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

Practical Steps for Challenging Times – part 1

Satsang with Mohanji  
16th August 2020

 

Question: How to dissolve the barriers of physical identity and see all gurus and masters as one?

Mohanji: The usual mind is filled with so many factors, so many different flavours of life; which means that we have been living all these years and we have had various lifetimes. What we have collected over a period of time has made the whole mind murky; our mind is filled with so many things, especially things connected to likes and dislikes, prejudices, concepts and knowledge of various kinds. All these things are mixed in our mind. Our awareness is very much like muddy river water. So, unless that mud settles down in the mind and the water becomes clear, we cannot see the truth.

 

 

 

That is why masters have insisted that we must spend enough time, to give clarity to our own mind through stillness; by practicing stillness – through contemplation, meditation, etc. When we do contemplation, when we do meditation consistently and consciously, it means we do nothing, that is, be still or keep the mind still. Mind by habit keeps moving. It has many prejudices, likes and dislikes, flavours, and emotions like anger, hatred and jealousy are also a part of our existence. We must understand that to have clarity, you need to settle down; be still. Else, you may connect to one master, who you have recognized through your own experience. Do not go with others’ words, it won’t work. People can give you opinions; it will not work. But through your own experience, if you have understood that this person has stabilized his mind, he has settled down properly in himself and he’s just like a mirror, then you connect to that person.

Where you park your mind, where you are connected to and what you are connected to, you start becoming that. That becomes you or you become that. This is very important to understand. You need to connect to masters who are stabilized. (You connect to) One master or one person, but not many masters. Many masters are all illusory. Only in a confused state of mind, you connect to various people; otherwise it’s just one connection, steady connection, stable connection which gives you stability. Those who keep wandering, they do not stabilize anywhere and it is not easy to stabilize too. This is important to understand.

Confusions arise in the mind, because mind is murky, mind is not able to see. Once you are very settled inside, then you are fully into yourself. The right place to settle down is inside you. We are settling down inside us every night. Do you know during deep sleep state, we are fully settled inside? We are settling down inside fully. So, we do have that experience every night, when we are in deep sleep, where we are fully settled inside. When we wake up in the morning, we get scattered, the mind is scattered. Then we bring that mind back into ourselves and sleep. When you do this with awareness in the morning – meaning your mind is completely inside you, in that state, you will fully be stabilized. This is very important. But I would tell you one thing –  you can do it yourself; you have that ability, because you have that example of the night, the sleep time, where you are fully into you.

The mind which is going out normally comes inside and settles down inside and then you are fully into yourself. From that point, if you understand and shift with awareness; in other words, you are aware that you are inside, that is a state of meditation. You can come inside and you can settle down. None of the external factors will make much difference to you. The emotions, the places, the people or the situations will not make any difference in your mind because you are stable and still. This is your birth right. This is what you are essentially.

If you look at a master like Shirdi Sai Baba, he used to be just like a mirror. During much of our life, we are projecting what we are to the world outside. Whatever is inside us, we are projecting it to the world outside and we get the reflection of our projection, or the reciprocal/ reflection of our projection. So, if you are projecting anger into the world, you also get anger from other people. People become angry with you for no reason. If you are projecting hatred to the world, you do get hatred back. If you are projecting love into the world, you get love back. So, when you do selfless service and altruistic activities in the world, you get that back as well. When you dedicate yourself to the world, the world gives itself to you. That is how life works. So, what you are is very important. That is exactly how you will experience life – AS YOU ARE. You can’t experience life as something else. You cannot experience life even as how things are. It’s not easy.

Hence we must understand that we are the cause for all our experiences. There is nothing right or wrong with whatever is happening. Don’t try to categorize them into, “This is okay”, “This is not okay”, “This is right”, “This is wrong”. There’s nothing like it. Everything is good for you. Because you are asking for whatever you are missing. Otherwise you won’t miss it. If you are not missing it, you won’t ask for it. So, whatever you are missing, you are asking and that is a potential for another existence. You may need another body, you may need another time; you may need another situation to experience that thing. Nothing is right or wrong that way.

Everything that you are missing, you are asking for it and you must have it because that calls for or asks for fulfilment. This understanding is very crucial, as to why certain things are happening. First of all, there is no ‘WHY’. Everything IS – AS IT IS.

Because there is a deficiency in you and you are asking for that reality. Sometimes we may feel that we never asked for anger, but do you have anger suppressed inside you? Do you have rejection suppressed inside you? Do you have feelings of injustice inside you? All these things will definitely create that asking and will ask for fulfilment. So, when you have consistent rejection, you will ask for appreciation and acceptance. So, when the world is not accepting you, you will feel unhappy, you feel angry. This is how life works. In a broad spectrum, life is all about – whatever you are missing, you are asking for and chasing. And that’s exactly what gives happiness also. If you get it, you are happy. If you don’t get it, you are sad.

Question: In times of trials and tribulations like we’re in now, what is the best way to calm our restless mind?

Mohanji: Currently we are in a particular time situation where none of our plans are working. Everything has changed. We made plans last year for this year but because of the Corona situation, everything has changed. It is not in our control. The best method to manoeuvre in such a situation is flexibility. Be very flexible, absolutely flexible. That means you flow like a river. Be like water and keep moving and be very flexible.

If you really flexible, then you do not have that feeling of loss and feeling, “Oh! Everything is lost and all my projects are finished”. That kind of pessimism comes from not being able to execute your desires or your plans. It happens to people, right? Sometimes we make great plans and we can’t execute it and we feel that everything is lost. But that’s normal. That’s natural, because we are human beings and as human beings, we tend to have expectations. So, the right method to handle such situation is absolute flexibility.

Keep flowing like water. Just flow like water. Be like water. Be flexible. Tell yourself, “Okay, this is not happening then there will be another thing” and be happy with what you have. Have Gratefulness. Have Gratitude. That’s very important at this time. You should really be grateful for all that you have; even your connection to your father, mother, Guru and God. In that process, all those people are adding value to your life. We must remember this and be grateful because this a good time, because you have time with yourself.

You can remember what built you up? What made you what you are today? First and foremost is mother – you have a relationship with your mother, nine months more than the society. So, the first and foremost is mother. Then father, the protector and the guide, the guiding factor who helped us to be ourselves. Next is the guru who gave you clarity about existence.  One guru – whichever guru you connect to, be consistent with one, otherwise, nobody can give you anything. You can appreciate, accept, respect all masters and you must. But remember your guru, your tutor, your teacher; your guru should be one; because inconsistent connection means no receptivity. You can’t receive. So, be very constant with that connection. You can you take your time to be connected to the guru. But you should not get fascinated. It should not be out of hallucinations or imagination or expectations. It should be with reality. You should know that this man whom you are connected to is stabilized in himself. If you are not sure, do not connect. If you connect to any master with expectations you will have disappointment because the master and the person are different.

The aspect of mastery is different from the man or the woman. Let me tell you a real story. One man took a lot of pain and struggle and finally he reached his guru. When he came close to his guru and started living with him, he understood that the guru also eats food, drinks water, sleeps, goes to toilet etc. Then this guy got disillusioned. He had all the wrong thoughts in his mind. He said, “Oh, no! This Guru is an ordinary man just like me. I do the same”. So, these kinds of illusions can come in. Doubts can come in when you know that this person in the body is just another human being. So, you must segregate the human aspect and the spiritual aspect and just go with the teachings.

In Sai Baba’s case, Baba used to smoke chillum and somebody thinks, “Oh, Sai Baba is smoking so I also can smoke”. That means you will only become a smoker you will not become Sai Baba. So, we must understand that what Sai Baba said, we must follow– Shraddha (Faith) and Saburi (Patience). Saburi is extremely important. Very clearly, COVID is teaching us Saburi now. It’s a very important lesson that the COVID has given us – Saburi.

So, to come to the point, we must respect all beings. We should take time and respect. When it comes to God, you have to respect the god inside you. The God Particle inside you is the most stable particle inside you – which is your soul.

With zero interests in your likes and dislikes, your life, your death- it has no interests. It is just accompanying you as totally neutral. Just like electricity comes and gives light in your house. It helps washing machine, it helps refrigerator to function. Electricity has no needs, it has no requirement. The electricity board needs money, but the electricity does not need money. Those who produce electricity may need money, but the electricity itself does not need anything. But electricity is essential for the lights to happen, the fan, the air conditioner, the refrigerator, the washing machine. Electricity is always neutral. If it goes into washing machine  it operates in that way. If  it goes into air conditioner, it operates in that way. If it comes into a light bulb, it operates in a different way. Just like that, the soul is the same. It operates through different machines. In the body of an elephant it operates like an elephant. In the body of a human being, it operates as a human being. So as simple as that. All are same. Once we connect to that aspect inside you, you have  found God. That is how you find God. We  call it  the self -realization. Realization of something which is already sitting in you and operating you. It is giving multiple dimensions, such as waking state, dream state, deep sleep state. Each dimension we have  different experiences. This is what we are. This is how we are. This is something which we have  to always  remember.

We are universal. We are the soul, not the body. Body has duration, it has some time on earth, birth till death. And also we are changing with age. What we liked  with the age of 20, we may not like it at the age of 40. Like that, every time the flavour changes, everything changes. This we should always remember. During covid time we can connect to ourselves , be ourselves completely. Its worth it. I hope I clarified this point.

Q: Why we are facing  so many disasters and natural calamities? Including suicides this year.

Mohanji: Why we are facing so many calamities is becasue of our insensitive lifestyle. Earth has its rhythm,  its balance. All the beings of the earth are  supposed to live within the boundaries and balance of earth. But human beings are different. All being are controlled or run by instinct. What is instinct? The basic instinct is survival -to be alive, to stay alive. That is a basic instinct. If you look at all the beings in the nature, they are all struggling to stay alive. They are always looking forward to being alive. Human beings also have the same thing. But then because we are highly intelligent,we have intelligence separated from the instinct. We created  lot of things on earth for our comfort, for our protection, but basically survival instinct; extended survival instinct. That is the reason.

We created a lot of of things on earth. But we have become slaves to that. Now, even if we don’t get food, we are ok, but when you wake up in the morning , if the internet is not working, some people might commit suicide. They can’t think of a world without internet, without communication. Imagine,  something hapens and the internet goes away. What will happen to the world? But, that’s the reality!

We have changed our taste for gadgets and various things. We even lost eye contact, as a species; we don’t even see eye to eye; we don’t have eye contact. We suppress so many desires. And what happens? We have perversions; we have aberrations in life. This is because of suppression. Many explosive behaviours; anger, hatred, jelaousy; these are all connected to suppression. But we never had that problem earlier. Animals do not have a problem with suppression. They are spontaeous. They express and they finish; they forget, so that they are at the moment all the time. We also should be in the moment all the time.

So what has happened? We, as one species, behaved like viruses and destroyed most of the species on earth. Including flora and fauna. That means ecology. So we made a disaster on earth. We created disaster on earth, so earth is giving us back. If our previous generations had thought,“ We got a world with us, we should give a better world to the next generation“,  things would be different. But they never thought like that. Even we are not thinking like that. We are talking about religion, caste, country, culture, color, and we are dividing  people more and more, based on religion, culture, language..all those things. What is happening in the bargain? We are getting isolated; we all became like islands, separated from each other.

We don’t love, we only expect. We do not give, but we expect. We do not share, we expect more from others. So we have become greedy, selfish and a little insensitive. That is why all these disasters are coming forth.

Imagine a Unified Consciousness, where everybody, we are all one family.

Our slogan in Mohanji Universe is,“ One World, One Family – one family, beyond species“. We are all here to experience earth. We are not here to accumulate anything.

See, you came empty handed, when you were born. Nothing was in your hands. You will go empty handed when you die. You carry nothing, not even a pebble. So what is life? Experiences of each moment and we must experience. That is why we are born. We have to experience. Every flavour of life we must experience. That, we deny. We say, “Oh, this is not ok, that is not ok“. Mind divided things and we separated them. Then what happens?  All those desires are suppressed. Then we ask for more births. We need another birth to fulfill them. Like that, we have become unaware. If you live with awareness, you understand that we must coexist with all the beings of the world; every being that has taken a body on earth must have it’s set of experiences  and we cannot deny it.

If we consider ourselves as more refined than other species, we must behave so.

We must be considerate.

We cannot conquire, capture and kill.

We cannot do that. We should support all forms of life.

We should coexist.

There should be forests; there should be every aspect of the Existence of nature shoudl exist as is. Then,  we will have balance. The we can have better health, better life. Otherwise, all these disasters are signs of human insensitivity over time, over a period of time.

How much of pollution we have made in the world? How much destruction have we created in the world? World wars, religious wars, based on religion, killing based on religion, the pollution in the air, in the water, on earth..Look at everything! No being is safe on earth. This is a human world. In the human world, no other being is safe on earth. I have seen a picture of one man. He has killed 5,000 elephants in Africa, a hunter- he hunted 5000 elephants!  Just imagine the number of beings being he killed?! We are paying for all this. Humankind is paying for all these kinds of aberrations and perversions.

We have no right to kill any being. We have no right.

Instead, if we call ourselves refined, we have the responsibility to provide for other beings. We should make sure they are  all fine.

Sarve bhavantu sukhinaha – Let all the beings be peaceful!

That  is exactly how it should be. Everybody should be peaceful and happy. Everybody should be blissful. This is our path. This is how it should be.

Q: How can I know my purpose in life?  

Mohanji: Your purpose in life is what you are experiencing every moment. Because your birth is connected to the bundle of desires you have carried. From birth till death you have a duration of time. Within this time, you are supposed to experience whatever you came to experience. It doesn’t matter. As I said earlier, no right or wrong here. Whatever you are supposed to experience, you will experience within this time. That is the real purpose of each birth. Each birth is the fulfillment of the pending desires. This is exactly what you are born for.

Now, what is the possibility of a higher purpose? A human existence has this great possibility. From total unawareness to Supreme Consciousness. You can connect to Shiva. Be Shiva, which means Supreme Consciousness, stillness. You have that possibility. Shiva or Vishnu, its all same – Supreme Consciousness. You have that capacity in one lifetime. If your focus is on something larger, higher, you will reach there. It doesn’t matter whether you are a man or a women, it doesn’t matter which caste, country, culture, color- you can reach there. Everybody are same in the eyes of the Supreme .

So we have all these great potentials. You need to sit down and decide. What do you really want to achieve with  this life? And work towards it. Then nature will configure itself for that purpose. But most people do not have that kind of a purpose. What they do is, they just want to make some money, or get some positions, or some possessions, and then they think,“Now, I will be happy“.  And  eventually, what happens ?No happiness. Because, they want more. When you get 100 you want 1000. When you get 1000 you want 10, 000. When you get 10,000 you need 100,000. Like that, desires multiply. There is no point in saying that if I get this, I will be happy. If you can’t be happy right now, you can’t be happy ever. It is not connected to something outside. It is not connected to your relationships; it is not connected to your possessions; it is not connected to your position. It is connected to YOU. You can be satisfied as much as you are connected to yourself. You can have contentment.

If you deeply appreciate yourself, if you really really love yourself, if you really respect yourself, Life will change its flavour.

Instead, we are busy loving somebody outside. We are busy looking for something outside. We are looking for situations, places, and time outside. In the bargain, we are not happy.

Instead, spend some time with yourself. What a beautiful creation YOU are! Have you ever thought about it? Feel yourself. Feel, see and  experience how beautiful you are! How handsome you are! And what a kind of miracle you are!

All the organs inside are functioning like a great orchestra and giving you what is called life. Isn’t it great? We must think like that. We must remember that.

We are wonderful beings, but we forget it. Instead of that, we are looking  outside, we see and think that there is something outside that we must appreciate. It’s not true.

First you appreciate inside. You. This whole package called you.

Appreciate it! How beautiful! What a wonderful creation! Then you start connecting to yourself, appreciating yourself. Accept yourself with all your weaknesses. Everybody has  weaknesses. Nobody is only strength in the world. Don’t worry about your weaknesses. Instead, invest in your strenghts. Let the weaknesses stay with you. It’s ok. No problem. Why should we be perfect? We don’t have to be perfect. Let us have those weaknesses. We are born with this, or they have come to us. But we focus on our strengths. So what happens? There is no energy wastage. We don’t waste energy fighting weaknesses. Instead, when you strenghten your strenghts, when you invest in your strengths, when your strengths become stronger, the weaknesses  become eclipsed. They become ignorable. You can ingnore them. That is the right way. Don’t waste your energy fighting something, resisting something. Instead, use your energy promoting something good in you; the best in you. That will make you very powerful.

And then you see a big difference in the world around you because people will start liking your aura, liking your presence, and say,“Hey, I love you! I love to be with you“ and you will know that it is worth it. The secret is accepting yourself, connecting to yourself, respecting yourself. If you don’t respect yourself, nobody will respect you. The secret why society cannot respect a person is because the person does not have self-repect. Why  the scoiety cannot accept a person is becaue the person does not have self acceptance, self love. It is not selfishness, it is admiring and appreciating your existence. Selfishness is very bad. Our relevance in the world will depend on these two boundaries, selfishness and selflessness. The extent to which you are towards selflessness, that is how much you are appreciated by the world. Glory is connected to this aspect. The more selfless you are, the more glory you will get. This has to be clearly understood. That way you can transform the world by your own existence. You have that power! You have that in you! And this must be very clearly understood. Don’t think that somebody has to come and give it to you. Nobody has to give anything. You already have it. And you are immensely powerful. Why don’t you feel it? Because mind doesn’t allow you to feel. Mind gives you boundaries; “Hey, you are only this much! You are not great.“ And then you compare with other people – „ Hey look! This person is more beautiful than me, is smarter than me; is more talented than me.“ But remember one thing – he cannot be you or she cannot be you! Neither can you be that person! That person is already taken. But you are available to you. You are not taken. You have yourself. And that is your strength; your own strength is being you.  ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IN THIS LIFE IS BE YOU 100%! Don’t try to be somebody else. And respect yourself, respect the world, respect the society.

 

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth and Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan