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

Unveiling The Secrets of India With Mohanji – The Palak Mehta Show

A true teacher is simply a mirror and if he or she is also a leader, you have hit a jackpot. India is a land of such powerful leaders and today, I’m going to be speaking to one of them.

I am your host Palak and I welcome you to the very first episode of the Palak Mehta Show. Presenting our first guest- Sri Mohanji.

WHO IS MOHANJI?

A Philanthropist, humanitarian, teacher, friend, a man next door and a globally renowned Spiritual Master – Sri Mohanji.

For some, he’s been a top shipping professional in the Middle East. For others – a dear friend in need. For many – he’s been a powerful Guru. A source of positivity and inspiration for karma yogis. Mohanji has founded several charity organizations and platforms worldwide such as the Mohanji Foundation – a platform for the building of healthier societies, registered in 15+ countries.  ACT Foundation, a global charity platform. Mohanji Youth  Club – a platform to empower and inspire teenagers. EBC -The early birds club, encouraging one to start their day at 4 am, and the World Consciousness Alliance – a unified platform for raising the vibration of humanity. The base of his approach is purity in thoughts, words, and actions, which lead to a liberated existence. Ahimsa, unconditional love, kindness, selflessness, compassion, righteousness, and the power of gratitude are key values that he wants to see with every person. Coexistence with and selfless service towards other species and Mother Earth should be our number one priority.

Palak: Namaste, Mohanji! Thank you so much for coming on this show. We are truly blessed.

Mohanji : Thank You.

Palak: Mohanji, my first question to you is: Who is a Hindu? Can anyone be a Hindu?

Mohanji: To answer it directly, Hinduism is not a religion. It’s a way of life. Anybody can be a Hindu, provided they are natural, they are themselves, they accept themselves totally, they are totally balanced in their outlook. They look at every being as part of themselves; they belong to the world and the world belongs to them. There is no greed, there is no anxiety, fear, there is no confusion, and there is total balance. If somebody has total balance, he can be called a Hindu. I do not think that this word ‘Hindu’ existed beyond a few hundred years. I believe that the name or the word Hindu or Hinduism is coined just to denote or just to talk about a few people who live on the south side of river Sindhu and are practicing various aspects of existence as they are. My firm belief is this. Hinduism is like an ocean. It’s not a religion; it is a way of life. And it is deeply rooted in how Nature operates the balance that Nature keeps. Nature has its own balance. Every being in Nature is fully rooted by the balance of Nature.

Like that, human beings as part of Nature should also be rooted in the aspects of Nature. A true Hindu will be totally peaceful. We will not be aggressive at all. Aggressive in a sense – not that we are not self-defensive, we will defend ourselves, that’s a different story. But, a true Hindu is somebody who nourishes and nurtures. A person who would contribute to the growth of everything around him and who will not contradict. Who will not be against things. But instead, through deep acceptance and deep nurturing, you will develop yourself and you will nurture the whole life around you. This is how a true Hindu can live.

So, it does not matter which segment you are born in. But internally, you can be a Hindu when you are balanced. ‘H’ which is the Sun and ‘Indu’, the Moon, the Sun and the Moon, the heat and the cold, the male and the female in us unite perfectly – it gives us a balance. That balance makes you a Hindu.

Palak: What is so special about this land called Bharat?

Mohanji: This land has the Bharat; Bha-ra-ta; Bha – has that bhav, feeling, the various feelings, and various aspects, dimensions. Ra– is the music, the Om, the vibration, the frequency. Ta is the rhythm. All this merges here in this land. And this merging of the Bha-Ra-Ta together makes the person connect to himself. In your own body, there is Bhav:  there are various feelings, various expressions, and various experiences, the room for tackling and experiencing various aspects of life. Then the rhythm, the movement of the rhythm. It’s like music. Like a medley. Each organ functions in a synchronized way, the synchronicity of functioning. And the Ta – the rhythm – basic rhythm, heartbeat. When this is all combined, we have a good healthy life. So, Bharat is the space where this aspect of existence, when everything is harmonious when all things are united – you have a good life.

Palak: Thank you so much. In that sense, isn’t Hinduism less of a religion and more of spiritual ideology?

Mohanji: There have been great Masters who totally connected to themselves and they became the Universe by focusing on themselves, finding themselves inside, and settling themselves inside. This is the place where we have seen tremendous great Masters, consistently – over every period of time, over every generation. This has helped this country, unique country, and unique space on Earth.

Palak: What is Purushartha, can you explain it in a little bit more in detail?

Mohanji: The key aspect of human existence is called Purushartha. Purushartha has four aspects: dharma, artha, kama, and moksha. Dharma is righteous living, the right way to live, righteousness. Artha is material support, including your bed, your clothes, your space or your house, or your food.  Artha is a very broad thing, every material that supports your existence.  Kama is the desire, the hope, the inspiration, and the tendencies. This is Kama; and Moksha – liberation. That means, while you are experiencing anything, you already know inside, that these are all temporary. Nothing stays forever. We are here on Earth like a tourist, with a duration of space of existence from birth to death.

Then we have to leave, at some point in time. So, with that full awareness, that we are existing in liberation, while we are experiencing everything, that is the right way to experience. Not through ownership and a false illusory feeling that we own these things. We cannot own land, we cannot own relationships, and we cannot own wealth forever. For some time you can be custodians of all this, but you cannot own them forever. The Earth owns us. We go away at the time of our death, which means we need to shed the body. So, this Purushartha is well dissected, well defined, and well-practiced here. This is very important. Every other place had Dharma: laws, rules, social laws, social rules and guidelines, and all those things. Artha – materials, welfare, material support, that was there. Kama – of course inclination, and desires which caused all developments. But, Moksha – the detachment aspect is defined only here. And that makes us unique, and that brings all the people to India. In search of this, how can you live detached amidst everything?

Palak: I always wondered Mohanji, is there a spiritual significance to the whole Indian attire?

Mohanji: The spiritual significance is basically what is comfortable for you in the space you exist. In a tropical climate, in a tropical place where there is humidity, much more humidity, like 90% humidity, if you have to wear a shirt and jacket, it does not suit you, because that is not suitable for the environment. So, our attires are all connected, like each segment. India has great diverse locations. Every place has its flavor, its own cuisine, its own food habits, its own climate, and attire.  Everything is different. That is all based on the conditions of these places. And I think that is the right way to do it.

Palak: How about the spiritual significance of the beard? A lot of men, back in the day, in ancient India, would grow their beards and even their hair. Especially a lot of people who follow spirituality. Is there a proper scientific or spiritual reason for this?

Mohanji: In ancient times, the idea of being natural also meant that they have long hair etc. And if you are talking about  the Saints and the people living in the Himalayas etc., there is no way they could go to see a barber quite easily. There were no barbers to attend to them. But most importantly, now it is scientifically proved also, when you allow your body and hair to be natural, you are more connected to your awareness. You are more aware of yourself. Awareness is fundamental that you should have. And in the practice of awareness, you should be fully aware of yourself. When you are unnatural, then slightly, in a subtle way, it disturbs that energy flow.

Palak: Mohanji, what do you think about traditional Indian art forms? Do they hold any spiritual significance?

Mohanji: I love it. I love the Indian art forms and numerous varieties. Every state has its own. And they are all rooted in Sanatana dharma, the eternal ground rules, or perpetual ground rules of Existence, means – how Nature is.  We have picked them up from Nature and we have practiced them over time. Everything is harmonious. Something which creates harmony inside and outside, this is the beauty of most of our art forms. Our various deities and our various festivals, they all have this aspect, the harmony aspect. Whether people know about it or not, over a period of time everything changes. Evolution happens in everything. We may not know the real philosophy behind everything. For example, why do we worship the basil plant – Tulsi, people may not know. Tulsi plant is one of the plants which has an aura eighteen times its size, which people have said. This is in the scriptures. That is why something which has a great aura is respected. Means, a person who has great aura is a saint. He is respected. Like that, the plant is respected because of the size of its aura. Every philosophy has a deep root. There is a meaning and a method; there is a reason, proper reason. Everything is coming towards or aligning to alignment, personal alignment, harmony. So, all these festivals, all these art forms, everything are expressions of, spontaneous expressions of personal harmony. That is why I love them.

They are not just something that will break up your emotions and just make you unconscious, or to just follow something without knowing. Not that it takes you to a level of unconsciousness. Instead, it takes you to a level of full consciousness. That is liberating, right? When something you can connect to, or something connects to you, it evokes in you a level of consciousness, higher consciousness, and that is beautiful. That is why I love it. I think that there should be a lot more explanations and kind of details to be given to people so that they can start experiencing them.

Palak: India is known to gift the world with a sattvic lifestyle. How is that related to animal cruelty?

Mohanji: If your aim is for higher awareness, if your aim is liberation, if you aim to meet and merge with higher consciousness, then consumption should be disciplined. Discipline is very necessary for elevation to a higher level, not that we are not all going to be saints or going to be liberated, so any food is fine. I always say – avoid violence in thoughts, words, and actions. So that you will be feeling good, feeling peaceful. Violence breeds guilt, regrets. These are non-essential things, they just imbalance you. Avoid imbalance and be harmonious. That is your birthright. That gives you peace of mind. You can sleep peacefully.

 

If you cheat, steal, betray, talk bad, take revenge, character assassinate, you won’t be able to sleep peacefully, because your mind will be contaminated. Just like that, food which has violence behind it, if you consume unconsciously, the body becomes numb. And the essence of that violence enters your system. That you realize, when all faculties are focused inside. Then you realize that every small thing counts.

Palak: Mohanji, in your opinion, what do you feel, is yoga being misunderstood globally?

Mohanji: I do not think that yoga is misunderstood. Yoga has been understood now more, and the value has been understood now. I think overall the awareness of yoga is much more than before. This is what I feel whenever I travel. Not only yoga, but also vastu, and ayurveda, our great wealth. Wealth is really the wealth of knowledge, which is being accepted and appreciated in the world outside. Our understanding of the plants, Nature has a part in our existence. Then the contribution of the birds, the animals, the harmony of humans with other species. I think there is a lot more awareness of all these things in the world. Some people have come and discussed these things with me. In case if there is a misunderstanding, I think this is very temporary or in a small segment. But on a large level, I think the understanding is much more. This is what I feel.

Palak: Mohanji, has the Indian system of schooling evolved over the years?

 Mohanji: The Indian concept of schooling has not grown over the years. This is my feeling. The Gurukul system was completely connected to a person’s inclinations – vasanas. A person who has a tendency, vasana towards let’s say science is taught scientific things. A person who has inclinations toward spirituality is taught that subject. If a person who has an inclination towards let’s say – martial arts or archery, or war techniques, that is what he is taught. If you look at the epics of the past, you will know how the education system happened.

The Master looked at the level of awareness of each individual, each student, and delivered accordingly. That means it was individualistic. No denial. This individualistic approach is very important. In a massive, in a kind of systematized educational system, we are creating just bricks on the wall, mediocrity. But in the Gurukul system, there cannot be mediocrity, the student learns based on what he is capable of. What his inclinations are. So, he will be happy to learn it. Learning should be a pleasure, not pressure. In the modern educational system, the main disharmony I find is that students are learning things to make money, to make a living. So, what do they learn? Most of them learn what provides them a job, which will give them a lot of money instantaneously. Meaning, as early as possible. People are only going for safe subjects. But their inclination or their attitude may be different.  But, in the Gurukul system, attitude is counted very deeply. And the Master knows. Like for example, if you see how Drona used to teach his students. He decided that each one of them was taught according to his attitude, his disposition, and his caliber, what he was capable of. And it is important that he will not use it for selfish pleasures. For the sake of dharma, not adharma, that was decided. There should be a total balance inside before a martial art is taught. That means it should be only used for self-defense. Not for attacking. Not for abuse. It should not be abuse. When a person decides to use it, to show his pride or for egoistic purposes, it’s taken away because nothing is taught for egoistic display. Instead, it is taught for self-defense. This is how our system worked earlier.

It was beautiful, harmonious. A person who likes carpentry is taught carpentry; a person who likes cobbler work is taught cobbler work. Things like that. Based on what his disposition is, he is taught that. That system should come back. We should educate people based on their disposition, attitude, and also their capacity and caliber. So that everybody will be peaceful. When you have people performing life or performing their duties in life, if they are taught things that are suitable for them, they will have a balanced existence. They’ll be happy to do it. Work will be a pleasure. Now work is usually a pressure, for the sake of money. The internal harmony is missing. We must get this back. Life has to be harmonious. I believe so. If you do not like something in life and you are pressured to do it, the whole life is disturbed. And that is displayed as aberrations. People go for intoxications, strange behaviors, sometimes abnormalities in behavior, sometimes perversions. All these things are connected to disharmony.

When a person is totally harmonious, they will not display anything disharmonious in life, which means they will not display any aberrations in life. I think that we have to bring back the old system of education; where we are teaching children based on their attitude. I think some schools are doing it, but not all schools. So instead of churning out like a machine, more and more bricks on the wall, we should instead concentrate on bringing out the best of every student. That will make every student competent, confident. They will not have to compete with anybody.

Why do you have to compete with anybody? Because you are trying to find your footing somewhere. If you are satisfied and stable with your skills, then what are you competing with? You are unique. And what you are displaying with your right skills, right mechanism, or the right education? What you are displaying is the right product, the right attitude in society. When you display the right attitude in society, you are rewarded the right way.

Glory happens when you are harmonious with your tendencies, your inclinations, and you are doing things which suit you. When you do things which suit you, you are happy with it. If your activity is a pleasure for you, you will be successful; you will have glory because you love to do it. You really love to do it. When more people do things which they love to do, the world is better. This should come back. India should get this back.

Palak: How to bring peaceful societies around the globe? Do you think a Gurukul system could help?

Mohanji: I would always say, let there be harmony in every aspect of existence, and then there will be harmony in the society. Now you can see a lot of aberrations, so much of heartache. We see disturbances. The root cause of these disturbances is that people are not happy. They are doing things for a living. But they are not happy. If they are happy, they will not disturb any other soul, any other being. They will be peaceful. To bring this peacefulness we must bring harmony. And that has to go in every aspect of existence. I always believe that there should be counseling in every level, from the small class to all the way to the highest class. Whichever class people go into for education, there should be counseling. People should be able to talk, “This subject is not suitable for me, and I can’t do this.” So that you never ask a fish to climb a tree and call it a failure, because fish can’t climb trees, fish is not supposed to do that, it is supposed to swim well. So, we will give that aid and ability for people based on their disposition, their inclinations, tendencies, attitude. Then there will be a great life.

Palak: Mohanji, I follow you on twitter. And in a recent post, you mentioned that Nikola Tesla, Bob Marley and Bruce Lee are saints on their own right. That is a very unique perspective.  Please shed some light on that.

Mohanji: I respect all these people, like Bob Marley and Nikola Tesla because there are certain aspects which makes you a saint. One of the key aspects is that you can have anything you like because you are resourceful, but you want nothing. Means total detachment. You can have plenty, but if you don’t need anything, you are not connected to any aspect of your existence outside of you.  Instead, you are fully connected to every aspect of existence inside you, you are a saint.

You can be a musician, you can be a pilot, you can be a scientist, it does not matter, but how detached you are makes you a saint. We had a great president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, he was a saint – walking, talking saint. He was living the life of a saint. When he left his body, he just left behind the dress he used and a few pennies. That is it. He was the president of the country but he never amassed wealth. This greed for things from Earth and the greed for positions and possessions, they all make you terrestrial. But here, you can have anything you like in the world, because you are resourceful, you have talents, but you are not affected by anything, means – you don’t want anything.

When Karl Marx introduced the concept of haves and have nots, it really inspired the world. And that is how communism took birth. But there was one category of people at that time, and even now, and before that time, who could have had anything they want but they needed nothing, the great Masters. They were fully occupied with the bliss inside. They were really floating in that place, fully occupied, enjoying the bliss. They wanted nothing from this Earth. This class is the real class, totally detached from everything. Detached from everything, but enjoying everything. If something comes to them, they enjoy it.

If it does not come to them, fine. So there is no regret, there is no guilt, there is no desire, there is no ambition on that level. Just living their life, free as a bird. Complete freedom. So, a person living in total freedom without any materials, like intoxications, etc., on their own – can be considered a saint. This is real sainthood. Real sainthood is total detachment, while you have everything. Not that you don’t have it and you say, “I don’t need it”, that is different. But while you have everything, while you can have everything, but you don’t need anything, that is sainthood. That is a real saint.

Palak: Describe India in three words?

Mohanji: Bha- ra- ta.

Palak: Who is your favorite Bollywood actor?

Mohanji: Amitabh Bachchan.

Palak: You started speaking a little bit of Hindi, what is your current favourite Hindi dialogue?

 Mohanji: Speaks in Hindi

Palak: Mohanji, what is your vision for India in the next 20 years?

Mohanji: Total love. Total coexistence with harmony.

Palak: What is that one thing which this pandemic has given birth to?

Mohanji:  Yourself.

Palak: Alright, this is an easy one. Most of us know the answer, but we still want to hear it from you -Mountains or beaches?

Mohanji: Mountains.

Palak: If a feature film is made on the life of a saint, who would it be?

Mohanji: Swami Vivekananda.

Palak: Thank you so much, dear Mohanji, from the bottom of our hearts for taking this time. And I’m sure that our viewers have not had enough of you. We will be calling you again next time, and we were truly honored to have you.

Mohanji: Thank you so much. I wish you great success. This is your first show. I’m sure you will do very well. And there will be a great, great presence of you and your shows in the world. And the world needs it. You have the caliber, you have the talent, and you will be visible. Shine bright, the world needs light!

Palak: Thank you so much.

Mohanji: Thank you.

Palak: Thank you so much for watching. If you like this show, subscribe and share. I’ll see you next time with another very special guest.

 

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic

Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan

Time to Unify Based on Love – part 2

Mohanji Speaks – Zoom satsang, part 2
on 10 November 2019

Question 1: How can I get out from self-sabotage, fear, conformity and the paradigm of the impossible?

Well, that’s very simple. As I explained in the beginning, it has to start with accepting yourself. There is some element in you which is not accepting yourself fully. And you probably are depending on other people’s opinion about you for your acceptance of yourself. But please understand, nobody can understand you, sometimes even you cannot understand yourself. Because you are a full and complete being, if you really accept and understand that aspect of you, where you are full and complete, then you will spontaneously feel no kind of expectations, judgments, or criticisms about yourself in you. Only we can raise ourselves or pull ourselves down.

It is all our story. This is a unique story and we are the author of this story. Because of our authorship we have this life. This person or this book of life is written by us. What we call destiny is our script. So, if you really accept yourself, you will not sabotage yourself. Sabotaging also happens with expectations, which you probably derived from the society, somebody told you that you should do like this. We also have a lack of acceptance in us.

If you look at everyday life, we will feel that. There are so many factors which we don’t like. “Oh if only I was like that… If only I was like this.” We have a certain benchmark; we have certain expectations. They are all unnecessary. We are what we are, whether we take it or leave it. There’s nothing you can do about it. Because this is the script you made for this life right from your birth till death. The script is well written. All the people coming into your life who are giving you experiences and flavours are all connected to the script. You allowed them, you allowed these people, you allowed these situations, and all these happenings are your choice. If you look at it as a drama, the whole drama from birth to death, you allowed all these people who are walking in your life, you allowed all the experiences. So, all you have to do now is just witness, watch this drama and be happy. Because there’s nothing you can do now. If you want to have another script, you have to take another life.

Question 2: Is reciprocating the bond between a dog or any animal and its human expression, a type of bhakthi?

In any kind of bonding or any kind of relationship, don’t look at them as animals, people, etc. Then you won’t understand. Understand that every being coming to you is a soul in action. They are all souls in action. So, when they are coming close to you, think about why they are coming closer to you, because there is a connection. So, the cause is a connection, which is a continuation, and the duration depends on the intensity of the connection. The flavours or emotions that we share with them as well are connected to this connection.

If you look at the whole picture, so many beings have come to you and given you experiences, not just human beings. But we have a special kind of feeling towards human beings because we are of that species, not because we have something else to do with human beings. All relationships have their unique flavour and their relevance. We must accept all relationships as the same. What caused it? It doesn’t matter. How long it will last? It doesn’t matter. Right now, you have it; experience it. That’s all. Life has to be looked at that way. Right now, we have it. This is our time; this is our experience, that’s it. What will it be tomorrow? We do not know. What about yesterday? It has finished. So, we look at life like this.

We don’t know who all will be with us tomorrow. Whether it will be an animal body, bird body or a human body, it doesn’t matter. Who will live with you or walk with you, be with you forever in the future? We don’t know. And how long will we be with them, walk with them, talk with them? We don’t know because, we don’t know when we will die. There are so many things which we do not know. What you know is the reality. Right now, you are listening to me and I’m talking to you. This is a truth. This is a reality and that’s about it. Next hour, we don’t know. Basically, past is finished; future we don’t know. So, don’t worry about these two. Right now, we are here. You make the best out of it. That’s it.

Do not look at the body and underestimate the soul. The soul is the same and it has taken various bodies. In the story of Krishna, when the Avatar was happening; Krishna was taking birth and various beings decided to come as cows, calves etc. so that they could touch him, and they could be with him. Various beings decided to come even as grass where he walks so his feet would fall on them. Such things like that can happen. So, everything has its relevance. Do not underestimate the grass or even a falling leaf. Everything has its flavour. Everything touches you, if you look around, if you witness the light, witness the world. Everything will touch you from deep within, and it has its relevance.

Also understand, at the end of the day, life is equal to the experiences that you have. So, make your experiences beautiful. We must completely remove all the anger, hatred, jealousy etc. All those things are not needed. Just be plain and simple and accept the world as it comes. Accept the people as they come and accept the whole dimensions of life as they are, so that you have no conflict; you have no resistance; you are in total acceptance and then see how beautiful your life is.

Question 3: How do we know if we are in a purification mode or just suffering because of ignorance?

Suffering is always ignorance. There’s no other way. Suffering cannot be of something else. When you are fully aware, you won’t suffer. Ramana Maharishi had cancer. When somebody asked him if he has pain, he said, “I have pain, but I have no suffering.” Understand that suffering is a choice. Suffering is usually due to resistance. When total acceptance happens, there is no way you will be suffering. In total acceptance mode, there is zero suffering.  Whenever there is resistance, we tend to suffer.

Purification is very simple. It’s an every-moment thing. You can always be on purification mode. How? Make sure all your thoughts, words, and actions are selfless. You have no enemies. You have no anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, etc., and you have no negative feelings about anybody on Earth. Everybody has done their part in your life. Some have given you good experiences. Some have given you bad experiences. They’re all experiences at the end of the day. You have lost nothing. Because you have abundance of experiences, you should be rich. The richness that you have, the scars on your face, should talk about your survival, not your pains and sufferings. It should be a life of strength, power and abundance. Abundance happens only through acceptance.

Generally, we resist so many things. We don’t even enter an experience because we are afraid. Then, that part is completely removed from life. Instead, we should focus on what is. This is what has been given to you; this is the time, this is the place, this is the situation, these are the people, these are the experiences. Use that hundred percent and enjoy that experience. Whatever the result is, it doesn’t matter. When you are in pain, go into the depth of the pain and come out victorious. When you have happiness, dive into the depth of happiness and come out victorious. When you have suffering, go deep into suffering and come out of it. Happiness or sorrow, you should dive deep into everything and come out of it. You will see that you are fully yourself. It will be a life well lived.

Whatever happens in life, always surrender at the feet of your Master if you have a Master (Guru), or at the feet of the Lord, if you have a Lord that you worship. Whatever religion you are, whatever method you follow, it doesn’t matter. If you do not believe in God, keep surrendering at the feet of the existence because, existence has provided all these. Whether your connection is with a Guru, a teacher, or a God that you imagine, or the supreme consciousness, pure brightness, whatever it is, keep surrendering everything and say, “Thank you, I’m feeling grateful.” Live every moment with gratefulness. Then you are rich. A life well lived.

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth

Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelantttt

Use Human Zoo to Reconnect

March 22^nd, 2020

 

Hello friends.

This is Mohanji.

We’ve been talking about the coronavirus and its effects for some days now and we are feeling it, every moment. We have seen that the human kingdom is affected; the human world is affected deeply. We are all in confinement. We are actually feeling now how the animals feel to be in the zoo in confinement, their whole life. We are now getting a taste of it, how it feels to be inside a factory farm, how it feels to be inside a zoo. And this confinement is teaching us great lessons where we feel how important our freedom is. All the beings (of non-human species) who are free are rejoicing and when all the human beings are confined to their rooms, we can see that the other kingdoms – animal kingdom and bird kingdom are rejoicing; they are roaming free, they are happy, there is less pollution, there is less radiation, there is less sound.

So, you see the difference we have made in the world now, the difference that we have actually been making in this world. We have not only confined animals to farms and zoos, we have literally starved them, tortured them, mutilated them and injected them with so many chemicals, did scientific experiments on their bodies, and killed them. We even stole the babies from their mothers. You know, mother and baby have a very sacred relationship, whichever species it is. A baby and its mother’s relationship are always highly sacred, but we have been insensitive. We stole babies of cows in factory farms and isolated them. We are doing so many things for the sake of our pleasure; for the sake of the milk of the mother, we separate the mother and baby. It’s a very bad thing. It’s a very sad thing.

Now, nature has kept us all indoors and made us feel what we are doing in this world. And this is a good time for introspection. This is a good time for contemplation. This is a good time. So, we now understand what sort of anguish and anxiety we have created in the animal kingdom. Especially perversions like trophy hunting, hunting for the pleasure of mind. Hunting means killing somebody, killing an animal who never wanted to die; a peacefully settled animal, just being killed for the sake of pleasure. Animal kingdom never does that. In the animal kingdom, a lion only kills when he’s hungry. Otherwise, he does not kill any being, but we do; human beings do.

Awareness and Unity

So, this confinement is giving us a lot of awareness or it should give us that awareness and refinement. Now, all the major places of visit are closed: temples are closed, mosques are closed, and churches are closed. Places of pilgrimages are closed, malls are closed, cinemas are closed, airports are partially closed. The transportation industry is severely affected, tourism is affected. There are no cruise ships going around. There is no major tourism happening at all. And people are asked to sit at home in each country. So, almost 7.5 billion people are sitting at home.

We have family unity now; we are all together. This is beautiful. I mean, we have perhaps never spent so much time with each other for a long time, even as a family. But now we are meeting each other as family. This is beautiful. So we must make the best use of this time, we must recreate the bonding, recreate the love, connection, recreate togetherness; this is a good time for that. And this is also one of the reasons why we have been put together: to reconnect, to re-establish love, companionship, togetherness, to look at each other. So this is a good time for that.

This also gives us enough time to reconsider our habits, our addictions, our relations, our needs, and greed. It’s a good time. I would leave you to think about this, this aspect and we’ll talk later, soon.

Lots of love.

 

Transcribed and proofread by

Rekha Murali

 

Read or watch other Mohanji’s messages on Corona virus here.

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Silence Speaks – part 2

Satsang with Mohanji in Begrade, Serbia
13th October 2019

Watch the full satsang here.

PART 2

Q: What is your recommendation about the emptiness one feels after a loss. Should one grieve or ignore, or how to deal with it?

M: I’ll tell you my experience. When I lost my daughter in a road accident, it was very serious pain. I thought it was the end; I was very close to her. But then, when people started coming to the house and seeing me, they were expecting me to be sad for a long period of time. I then realized that this was my personal sorrow and that in fact, none of these people had anything to do with it. Why should I be a victim of someone’s sympathy? It paralyzes you. I refused the sympathy, because it was a personal sorrow, it was a completely personal issue. Also I refused to indulge in self-pity. Both of them paralyze you. You are thinking and nurturing sorrows because you love to be in that state.

Instead what I did was, I moved into serving the world in her name, in my daughter’s name. It has been sixteen years since then now. In many countries, ACT Foundation and Ammucare are functioning. See, there is a T-shirt here, ACT Foundation. How many lives have we touched? It’s not my merit, it’s not my power. It’s the intention. The power of intention made it. I decided that I will not remain a victim and receive sympathy or nurture self- pity. Instead,  I moved into the world; there was opposition, there were many obstacles. People tried various things to pull me down, and when I started this in 2003, some people, even authorities asked, “Do you have a lot of money?” I said, ”No“.  “Do you have somebody with a lot of money with you?” I said “No“. “Then this will not run even for one year”, they said. Now, sixteen years later, I can definitely say, “It ran! It did touch many lives. It’s still touching many lives.” How much it has grown and who received benefit from it, I don’t know, I never counted it. Recently somebody asked me, “What is the success behind ACT Foundation?” I said, “I never owned it. I delivered it to the world. The world is running it. People of the world are running it“.

In 2003, when they asked me the question, “What is your investment?” I said, “Myself“. I don’t have anything else to invest. I have only myself to invest, and I invested myself. Until today, I have never called up anybody asking for money. I never told anyone, “You must do something in ACT Foundation.” Never! Money has come. Activities have happened. Life has happened this way. Today, my daughter still lives, in many countries, through many people.

You can convert every loss into something powerful and positive. This is up to you. This is your disposition. If you sit down and cry, drink alcohol, pity yourself, nobody gains anything out of it; in fact life is lost. One life is already lost, and your life will be also lost. This is my answer.

I would say never waste your life, because you are unique in this world. There is none like you. You are a unique creation. You are neither high nor low or equal, you are unique, and there is nobody like you. You must use your uniqueness in the right way, as best as possible and make a difference in the world. Why not? Why do we have to just live and die? Keep shining bright!

When I wake up in the morning each day,  I say a prayer, “Thank you for using me.“  I do not take ownership. I really don’t have any extra powers as compared to any of you. But I refuse to lie down and die. It is not always easy, because sometimes people are very cruel toward us. Even if you are doing good things, they will come and say something very dirty and bad. They want you to slow down. You must get up and walk again.  Because it is your life! Nobody else is responsible. It is our life. We have to walk. Keep walking. And don’t expect inspiration from those outside. You should have inspiration from within.

We have to be self-inspired, there is no choice. Don’t expect anything from outside, because many times when you expect that, you get the opposite. They try to pull you down. They try to tell you that you are not good; they try to tell the world that you are not good. They do all these things. This is part of life. You watch anyone who has done anything in this world; people have accused them, criticized,  and even crucified them. This is the world. You have to live in this world. You have to live as yourself in this world.

What can you depend on? The purity of intention within you. Your intention should be always pure. You should always mean good for others. Whatever others do to you, don’t worry about that. Be good to  people. Do your best. I always make sure that if somebody comes to me I do my best; whether they are eligible, not eligible, good, bad, ugly, I don’t look at. We don’t have time for that. We don’t have time to waste. Each breath that we take on earth is valuable. This platform is valuable; that is, the earth is valuable. We don’t know how long we will live here. So, what we can do? Do your best; forget about applauses, hatred or criticism. Let everything be. You do your best. Don’t expect that everybody will appreciate. That is a big problem. If you expect people to appreciate and if they don’t appreciate, you will stop doing things. That is not good.

Sometimes, when I almost decided it is a thankless world, I should not do anything, then she (referring to Devi) was saying, “Keep moving, move! “ So I said, ok. When some people criticize for what we do, I tell them, “Can you do something better than this, I will support you?” They vanish. I realized that many people who talk, do nothing. They just talk, they don’t have any initiative for doing anything; even taking this piece of paper from one place to another, they won’t do. But they criticize those who do. So I say,” You do it better than me, no problem, I will support you.” I would like to see positive activities happening in the world; it is not important who does it, let it happen. But it doesn’t happen. So, what should you do? Keep walking. Don’t slow down. Don’t stop.

One more thing you can be sure about. Those who connect to you with their mind will not stay long. They change their mind. Those who connect to you from their heart will never leave. You can trust them. These are the people who will walk with you, whatever happens, they will never leave you. These, you can trust. Keep walking. They will walk with you. Night or day, winter or sunshine, it doesn’t matter, they will walk with you.

That is why Buddha created  his  entire empire with five people. So many people came to see him. Five people stayed. So many people came to listen to Jesus, twelve people stayed. It is the same with everybody. All those who do something in the world, do not have many to support them. Many will come to see, but not to support; a few people will support, and they really will. That is enough to build the world. This is the long story, but  it is important to understand, because I do not accept that you are weak, that something is impossible. These are things that I don’t understand. I always say, “There will be a way.“ Everything has a method. If you have the key, there is a lock; if you do not put the key in the right place you cannot open the lock. So, there is a right place, a right method to do things, find that thing. It will happen. I do not agree that something is impossible in life. If you ever feel weak, remember me, I will be with you. If nobody is with you, I will be with you. This is guaranteed.

Q: Do you enjoy being worshiped and feeling that you are special or above others?

M: I think she (referring to Devi) can truly reply to this question.  

(Laughter in the audience)

Please understand one thing. There is nothing special in me. But if somebody feels that they get satisfaction by praying to me, worshipping  me, loving me or hating me, I accept it as it is, because at the end of the day, it is about their satisfaction. I will never ask anyone to worship me, because it is of no interest to me. If somebody says,” I have to worship you,” I say, “Ok, do it,“ because it is for them.

Understand that different types of people meet me each day. Each person has his or her own favorite expression or style; who am I to deny it? But if I demand it, it is a different story. I never demand it. I never ask for it. I do not look at myself as special, to be really honest. I think that everybody is myself. Why do you worship another person? Worship yourself. This is what you should do. But somebody says, “You are amazing, I want to worship you, I become happy.” Then I say, “Please, go ahead“. Some people write poetry about me, they feel happy. Some people hate me, they get happy. I agree to everything,  so that they are satisfied in their life in their own way. Do you understand?

It is not just me, anyone who is aligned or stabilized, even you, will become like a powerful magnet, whether you like it or not. And that is because of only one reason,  you are aligned; your mind, intellect, body, ego, spirit, everything is together. When you look, everything looks, then every activity becomes powerful; you become attractive. It is not that you are doing something, you become like that. A magnet does not have to decide to become a magnet; it is a magnet. It attracts people; each person responds in different ways; as they are. We don’t interfere in this. People wrote the Aarati, I didn’t say anything. Some people wrote thousand names for me; everything is allowed. I have never depended on any of these things. If I depend on them, then I become addicted to somebody. Then if somebody does not do it, I would become sad. I am happy and I don’t want to compromise on my happiness.

I am sure that some of you definitely experienced in this lifetime, when you become totally aligned, you realize one thing: whatever you learned from the outside world, has no value. Secondly, the inside world is empty. When you have no outside world, and inside world, what are you? You are everything. You are all over.  In that kind of a situation, the only thing you feel all the time is that you know nothing. You are totally empty and free. You are  not bound by the emotions, or the devotion, or anybody.

Now, when you are like that, how will people respond to you, we don’t know and we cannot say, nor we can deny. People respond according to what they are. Some people feel a lot of love, some people love devotion, some people feel various things. Anyway, nothing will bind you. You are already free. You have chosen freedom. You are not dependent on someone’s emotion for your life. The remote control of your happiness is definitely not in the hands of someone else, it is in your hands. So you don’t change the channel often. If it is in someone else’s hand, they keep changing the channel; sometimes they are angry, upset, happy or sad; these will not affect you. But at a certain point in time, nothing affects you. The last point is you look at everybody as yourself; all are your relatives, all are your soulmates, there is no difference. Then, whether they worship or deny, hate or do whatever, how does it matter? When you love somebody, and they betray you, sometimes you feel the pain. Then you feel, “Ok, let them have their enjoyment at your cost. No problem.”

I will definitely recommend worshiping one person, in one lifetime, who is that? J YOU. Because you are a wonderful creation, understand that. Because you are an amazing creation, why not worship yourself? This includes self-acceptance, and love. So, instead of worshiping something outside of you, you must worship yourself and appreciate this creation called You in this lifetime, otherwise you will lose a lifetime. If you don’t worship me, I lose nothing. But if you don’t worship yourself, you will lose one lifetime.

Don’t feel that God is looking for your worship. God is busy. The whole Universe belongs to Him. Look at ourselves from the moon? We are like tiny ants here. We pray to God and God becomes happy? Understand the God in you and behave like God through love. Unconditional love. That makes you one with God. What you need to know is that you are the Supreme Consciousness in small bodies; from outer space we appear like tiny ants, ants walking around with big ego.

Q: How important it is to have living spiritual master?

M: Dangerous! How does it feel to live with a mad man? (Laughter)

It depends on you. If you are ready to break your ego into pieces, then there is nothing better than that. If you want to hold on your ego, but if you want to break the master to pieces… (laughter) Both ways it is a good idea. (Laughter) If Master breaks your ego into pieces, then you become free. If you break the Master into pieces, the world becomes free. (Laughter)

Is that clear? Good idea or bad idea? (Laughter)

It is very unpredictable to be with a living Master because his law is the law of dharma, not the social law.  He lives as per what has to be done, not what he loves to do. What you have to do is his  priority, not what you love to do. But, those who operate from the mind, their priority is what they love to do, not what they have to do. This is the main difference.

When you live with a Master, who only does what he has to do, because he can see through the destiny path, the karmic configuration, he will only do what he has to do, which might be shocking for you, because you have already boundaries, concepts, ideas, understandings and you decided that this is the way to go. He breaks the rules. It really tilts you. Sometimes, he shakes you. Sometimes you become scared. It is not as easy as you think; but if you are man enough to handle it and to allow your ego to be torn into pieces, then nothing better than that.

So now you know why she lives in Slovenia and I live in India. (Laughter) When you cannot tolerate each other this is the way to be together.

The conflict is that when you operate from your mind, you are security oriented; when your mind dissolves, you have no problem with security. If you are operating from your mind, insecurity is part of it and Master is secure. When Master is secure, he is very flexible; time, activities, everything is flexible. But, when you operate from your mind, you need patterns, you need structure. It is  very difficult. It is a big clash. When you are with a living Master, there always will be this clash; you are approaching the master from the mind level, with insecurity and the Master is operating  with the  complete security and full flexibility; it doesn’t work well. So people run away. They get fascinated by the Master, how he looks, how he walks,  how he smells, (laughter) they try to come  but then run away, saying, “Oh no! This is not what I want!” They also say, “He is crazy!”

Q: At the beginning of each spiritual practice, I keep progressing. But at the certain level there seems to be veil or curtain that falls and disables me from growing further, no matter what I do or how much more I try. So is this to help me develop patience or is it a sign that this path is closed for me or that something else should be found?

M: The activity which gives you experience for a period of time, after a while the same activity cannot give you the same experience. This is natural. That is called the stagnation stage. That doesn’t mean that what you are doing is wrong. But the same activity cannot give you the same experience. It is as simple as that.

If you continue doing the same practice during the stage of stagnation, then you will reach the stage of vacuum; confusions such as are you are doing the right thing or wrong thing, Guru is good, Guru is bad, will happen. If you still do the same practice continuously, then you reach the stage of stable bliss, where you are always peaceful. These are hurdles that you have to cross to reach the stage of stable bliss. It is a test of your consistency. Be consistent and definitely you will reach your destination. The tortoise kept walking, it reached before the hare. (In the fable of the tortoise and the hare where they had a race to see who was faster.)

Q: I lost my child four times. What is the reason why I cannot maintain my pregnancy? What is the way to calm myself down and help my body accept the fetus and bring the child to this world?

M: That is an individual question, individualistic answer is needed. I would suggest you to talk to any of these Mai-Tri healers here. They will tell you.

Q: How do I know that I am on the right path and my life’s purpose?

M: Please understand, life purpose is not separated from your life. What you are experiencing each moment is your life’s purpose. It is  continuous, right from birth till death. Life purpose is what we are experiencing each moment. Whatever you experience through the waking state, the dream state and your deep sleep state is your purpose of life. It is a mixture of all the things you have experienced so far in life.

How do you know you are on the right path? You will feel good. This is an internal thing. The right path, the right practice, the right Guru, the right destination, you will feel these because you have that capacity already. You will feel it is natural for you. Whatever is natural, whatever is not artificial is the right thing. So, life’s purpose is whatever you are experiencing at each point.

Higher purpose of life is to be aware of the consciousness that is driving or moving your life. Being aware of it, that this consciousness is active when you are awake, when you are dreaming, and when you are in a deep sleep;  being aware of that consciousness, which is behind all these activities and your understanding, is the higher purpose of life. As a human being you can understand that. No other species can do that. As human beings, you already have that faculty in you which will help you to be aware that whatever is happening is energized by something else.

The highest purpose of life is to feel God within yourself, and in everything around you, you only see God. This means the energy, the vibrations and the essence, everywhere. That is the higher purpose.

Is that clear?

Q: If I can’t see any changes within myself or outside of myself, does it mean that I am progressing or not? And in certain situations, I specially wish for Mohanji to lead me. Is it enough to just to have that intention and wish?

M: Mohanji to leave you or to lead you? Laugh J

Well, when you connect with me, I am connected to you. There is no need for any formality, or any particular method of connection. When you think about me, you are connected to me. When your mind is with me, you are connected to me. Automatically there is an energy exchange going on. It is not only me, when you think about anybody, there is an energy exchange happening. Sometimes you become conscious about it, you become aware of it, sometimes you are not aware of it, because sometimes it is based on sensitivity at that time or our moods or our emotions. So, when you are thinking about me, you are connected to me.

What are you connected to? The Consciousness which is represented by this body. Don’t think that I keep ‘PABX’ to check the connection of everybody. I don’t have to do that, because the consciousness is available, and that way you are connected. There is no need to specifically lead you in any particular method. Because, as I told in the beginning: The journey is you, the traveler is you, the destination is also you. In this bargain, my job is to ensure that you are travelling alright. That is why I said, if nobody is with you, I am with you. I never change my mind because I have no mind to change! There is no need for any ceremony; there is no need for any kind of initiation. When you think about me, you are connected to me and you will feel that difference. You will feel that energy. Just connect. Just stay stable. There is no particular time frame or a method; there is no duration. We are eternally connected. Just like the electricity on the wall. It is there. If you switch it on, you will get light. If you switch it off, there is no light. It is as simple as that. Electricity continues to connect. It is always there. This is a continuous flow of energy, and that has united all of us. That is why I said at the beginning that we are all soulmates, otherwise why did we meet in this life? There is reason for the meeting, right? And there is a reason for connecting. And not all the flowers will become fruit. There are a lot of flowers on the tree; some of the flowers fall off. But some flowers will stay and become fruit. Even the tree does not know which flower will become fruit. As long as you keep a safe distance you will remain warm. If you come too close, it might be burning hot.

I tell these people who are with me “Do not waste my life with me.” Do something better, find a boyfriend, get married, have children and live your life. Don’t waste your time with me, because it is too hot, in the neighborhood. J

Q: Is celibacy required for someone’s spiritual awakening?

M: Can you handle it? The celibacy? It depends on whether you can handle it. Any kind of suppression, is not conducive for awakening. Anything you suppress is only a postponement. Whatever you suppress, you postpone it for another time. Whatever you have, all the pluses and the minuses, all the strengths and weaknesses, you have to experience, complete, and then evolve. That is the right way. After a while, you will have no thought of that kind. Otherwise, if you suppress something, your main thought will be those things that you have suppressed. It is not only with celibacy, anything you have suppressed in life, they keep reminding you that you have suppressed them. That will become a botheration. And it takes time to come out of that botheration.

Q: How to overcome unconscious mechanisms like ego and egoism?

M: Ego is the skeleton of your personality. It is part of you. It is kept so that you can be aware of your existence, or experience existence from the level of  personality, that is,  you as a personality. It has relevance. But when we become egoistic, that is ignorance. When we are expecting respect, expecting  many things from the society, from other people, it is usually connected to not understanding. If you are very stable and you expect nothing, you are fine the way you are. Instead, if you want much from people, you want everybody to respect you or worship you, like you asked previously, these are weakness. These are wrong dimensions of ego. If you expect nothing, you are peaceful and settled nothing can affect you; you are stable. If our egoistic existence is the problem, how do you come around it or overcome it? By being aware of it. Just be aware that these things are happening and  watch them. Don’t do anything. Don’t try to fight with it. Watch it. It will slowly dissolve.

If you sincerely want to dissolve your ego, help the helpless people or beings. When I was practicing on my own, I used to also practice insignificance, which means I am not important. Even now I practice it. I am not important; everybody else is important. That is the way I operate in this world. When you feel, ”Oh, I am amazing, great etc.”, I immediately remember, “ These are provided by them for a purpose, by the Masters or God, body is provided, awareness is provided, space and facilities are provided, listeners are provided, I have done nothing.” If you keep practicing insignificance and if you believe you are not all that important, there is no way ego can bother you.

Q: Can we transcend duality in this reality?

M: Absolutely. One word, awareness.

First, always remember – all that is happening is temporary; everything that is happening, it is momentary, temporary. Everything will move. Everything will pass. But you remain as a witness to this whole show. You are witnessing this only when you are awake. When you are sleeping, you cannot witness. That is first level.

Second point – always ask: Who is speaking through me? Who is seeing through me? Who is hearing through me? What is this thing which is in me, which is experiencing all these things? Keep asking these questions.

Third point – when you are responding, or when you are in this world, when you are moving around, you are responding to various situations, various people, various emotions, who is involved in all this? And how do you feel about it? Different emotions, different people, different situations,… something is happening within you; sometimes happiness, sometimes sorrow, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Who is experiencing all these, what is happening inside?

Then, fourth, the all-important question: Who am I?

Until you get the realization that “I am the Supreme Consciousness, I am the Consciousness, I am everywhere”, keep walking. And who is your Guru? LIFE. Life is your Guru. Every day brings you some lessons through experiences. Every day, every moment, you understand something whether you like it or not.

Nobody in this life can give you better lessons than life itself. So, you are important, your life is important, the lessons from life are important; this is why you are born. This is the purpose of your life. Whether we like somebody, dislike somebody, whether we like something, dislike something, it doesn’t matter; but you should like yourself because you cannot be changed. Don’t fall for hallucinations like, “I am something else, I am somebody else, and I am probably enlightened! “ These are concepts. Don’t worry about them. When you are enlightened, others will know. How will others know? You will not be affected by whatever it is happening outside, you will be peaceful. You will wake up in the morning and ask the question, “What else can I do for this world?” We will not be bound by the overwhelming feeling of, “Me and Mine“. We will be peaceful.

Now, if somebody does not understand you that is their problem, not your problem. Not everybody has to understand you and not everybody has to love you. Those who really love you will not expect anything from you. If someone expects something from you and loves you, they will not stay also.

Life is so simple. Don’t complicate. Philosophy is simple, right? What are we talking about then? J

Go home and have some food. Thank you!

 Read part 1

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

 

 

Skanda Vale Satsang – Part 2

In summer 2018, Mohanji visited Skanda Vale ashram in the UK. On 17th August, he did Prana Pratishta to the first idol of Lord Dattatreya in Europe (download discourse – mp3 ) and to Nagaraja murti as well.(download discourse – mp3 ).

Here is part 2 of the satsang he conducted afterwards.

Q: Can you please explain what is Prakriti and Maya?

Mohanji: The two aspects which the scriptures talk about are Purusha and Prakriti, rough translation is Shiva and Shakti. Purusha is Shiva. His expression is all over. And for him to express he needs Shakti, that is Prakriti. Maya is relative truth. Maya is truth, but it has a relative duration. And Karma’s expressionis Maya. Karma is also relative. Everything is changing. Like when you are 5 years old, when you are 10 years old, 15, 20, … your understanding or your experience changes. Same material would have given you different experiences. Maya works in that way. It’s always relative. Absolute Truth is Matha or Mother; absolute truth. Shakti is the activity aspect of Shiva, and Shiva by nature is full and complete. They say that whole created universe is just like a pimple on Shiva’s space. Shiva is much larger than the pimple (Laughter). So Shakti is needed for Shiva, that’s Prakriti; it is Shakti. Prakriti is the creation, created out of pure consciousness which is Shiva.

I asked the question to somebody recently why Shiva got angry when Shakti/Sathi died? Shiva should not get angry, right? Will Pure consciousness get angry? Pure consciousness cannot accept that Shakti does not exist. That means there’s no creation. The Tandava, the expression, happened in a violent mode, because Shakti was dissolving into Shiva. When Shakti dissolves into Shiva, what happens? Pure Consciousness, no creation. So, Shiva shook up and he fragmented the whole thing again. With a lot of difficulty at one time he created the atom. Now again, that atom dissolving back to pure consciousness, then no creation. So, he expressed himself. It’s not anger; it’s like intensity. Sometime intensity will be considered as anger.

Speaker: Mohanji, I wanted to ask why we’re all separate, why we feel we are separate from God. The idea is that you come to know God, that’s the purpose of life. Why God is one and total and undone, why separate?

Mohanji: That’s only in the mind. See, when you’re in deep sleep, you have no separation, you’re fully in bliss, because you don’t know your time, your space your properties. But when you wake up, you have this mind factor or the mind matter; when I say mind matter, it contains mind, ego, intellect, which keeps the form that reinforces your identifications and all those kinds of stuff. So, you have an opportunity here that you can go, always see beyond the usual and connect to the absolute truth; that option you always have. But what happens is that mind never allows it so easily. Mind is only a reflector. Mind has no flavours. What flavour it is given, that flavour it will reflect. Mind is maintained by thoughts, the thoughts are the pillars which maintain the mind. This mind is constantly reflecting mostly programmed stuff, programmed with a program you’re used to: habitual feelings, emotions, and patterns. That’s what mind reflects. And when mind keeps reflecting it, you completely get diluted from the truth. That you are the consciousness which the whole universe is connected to. And you are the whole universe. Aham Brahmasmi is missed, right?

That’s why in the Upanishad, the child asks the father, ‘You keep telling I am divine, I don’t feel like I’m divine. Why you keep telling me that?’

The father said, ‘bring some fire’. So, the child brought a lamp lit.

Then father said, ‘I told you, bring some fire. Why have you brought a lamp?’.

The child then went and brought a charcoal with fire on it.

He said, ‘I told you to bring me fire, not charcoal’. To which the child replied, ‘Father, I can’t bring you fire without a medium’.

To which, the father said, “Divinity cannot express without a medium, and that’s what you are.”

So if that understanding is constant, then the Maya will dilute. Maya cannot exist. Because you will only see your reflections everywhere. When you’re when you’re seeing anger in people, understand the anger sits in you. What you are, you see its reflection in everything. Like if you are extremely sick and you are looking at a beautiful sunshine, you will feel nothing. Because you’re not well; it’s not connected to the sunshine. But because how we are gets reflected back to us, or we experience it that way. That’s the truth. This is how it always works.

Three stages every day are given for you to connect to these. One is the waking state. The second is dream state, where your dimensions are different.  Your dreams are coming directly out of your subconscious. This data sits in your subconscious. And in the third deep sleep state, you have no idea who you are – death state. And then you wake up again. Birth state; rebirth in the morning. That’s why some people are lazy to get up. Because we are taking a new birth, it takes time to walk. Immediately you will not walk right; takes time. (Laughter) Don’t take me seriously. (Laughter).

Speaker: Mohanji, can you talk about, I don’t quite understand yet clearly enough for myself, about the mind, the concept of the mind or the definition of the mind? Or why do we have the mind to create the problem? And in relation to the consciousness.

Mohanji: Mind is like an organ. Let’s look at it… ask the question again.

Speaker: I asked about the mind and to define it more in detail. Mind in relation to the consciousness.

Mohanji: You look at mind as an organ. And what is its purpose? Experience. Experience is the purpose. And mind with your eyes you see, mind with your ears you hear. Otherwise sound will be there but you may not hear. Many times, when people talk, you won’t hear, right? Because mind is not with the ears. Mind with your nose, makes you smell. Mind with your skin makes you feel, with your tongue it makes you taste. And like that… Mind’s job is to experience existence. And it is said that there are millions of things outside, this is all for you. This whole thing is your arena, your football ground. It’s all for you, but then how much can you experience it? Only as much as your capacity. Like for example, you have two eyes. What happens behind you, you cannot see. You can only experience where your eyes can reach. Like that we have limitations. So numerous things, to experience them you have five senses, one mind. Mind with that particular sense makes you experience that particular thing. And what is the experience, broadly classified? Happiness or sorrow. This is human existence.

Total human existence. Millions of things, five senses, one mind, happiness or sorrow. This is how we live. Now this much is okay. Because this is nice. But then, how does mind becomes a botheration. When mind goes into the past, keeps/stores thing of the past and goes into the future with expectations, anxieties, fears, then that’s where the problem is. Otherwise mind has no problem, or mind is not a problem. Minimal mind is always good. Because you have a cool life. You experience every day. And you don’t store anything. Nothing from the past, nor we are going to the future. But does it stay like that? That is when awareness should come in.

What’s the basic awareness? Past is dead, finished. You can do nothing whatever you want to do in the past is impossible. Clear awareness. Future is yet to be. If you mess up today, your future will be messed up. So, we do what is best in this time. And if you stay in that time, that’s what I was talking about these activities here. Guru Subramanian kept it in such a way that it’s a rapid, very fast repetitive mode so that your mind can’t move. You know, you keep the discipline, you stay here, that’s a technique. So when you’re focused on your activity totally, hundred percent here, mind stays here. Then it doesn’t have time to move to the past or the future. And in that point, in that mode, mind is very effective. Mind is your servant. You know you’re here. Future… it doesn’t matter. The past is done. So in that mode, mind is effective.

But when you’re leaving the mind to roam in the past and the future, and regrets and relationships and problems and all those things, then it controls you then mind becomes the master. That is where the problem is. Otherwise, there’s no problem. If mind is your servant, there is no problem; for which the key, or the rope, or the leash is awareness. Awareness that I am only existing now and I have no idea about tomorrow. We don’t know whether we’d be alive tomorrow. And also, it doesn’t matter. No problem. Let it be. So, that’s the way to be. Is it clear?

Speaker: Yes, the question is as well why we keep a mind and why do we need to have a mind…

Mohanji: That’s what I told you.

Speaker: …then the link to the consciousness which is the state of the mind.

Mohanji: Consciousness is not the state of the mind. Consciousness is a factor which remains the same through waking state, dream state, deep sleep state. That is what we call three states, three cities, Tripura. And then we have fourth state. Like for example, you have all the sensors eyes, ears, nose, all those things. Behind that there’s a mind which is experiencing the world through these things, right? Senses cannot function by themselves, they’re part of your body. Right? Mind uses these senses to experience the world outside. Then mind processes it as happiness, sorrow. Two things. This is good for me, this is not good for me.

Now what is consciousness doing? Witnessing this function of the mind while energizing it. So, consciousness is the minor transformer, which is giving the electricity to the mind to experience life. And consciousness has three states but is the same. But in the waking state mind is more than consciousness or you wouldn’t know the consciousness sits. In dream state, mind and consciousness are more or less equal. In the deep sleep state, there’s no mind. Only consciousness. So, in the three states, consciousness is the same consciousness, but you experience it in three states. Right?

And there’s a fourth state called Turiya state where that state experiences the three states of consciousness as a detached form. Then there is a Turiyatita state beyond that; that is the soul state where the soul witnesses the consciousness witnessing the consciousness in three states and the mind beyond. Very simple. (Laughter)

Q: I was just wanting you to explain something about a Subramaniam aspect of God which we are worshipping here at Skandavale at the moment, specifically for people who might be new to Skandavale and not understand quite what’s going on when they’re looking at this.

Mohanji: Ah, Swami should tell you that. (Laughter). I should not talk about that. I don’t have the licence to tell everything.

(Group laughter)

Mohanji: I will just brief on this.

Subramanya

Shiva has two sons. Shiva probably has other sons but two that we know. Ganesha, represents a supreme consciousness aspect. That is why he has a huge body, elephant head, etc. because rithambara budhi, the intellect, cosmic consciousness is represented by the head of the elephant. That’s the highest or the largest mammal represented. And the huge body represents the created universe. Shiva is supreme consciousness represented by Shivalinga. There’s no way you can worship supreme consciousness which is un-manifested, beyond dimensions. So, the best form the great Rishis thought of is a Shivalinga. That is why you look at all the atomic reservoirs of the world, it’s in the form of Shivalinga, that form can source or store maximum energy without distortion, without a leak, without losing it.

Shivalinga is representing Shiva, a supreme consciousness, formless, and Lord Ganesha as the supreme consciousness, the larger aspect of Shiva. And Lord Muruga is the knowledge aspect. The pure knowledge; not the knowledge like… it is now morning and evening, and stuff like that. Knowledge which is the truth; that is why Subrarmania explained the secret of Omkara to father Shiva. When Shiva had a doubt as to what Omkara is, Subramania (skanda) explained this to Shiva. Why? Because Shiva is Omkara, he doesn’t know what it is. So, Subramania told him this is what you are. That means he’s knowledge incarnate. And also, there is an aspect of warrior. That commander aspect is because, we now talked about all these four people, four thieves. There are many things Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Mada, Matsarya, etc. All these are enemies of progress. He is fighting against them. Means he is knowledge incarnate. To keep knowledge, you need to ward off ignorance. Kama is what, uncontrolled desires; krodha, anger; matha, pride; matsarya, competition spirit; lobha is lust that you need more and all that. Moha is desire – I want this, I want that; never satisfied. All these things are against knowledge. So, he is the commander, who is protecting you from these enemies. So that you are with pure knowledge. Pure knowledge is the state of Shiva. And Shiva himself as Dakshinamoorthy is another aspect of this knowledge. Dakshinamoorthy is Shiva who is looking south. Where you can see a lot of Rishis around him. And Muruga has been worshipped mostly by the Siddhas; he’s connected to Siddhas. 18 Siddhas and all those people are connected to Muruga.

Q: So, what I hear from you is that… when we go inside we have in a way or an answer we have, you know, there you are. But they do seem to be meditations, or this kind of best parts seem to come clear to you as you live this life. So, what I have in mind is to be witness with people when they die. And, actually, it was funny  when you were saying with the boat, and crossing, because it’s as if there’s a moment when you come over in the boat from the other side, I never actually go to that other side, but you are somehow a ferryman. And then you, you move into this other place when you, this is what you do. And it feels that as the years have gone on, and then I mean, well just watching, we move here. And there is no hospice right here. Although I don’t actually have an issue with that part of it, but—

Mohanji: You should.

Q (continued): …that as the years have gone on the whole working or being with people as they leave and the people around that has become more and more, a very real meditation and expression in the world we live in now.

Mohanji: You are in the right track. Yeah…

Yes. Every moment is meditation. If you are aware that is it. That is, “Life is meditation”; not sitting in one corner and thinking you are meditating. And the shift of stages at the time of death, is amazing. Because basically it is nothing. Just leaving the body. No big deal. But then the process, where it is connected to attachment, to this body, attachment to things around us, all these things, everything, becomes completely irrelevant. And then you are leaving. That’s exactly what we are talking in the last part. How much you can raise your awareness at this last part, that becomes the flavour of existence of next life. So when you transcend, you move in that zone. That’s why suicide, murder, and all these things are absolutely detrimental. Because the last part of your life, you are on a level of resistance, then the next life starts with resistance. So, we must always be in a level of ecstasy.

You know, if you can leave with a wow, beautiful.

Speaker continues: And this is what’s happening more and more. It’s a way that I lived many years in India. And of course, in India years ago, in the 70s, if there was a dead body, then you actually didn’t go near it, and you didn’t touch it. And sometimes that could be very shocking. But even India also is changing in the way that…I guess that last moment, for even, for people that maybe haven’t so much meditated, can be a leap. And I don’t know, this just seems like…

Mohanji: That’s why, I don’t know about now much. But earlier, it was they light only one lamp in the place. So that the person who’s leaving connect to only one flame and there’s no distortion. When you’re connected to a flame, and the flame is going up, and then you’re connected to brightness. Plus, the chanting will be a scripture or something like Sahasranama, so that in that vibration provided through chanting, they leave.

A story about calling the name of the Lord

There is a story of one guy who was very selfish in life. And he hated Gods; he was an atheist. And he hated his children also because they were squandering his money. Then he named them the name of Gods, because then he can remember them more. Because those whom you hate you remember more, right? (Laughter).

One day he was lying down to die, and the lord of death came. It was a very fearsome point, because all that he earned all his life is going. Going to whose hands? To those he hates, his children. So, he wanted to scare his children, he called Narayana, Narayana. His son’s name was Narayana. He called Narayana to witness the lord of death, because he was scared. And when he called Narayana, Narayana, the lord of death left, because he called the deity. So, he survived. Then he was wondering, “How did I survive?” Because he called the name of the Lord at the time of death; Lord Vishnu.

These kinds of stories are there, that say the right names should be uttered at the time of death. But that has to be cultivated over time. You have to practise it. Otherwise, it won’t come at that time. Only think about electricity bill, water bill, credit card, cheques you have signed, and so on. That’s not good enough. You are thinking of practice, right?

Q: Leading on from that question prompted me to ask another question. The couple of deaths that we’ve experienced here in hospice, or here in Skandavale. It’s been either when what I perceive to be the soul leaving, or after a person has died. The vibration is beautiful. The two of them. Absolutely.

Mohanji: Stillness…

Q (continued): And yeah, and love and beautiful, and especially, you know, special, like you’ve walked into a temple, but you’ve walked into a room with a dead body. But that person is not long left. Actually, somehow you can feel that, that if they’re still there. And I was wondering, what is that feeling? Is that the soul leaving?

Mohanji: Normally, they only leave the body after 13 days. They hang on with other sheaths: the body sheath is the food sheath, then pranic sheath, the pranic layer; then it’s mind sheath, knowledge sheath, bliss sheath, and then the soul. Soul is in the middle and all other sheaths are around it. And that stays except the body, physical body. And they hang on for approximately 13 days.

Speaker: In the same place?

Mohanji: No not necessarily. That’s why in some of the places they keep food for them after they die. Everybody eats, they can also  see but they can’t eat and they don’t have the body but everything else.

Speaker: When one of our sister’s was dying, and I know a few people experienced it, it was as if she hadn’t died. But it felt, I don’t know if this was that the soul was leaving the body, but it was dancing. It was so joyful. It was bliss.

Mohanji: Yeah, when your connection to, or when your ownership levels are less, the moment of leaving the body is beautiful. Because you feel such a relief.

Speaker: That’s what it felt like as well. I’d like to say maybe she didn’t die.

Mohanji: In fact, you know, most of us experience this during the deep sleep state. We get out of the body peacefully and then we enter, some people have that remembrances. People have written about it, that they had an ecstatic state, the same state and there’s a quick rewinding of the major events of life and then it’s stillness, and then it’s peaceful. Shanthi. Perpetual.

Speaker: That bliss is…?

Mohanji: That’s your state. If you have another incarnation to make, then you go ahead with your work. But that transition,  it can be beautiful but that’s where you need to connect to something larger, bigger.

Speaker: …and many people have done that in their life time?

Mohanji: Yeah, yeah. For example, connecting to one object like Lord Krishna or Muruga or one deity all the time, chanting, then that consciousness automatically raises to that level, and it will be an ecstasy to go. And otherwise, connecting to a very powerful master, same thing. Whichever frequency you connect to, that helps you to go out and that energy stays in that same way.

 

Q: But what about people who haven’t had any connection or seemingly any connection to spirituality?

Mohanji:  No, but, it’s not just one life, right? It’s a continuation. What they have done in past to reach here, that person doesn’t know. In this life what they have done, probably they will know. And most of the activities may be unconscious; they don’t know what they are doing. But what brought them to this frequency, they may not know. It’s a continuation. Each life is like a page. You shift the page, another life, then it becomes the full book.

Speaker: And you said you do a quick rewind.

Mohanji: That’s each life.

Q: That’s only for that life, you won’t see the other life?

Mohanji: No, because you don’t see those lives now. You don’t see your past life now. That’s rewounded, then you go to astral plane, then you rework that, and you say okay, this is what you wanted to experience and this is what you have to experience, pending desires, then you take an incarnation. That’s why I said the USB is removed from the laptop, and USB contains your pending desires and your memories collectively. So that includes your connection, relationship, character, etc. Sometimes character also evolves over time. Character, desires, memories – these come together and then the sheaths (koshas) carry these and go, and then the USB is put into the next body and restarted. Then you bring back all this.

But again, as I said, between a death and a birth there is a shift happening as well. That each page is not that you’re just starting in that frequency but at the evolution, with your awareness, the awareness can evolve and then it comes back to another body differently. So, what you miss most in this life becomes the predominant agenda in the next life. That’s why don’t miss much in this life. Because that becomes a pending desire, agenda, thing to do. When you sum up or you configure your existence of the next life, that will come up as a top thing to do. Like we have our daily agenda: this I must complete today, this can be done later. Like that, and thus, the whole lifetimes are defined. That’s why, masters like Shirdi Baba say you have come to me. Now let me reduce your number of lifetimes. You know, imagine this is to be laid out over 50 lifetimes, let’s make it 20. That way you reduce the total. That’s what great masters do.  They shrink it. So that your merger becomes faster. That’s why it’s the interest of every master that you liberate yourself as fast as possible. And in the interest of soul is to liberate as well, as fast as possible. And even the information, the pattern, the roadmap, that comes only with the right eligibility, otherwise, you won’t get that. You won’t even think that. I mean, many people don’t even think beyond the mind or the gratifications, they don’t even think of a beyond state. Forget about death state. Death is a fear for many people. Death means big problem. One of the greatest fears is the fear of death. I’ve seen that even in spiritually high people. Towards the end they become very jittery. ‘Oh, I may die’. Very good. (Laughter).

But I’ve seen that and sometimes it surprises me. What’s the big deal? However, that remnant of fear sometimes exists without knowing. Not that you store it, but somehow the fear of death comes. It could be also collected, it could be acquired, maybe it is not yours. It can be that you have seen so many people’s trauma of dying, and you may get that impulse into your system, and then you think it’s yours. You wouldn’t remember that it is not original and you forget. For example, there’s some dirt on your body and you forgot to take a bath or wash it away, it stays, right? Like that, you collected from the nature and that has stayed on and then it stays. And at the time of death you have that fear.

Q: In your book Power of Purity you said playing video games especially violent ones and watching violent films or any films, reading newspapers your subconscious takes that on, and doesn’t differentiate between whether you’ve actually committed the act or whether…

Mohanji: Yes. Whatever your conscious mind dwells or subconscious think it’s real.

Speaker: And so, then you said karmically you have to live that out?

Mohanji: Not necessarily. That becomes your flavour, or part of your system. Whatever you consume, enters your system. Similarly, all inputs have effect in the system. Subconscious mind doesn’t know whether you’re actually doing it. When the conscious mind is working on it, subconscious believes that this is real, so it just stores it.

Speaker: So if you’re kind of killing people in a video game, your subconscious thinks…

Mohanji: …thinks it’s actually happening. That’s why I was talking about soap opera. The victimization of people,  very bad people, and people only thinking bad, how to harm other people. When you constantly dwell in that kind of energy, subconscious believes this is what you like. So it creates a life for this, to have this kind of things – emotions, etc.

Speaker: So, it’s not something you have to live out…

Mohanji: Not necessarily, you can go beyond it. If you raise your awareness beyond it all, this becomes insignificant. Yeah, but will you stay there? Because mind likes gravitation quite a lot. Mind likes to come to the lower frequency, we call it gratification. So if we stay beyond it all, it’s very good.

Q: I just wondering how do we increase will power so that we can become a bit more master over ourselves?

Mohanji: Laughter J. Iccha shakti, will power – center of heart. Jnana shakti – third eye. Kriya shakti – navel. Three shaktis: Iccha shakti, Jnana shakti and Kriya shakti. Three aspects of Shakti. It’s center of heart. If you concentrate on that and chant and…

The main thing which is against the Iccha shakti is tamas, inertia, like laziness, “Okay, I will do it later,” like that. That has to be countered by positive action; action as well as chanting on heart center. Close your heart and chant whatever, any chanting inside the heart centre. This is the place for the Kriya Shakti, action. Sometimes people become lazy. ‘I must go for jogging; okay, tomorrow! Then the day after…’ and then we pay somebody to jog for us.

(Laughter)

There’s a video of one guy who’s got a treadmill; he’s sitting on a chair with a beer and doing it… it’s the height of laziness. Very bad Kriya shakti.

(Laughter)

But understand one thing. It’s never constant. It can never be constant in human existence. It’s always waves. Vivekananda says this, “Life is all waves. Sometimes high, sometimes low. Our ability to accept these highs and lows is very important.” Watch your own life, it can never be constant, right? “I’m inspired all the time” – never happens. It’s not possible because we have a lot of factors connecting to it. So, it has to be high; it has to be low. Our ability to flow through like a wave rider, that is how we become successful. Not that you’re always on low and always on high; it is guaranteed not possible. Maybe when we are sitting and meditating in a cave in Himalayas… still there will be highs and lows.  “Today I don’t want to meditate. I am catching mosquitoes”.

(Laughter). Anything is possible.

We must accept realities as it is. When it is high, understand “I do maximum.” When it is low, “Okay, now this is low, nothing is working, slow down.” It’s like the road is bumpy. But you really want to drive in 120 km/h, is it possible or not? Not possible. You have to drive as per the road. But later the road becomes good, the nice open road, then drive. That flexibility or adaptability is more important than the highs and lows. Recognizing highs and lows is good, “Now I’m very productive,” do your best. “Now I’m not productive,” then “Okay, I slow down, I work on it.” But keep walking. I mean, don’t just sit there, you slowly move. Even 1 km/h speed is also a speed, right?

Speaker: Sometimes you feel like, “Oh yeah, I’m on a good road, doing things well, and then sometimes, it’s like mmehh…oh, why…”

Mohanji: That’s how it is. 7.5 billion people will tell you this is how it is. This is how the whole creation has this thing. Because we are playing duality. This is the drama, we are playing the duality, there’s an up and there’s a down. if there’s no up or down, there’s no duality. So in this duality, there is dark and bright, up and down, high and low. It’s all part of duality. And that flexibility and adaptability makes us successful. Never judge ourselves, then you will not judge other people. Right? And do not criticize yourself. Because we tend to compare with other people and we say we are not good enough. What happens is, even if you have an opportunity for full actualization, because your opinion about you is not so good, you will deny it. This is the problem. Then you take a lifetime to correct. Do you understand what I’m saying?

When you when you judge yourself or criticize yourself, you deny an experience also, without your knowledge. Imagine you have a potential for a really great experience in this life, but you say, “Oh, I’m not Mohanji, I can’t do this or something like that.” And then even if you can achieve it, you will deny it. At the end of the day, who loses? You will lose.

That is why Lord Ram went 14 years in the forest. He was in Avatar, he could have just shot an arrow from Ayodhya all the way to Sri Lanka, killed Ravana and brought his… he would have probably even prevented Sita from being kidnapped. An Avatar! But he went through the whole process. He took the help of the monkey squad and everybody, everything because he had to demonstrate how an ordinary man should handle life. That’s why. He did not present himself as an Avatar. He presented himself as an ordinary man for the sake of us. Otherwise, there’ll be no Ramayana, maybe only two lights or something.

(Laughter)

Or… He came to kill the demon, so he sat and shot an arrow. Finished.

(Laughter)

Whole chapters are not needed.

Furthermore, have you ever observed why Hanumanji is so powerful, and there’s so much worship, there are so many temples of Hanuman. So many temples. He is worshipped much more than Ram, there are more Hanuman temples. That is because Hanuman’s only object of worship was Ram. Totally integrated into Ram. And these Ashta siddhis (the 8 siddhis) and Nava nidhis (9 nidhis), again all the types of wealth were originally Ram’s. When you’re deeply integrated into a consciousness, which is very powerful, you have all those powers. Hanuman was deeply connected to Ram, unmistakably connected, all the time thinking about Ram, only Ram. And then what happened, he had all the powers of Ram.  The supreme consciousness, Ram is supreme consciousness. So he was constantly integrated into Ram, and he had all the powers. Another way of diffusing the ups and downs, stay connected, deeply integrated, and you experience the supreme consciousness all the time and then you will not judge because “I don’t exist, only he exists”, right? Hanumanji was not an ordinary man, he was a very, very powerful master. He was a great master. He said, “I prefer to be your servant in this existence, I prefer to serve you. Your wish is my command.” Then he said, “My body is always at your feet, to serve you. And let me be like this.” Then third thing he said, “But consciousness wise, you and I are one. Let’s play the role.” Pure awareness, right? Perfect awareness. I am not separate from you, but I prefer to play this role. So I’m outside of you, I can serve you. So it’s easier for me to integrate. Perfect bhakti yoga (bhakti-devotion).

It’s all for demonstrating the aspects of existence. That clearly states that these are possibilities. When you clearly know these possibilities, there’s no way you can be deviated. And as I said earlier, what you should choose is what suits you. What you can practise without effort, that suits you. What you practise with effort is not yours. Understand, you will drop it someday. You will want to wear a dress which fits your body. If it is three times larger or three times shorter, it’s difficult, somehow even if you fit in, you will not like it. Yes, please.

Q: Just one last question. What is actually the purpose of life?

Mohanji: Experiences, what you’re experiencing every moment. That’s it. it’s a moment to moment experience. Purpose of life for everybody is that even if it is a bird or an animal, that moment is the purpose and we have no idea about the next moments. Each moment’s experience is our purpose.

Q: Why is some of the experiences bad or good?

Mohanji: It does not matter, they are all experiences. That discrimination happens only in the waking state of mind. Mind tells this is good, this is bad. And that’s sometimes or mostly connected to expectations. I expect to be successful every time. But if success doesn’t happen the way I want I reject it. Then we say some, “It’s a bad experience,” things like that. So it’s all connected to the mind. Experiences are experiences. We decided and always, there’s no guarantee that an experience which we term bad is always bad.

A story – Bad is not always bad

There was a king who caught one of his favourite ministers and chopped his finger saying that he had been stealing. The minister was very sad because he hadn’t been stealing. Later on he was caught by tantric people who chop the head, bali, as human sacrifice. They wanted somebody and they caught him, but he had no finger, so they let him go. Because they said, “You are not perfect, your finger is missing.” Then he understood that the finger lost is better than the head lost.

(Group laughter)

So we do not know, sometimes some of the experiences which we call bad, are not always bad, we need to read the full story to understand.

Q: In common with a lot of people, I’m sure. Sometimes you get to a certain point, and you become very aware of a long period of time, some pattern of activities has been governing your life, certain habits, some mentality, your aspirations remain out there, not where they should be. And I was wondering if you could shed some light on how to break down pattern other than diet, (laughter) presumably one way of doing without going to that extreme. You’re trying to turn everything upside down or bring yourself out of that in a dramatic way.

Mohanji: I’ll tell you the nativity of it.

How does a repetitive thing come in life? Not even an activity?

There are patterns in relationships, patterns in money situations, patterns in jobs, we experience so many patterns in normal life. Where do they come from? They come from deep impressions.

For example, imagine that you have been travelling a path of pathless, like an aghori. One thing happens today, a totally different thing happens tomorrow, there is nothing settling. Everything is flowing, flowing in the sense, there is no system.

Then what would be your greatest interest?

To have a system. That would be your priority or top priority, “I must have a system functioning, there is a predictability.” When we dwell too much into unpredictable paths, we will crave for predictability. And then if it didn’t happen in that life, next life will have predictability pattern as a main theme. So, the path will be all predictable. But then predictability also brings monotony. Because you can predict every moment. So it brings monotony, when it brings monotony, you say, “This is crazy, I can’t have monotony, how do we come out of this?”

Thus in this war between unpredictability, an unpredictable path, like the path of Shiva, path of pathless, path of Datta, the way you travel, that’s the path and Avadhoota state, state of Avadhoota, where rain or sun, good or bad, it’s all the same to a state where there is some kind of a pattern. So when that is travel, mind will crave for a pattern. When a pattern happens, we have monotony connected to it, it’s always connected to the mind which expects.

What is the best way to overcome that mind?

Awareness. Awareness beyond it. Beyond this activity, there is a growth and growth is in awareness. There are so many things probably you never wanted or they were fringes, they were not really sufficient to integrate into a life. If it was sufficient to integrate into your life, it would have happened before taking birth. So, if it is not integrated into life, in this pattern, this was not so important in the original planning. Then, if a pattern is happening, this pattern is actually what is chosen. When you resist the pattern, it stays. When you say, “Okay, this is the pattern happening, no problem.”

A story of a Buddhist monk

There was a Buddhist monk who was giving lectures, and a lot of people respected him. One day, one girl became pregnant in this village. And she said this monk was the father. Everybody came, bet him up. Tore his house to pieces, etc, and brought the woman and gave it to him saying, “You must look after this woman because you made her pregnant.” He didn’t say anything. And then the child was delivered, he was looking after the child and he never said anything, yes or no or anything. After eight years or nine years, this girl started feeling very guilty. She saw his love and kindness and he was looking after them as ever, I mean, as perfectly as possible.

And then she told the village, “You know, actually this guy is not the father. The father of the child ran away. And I did not want to tell this to you to people because I was ashamed that I would be ostracized, that I would be expelled. That’s why I told his name.”

Then they came to the monk to apologize, “We are very sorry that we did not understand.”

“No, it’s okay. No problem,” he answered.

Then, there was no nothing from him. His awareness was above every activity below. Nothing touched him and he was just floating and he was in a state of bliss and all these activities was happening. No expectation of only glory, no expectation of only scandal or slander, no expectation. So what happens is your awareness is above everything and these patterns die by themselves. Because patterns lose their importance as well. If there is an activity, “Okay, I’ll do this activity,” from moment to moment. Moreover, other things do not enter either. Because there’s no “This is not good, then another thing should…” So the replacing doesn’t happen. Replacement sometimes means and the life. If you can’t replace something in this life, it automatically means another life. That means you’re ensuring another rebirth. That also will not happen. Because your awareness is above. And this routine is giving you more and more and more stability and you are dissolved.

That’s the way to overcome every situation, whether it is a monastic order or actual life. When you see from above, all the things happening, like we said, there are no good or bad, everything is happening and you’re watching it and it’s all happening, it’s flowing. And you’re not binding to it. You’re not even taking ownership. Like this girl said this guy was the father, he didn’t know. And people thought it was true, because he didn’t say that. Nor did he care. Later on when the girl said this was not the father, again he did not say anything. Why? For 8 years you looked after the child and the mother and you did not say anything? He kept quiet. Then they understood that he was a powerful Master. So it sometimes takes time.

Why I said this story is because we have every chance to keep our awareness here (he puts his hand high up). It doesn’t have to be here (he lowers his hand down). When it is here (at that low level), we always have opinions. We maintain the patterns. Because we resist. Maintenance is equal to resistance. We have objection, like human relationship. I don’t like this person, so I keep resisting, that person is always with me. It happened, right?

(Laughter)

We get married like that.

(Laughter)

Not my marriage…

(Laughter)

I put my hand in fire.

(More laughter)

That that’s the way it is. So it’s all about awareness. One word, awareness. Acceptance and awareness are two things which are absolutely fundamental for high speed growth and evolution. Acceptance is to yourself. It doesn’t matter whether you accept other people or the world. Because if you don’t accept yourself, you can’t accept the world. World is your reflection. So every bit of acceptance is to yourself as a full incarnation. Then awareness, awareness, that everything happens will also pass, nothing is yours. Even the body, everything comes and goes. Then this other resistance and other things will automatically vanish. In this life. This is the flow so be it.

Speaker: Does worship of God, let’s say in the form of Dattatreya or doesn’t matter which god, is that the key part of achieving that awareness?

Mohanji: Yes, worship is equal..

Speaker: That is our way of life. That is that process which is happening.

Mohanji: Yeah, worship is integration. Worship means you’re connecting to an idol. Idol is never an idol as it is, it’s an ideal. You know, an idol represents an ideal. Ideal is a state. The state of a master is represented by the form of a master. That is why I said, Mohanji is not the body, Mohanji is a state which is connecting to people. When you’re connecting to the ideal, then you are surrendering to that ideal. Why do we worship different deities? People have different tastes, and why because that ideal suits us. It’s suitable for us, for us to connect and integrate. Like in various places, there are different plug points, different types, so every plug will not accept every socket. You have to sometimes use converters. Here, I’m talking about no converters. The right plug and the right socket.

So you integrate to Bhagwan Ranganatha, or Bhagwan Dattatreya and the integration is equal to surrender. That’s what Hanumanji story I said, I don’t exist, he exists. I exist as his servant, means basically, I have no existence. I don’t need existence. A true disciple is almost like the shadow of the guru. When the guru moves the shadow moves. This is how it works. True, true disciple. There are hardly true disciples today, because people even judge the guru, “The guru should not look like this. He should…” They have opinions. Then all these opinions and doubts segregate. It is opposite of integration. That’s why it takes time. Then when you disintegrate, or you are separate from the truth or the master, you have all the effects. Everything hits you directly, all the pleasures, all the pains, all the phobias, concepts, doubts, everything hits you. Here if you are integrated to the guru, the shield is always there. Nothing hits you. So when you worship Ranganatha, you are Ranganatha. Always remember, there’s no separation. When you’re worshiping Ranganatha, you’re worshiping yourself. When you’re worshiping Datta, you are Datta and that idol is your representation. In that mode integration is just, like a matter of time, a very fast process. It happens very rapidly.

Mohanji: Yes, please. Yeah.

Speaker: Namaste.

Mohanji: Namaste.

Q: Since we’re talking about this mind and matter, I’ve got one question, suppose the attachment of ones in other’s minds, can that mind be degraded, on upgraded?

Mohanji: If the attachment is from the other person to you, rather than you from other person…

Q (continued): Well, suppose he’s got a high level of mind, he’s attached to some kind of devotion, or he is on the super value, and the attachment of that person to other person can degrade him or upgrade him?

Mohanji: Neither. Neither in fact.

Speaker: The reason I’m saying is that say that attachment of the mother to the son, or the attachment of the devotee to another devotee or to the lord or the master can move him from one place to another place or it will be in the same place?

Mohanji: See, fundamentally, attachment is connected to relative truth, it’s not permanent. We have seen people very deeply connected, and then later bitter enemies, or bitter enemies coming together. So everything is in a relative basis. We cannot say that this stays forever, another one stays forever, we cannot say. In addition, we can’t determine high or low, because somebody who’s deeply connected to the Supreme consciousness, whatever other people think, it will hit them, but it will not be enough to bring them down.

Somebody who’s very deeply connected like a Buddha, for example, who had one focus. He wanted to attain liberation. And his focus was that – he left his family, he did everything to attain that. Many people told him, “You made a big mistake, you should not have done that…” Even after enlightenment he was told that. But nothing moved, because what he wanted with the life with the original agenda, we talked about the prarabhda, part of the karma, which brought forth this existence, the original karma is powerful enough to take you through. In between all the other, the people, the relative experiences, the people coming in life, people going, their opinions, their likes and dislikes, they are all having only complimenting or contradicting whatever it is, as a flavour. Like your ice cream is one, you add strawberry and it becomes strawberry, add chocolate, it becomes chocolate like that. It’s a flow, life is one flow. In the flow of life, all these are relative experiences, nothing is permanent.

Speaker: Yeah, but as you say that in so in in the past, and we have we have seen so many places where the God has to come down to Earth to fulfil the wish of a devotee. In that sense, if you’re saying that is not true…

Mohanji: No, no, that is completely different, right?

Speaker: That is attachment as well.

Mohanji: No, that is a different thing. Devotion matures into oneness. See, when this attachment is what you asked earlier, through emotions between people etc. when you are deeply connected…

Speaker: Sorry, when I said, I said what one’s mind here, if you put one mind to another mind, can that mind be degraded or upgraded.

Mohanji: It depends actually. The state of mind itself is temporary. And the mind we are talking about is only operation during waking state, only when you are awake. In dream state it is not the same mind. In deep sleep, it’s not the same mind. So we’re talking about the waking state mind connection. Is that right or wrong?

Speaker: So if you keep on thinking of the same, the mind is always on the same thing all the time.

Mohanji: Yeah. When are you thinking?

Speaker: In deep sleep you are thinking the same thing, if you are awake you are still thinking the same thing.

Mohanji: How do you know that you’re thinking in deep sleep?

Speaker: Because you can’t sleep because of that…

Mohanji: Then you are not in deep sleep. It is not deep sleep, it is sleeplessness. Then that’s a waking state.

Speaker: It is not waking state I am talking about.

Mohanji: No, no, no, I’m countering you. No, you want to argue with me?

Speaker: I do not argue with you.

Mohanji: No, no, no, no, in this intellectual thing, I don’t normally engage. Because this is very simple. You’re talking about waking state mind, temporary, dwelling on relative stuff. Correct? Whether I connect with your mind, or you connect with my mind, it is two minds connecting. How long? How long will it connect? It has a duration, right? And this duration is already defined in that life. Some people stay connected longer, some people do not connect longer. Now we have three states. In dream state, you definitely cannot connect to that person. You say you are not sleeping because of another person. For example, you fell in love, all the time thinking about the lover. You don’t sleep, because sleep is not important. Thinking is important. That is not a dream state or a deep sleep state. That’s a waking state, extended waking state. Correct? In that mode, in that intensity, there is an influence between two people, for sure. There has to be connection.

Now second point you asked about is the devotee and God. In devotion, when it overflows, the devotee doesn’t exist. That’s exactly the thing I talked about Hanumanji, Hanumanji and Ram. Hanumanji had existence without Ram. His mind was filled with Ram and Ram has to come down because what Lord Krishna said, “My only weakness is my devotee. When somebody connects to me with heart and soul, I have to come.” That is a different thing. Then the devotee dissolves into the lord, bhakti yoga, height of bhakti yoga. That and two lovers’ relationship are different. That is why I said it’s different things we are talking about. We can argue about this forever. But if you understand this, ask me specifically what exactly you want to know.

Speaker: I want to know when there are two minds, if somebody can degrade another person from his own state.

Mohanji: Only if you allow it. That is why I said earlier, people talk about other people to me. When they start, I say, “Are you talking about this person? Keep this with yourself, you worked hard to get this information, I don’t want to know.” I prevent that information from entering my field so that I remain pure. This is our job. Imagine in your house, who will you welcome? Somebody who’s compatible. Do you think you’ll bring him in somebody who’s going to come and make a mess of the house? So it’s our choice to bring some people into our mind or their thoughts into our mind. It’s our choice. And we should keep our mind pure. Prevention is better than cure. It’s important. Nobody can just walk and make a mess, unless we permit it. It’s definitely our choice. You have another question, ask.

Q: The thing is that, what you’re saying, I agree with you about our house, but what I’m saying is that, is it possible to bring somebody to your own wish?

Mohanji: Why?

Speaker: I am asking.

Mohanji: We should not try. In fact, nope, I would like to see everybody as powerful as themselves, not as me. Because all the all the expressions you see here are independent creations, original, authentic, why should I expect anybody to be like me? I have all the weaknesses and strengths of everybody and they all have the same, I would like them to actualize into something higher, not become me. We shouldn’t even think that. That is what Hitler thought, “I make men in my own image or I destroy them.” That’s a “beautiful” theory.

Speaker: Most of the people want to be like you.

Mohanji: No, that’s ideological thinking. Somebody wrote to me, “I look at you as a perfect human being,” I said, you’re completely mistaken.

(Laughter)

I said, I have all the weaknesses and all the strengths of everybody. Because when you become not a one, one unit, you are everything, so you contain everything. What I mean to say is that we don’t have to have boundaries. First of all, we are not like that. We are not supposed to be in cages. Main cage is our own mind. Right? Our actualization is our birth right and you are actualized by birth. Only this mind factor, which is analysing and trying to assimilate, is delaying the process. Instead be natural, “I am fine.” And from this acceptance you have to grow to the highest level. That’s why true Masters create other Masters, the different Masters, not more followers. When you have more followers, it’s your burden. But if there are more Masters, it’s beauty in the world. True Masters should guide others to become completely fully expanded and fully like bright suns. So they’ll be brightness in the world, I believe this is the right path.

Q: So on how would you say one’s mother who has got attachment to the son, to relieve how you can separate and advise the mother not to have that attachment, so the son can progress further? How you can explain that?

Mohanji: You know, there are two things one is attachment, the other is ownership. Now you’re talking about ownership. As for attachment, look at every being, a bird or an animal or every being, every mother will have an attachment to the child. This is the way of nature, nature created that. Because this is part of nurturing. Now ownership is ignorance, ownership is part of it, “This child, I own this child.” Nobody owns anybody. So what happens? Through awareness, it doesn’t happen. Because after a while it should happen that the child grows up and then it’s on its own feet and things like that. And then if the child has to still support the parents, there should be freedom. The freedom should be there. If there’s no freedom, there’s no support. That’s why if the ownership becomes too much, ownership, possessiveness, control, binding, etc. happens, they’re put into old age homes. That’s why we have so many old age homes, because they don’t know what to do with parents. So they say, “I am busy, mother, I will come and see you when I have time.” The system is created in that way, because the whole education system has given insecurity to the world. Has the education system given freedom? It is not even teaching freedom. A true teaching is that a child is independent, individual, original, authentic that’s it, but we don’t allow the child to be like that. When I was in school, the teacher said I was retarded. Because the question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” I answered, “I would like to be alone.” And teacher said, “This boy can’t come to study.” No, everybody wants to be an engineer, a doctor, a pilot, all sorts of things, I didn’t want to be anything. So this is the criteria, the benchmark. Well, that’s all very complicated to talk about because the whole system is moving in that direction. Yeah, but don’t confuse between ownership and attachment. See a child should be connected to mother, mother should be connected to a child that’s natural. But when you have ownership and possessiveness, it is unnatural. These two are different things. That leads to problems.

Mohanji: We have the Pooja, so shall we wind up?

Group: Thank you very much.

 

Transcribed by Kishore Mundanat
Proofread by Arvind Ananthan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Effective Years

 

Imagine we live about 80 years, about 29,000 days. Most of our time, on Earth, we spend on personal preferences and personal likes and dislikes. We do not really spend time for the sake of the world. For me, effective life is the time that you spend for the sake of the world. About 90% of the people of the world only live for themselves; eat, drink, sleep, complain, that is the kind of pattern. Otherwise, you can see the usual pattern; a child is born, goes through education, gets a job, gets married, builds a house, settles down, has children, later they have children, and so on. It is the usual cycle of life, the usual pattern. At no point in time, do we ever think, “Is this exactly what you want to do in life?” To cover it up, rather to have some difference in this pattern, we go for addictions, we develop some habits, and those habits become addictions. And then we feel comfortable because we have a diversion from this usual pattern. But that’s again, negative, you’re not doing anything (positive). You’re just getting stuck in this run of life.

So I would call effective years as the years when you existed selflessly, that means, when you lived your life selflessly, for the sake of the world. So when you wake up, you wake up with gratitude that you’re born here and are alive; you will feel good. “It’s good, I’m alive. Let me do something for the earth.” That itself will provoke you to do the right things. When I say right things, I mean something that is unselfish. At no point in time, does anyone tell us that everything you get from here, you have to leave behind.  Including your body, everything has to be left behind. You can carry nothing when you die; not even a pebble can be taken from the earth, everything is left behind. If that clarity is there, you will be more and more interested in doing something for the world. That will earn you much more grace, much more spiritual revenue with much spiritual energy, revenue, Grace. That’s worth it.

When you live selflessly, it is worth it. When you go to a Master or God or temple or church, what do we ask for? We ask for something that we don’t have. We decide that we need these things to be happy. We always complain, what I have is not good enough. We need more. We need something different. We are always in that mode. We hardly appreciate that we are breathing, that we are living, our stomach is working well; we have food to eat and a place to sleep. We hardly think about these faculties and factors. We just live our life. And then at some point in time we wonder, “What am I doing here?” Then, come disappointments, and behind every disappointment, there is an expectation. We expect too much from the Earth. But we don’t give anything back. So according to me, the effective years period is a time when you needed nothing from here, and  you decided to give everything to the Earth.

Jesus had about eight effective years. That is what created Christianity. The intensity of those eight years created a religion. If you look at Shirdi Sai Baba, almost his entire existence was effective. He hardly did anything for himself. You can see various masters in India, who wanted nothing from here, but gave everything to the existence, to the world. This is effective years. So if you start looking at the effective years of your life, or even effective hours of your life, it will make a big difference in your life. You will stop asking for anything. When you stop asking, you do not entertain poverty consciousness. Whenever you ask for something, you are saying that you lack it, you don’t have something.

Whenever you repeat that you don’t have something, you are expressing poverty, lack of something. Instead what will you say – “Thank you, I’m grateful. Thank you for allowing this existence. Thank you for the incarnation. Grateful, I’m being used for something.” So everything that you will say will be positive and purposeful.

On another note, where does the inspiration come from, against adversities? If it is a selfish desire, if it is something for you, it is something like cats and dogs; we see how they are always trying to snatch something from somewhere. In fact, whatever you’re eligible for, will come to you , because you earned it. This is the truth. The truth is that whatever you’re eligible for will come to you. Whatever you’re not eligible for, cannot come to you because you can’t handle it. So we think that we need all these different things. And largely, our lack of peace is connected to these desires. We pitch our desire, based on what we see around, all the time.

If you only think about your needs, all of you will be satisfied, in fact all of us will be satisfied. Food, clothing, shelter, medicines, healthcare, these are all fine. That’s not where our dissatisfaction sits. Our dissatisfaction usually sits on something which is in another person’s hands. We are asking for something that we don’t have. And we believe that this is exactly what we need. You see the queue in front of mobile phone shops, when they release a new model. After you buy it, how many days you will be happy with it? After a few days, you’re waiting for the next model. So that is our level of fulfillment, fulfillment quotient. In contrast we are happy with what we have, and we decide to give whatever we can to society.  I always say this, if you really think you’re a citizen of a country, only look at how much you’re giving to the country; not what you’re taking from the country. We talk about rights all the time – it’s our right, we should have this, and we should have that. But we never talk about responsibilities.

Passion comes with purpose. Passion means the power of action. It becomes solidified. A solid purpose gives solid motivation. If you are clear in your life with what you want to do, you will be motivated, and you don’t need anybody else’s motivation. Even if people go against you and speak poorly about you, it’s their opinion. They are just opinions. You may have nothing to do with it. You will still be motivated. And that motivation is what drives all these masters. That’s what creates legacy.

Self-motivation – self-motivation should begin with self-acceptance. We should accept ourselves fundamentally, as a pure and simple incarnation. Maybe we have a lot of good in us or we have a lot of bad in us. All are mixtures. Nobody’s perfect. We can be good and we can be bad. There’s no problem. It’s fine. And then your purposefulness will shine forth and you will have a passionate life, a life of power.

So effective years are very important.

If you look at your effective years, you will start understanding that you are unique. Otherwise, you will never know that you are unique. You may not feel it. You may not feel you are unique, because you are trying to be one of the lot, be one with this society, trying to become exceptional in the society and society usually looks at how much money you have or what’s your position in the society. But if you keep giving to the society, sooner or later, society has to recognize you. Society will recognize. They have to recognize. Glory happens when you give more than you take.

Transcribed by Kishore Mundanat
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan