The only time we have is now

Welcome to Mohanji speaks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I leave this thought on your plate. 

Have a great day. This is Mohanji for you.

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Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Declutter your mind

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

Today, I want to share with you a couple of thoughts. I’ll come to the point straight away without much ado. Before I start, a story that came to my mind. I read this when I was in my teens, but it stayed with me. This is from the Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle. I’m sure most of you would have read most of his work. Here we have the super-intelligent Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson who is always fascinated by the intelligence of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes has the ability to see what others don’t see usually, which helps in solving mysteries effortlessly. This always fascinated. Dr. Watson.

One day in that story Watson is asking Sherlock Holmes, “How do you have this clarity, this intelligence? How do you manage this?” Sherlock Holmes answered quite matter-of-factly. He said to Watson, “My mind is uncluttered. What information I need, that’s the only one that I store. In other words, I only store information that I can use, that I need. I do not store anything random in my mind, so I can retrieve it effortlessly.”

Sherlock Holmes

Now you consider your mind – how much of information have you collected and stored in your mind, which is pretty much useless, or pretty much irrelevant when time passes by. The information that I have in my mind is always fresh and usable. We have so many different information entering our system, entering our minds every day. Politics, sports, various things of life we are interested in, and we collect that information, and we store them without our knowledge. While the information that is essential for us to remember gets mixed up with the information that we have collected and stored unconsciously, or spontaneously. What happens eventually, everything gets mixed up and to retrieve something at the right time becomes impossible, you don’t remember. The lack of memory in most cases is because of the clutter in our minds. It’s because we have stored too much. Just like Sherlock Holmes said, if you store only what you really need in your life, what is essential in your life, you can prevent memory loss. Memory loss is usually connected to an over-burdened mind, too much data, too much information that causes clutter.

This was the thought which came to me this morning, which I thought I’ll share with you, and it continued to another dimension. This is a thought about the wastage of time. How much time do we waste in life, chasing rainbows, illusions, and illusory things? Quite a lot. If we can avoid chasing rainbows and stay with the reality of everyday existence, life will be uncluttered.

We get fascinated by others’ stories, opinions, concepts, temptations. We chase them, and we deviate, taking detours to chase them, to find them, or to experience them. And often we don’t get there because they don’t exist. Rainbows are beautiful from a distance. But you try going towards it, when you reach closer it’s just water vapour, pretty much invisible. Many things that you see from a distance do not have value when you come closer to it. Like when we do not have something, we attach a lot of value to that thing. But when you really get it, it loses value. This is our life. This is how we live every moment.

This understanding might help you to reposition yourself to choose what is relevant and what is not so relevant in life. If we choose what is relevant in life, based on practical, realistic criteria, we can ignore the irrelevant things spontaneously. We are what occupies our mind. What occupies our mind holds us, molds us. So, we are what occupies our mind. This is our choice. We can occupy our mind with high elevated thoughts, thoughts of grandeur, thoughts of higher elevation, thoughts of super-conscious states connected to a Master, thoughts of the Masters. We can occupy our minds with great things, but there will be struggles, struggles because of our desires, our native laziness, our tendencies, and inclinations. They will all try to pull left and right, up and down. We have got to tackle them because they are living with us. They are like family members who have an interest in you, who believe that this is what you’re born for. Or these tendencies are a part of your system and you can’t avoid them.

What occupies your mind makes you. If this understanding is clear, you can choose to fill your mind with the right thoughts. In fact, you don’t have control over thoughts, thoughts just happen spontaneously with time. But we can choose to occupy our mind, engage to apply our mind on the positive, regenerative, and rejuvenating matter. Such information will enhance you and enhance the world around you; so that the world reciprocates that back to you. What you give to the world, you get from the world. When you give yourself to the world, the world gives itself to you. This control is in everybody, you can all choose to do this. You can control these factors. It’s an attitude. So we can definitely choose to be different, to be ourselves. Connect to our highest possibilities and express that to the world. Our value always is what we give to the world.
Today I would like to tell you about one aspect of our life. Just throw some light on it, so that you could ponder on it.

We have so many people around us who love us unconditionally, who care for us, who respect us, those who have value for us, or we have value for them, and those to whom we have a value, they value us. Often, we ignore those people in life, and we try to impress or chase people who do not really care about us, who are indifferent towards us. I’m sure all of you have experienced that. There are people, who really love you, care for you, but they’re insignificant in your life, or you don’t care, you’re indifferent towards them. And there are people who really don’t care about you, they don’t love you, but you really want their affection and you do everything possible so that they love you, they accept you, which won’t happen. And the result is a disappointment. Usually or sometimes, it so happens that we’ve hurt the people who love us because our mind is occupied on what we do not have. We totally ignore what we have. This is one of the tragedies of existence.

All of us have some people who really care for us. And all of us have people whom we love and want them to care for us. But due to whatever reason, they are indifferent towards us. What should you do, ideally, what is the right thing to do? Ignore those who are indifferent, even if you love them. If you would like them to love you, or like them to be affectionate towards you, but if they are indifferent towards you, ignore them completely. Respect them, love them, but ignore them. And ignore their impact in your life so that you won’t get hurt by their indifference, which will help your self-esteem. Meanwhile, focus on those who really love you, care for you, and give them back, reciprocate the same. If we live our lives in this manner, that means, love those who love us. That means you reciprocate love and we ignore those who do not love us or those who are indifferent towards us. And don’t analyze the reason; it could be simply unmatched frequency. Frequency is not matching, that’s why they can’t communicate with you. That’s probably why they don’t understand your love, care, or your need for their attention. So, ignore them. Accept, respect, and deeply love those who really care for you. Do not hurt them ever so that your life will be stable, you will have a better balance in life, and you will feel good because you are reciprocating evenly, the emotions that you receive. Imagine you are getting love from somebody, but you are giving back hatred – that is already an imbalance. If you get love, give love, reciprocate evenly, and that will stabilize you.

I leave you with these thoughts, how to unclutter your mind, how to prioritize, and how to balance yourself in society. Think it over. Share it if you liked it. And we’ll meet again later.

This is Mohanji for you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan

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Take your motivation from within

Hello friends, how are you doing? Are you really enjoying the podcasts? Thank you for giving all your comments. Thank you for your suggestions, and I really appreciate that you’re benefited by some of these talks. Thank you.

Today’s food for thought is Motivation. What is motivation? Motivation is an energy flow which helps us to do a thing with enthusiasm. Am I right? It’s basically enthusiasm to carry out an activity.

Where does it come from? Where does it originate? It’s a very big question. Many times, we expect motivation to happen from outside, but I always believe that motivation happens from inside; that is sustained motivation. When motivation happens from outside, it’s temporary; sometimes motivation, de-motivation they keep overlapping. We have seen so many people; when they expect outside motivation, they become totally paralyzed when they don’t get it.

I’ll tell you a couple of examples which I had. I was working as a sales executive in a shipping company, and it was their annual day. So, the manager, the boss, called all of us juniors, and said, “You know what, we are having our annual day, and our mother company and we are joining hands and having a celebration. So, I want you all to do some performance, or do some activity from our side, from our division.” So, we asked him, “What’s the budget?” He said, “Do you really want to know?” We said yes. “Nothing, no budget, the whole budget is utilized by the parent company, so we don’t have any.” We came back to our rooms and we were talking amongst each other. We said, “What can we do? We have no money, how do we get this done?” We all were pretty dejected, so we went back home, and back to our rooms. We were all bachelors, we were in our 20s, early 20s; went back to our room and then we were thinking what to do, separately, of course. Next morning, we all assembled, and we discussed, what can we do. Everybody said nothing. I said, “Okay, let me try something. We will sing a song, there is an orchestra already, so we will make a song, or we perform something on stage, also we will make a drama, a one-act play, or two-act play.” Then they asked who will write it? I said, “I’ll write it.” I had not thought about it much. I did not know what to do. We had about three weeks, so I said, “Okay, that’s good enough.” And that’s the time when the computer just started, there was software called WordStar, I think, and we could type on it and we could edit and stuff like that. It was not like we’re writing them down; so it was easier. And I was thinking, what music we will do. While I was in the car, suddenly, this music was playing – ‘Give peace a chance’ by John Lennon. Then I realized (it was the time when the Gulf War was happening), that this is the most relevant song. I decided to modify it to add all the people in our company; our boss, everybody put together, to get the effect of the time; like George Bush and all those people involved in the war, Saddam Hussein and people. Then, I completely changed the lyrics and then we practised together, the group, the youngsters, the sales team. The boss didn’t know anything about it, we were doing it elsewhere. I also wrote a script, a drama. That was all about various aspects of our organization in a very funny way. For example, communication goes, then we are all in dark; the customer is asking us, “When do you think my cargo will reach the destination?” So, we’re telling that “I’ll check the horoscope and tell you.” Something like that, you know, just like a funny situation because we don’t have communication, because of the war situation, things like that. It was a two-act play. I directed, I played the main role, and the others joined me etc. Since I wrote it, it was easier for me to remember the dialogues. Then we performed on stage, despite the parent company having the entire money budget and all the different things, costumes, etc. We got the best applause, and we got the best participant award. And everybody said, “How did you do it?” Then I said, “If there is a will, we can do anything. I’ve never done this before, but we can do it.”

See, when you really have to do it, you should be self-motivated and against all odds, you can perform. Why I explained this story right now is because when we say, “Oh, this is COVID situation, everything is restricted” or “We don’t have mobility. Things are not right.” etc.; always remember, you are the same, you can really do it.

This is the time when things are in adverse when the climate is adverse; that’s a time when you really can be motivated. Also, it’s self-motivation, which nobody can give you nor can anybody take from you. This is a very, very powerful thing which you can think about; there are so many other things I can talk about on motivation. But motivation is something which you can cultivate; it can be a habit, it can be an attitude. If you are motivated from inside, from within, nobody can stop you, because you will not care about the environment. After all, you are motivated. That motivation will inspire a lot of people. Today, this is what I see.

People look at me for inspiration, and I have to always be inspired, means I have to give inspiration. Sometimes situations are adverse, and climate is not right, the environment is also not right. In COVID situation, especially when the economic meltdown is happening, a psychological meltdown is happening, people are not happy. There is a lot of anger, a lot of remorse, a lot of confusion. Also, there is a lot of suffering. At this time, if you can motivate yourself to motivate the world, you will be respected.

With this thought on your plate, I leave you. Digest it as best as you can. Please tell us what you feel, how you feel. Also, please try to make a difference in your life and the life of others by your own motivation.

Wish you success. This is Mohanji. All the best.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Small steps, big success (Kaizen)

Hello, my dear friends. Welcome to Mohanji Speaks.

In the mid-1940s, World War II ended, and many countries went into economic depression. You must have read about this in books or must have seen them in videos or television. So, many companies were on the verge of bankruptcy; some of them closed down. A similar situation happened to Toyota as well; the car manufacturing company, Toyota. They had two problems. One of them, lack of finance and the other was the management of resources. So, they did not really know how to overcome the situation. Then, they found a technique, which is called Kaizen. Kai means change and Zen is wisdom, the wisdom of change. That technique really helped them to get back on their feet. I think it was Dr Downing who proposed this technique, or this company, which I could not verify. Maybe it is wrong, but I think it was him. What he said was, you have strength already. If you use your strength well, you can overcome the situation.

The technique was very simple. One step more each day in the path of progress. That means, from where you are now, taking one step forward. Imagine all the employees, imagine that 1000 employees in the company; each of them takes one innovative step, each day. It’s 1000 steps that day. Every step forward, every improvement is one more step to progress. This method (this technique), literally got Toyota back on their feet. Later on, Canon and so many other organizations followed it, but this Kaizen technique became very popular. It means, one step a day, one step leads to huge change, I’ll explain it better.

Imagine you decided to take physical exercises. Where do you start? How do you start? So, according to Kaizen technique, take one pushup, a day. Next day, two pushups; third day, three pushups. Now in 50 days, you would have been taking 50 pushups. So, with gradual progress, one step at a time, consistent progress, you reach great distance in no time. So, this is a medicine or a remedy for procrastination, or inertia, for all kinds of situations where you don’t know what to do. When you are in a confused state, this is the right thing to do; take one step forward. Even if you cannot see the whole future, take a step forward. Thus, taking one step at a time, you reach a lot.

Kaizen technique is also known as One Minute Rule. One Minute Rule simply means ‘take a step’, wherever you are standing; one step forward. Imagine you are doing something for a period of time, take one step forward from there. That will be an improvement. This is especially good when you are in times of confusion. Sometimes, you are procrastinating; sometimes inertia takes over, sometimes depression, and various tamasic situations, no inspiration; that’s a time when you can constantly improve through taking one step forward, continuously, constantly. Of course, you should have a vision.

Vision is important. Where do you want to go, you must know, that is for sure. Personally, officially at whichever level, where you want to reach; this is very important. When you’re moving a mission, it’s a collective thought, collective vision. With the collective vision, if everybody takes one step forward and beats their tamas, with constant improvement, continuously; then you will see a huge change in the future, but how do you know that you have changed? Only when you look back at where you started from. That’s the only way you can know the progress. So, if you want to know the progress, you’ve got to look back to where you started from. And then, you will see how much you have progressed.

It’s a very important and very unique technique. Imai Masaaki has written a book about it. There are so many books actually. Imai Masaaki’s book is quite famous, and he says small steps, big change.

So, this is one of the thoughts which I wanted to leave you with today. The Kaizen technique can probably transform our lives. Take one step forward, inspire everybody to take one step forward. So, from a state of utter confusion, despair, and even a state of collapse, they brought Toyota back as a leading car manufacturer in the world. And imagine Japan at that time, after receiving two atomic bombs on its chest and huge severe economic depression, due to war, they came back in full regalia.

Please remember, in the statistics taken in 2015, about the most hard-working country or the people who work hard in each country, Mexico came top. Mexico was the first and Japan was the eighth, but look at the progress; economic progress, stability, welfare, per capita income, Japan is much higher. That’s probably because of their steady, one step at a time, progress. Slow and steady wins the race.

So, this consistency and clarity are very, very important. Clarity comes with a purpose, when you have clarity of purpose, clarity of action comes, and when you know where you’re going, i.e. if you have a proper vision, you can build the clarity, you can have clarity. Then, if you take one step at a time, it will beat the procrastination, it will beat laziness, and you can keep walking.

Each step will take you forward, small improvements and immediate improvement. This is very important. Make small improvements but immediate, not tomorrow, not the day after; that is procrastination. Right now, no inertia, 1, 2, 3, 4, like that. Each day, some improvement, and then you will reach a lot in 50 days.

So, I leave you with these thoughts. I hope you enjoyed this. Please do think about it. This is the food for thought today. This is a very practical way of improving your life.

Thank you very much. Have a great day. This is Mohanji.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Expectations

Hello friends, this is Mohanji.

I used to do podcasting many years ago when I was in Dubai in the mid-2000s. The podcasts were called, ‘Mohan’s World.’ It was in a studio, run by a man called Peter Hall. It was quite a cozy and comfortable makeshift studio, in a car shed. In the podcasts, I used to talk about something; (it was) one show every week. There were a lot of listeners from many parts of the world. People used to connect to me, talk to me, that is, and communicate with me.

This was the period before Facebook started and YouTube had just begun. There were much communication and many interactions (through the podcasts). When I stopped it, many people complained saying that we want it back! Due to various reasons, many years passed by and I couldn’t really put myself into a position where I could have steady communication. Now we are attempting to start a kind of communication, directly, from me to you. This is an attempt to connect using the waves of sound.

I like the radio. Radio has its charm. We are in the world of no visuals. Of all our senses, the one that consumes the most energy are the eyes. So I like the idea that we can close our eyes and listen, and it really makes sense to me. I like it. A type of communication, where you cannot see my face but you can only hear my voice and you accept my sound as it comes, and you remain as you are, at that point in time.

We will try to do one podcast a week, like I used to do earlier or if possible more. During this time of Corona, we have more time and I’m in one location, and so we will try to do more. The whole idea is that we are talking and we are communicating from a distance, where you don’t see my face and you’re only listening to my voice, and you accept it. You probably would like to assimilate it at your own pace. That is absolutely fine.

So, what are the subjects that we could talk about, or what do we talk? It depends on you. If you can tell me, if you have a particular subject that you would like me to address, I’m really happy to do that. And this subject should be relevant to the world. It should not be personal because that will not make sense. You have a personal issue and if I talk about it to the world over a podcast, it doesn’t make sense. So we should talk about something which everybody can relate to. That’s very important.

For every podcast, I will choose a subject, which would most likely be a universal topic, maybe something I heard of or something which I listened to or somebody asked me something etc. such that everybody can enjoy it. This is my idea.

Today, what do we talk about? I do not want to talk about anything serious today, because this is the introduction. We have started a podcast channel. We are now trying to get back to our old communication mode. Let us keep this episode very simple, very mild. And we will talk about the details of various things later; we have time.

Today, a little while back, I heard a particular speech by Osho. I didn’t listen to it fully. I listened to it for a few minutes, in which he said, “I’m happy that you don’t believe in me, because if you believed in me, it would have been my responsibility. Since you don’t believe in me, I’m relieved. I’m free. If you had actually believed in me, maybe you would have even taken revenge, because you would have come with expectations. And if you had come with expectations, and those expectations were not fulfilled, you might be angry; you might be disappointed; you might be upset. And you may take revenge on me. So, I’m relieved that I don’t have to tackle your revenge”.

It is ironical; it’s slightly skeptical or even satirical. But if we think deeply about it, isn’t that the truth? We connect to somebody with an expectation all the time. All of our relationships have an expectation, inbuilt in them. Have we thought about it? And what happens to that expectation? If it is fulfilled, you are happy and you would develop more expectations. If you don’t fulfil it or if it doesn’t get fulfilled, then disappointment happens. And that can even take to the edge of revenge. Is that person responsible? Absolutely not! It’s we who are connecting with an expectation, which is responsible for our reality. Thus, every time, our reality is completely controlled by how we are, what we are. This is very important to understand.

On that note, I will leave you today. This is food for thought. I would like to give you food for thought each time so that you can think about it.

A man who can contemplate is a human being. Human beings have the capacity for contemplation. We have the capacity for meditation. So, let us contemplate, let us analyze, let us understand, and let us assimilate. I am with you; I will talk to you again, later.

Wish you a great week ahead and be happy always and be safe.

Lots of love.

 

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Which are you? Fixed or flexible mindset?

Hello friends. This is Mohanji.

Hope you’re doing well and hope you’re digesting the subjects that we had chosen in the last few podcasts and hope they are helpful to you. Today, I was thinking of taking up a subject which you can use as food for thought.

The subject is a mindset. Mindset is not an easy subject, because it’s not easy to put the mind structure into compartments. But it’s important because that is the advantage of understanding ourselves more so that we can remove all the clutter and we can bring clarity. This is the advantage. The more clarity we have, life will be cleaner; life will be better. Otherwise, confusions and clutter can take over.

So, what are the major mindsets that we see in this world? Let’s categorize them into two. One is a fixed mindset, and the other is a flexible mindset or a growth mindset.

The fixed mindset, they usually avoid challenges, they don’t like challenges. Then they hate changes, they like fixed routines. If any change happens, even if it’s a change in material like food on the table, they become unhappy, they become upset; their life pattern changes. So, they can’t leave patterns. They are very, very bound to patterns. They hate changes. They also think they can do very little to change the situation. Then, they do not like criticism, they don’t accept criticism. If somebody comes and tells them, “Look here, why don’t you make a difference in your life? Why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try something new?”, they can’t accept it. Because they are sure what they’re doing is the right thing. And they won’t look at a person or any friendship or any connection favourably if they are starting to interfere in their life. For example, if somebody tries to correct them or makes a change in their life for the better, even that will not be accepted because they don’t like an intervention. They want to stay in their own comfort zones, they are very, very afraid to leave that comfort zone, to leave their pattern. They only see obstacles. They see obstacles all the time because for them, “Oh, this is a problem, that’s a problem”; they always discuss problems. And they try to tell people that people are not right, the situation is not right, problems are happening, like that they will always think about problems. Then they also feel that putting efforts are useless because life happens anyway. Why do you put a lot of effort? This is a fixed mindset. A lot of people are like that in the world. They just live and die. Anonymous, we won’t even see them, because they have a fixed mindset, and they are kind of like how the animals live; the routine life. That’s it. If anything just happened in their life, they are upset. They don’t like changes.

Now we look at the flexible mindset. They welcome challenges. “Bring it on”, you know, that attitude. And they embrace changes. When changes happen, they just melt into the changes. Then they think everything is possible. There is nothing impossible in life, they think impossibility is an illusion, we can do it. If somebody can do it, we can do it. If there’s a thought, we can make it happen. If there is a firm wish or a desire, it can be accomplished. They treasure feedback and would learn eagerly; they like to have feedback. They ask, “What do you think about this?” or “Can we improve on it?” and they use everything, or every faculty, or every connection so that they can improve in some way. So, every day, they think about what else can we do? How we can improve this? How we can make the standards better? It’s not maintenance anymore. They are builders, they can build. They don’t worry about what’s already happened. But in their mind, they’re always thinking, “What else we can do, what else can happen?” So, they are always on a mode of improvement, or they try to upgrade everything. So, they like feedback, and they want to change things in a positive way. They love exploring new things and they look at results. Their focus is, “This is my aim, I want to reach there,” and they reach there. Obstacles on the way, it doesn’t matter. There will be obstacles, there will be detours in life. No problem. They keep moving. And every failure for them is a lesson.

So, this is approximately how a person with a flexible mindset thinks. It’s a good thought for us so that we understand where we stand, you know. So, there are a few things which we can check to see where we are in these two categories. Are we from the category of a fixed mindset, or are we from the category of a flexible mindset? So, a few things you can look at is; are we lazy? How do you measure that?

The time when you wake up, and the time when you get up. So when you wake up, if you’re lying in the bed thinking about “Oh my God! It’s morning again.” That’s a lazy attitude, means purpose is not very clear. There’s no clarity of purpose. This is one of the signs you can look at. That’s why we started the Early Birds Club with definite clarity. When you wake up, you are sharp, you have a fixed schedule so you can wake up and you can go through the process so that laziness, the tamas part can be slowly taken away. Please don’t underestimate tamas. Tamas is a very, very dangerous thing. It’s like cancer, we wouldn’t even know that it’s existing inside until and unless we become completely paralyzed. That’s why the Early Birds Club I’m stressing on and I’m telling people to try that because you know, that way you can change your mode from a lazy or a fixed mindset to a flexible mindset, and also attain a lot of success in life. Our aim is to create successful people; positive people. For positivity, you need to have a positive lifestyle.

So, are we lazy? Secondly, are we restless and distracted all the time? That means we do not have a stable mindset, stability is affected. If you are restless and if you are distracted all the time, the mind is like a monkey jumping from one branch to the other. We are disappointed with so many things; we are distracted in various ways. Then it is time we get to something which inspires us from within; concentrate on it. This is important.

So, what can we do about it? We can try to find something which is self-enhancing; self-rejuvenation, self-inspiration, this kind of thing, which would be a thing connected to your nature, and your own inherent constitution, how you are made. It is based on your inclination, your tendencies. That’s what’s suitable for you. Cultivate that thing, then you can improve on it, but it should be something positive. Not something negative, which is draining or which costs a lot of money or efforts and stuff like that. Whatever is natural will be effortless for you. So that’s the right thing to do. Usually, if you are preoccupied with unimportant things, for example, some people are just addicted to WhatsApp or Facebook; they waste the whole day like that. Some people are addicted to games on the computer. Some people have other material addictions and all kinds of things.

So, our waking hours, how best are we using? If we are preoccupied with the not so important things that detach us and deviates us from the actual purpose of life, then we must correct it. Because, what are you here for, what is your actual purpose? Let’s say, if your purpose is liberating yourself completely so that you are fine with life, you’re not in conflict with life, you’re very stable with life, you’re enjoying life, you’re accepting life, you’re respecting life, and then, respecting all the people connected to you. You’re not discriminating, you’re not criticizing, you’re not trying to push people away, you’re accepting everybody, you’re kind of walking with them and you’re in a mode of liberation. Let’s say, a mode of liberation means a lifestyle of liberation. In that case, don’t wander on insignificant things. We must understand that they are not helping us to progress.

But recreation is fine once in a while, we can watch a feature film, we can have a good dinner outside. I’m not saying that we avoid all our happiness, all our enjoyments. We should look at, are we spending a lot of time on unimportant things?

Another thing is, is our energy flow proper? How does energy flow become proper? First of all, if you indulge in positive things, positive thoughts, positive words, positive action, energy flow will be good. Secondly, if you are involved in activities which you love to do, energy flow will be good. But what you love to do should adhere to your goal of life. This is very important. What you love to do, should not be something which wastes your energy, like indulgences and addictions. Many people spend a lot of time on addictions, even though energy flow might be good, but it’s not positive.

Then another point is, your thought process, you have no control. Where are the thoughts coming from? Thoughts are coming from inherent inclinations, so be aware of that. And if you’re able to regulate and guide them to the goal all the time; or as we mentioned earlier, our goal is liberation. If our thoughts are all going towards that goal, you’re on the right track because you have set a goal, you’ve set your destination right. So, if you’re travelling in that mode, and your energy flow is in that mode, your thoughts are in that mode, you are absolutely on the right track. This is all you need to do.

Now, I would sum up so that it becomes food for thought. All these ingredients we have to cook together and make a nice, tasty curry. So, first of all, analyze, where you stand. Do you have a fixed mindset or a flexible mindset? Secondly, how do you know where you stand? We have explained, various options for it. We can explain more later but this I don’t want to elaborate too much. And thirdly, this understanding will help you to correct yourself to the right track.

So, there are more things, we will talk about next time. I leave you with this thought at this point in time. Let’s understand, and let’s assimilate, and let’s improve ourselves in the right way. I leave you with these thoughts. Be happy, and be bright, the world needs light.

Lots of love.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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A contented life is a successful life

Hello friends. This is Mohanji.

I hope you have enjoyed and digested all the previous topics, especially the last few ones, which was resistance.

Today, I would like to talk about contentment. Contentment is, according to me, success. A contented life is a successful life. Why do I say that? It is because the usual method of human fulfillment is desire – fulfillment – satisfaction – contentment. This is the way we work. Now, we reach a stage where we have a desire, for example, I’d like to have a coffee now. But if the coffee is not available also, I am not dissatisfied. So, our whole attitude has changed if the fulfillment happened or not, we are still fine.

So, we have reached a level of maturity where our dependency on things outside us, has reduced. That means, where are we depending, what are we depending on? Inside. This is a fundamental shift in awareness. We are less dependent on things outside, and we are more contented with ourselves. We are pretty much stable. We are stable on a constant basis.

What can we do about this aspect? A lot of people have spoken about that. The space for peace is between an inhalation and an exhalation; the gateway to heaven is between an inhalation and an exhalation. There’s a tiny little space where it is silent. We concentrate on that silence or we concentrate on our heartbeat. Between a sound and silence, there is a space, so we concentrate on that space. Like that, we have various methods.

But today, we are on a very fast track board. We are doing so many things. Many things we do unconsciously, so do we get satisfaction? I doubt. We don’t even know that we are doing all these things. So, how do we maintain satisfaction? One of the methods is to concentrate on the work, focus on the work. Do it as perfect as you can. Dive into it and do it with your absolute attention, full application, and full concentration, then leave the result. Where does the result go wrong? When we have an expectation and if the result did not meet that expectation, we have disappointment.

So, human disappointment is connected to expectation usually. But if you just leave it like that, concentrate on the work fully; full application, full concentration, full dedication, then whatever the result is, we are happy with it. So, our focus is diverted to the activity, not the result. That is a very, very big shift, a major shift in our life.

 

 

As I said earlier, the success factor of life is contentment factor. If we don’t have contentment in life, we don’t have any success. We may have money, we may have properties, we may have so many materials in the outside world, but no inner satisfaction. That’s not a successful life according to me. Also, I feel that we should concentrate on just the activity, with full good intention. The intention should be good, pure and we should make sure that it’s not harmful to anybody. We should not create anything which is harmful to others. We should only do activities that are beneficial. You know, when I say harmful that means it is sadistic, destructive, or it leaves a negative balance or negative impact in the society. That’s what I call harmful. We should never do that. And we should concentrate on ourselves to maintain this purity of intention and purity of action. That means the results are also pure.

What you sow, that you reap. So, if you sow the seeds of purity, you will reap purity. So, this is exactly how it is. So, our selfish pleasures, our selfishness, our insecurities, the various things that we have stored inside; we should not even look at it; instead, we focus on good work, positive work, good action, and then it would be something bright and positive.

So, I leave you with these thoughts now, because these are fundamental thoughts. And you can actually build a positive attitude with these thoughts. We will discuss more such thoughts later. But I don’t want to talk too much. These are foods for thought. And please think about it, ponder it, discuss it and try to make a system out of it. It is a positive action and less dependency on the results, and more dependency all within ourselves.

I always say, if you want to read one book in this life, the book that you must read is called YOU. You are the book, you must read. This is very important. I leave you with this thought. Perfect yourself which you can. Only you can. Let’s take it forward like that.

I love you and I’m always with you, and this is a good way to interact. I’m sure you’re enjoying it. And if you have any suggestions, please write to podcast@mohanji.org. And our people will analyze those messages and we’ll also reply. I may not be able to handle it myself all the time but I will get those messages which are relevant. And if you have a particular topic, if you have a particular subject which you want me to talk about, I’m happy to do that.

Lots of love.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Depth of illusion

Hello, my dear friends! This is Mohanji.

Welcome to another podcast. Today, we will discuss the subject – illusion. What is illusion? I’ll tell you a story. Probably, you can figure out some aspect of illusion. In Sanskrit, it is called Maya. Maya is a relative truth. Relative truth, it is a truth, but its relative. Relative truth means it has existence, only on a relative level; it doesn’t have existence on the absolute plane.

So, relative truth is what we experience most of the time when we are awake. When we are awake like the sun rises, the mind rises; when we wake up, the mind rises, and then we start perceiving the world around us. And when we sleep, the mind sets. Nothing around us is of importance. So what rises, and what sets, is the relative mind. The mind, which is connected to relative things. But we still have an element of satisfaction, an element of happiness, even in sleep.

So, we are not dependent on any items or any things around us. Our happiness is not dependent on people, places, time, situations, experiences of external nature; we are not that, they are all outside. We are only completely inside when we are sleeping. But we are happy, we are happy with that sleep. There is a satisfaction that is happiness. When we wake up, if somebody asks, “Did you sleep well?” “Yeah, it was a beautiful sleep. It was enjoyable. I was happy.” What is enjoyable in that sleep? This is something which we must perceive so that we will somewhat understand the relative truth.

What we have outside is not always experience. We see so many things outside. Eyes see ears listen. So many things, so many factors we go through every day. But everything is not experienced, imagine there are so many people around. We are not experiencing everybody’s relationship.

I’ll tell you the story, and then I’ll talk further. There was one guy; he was meditating in Ganga, in freezing water for a long time, just to find out the truth of Maya, the illusion, or the relative truth. And finally, one day, God appeared and said, “Why are you meditating on something which is insignificant which you are experiencing and it may not be possible for your intellect to understand it. Why do you want to know?” Then he said, “I would like to know the depth of Maya, illusion.” God said, “In time, you will understand, let time, teach you this lesson.” God disappeared. He was disappointed because he thought that God will give him clarity, but he did not get it. So, while he was sitting there, his children came, he left for his home, and the children took care of him. He was living with his children, but at the same time, he had a deep urge to know the truth of Maya, illusion.

One day, when he was sitting outside on the porch of the house, he heard one beggar singing a song and walking outside on the road. And he had a glimpse of the beggar, he was in tatters. He had no clothes or very little clothes, fully dark and kind of shabby, not at all clean. And he felt a lot of disgust. And also, he felt this is very bad or something like that in his mind, and soon afterwards he died. So, his predominant thought at that time was disgust.

When he was reborn, he was born again, as a beggar. And he had no memory of his past life, and he was walking around, singing songs, just like he had a glimpse in the previous life. He went on like that, he married a woman, but she didn’t live for long. And meanwhile, she had a few children, children also died.

So, he was very sad, he was disoriented and he was wandering all the time. And one day, it so happened that he was wandering through one city and that King of that city had died, and they were trying to find a new king. So, the astrologers or the wise men told that the new king should be chosen by an elephant, by the Royal Palace elephant, a trained one, as it has the power to see who is divine. It was given a garland and the elephant was wandering through the streets, looking for the right person to be the next king. Then he put the garland around the neck of this beggar. Everybody was surprised, but they said this is the decision of God. Then they took this guy, they bathed him and they gave him fresh clothes and they coronated him, he became the king. And he married again, he had a few wives and he had children and all those things.

And he was ruling the country. He had some kind of inclination for a good rule, means without selfishness. He was a good king and he was having a good way to assess the good and the bad and make good decisions. So, everybody liked him. Eight or nine years went on like that. Meanwhile, one day he was walking in the garden outside his palace, and he heard a beggar singing, same like he used to do outside on the road. He immediately called the beggar, and he sat with him and he also started singing. All the palace people, the ministers and the people in the court, they saw this, and they were a bit disappointed. And they were saying, “oh, we did not know the past of this King, we must know.’ They went around their search and they found out that he was born in a beggar’s colony, and he was a beggar himself. This was his story. So, they were very disappointed. A couple of queens committed suicide knowing this. Some ministers also went away and there were so many calamities. This also made him very sad, so he also decided to jump into the fire and die. He jumped into the fire and died.

Suddenly the man who was meditating, or doing penance in the river got up. He realized the illusion, he realized what is untruth. The whole story, that means he’s still alive, but at the same time he saw him dying, him taking birth, him becoming a king; all this happened in about a minute. He realized it was a parallel reality, it was not true. It was a reality. So, God wanted to tell him what is reality and what is illusion.

Was this a reality? While he experienced, everything was real. He had sorrows, he had happiness, and he had everything. But now he realized that he’s not even dead, he’s still there. His sons have not picked him up. So, he was pretty much confused, he did not know what is real, what is untrue, what is not the truth. He was contemplating on it. And then he decided, “Okay, let me do penance again. Let me ask this question to the deity,” whom he was worshipping. And he started doing penance.

And while he was about to do that, one wandering man came to the place where he was sitting. Then he asked, “Who are you, where have you come from?” So, the wandering man said, “I was living in a city, there was a king who was a beggar, but we did not know he was a beggar. So, we coronated him as a king. He was ruling the country well, but later on, we realized that his background was not good, then we had a lot of problems in the country. Because of those problems, I decided to go wandering, because I had no other way to do.”

Then he realized, “This is my story, this is a story which I saw, but I saw all this in one minute. While this man is telling that this really happened. So what is reality? Whether my story is right, whether what I saw is real, or how did I perceive this? It is about me he is talking about, but I have not gone anywhere. I’m sitting here, and I’m experiencing this from another person’s mouth.” Then he decided, “I must get this answer.” He did penance, and the deity came, and the deity said, “Look here, your mind cannot comprehend Maya. It’s not possible. What your intellect, your logic is trying to understand, only some reality is connected to what the brain can understand, but there is much, much more. There are much deeper dimensions to everything, you will not be able to understand’.”

Ramana Maharishi

Just like that, somebody asked Ramana Maharshi, if a person dies, will he come back in two years into another body? And Ramana Maharshi said, “Yes, he can come back in two years in another body, and he can also come back into a body tomorrow. At the same time, he would have probably already lived for 75 years.” That means he can come back into a body in two years from this death to new birth. At the same time, and parallelly, he could have probably lived about 75 years.

So, this is exactly what is the depth of illusion, or the relative truth. We have so many parallel existences, which we may not even know. And some of these existences could be creating an interconnecting effect on each life.

So, I leave you with this thought about illusion. Don’t be confused. If you’re confused, it only means that this is something which creates confusion. So, just look at it that way, and we can explore it later. But it’s not really something which you can comprehend with the normal, available intellect. Don’t worry; all the people who heard this story, even the masters are confused about this.

So, the depth of creation and the depth of illusion in the creation, parallel realities and all these things, they are all real. But we have nothing to do with it. For us, what is experienced, that’s what we are. Experience, as I said in the beginning, we are experiencing everything, as we are. Outside, there are so many things that can only be perception; everything will not become our experience. We meet a person, we get a thing, materials, places, time, and they all may not give us experiences. But we are the experience. That experience also remains with us, when we are sleeping, when the mind is set, still, we have experience. And that’s what we are.

So, that experience when everything sets, mind, senses, all the aspects of the waking state sleeps, that’s exactly what we are. That’s worth exploring. What are we?

So, this is a good question. I leave you with this question. It’s a bit longer today, but to tell the whole story, it took some time.

I leave this thought on your plate. Contemplate on it, and then we’ll talk further.

Lots of love.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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