, ignoring the weaknesses of them. Now, just ignore their weaknesses and help them to overcome their dilemmas and problems. We’ll think about it more in the next episode.

Thank you very much. This is Mohanji.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Maja Otovich

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Integrity. The story of Tom Smith.

Hello, my friends.

Today, I would like to tell you a beautiful story. I understand this is a real story. This story is worth remembering. It goes like this.

A man called Tom Smith was in his deathbed. He was dying. He worked in corporates, in governments, etc. And he was known for his integrity, honesty, truthfulness, and ability to do good in the most adverse times. He was goodness incarnate. But he could not make a lot of money. He could not make a house of his own. He did not have a great bank balance. He just about survived with his family. His wife died well before him, and he had only one daughter, Sarah. In the deathbed, when Tom Smith was almost dying, Sarah Smith came to him. In fact, she was looking after him in his last days. Sarah Smith came to him and said, ‘Dad, you know something, I don’t respect you. I have no respect for you because you earned nothing. We don’t have a house of our own. This is a rented house. We have no property, no wealth, no money. We have nothing. What did you do all these years? You said, ‘It’s bad to be corrupt.’ You said, ‘Corruption, cheating, stealing… all these are bad.’ But look at those people. They have made money. They have possessions. They have everything. You always talked about honesty, truthfulness and various stuff like that, but you have nothing. Is this a good life? I don’t think so. I don’t respect you. I’m sorry to say this, but if I don’t say this now, you will die, and this will sit with me. So, I want you to know this.’ Obviously, Tom Smith died heartbroken because his only daughter did not love him. He felt it. And he died.

A couple of months later, Sarah Smith applied for a job in a big corporate. She applied for a position in the administration, and they called her for the interview. Then, at the interview table, one of the consultants asked her, ‘What’s your full name?’ She said, ‘Sarah Smith.’ ‘What’s your father’s name?’ She said, ‘Tom Smith.’ What does he do? What did he do?‘ So she said, ‘He is no more. He worked in a government department approving certain organizations, or recommending certain things like that, in a position of secretarial work where he was instrumental in approvals of certain kinds.’ Suddenly, this man’s face changed. He became very kind and he asked, ‘Are you the daughter of Tom Smith who worked in such and such an organization?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘You know what? That man is responsible for where I’m sitting now. He signed my papers without taking any bribe, without asking me anything. He just looked at my merits, and he signed it. He recommended me. And that’s what got me this job. Today I am sitting in this chair because of him. Young lady, consider your job is done. You have the job. Come tomorrow and pick up the paper’. There was no question. There was no interview. There was no appraisal. There was not even scrutiny of her certificates. She got the job. She couldn’t believe it. Suddenly, she felt something hurting inside, something clicked inside. She thought, ‘Oh my God. My father, he earned money but did not have savings. He was not a rich man. He did not die a rich man, but his richness still lives. And here is an example. I got a job, just by his name.’ She started having regret inside.

Next day, she came to the office, picked up the letter of appointment, she joined the job, and she worked for a few years. And everybody was happy with her work. She was sincere, she was loving, and she followed her father’s footsteps. She was not corrupt. She was honest, she was sincere. She did her job with full conviction, full application, consistently, and sincerely.

Few years passed by. The Managing Director of the firm, this huge firm, was retiring. And there were internal recommendations to replace him. And Sarah Smith was recommended by the same gentleman who interviewed and appointed her. And she was interviewed again for the senior position, the top of the company. They asked the question, ‘How do you remember your father?’ Again, she had regrets. She said, ‘I’m guilty of sending him to death heartbroken because I made him sad with my words that I do not respect him. I told him I do not respect what he has done because he did not earn any money; he did not save any money. He did not have possessions. All he had was a bank balance of goodwill. It is not a cashable bank balance. You can’t cash that. But today I am sitting in this chair talking to you because of that man’s integrity. That man’s honesty. His goodness factor. Now, I’m guilty. I feel sad. I feel heartbroken. I hope my father has forgiven me because I’m living exactly the way he lived’.

They asked her, ‘Why are you crying now?’ She said, ‘I wish I could have told him: ‘I’m proud of you, my father. I’m proud of you.’ But I didn’t. Instead, I told him, ‘I don’t respect you’. So they asked her, ‘How are you compensating for what you’ve done? How are you repenting?’ She said, ‘I have kept his picture next to the picture of God. He is God to me. He is equal to God. For me, I respect him as God. I remember him every day. I do charity in his name. And I’m compensating every day. I’m repenting every day’.
She got the job, the Managing Directors position. And she, wherever possible, spread the great message her father left behind for her. The message was integrity, goodness, consistent goodness, sincerity, selflessness.

So, my friends. I hope you understood this story. We must remember: what we leave behind should make us live in the hearts of many. We can earn money, we can do anything in life. But if we do not have integrity, sincerity, honesty, goodness factor, selflessness, kindness, compassion, we will not be remembered. Or we will be remembered for the wrong reasons.

Today, we live in cities. We have nuclear families. We do not even have eye contact with people, including people in the house. We are all on our gadgets. We are busy in our own world. We fail to see the heart, or the heart aches, of the people in our own household. Remember, hearts are beating around us. All they need is love, kindness, compassion, understanding, awareness. If we are able to give that, we will be rich inside. We will be tremendously rich inside. If we give sorrows and unhappiness to people who live with us, who love us, we will not be able to have a regret-free life ahead. For us to be guilt-free, regret-free, we should always remember that Love is the only medicine. Unconditional Love.

We have a lot to do in this world. And the biggest gift we can give to this world is our own life. Ourselves. We cannot give to this world anything better than that. The biggest gift we can give is ourselves. And that’s what the generations will remember: our kindness, the way we lived, our integrity, standing firm by each friendship. Never cheating, stealing, betraying, character assassinating anybody. Instead, loving everybody, forgiving, forgetting all the bad memories of the past. Forgiving everyone who hurts you, forgiving everyone who misunderstands you, gives you uneasiness, gives you pain. Forgive them. We don’t need that thing in our mind. Our mind should be always empty and free. Instead, give love, give compassion, and never hurt anybody. Never, never hurt. If the truth is going to hurt a lot of people, don’t talk that truth. This is what you should remember, this is very important.

Anyway, I leave you with these thoughts. It’s a bit longer than usual. But I thought this story needs to be told. The goodness that you deliver to this world will live long, even after your death. Goodness factor has longevity. Righteousness has longevity. It will survive much more than your life. It will transcend your lifespan. So, be kind. Be honest. Be sincere and be truthful. Do not ask or crave for anything from others. Instead, give what you have, share what you have and be good. Do good and be good.

Here’s Mohanji signing off with this thought on your plate.

Lots of love.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Maja Otovich

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Q & A on Suicide

An excerpt from Kriya Intensive retreat in Bosnia, May 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

Devi: Nice subject.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Accidental death

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Enemies

Welcome to Mohanji Speaks, my friends. Hope you’re enjoying the podcast. Do share them, if you like them, with your friends and discuss about them, because they might be transformative. Today, we will talk about enemies. All of us have some enemies in our life, those who dislike, hate or judge us. This is part of existence.

Just like we have friendships, we have enmities as well. Are they good or bad? They are as they are. Everything has its value in life. Life is a variety; life has all these things.

But have you observed what we do with our enmities? First and foremost, we have every right to be peaceful, contented and satisfied with what we have. This right is, in fact, our birthright and we must cherish it. Because we are unique beings on Earth; we have the ability to experience life as we are, and we do. We must experience life, using those capacities and abilities. In that context, if somebody does not like what you do, if there is meaning in their dislike, certainly, you must change your ways. But if there’s no meaning in their enmity and it is out of jealousy, you have nothing to do. We need not be jealous of anybody, nor do we entertain somebody’s jealousy, because these are unwanted or unimportant things. They’re not important in life. So, it’s important to understand that enmities are our choice. We don’t need enemies, we accept people; when we accept, there’s no enmity. Lack of acceptance causes enmity. 

It’s our choice to have enemies or not; similarly, we have the choice to have friendships, as well, and to use them. It is a beautiful feeling to have nice friendships. I would like to talk about a recent incident. I have an old friend, in fact, he is my schoolmate and we were good friends for a long time. In 2014, a group of people turned against me, scandalized me, spoke ill about me and tried to pull down the entire infrastructure which I had painfully built up. And I was told that this man, my classmate, and close friend was also part of that group. People have seen him with the group which was against me. I was annoyed and disturbed by it wondering why he was behaving so. My thought was that he could have asked me if he had a question. But in such cases, where people intend to tarnish your name etc., they don’t talk to you; they just go ahead and do it. Since I was upset by his behaviour, I detached from him. I didn’t say anything to him, there was no communication.

One day, when I spoke to his brother, I told him these details and he, in turn, told my friend. It turned out that he became annoyed and said, “Why you couldn’t speak to me? Why did you speak to my brother?” I told him that once I had conveyed the matter, it was over; it was out of my system. I don’t keep anything in my mind.

But then, last week it occurred to me that this one issue was still pending. And I wondered why anything should remain pending. This relationship was sour. We don’t need sour relationships in our life; as much as possible, we should sort them out. We can have a peaceful existence, why have enemies? So, I sent a message to him, “I love you”. He later replied with a picture of a book I had gifted him a long time back, which I have autographed. He sent me a picture of the autograph too where I had wished him well. The friend then added, “Do you know, I read this book every day and I remember you.” I said,” I’m very happy.” When he sent me this picture, I sent across my phone number to him and asked him to call me. He didn’t call me, but he sent me his phone number. Immediately, I called him, and then he said this, “I read this book every day. And I remember you.” He then went on to narrate an incident. He said, “I never knew that we have a deep connection, a connection so deep that it could influence my life. When we were in touch, I didn’t realize it was important. But I didn’t party with anybody who was against you. I even told them, I know Mohan for many years, and he’s not what you think he is or, as you perceive.” However, that was not the impression I had, because he was with that group of people. He said he was with them because he was trying to solve the issue. Anyway, that’s beside the point. He told me that by coincidence, the day he fought with me, he lost a big contract, a very big and important one for him for his future. It went away and he did not know what to do. He tried his best to win it back. It was a contract job, and a huge sum of money was involved. But he just lost it, they just cancelled it. It was almost a year and a half since we first had an argument. The day I sent him the “I love you” note, the people who cancelled the contract, called him and said that they were not happy with the company they were working with. They wanted to give the contract back to my friend. He said, “I think there was energetic support in our relationship” and thus he got the contract back after a year and a half. He said, “You have been an integral part in my life and I’m part of your life”. Many times when I lost my job and had no way to join another one because I had to leave the country, he helped me, this was sometime in the 1990s and 2000s. There was a connection between us. When he lost the job, and he couldn’t enter a country, I brought him back to a different country so that he could continue with his business. We had a give and take; there were a mutual relationship and a mutual energy exchange. This was lost when we disconnected. A sign of that is that the day I wrote to him the “I love you” note, he got the contract back. Rest is history. I spoke with him and we decided that it’s not worth it to have enmity.

But the point is that we can correct, if possible, the enemies that have happened in our life. But on the other side, if somebody decides that you are an enemy, there’s nothing much you can do because it’s there, in their mind. You can still counter it with love. Whether they accept it or not, you can choose to love.

Having enmities is a crippling situation, or at least an uneasy situation, which we can avoid in life. We can choose to love. We can choose to have contentment, satisfaction, and we can be balanced in our life. And if an enmity happens, try to solve it, or ignore it or just counter it with love. This is the thought I would like to give today, and we can discuss further about it.

I strongly believe that life should be embalmed with love every moment. We give what we can. We share what we have. We love. And that should be good medicine in all situations. And we can be really happy with love. Enmity happens, enemies happen with or without your knowledge and control. We  remain as love; we remain as kindness, we remain as compassion. We exercise only those high qualities of life, and then you will have a better life. Be selflessness and be kindness, always.

This is Mohanji for you. Lots of love. Have a great day and a great week ahead.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

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What we resist, persists

Good day friends, this is Mohanji.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of love. This is Mohanji for you.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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