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

Silence Speaks – part 2

Satsang with Mohanji in Begrade, Serbia
13th October 2019

Watch the full satsang here.

PART 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Laughter in the audience)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is that clear?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q: Can we transcend duality in this reality?

M: Absolutely. One word, awareness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go home and have some food. Thank you!

 Read part 1

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

 

 

Silence Speaks – part 1

Satsang with Mohanji in Begrade, Serbia
13th October 2019

Watch the full satsang here.

PART 1

Q: I had a dream about you. You gave me lots of money. Is it ok, what does it mean?

M:  Isn’t it a good idea to have a dream and you get a lots of money? Dream state is a very powerful state; it is the same as waking state. Do you know what the difference between waking state and dream state is? When you are awake, you are sourcing from the world outside, when you are dreaming, you are sourcing from the world inside. But both have one thing in common –  experience. It is called experience and experience has an element of satisfaction. Every experience has an element of satisfaction. When you get something from the world outside, you have satisfaction. But sometimes, it is  temporary.  We have satisfaction from dreams also, because while dreaming it’s real for you. Every desire craves for fulfillment. Every desire’s natural culmination is fulfillment. So, if there was a desire to receive large amounts of wealth, it probably gets translated through dreams and you have satisfaction in that mode. Dream state is a very important state, where you are actually releasing some of your desires, just like waking state.

Q: What is the best way of serving God in a daily life?

M: When you start seeing the God element in yourself; if you just accept yourself totally, you are serving God. There is one thing that you can never avoid in your lifetime and that is you. When you truly and completely start accepting yourself, your own existence, you are accepting God. When you start accepting yourself completely, you become very  powerful. There are no enmities, there are no differences, and you only see your own vibration in the whole world. And that will give you Oneness. Oneness is the nature of God.

Story

One boy asked his father, “You keep talking about God to me, but I don’t understand God. What is God? “

The father explained,  “For you to experience God, you have to experience yourself.“

“Why does God need us to be God?”

Father replied, “Bring me some fire, I will show you.“

He brought a  lamp that had already been lit, with fire.

So the father said, “I told you to bring fire, why you have brought a lamp? It is a flame.“

Then he brought a burning charcoal.

The father  said, “I told you to bring fire, why have you brought a charcoal?”

The son replied, “ I cannot bring a fire without a medium.“

To this the father countered, “God cannot manifest itself without a medium.“

If you understand that, you will respect yourself. You will understand yourself. You will accept yourself. That is the only acceptance you need in life, and everything becomes love, because you love yourself. When you look through the eyes of your mind, what you see is differences. If you look through the eyes of your heart, you will see Oneness. We are all related. We are all relatives. Because, what sits in all of us is one thing. The shells might be different; the forms are different; personalities are different. Because that is the nature of expression of Creation. But inside all of us is one thing. When that thing leaves us, we call it a dead body. So what is alive in us, in waking state, dream state, and deep sleep state is the God particle; the particle called God. That is the value we have. When it leaves, we bury the body, we have no value for that body. As long as it sits, we have value; the moment it leaves, value is gone.

Now, you tell me how do you serve God? Love yourself, and love everybody as yourself. Because all are you, everything is you.

Q: How to defend ourselves from negative people?

M: I think both positive and negative sits inside us. We have both in us. When we nurture more and more love inside, and we start expressing that love in the world outside, we become more immune from the negative things of life, negative energies. There is nothing that is  only positive or only negative.

There is an old saying,   “The devil  uses the key of doubt. “   Doubt is the key that the devil uses to enter the mind. Once it enters, it uses the mind as its vehicle.

Doubt becomes the key for negativity to enter the mind. Once it enters the mind, you don’t know how to overcome it. One doubt will become two, three, and four  and very soon, doubts will rule your mind.  Say, you are progressing very well in positive vibrations and evolving higher into higher realms of awareness, someone   could simply plant a single doubt in your mind saying , “Are you sure?“ and that is it!  Everything  goes down. It’s as if you made extremely good food, spent hours  to make it and somebody put one drop of poison; nobody can eat that.

This is how the society works. They put doubts in your mind, and you are busy handling this doubt. By then you are already slipping down. Doubt is usually from those that you cannot avoid. This is also not only in spirituality; it is also in other relationships. People  put doubts about somebody, and you start behaving differently to the other person. Have you experienced it? How many times have you liked or disliked somebody based on someone’s words? Do you understand  what I am saying? We have to use our experience as our guide. Our own experience is our truth.

So, what is the other side? Faith. Faith in what? Faith in yourself. Trust in your own experience. If you have these two, nobody can touch you. No negativity can enter you. Guaranteed. Faith in yourself, trust in your own experiences, these are your protective sheaths.  Have you seen? Those who have strong faith in themselves, none  can defeat them. When a king or a ruler has full conviction and faith in him, and is leading an army, it is very difficult to destroy them even if the army is the half size of the opponent’s. If you stop trusting your own experience and believe in somebody else’s words, then nobody can protect you.

You must also remember,  you are born powerful. All of you. Who makes you weak? Your own mind. You don’t need any protection from anybody because you are born powerful. You have your own immunity, your own protection around you.  But  your mind is sometimes telling you that you are weak, and if you believe it,  you are weak. Otherwise, you are not weak.

Sometimes people come and tell me, “Mohanji, we cannot do that. It’s not possible. It is impossible.” I listen to it, because I respect their opinion, but I will still do it if I can. Even if I fail, I will try. Because if you did not even try, you do not know whether there is success or failure at the other end. So try, and have faith in yourself. If you fail, it is a good lesson. If you succeed, it is amazing, you proved the point. I would say, keep walking, trust yourself. Have faith in yourself. Trust in your experiences. You will eventually know that you are very  strong.

Did I answer that question about negative beings? Negative beings or negative energies can come to you only if you permit them. Only if the windows are open, the mosquitoes enter. How do you prevent mosquitoes from entering? Fix a net. What is your net? Your own experience. Trust it. Don’t allow opinions to enter through.  Let your experience lead you, guide you.

Q: How to overcome anger and aggression, when they happen within us? Is homosexuality something that can be overcome and is it morally sound to have children while in homosexual relationship?

M: What does anger have  to do with homosexuality? If you did not like your girlfriend and became very angry,  you became a homosexual? (laughter)J

Many of the emotions such as anger and hatred have their root cause  in expectation. If you go deeper to find the root of anger, you will see an expectation that was not fulfilled. That leads to a situation of anger. Usually, an expectation unfulfilled becomes a disappointment. A disappointment then leads to anger and various other forms.

Understand one thing very clearly. All the human beings are driven by inclinations. We can see it even in children. They have certain inclinations, we all have them and they are unique. Inclinations are the driving force. If a person is inclined towards certain things of life, he will chase them. That gives you likes and dislikes. They are the root cause of most of the flavors of life; how we live, what we like, what we dislike, who we like to be with, who we don’t like to be with; all these things are caused or driven by inclinations. You may call  them tendencies.

You can see these inclinations very distinctly in children; very clear inclinations. And usually, that is why they choose a certain path of education;  because they are inclined towards it, unless parents influence them otherwise. If not, they choose their path and go further. I am talking about inclinations because if you look into yourself and find your inclinations, you will easily understand your patterns; it is easy to understand. Destiny is not easy to understand because destiny is as it unfolds.

So if you really look into yourself, behind every habit, behind every tendency, behind every like, behind every dislike, you see inclinations at work. Another example where you can see inclinations at work is how some people like devotion; they like to chant, they like to sing and they like to see or feel God through Bhakthi or devotional path.

Some people need answers, they have lots of questions and they need answers. If they don’t get answers, they don’t accept. That is the knowledge path.  Like that, we have the path of service, path of Supreme Consciousness, and so many different paths. This tells clearly our tendency, our inclination. Thus, if you look into yourself and understand the patterns that you have, the habits that you have, all these  point towards your inclination; and they are the cause for your daily experiences also, that is where I am coming to.

So, what causes anger, what causes hatred, and all such emotions? The primary cause is always an expectation, an unfulfilled expectation. If you understand your tendencies and just watch them; don’t do anything, just keep watching …“This is my tendency, these are my inclinations…“ If you keep watching, after a while you will see that your anger quotient has reduced, expectation reduces, disappointment reduces, anger reduces by itself.

People love gossips right? People make television  series out of it, and also make a lot of money. What is the cause of gossips? Personal insecurities. If you are fully secure you will not talk about another person. It doesn’t matter. If you are insecure, then you will talk about other people to cover your insecurity. When you are secure, and when you are contented, you will permit life to go on, you will allow life to flow. You will not be worried about anything.

This is approximate picture of anger. I hope you understood  where the anger comes from. Now you look within, and see what is causing that anger. When somebody is angry with you, what is the best way to handle it? Will you shout back? Smile. They are expressing their weakness, right? Let it be. Your presence should make them feel better, not worse. Mostly, when your ego is hurt, anger happens. It is a response or a reaction of the ego.

Sexuality and homosexuality

Now about homosexuality, what is the problem with that? All people have sexuality. Everybody. Not only human beings, but  beings of every species. Why is it so? To continue the species. That’s exactly why the aspect of sexuality is connected to every being. But most beings, except  the humans, keep sexuality to their body. What do we do? We keep sexuality in our mind, and we don’t know how to get rid out of it. That is why we have a huge porn industry. Why is it happening? Because we keep sexuality in the mind. If you show a porn to an animal, it wouldn’t want it to see it. The point that I am emphasizing is that everything in life has its place and it has its relevance. When these are migrated  somewhere else, they change their forms. When anything is suppressed, or controlled or denied or disciplined,  it creates different shapes;  whatever is suppressed or denied,  they create or  change into different aspects, different forms. I would say, do not look at sexuality as a disease. It’s part of life, and it’s a part of the instinct which is God given, which is a part of Creation. It is connected to the basic instincts, it is the basic instinct. What is the basic instinct? Instinct for survival. Survival instinct is our basic instinct. One part is food, the other part is sexuality, connected to the survival instinct.  We don’t have control over sexual orientation because  it is connected to various factors. It could even be what we get to see in the world, such as certain phobias, fears or concepts, how we are brought up, or what is denied, so many factors… It is not just one thing;  lots of things are connected to this. If you understand, this is it, we will not have much opinion about it. I don’t give opinion about any of the personal orientations. Because I am nobody to give an opinion. I have no right.

I only say two things: One is accept yourself as you are completely. The second is, do not be violent, by any means, in thoughts, words or actions. That means total acceptance and non-violence. There is peace on earth.

We are 7.5 billion people on earth now. If all people are heterosexual, it will double up in no time. I think nature is keeping some checks. We respect nature. But I never give an opinion. I don’t have an opinion nor do I ever say anybody’s  non-violent expression is bad, because it’s not my job. Nor is it your right to judge another person. You have no right and that is because of one reason, we do not know another person. I do not know another person because I see another person only at a certain time, for a certain space in time, not beyond. Neither do you see another person;  everybody sees each other only for a certain time, then how can we judge another person?

 But we can accept everybody, just as we have to accept ourselves.

I hope that it is answered. I never explained sexuality in such detail.

Not a bad idea.

Q: When will I find a soulmate (a man)?

M: Look around, in the larger world (laughter). But before that, have you found your own soul? If you have found your own soul, and if you have accepted that soul, as the one real aspect of your existence, you will definitely find your soulmate. Instead of looking outside, look inside, and find your only truth, and then, when you look outside you will only see truth. Instead, if you are looking outside, to find a person, you will only see forms, and you don’t know which is your soulmate. You need to understand your soul, to find soulmates.

Q: I would like to know what is the easiest way of clearing the blockages that I have?

M: One word – ACCEPTANCE. All the blockages are connected to resistance. Watch yourself. Try to find out how many things in life you have resisted and are still resisting which are making you unhappy. Usually, unhappiness is connected to resisting something; fighting against something; when we are against something,  our entire  energy is occupied with it and then we do not have time to be happy.  Instead,  start accepting yourself. Say, “OK, this is happening in life, let it come, let it go. Everything comes and goes.” When you are fully occupied with yourself and you are accepting yourself, then there is no room for blockages. Nothing can block you. Nothing within or outside can block you.

Q: How to deal with those heavy people, the emotional vampires?

M: That is a very big question J. What do we do with them? The only way you can sustain  different energies from the society is to increase your energy. There are methods: meditations, kriyas, chanting… You do a purification every day, for some time, at least a couple of hours, for two or three hours, internal purification, alignment. When you are fully aligned, nothing and nobody can take from you; you can give anything, but nobody cannot take away anything from you. So alignment consists of consistent activity, practice.

What practice is good for you? Practice which you can do effortlessly, without effort, one that you like to do, one you love to do, that is good for you.

Which teacher, master, Guru is good for you? The one with whom you can connect effortlessly.

Which religion is good for you? The religion, the road map  through which you can travel effortlessly. You are feeling good.

What is the common factor for all of these? YOU.

Everything is connected to you. When you wake up in the morning, you have a world outside of you. When you sleep at night, your world shuts down. That’s the only world you have: the world when you wake up, and when you sleep. The space in between that waking and sleep is your only world. Before you were born this world existed, after your death this world will exist, but that world does not belong to us. We can use this world only when you wake up, and in between, until the time you sleep. It is  very simple.

We are busy trying to conquer this world, and all that we want there. But what will you do with that? We are busy queuing to buy the new iphone 10. After a while, somebody says, “iphone 11 is coming,“ so this is useless. We are always chasing something new, and we get tired. Sometimes we get tired.  That is exactly the point. The point is that everything is you. With or without the iPhone, you are still you.

So, what is our job? Recognize this truth – You are everything. Where is Mohanji sitting? Only when you are awake, sometimes outside. Is Mohanji relevant? Not as relevant as you are. Not only me, anything outside of you is only complementing your existence. But your existence is owned by you.

If you really understood what I am saying, if you really understood this point, you will never be disappointed in life. You will be happy with what you have, and you will not have unhappiness with what you don’t have. You will be happy with whatever you have right now. It does not mean that you become dull, you become contented, peaceful. This is good, isn’t it?

But to all the people who came to see me I am very happy (smiles) don’t think I am not happy. I am really happy you came to see me. I appreciate it.

But please understand, the whole spiritual journey and the material journey also, all types of journeys, the journey of life is you, is connected to you, you are the beginning, and you are the end. And never feel that somebody else is ruining your life, that somebody else is deciding your life, somebody else is trying to manipulate your life, that is not true. It is only as much as you allow, they can enter. Only as much as you open the door, air or light will enter. It’s not about other people, it’s about us. The story called life is about us. It’s our story. There will be many players, there will be many people participating, like in a drama. They are all complementing your story. They are not creating a new story. You are the main player. You are the main actor, the hero. And many people are playing the other roles, let them play, it’s nice. There will be romance, there will be horror, good, bad, ugly, everything. But that is the beauty of life. That is how life should be. It can’t be monotonous, right?

Thus, as a matter of interaction with the society, I always say this, let everything you do, let it be honest to yourself. Means, there should be honesty and purity in your thoughts, words, actions, so you are fine that way. If there is no honesty, then slowly you will start hating yourself; it’s not about people, it’s about us. It’s our story. We have to keep it pure and honest. Nice, beautiful, fragrant.

Q: There is a secret connection between India and Serbia. Do you agree?

M: I not only agree, I feel. That is why my wife is from Serbia; irreversible connection. Another thing is that like the language; there is a lot of resemblance, I would say, between  Sanskrit  which is the substratum for most of Indian languages and as well as the language here, I believe. I would rather look at the entire Balkans. It  makes more sense  because there is a lot  in common.  There is a lot of frequency connection with the larger Balkans. I don’t look at countries, I look at energies. So, when you look at the energies, there is  a unity in the whole region.  You can feel the same in India, in what we would call  Bharat India, which means the spiritual India. The basic vibration is that of spirituality. There is a deeper link here. We are linked in some ways. There is a lot of connection, visible and invisible. Most importantly, we are all related, soul-wise. We are soulmates in that way.

Don’t worry, I love South Africa also, don’t be sad. J These sisters had a sad face (talking to the audience). America also, Sedona. J I really like Sedona. That is the Kailash of America. I love Sedona.

Q: I used to be afraid  of  authority and kind of ashamed. It’s no longer the case, but why do I react by shivering when I am getting in touch with any authorities and how do I defeat that, how to overcome that?

M: That’s connected to what is stored inside. All our responses, all our inclinations, all our styles and tendencies, they are all connected to what is inside of us. If you deeply look within, and start facing that particular situation or pattern, they will start vanishing. They start dissolving. Don’t think anything is permanent unless you keep it permanent. If you start looking at all your fears, straight into the eyes, they just vanish, they dissolve. Because everything has its duration, and its limitation. When you are really focused on all the fears, nothing will stay.

As a general thumb rule, all that you are experiencing is as per what you have stored. Because these are the impressions, which you have picked up from your experiences, and they got stored in our system. For example, you had tremendous problems with teachers in classes or with a teacher and your experience wasn’t so good, you may keep the tendency or a feeling that anybody of authority has to be feared, that they are probably not good for you, and you started  responding that way. There are many trapped emotions, which are the reason for certain experiences we have in our lifetime.

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

A Spoonful of the Highest Knowledge – Birthday Satsang

The blog post moved here

Know Yourself – part 1

Satsang with Mohanji-Montenegro, Luštica Bay, 17.11.2019

PART 1

How are you doing today? Thanks to all of you who have come from a long distance, from various places. We have some kind of connection, that is why we met, and we are here again. I always feel grateful when people give me time. I try to give more each time to people, to all the people who took the effort to come and meet me, I try to give them much more. That is how I feel. Because I feel grateful that we are meeting in this lifetime, this time, this space. It’s not an ordinary thing. It’s a great thing that we are all meeting, sharing the space, sharing some aspects of life. It’s interesting, isn’t it?

Q1: How to choose a life partner?

M: You know, many people have this question, that is why they choose not to have a partner. Instead, they choose puppies. It’s more consistency. Every meeting we have, there is an energy exchange. You think about every meeting in every day, we are meeting so many people. We interact with so many people. Everything has an energy exchange. Something is being exchanged. Something is shared. With some of them, we feel good. With some interactions, we don’t feel good. With some interactions, we want more. For some, we say, ”No, its enough.” This is natural. But, when we think, I must find a partner, or I must have a boyfriend or husband, we are looking at everybody as a potential candidate. But what are people? All people are a bundle of strengths and weaknesses. We all have strengths and weakness, nobody is apart from that. We usually see good things, something which we can relate to, some compatibility in a person. After that, when we are both familiar, what do we see? Only weaknesses. This is human nature. This is why you can see a lot of people married, but separated inside. They stay married probably because of children, or because of some others matters, but they are divorced inside. That is because when you are becoming too familiar with somebody, you only start seeing the weaknesses. But we also have a good quality: when people die, we forgive them. Then we are happy. All the weaknesses are forgiven. But when living, we have pain.
Now I will come to your question, this is the background. How can you find somebody who is compatible with you, and stable with you? This is the question, right? The secret of a successful relationship is – have nothing to do with the other. If you put freedom as the ingredient in a relationship, the relationship will have no problem. But if freedom is not given in the relationship, it hurts. If you are mature enough to keep your partner free, you will find your best partner; the best possible partner, because you will not be worried about his strengths and weaknesses. You will love companionship, you are meeting because of some reason, let it be any reason. But, if you put freedom as an ingredient in the relationship, not ownership, not possessiveness, only freedom, then you will have a great relationship. So, the secret of a successful relationship is giving freedom to the other. Just allowing them to be free, to be themselves. Then it will last forever.

Q2: Thank you in advance. Even though I earn sufficient money, I cannot keep that money. I always spend everything I earn.

M: Congratulations (laughs). What is the question? This is a statement actually. Well, the nature of money is movement. Money is energy. It is transactional, it moves, it has to move. If money is not moving, it is useless, right? I remember an example. Maybe this is not a very good example, but just to tell you about how we cling on to money.
Barbara and I were in Vietnam, in town Da Lat. A lady said, ”You must come to my house.” It was to see her mother, who was in her death bed, sick, but not dying. For six months she had been lying like that, she was not leaving. Everybody was waiting because she was not well. She was supposed to die, but she was not dying, she was waiting. I went there, I saw her, and she was holding a bunch of money in her hand and lying there. There were clear signs of death: her breath was going up all the way, and suddenly it holds. I could see that the soul really wanted to leave, but something was holding her back – this bunch of money in her hand.
I asked her daughter, ”What should I do, what do you want me to do?” She said, ”You bless her, so she has a smooth death.” I said, ”I cannot bless anybody to die. I don’t do that. I will probably release her from the bindings, but I cannot tell when she should die. That is up to the soul to leave a body, whenever it wants, I will not interfere.” I just took the money from her hand. Suddenly she looked at me. Until then, her eyes were up, but suddenly she looked at me, as something precious had gone. With the weak hand, she tried to come towards the money, but I didn’t allow it. I gave the money to her daughter, and I touched her third eye. That night she left the body.
We have no idea how many things around us don’t allow us to leave free. So the answer to the question or the statement is: You understand money is coming – thank you very much; you understand money is going – thank you very much. Just watch both as you are just an actor in this whole drama of flow. Then, when you are not thinking it is your own money, it is happening through you, you will start seeing that the right amount of money will always be stored. Did you understand this point? What is the difference here? When money comes, money doesn’t stay, money goes – its a pattern, which means that is the way you are. It is a pattern that is working without any control. You are not controlling anything. You just allow it to happen.

Patterns happen due to ownership. It’s my money – ownership is me and mine. Now, you look at it as it is happening, I am an actor, I am watching this show. Zero ownership. What will happen? The pattern will dissolve. A pattern means ownership. When you do not own it, the pattern dissolves. This is the same for everything in life. Anything which is coming, again and again, is a pattern. When you detach within, ok, it’s happening, then no problem. When a pattern is dissolved, things change. Have you seen any animal in nature insecure? You won’t see it. They are not worried about tomorrow’s food. No bird is worried about the next day’s food. They do not store anything, thinking tomorrow there will be no food. I am not talking about animals in the house, because they are as insecure as you are. In nature, you will see no insecurity. You will never see a bird or an animal betraying another one. These are all our possessions. As human beings, we have all these things. If you want to change any pattern, not only money pattern, you need to detach from that whole thing, me and mine, and look at it. This is happening, let it come, let it go, but it is not mine. I am not owning it. Ownership keeps patterns.

Q3: How to overcome fear and the need to control everything in life?

M: That is again connected to me and mine. Most of the things connected to life, which is blocking our progress, will be me and mine. Have you seen it? Most sorrows, most insecurities are connected to me and mine. Fear is a state where you have no faith. What is the medicine for fear? Faith. Faith in oneself, in yourself. If you decide that you will look into the eyes of your fears, all the fears will go. Because fears are like shadows. They need something else to depend on.
In the movie Rambo, with Silvester Stalone, a man says, ”You can’t defeat him (Rambo), because he is trained to survive.” We can train ourselves to be fearless. How? By increasing your awareness. What is awareness? Firstly – the awareness that everything that is born will die. If you are born, there is a certain death. While we are walking on this earth we are just on a tourist visa. We have a duration. Secondly – the world existed before us and the world will exist after our death. Third is that – only when we wake up in the morning we have a world outside, when we sleep, we do not have the world outside. Our world depends on whether we are awake to the world. There are a few more things, but most important is that everything that comes will go. In other words, nothing is permanent. Life means changes. We were very small sometime earlier, a few years ago, now we have become this size. Every time the body has changed, the mind has changed, everything has changed. All things have changed. We were B-shaped sometimes, now we are A-shaped. Everything changes. Why do we have to keep fears? If you look at fears in the eyes, they will vanish. They will all dissolve. There is no room for fear. And one way you can be sure fears don’t bind you is to lead a life of love, purity, and purpose.

When you wake up in the morning (I normally do this when I wake up in the morning), think, what else can I give this world? Even if I fail, I have no fear. I try my best. What else can you give this world? Instead when you wake up and say,”What will people give me?” Then you will have all the problems. Otherwise, we will not have problems. I said, ”What else we can give,” that means we should continue giving. But in the morning every day, think what more we can give so that we are always self-motivated. Even if you fall down, you get up and walk again. Otherwise, if we have a lot of expectations, there will be a lot of disappointments. And eventually life will be paralyzed, because of disappointments.

Q4: How to prevent negative emotions towards people with whom we have a conflict?

M: Emotions you can’t control. It happens, right? We don’t choose to have negative emotions, but it happens sometimes. My recipe is very simple, I increase my positivity. Of course, it’s not easy to control emotions, is it easy? When the emotion happens, it’s like a wave. It comes and takes over. You can’t do anything, and it is like a pendulum on the clock, its positive-negative, life goes like that. Each day goes that way. But, predominantly every day, if we have more positive activity; that is the way you can come out of these negative days. Of course, there are people who are heavy with negativity in our society, we can’t avoid them. That’s part of the society. But if you spend sufficient time with very positive people you can manage both. That is why in Sanskrit there is a beautiful saying, If you indulge in the company of good people, people of positive nature, you will learn to detach from negative things around you. When you start detaching from so many things around you, whether it is negative or positive, you are fine with the nice energy of good people. When you detach, then your desires also become weaker. When desires are more, you are never satisfied. When desires are less, you are contented. So, peacefulness and contentment happen inside. Just by your association with people of higher energy, positive nature. What happens when desires are lesser in the mind? The mind goes into silence. What is the sound of the mind? Thoughts. Where are thoughts coming from? Desires. When desires become lesser and lesser, the mind becomes calmer and quieter. When the mind is calmer, what happens? You become the master of your own life. What is the secret here? Connection, integration with positive energies. That’s why we love to be in the company of the people who are positive, right? Because naturally, we feel good. We feel nice, comfortable. But please understand, society is both, positive – lighter, and negative – dark and heavy. You can’t avoid it. We are all existing. You cannot say I only choose this, you have to choose everything. Try to maintain good relationships, good company with powerful and positive people. Even it is painful to maintain the company, sometimes it is not easy, but it is worth it. Because that is your antidote, your medicine.
Another point is to express compassion, practice compassion. Do something for your society all the time, whatever you can. Keep sharing. Keep giving. When you do that, automatically your energy levels will be higher. You can counter, or you can sustain or survive so many negative things.

Q5: Do all experiences that happened to us come from God so that we learn a lesson and become better people, or are they a result of our decisions?

M: I can answer it, but it depends on what we believe on. Everything depends on what we believe in. Our whole life is based on our beliefs. When I say what we believe in, if we believe in God with a form just like a human form, he is watching everything we do, and says, you have done good, or you have not done good, etc. and gives accordingly, this is ok. You are fine in that mode, you live with those rules. In some systems we have a God outside of us, who is looking at us and is saying this is ok, this is not ok etc.
In some systems we connect to ourselves and we go into the level of silence and we experience inside, there is something inside of us telling us, ”Don’t do this, you can do that.” This is all connected to beliefs; what we believe in, what our belief system is. As a general thumb rule, this is a natural phenomenon – when you do good things and when you do positive work, many positive things come to you. Life becomes positive.
In the Indian system, or in Buddism, we talk about karma. What is karma in simple terms? Let’s say, unfulfilled desires. Desires which need fulfillment. That causes birth. Where you were born, how you are born, what you have, what you don’t have, it’s all connected to karma. And your duration of life is also connected to it, time of birth, time of death, everything is like that. But how is karma created? Unfulfilled desires, as I said earlier, but karma is created by actions with ownership. If you feel that I am the doer, that ‘I’ creates karma. Imagine, we have no ownership, we have only an awareness, where we say, ”It is all happening through me,” I am not owning it, I am experiencing it every day. Then no ownership, no karma. That doesn’t mean you go and kill somebody and say, ”I did not do it, my hands did it,” it won’t work. That is not what I mean. When you understand, when you are not emotional about ownership, ‘this is mine, this is me,’ if that is not there, then desires become weak. What is the best way to lead a very simple life? First and foremost, you have to accept yourself completely with all your strengths and weakness. Total acceptance. Nothing else. Not half, but 100%. Accept yourself totally.
Second, do not own, do not have feelings of ownership. You may have so many possessions, so many relations, so many things, but do not have ownership – this is mine, and a kind of craving to keep everything for yourself, which really weakens you, makes you more and more insecure. If that happens, you will have whatever you have, but you will be free and you will be happy.

The third aspect is – remember that when you came here, you had nothing in your hands. When you go from here, you will still have nothing in your hands. Even this body, we have to leave here. If we remember that, we are free. That is why I always believe when we take flowers, give it to the people while they are alive, not going and putting it in the graveyard after death. Respect people, love people and do whatever you can for the people when they are alive so that they can enjoy it. After death, whatever we do, how will they know? Love today. Express love today. Care today. Everything today. Tomorrow we don’t know whether we will be alive to do all that.

Q6: When I will start to drive a car on my own?

M: It depends on your horoscope (laughs). If you believe in yourself, you can. It is about believing in yourself. If you really believe in yourself you can even drive a flight, or even a rocket.

Q7: What should a mother know who is raising her son on her own?

M: Being a mother is a very powerful experience. It is a big opportunity. Because you have a relationship with your child nine months more than society. So your responsibility is nine times more than that of society. Having said that, please remember, each child is an individual. They have a constitution, a character, they have their likes and dislikes, patterns, concepts, so many different things which they have brought. I believe that mothership should be like a friendship. There should be respect, not like a servant serving somebody, it’s like a friendship where you can discuss, you can understand each other. Discuss, talk and make powerful people.

If we are clear how responsible we should be, for every citizen of the world, it means every human being. Imagine 7.5 billion people on earth. Each person is responsible for others. The society is responsible for everybody, for every child. Why? Because every child learns and takes from society, just like every mother, every father, everybody. We are all interconnected. Our responsibility is for our species, across the species. It doesn’t matter which country, which nationality, which culture or color. We are all responsible for everybody. If we don’t take responsibility, nature will wipe us off. Like a virus. Nature has wiped off dinosaurs and mammoths, so many species have been wiped off. If we don’t take responsibility for our own species, our species can also become extinct. If this responsibility is executed form the level of motherhood, every child will be powerful. The world will have a good generation. How we can bring up a child? What is the right way? One word – respect. Love is part of respect. When you respect somebody you will definitely love.
I always say, today we see so many old age homes in the world. Why is that? Actually the parents should be in our houses, right? But we don’t have that. Instead, they are in old ages homes. Why? Because we are disconnected. We don’t feel connected. Either the parents are like the servants, or they dominate, both are not good. There should be a friendship, where everybody can be together. We must develop that culture of togetherness. We should cultivate a generation with respect, based on respect. So next year, the slogan for Mohanji Foundation globally is, ‘Self-respect through self-discipline.’ Self -discipline is more or less like no excess of anything, that means a healthy lifestyle.

Q8: Can we know what is good for our child?

M: Of course. It depends on the nature of the child. All children have their own nature. We all have our own nature. We like something, we don’t like something. If you understand the nature of the child, what he likes to do, just support him. Dragan is training Ena in tennis. She loves tennis. So, that is natural for her. Your strength is what you are natural about. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. What is natural for us means what is effortless for us. That is our strength. If we support that, we will become successful. But in the society, we look at our child with other children and think, our child should be like that child. Then we completely ignore the naturality of that child, that is where the conflicts happen. Every person has a nature which is yours, your own. If you understand that, that is your strength. For that, you need to connect to yourself and see that in your own children. Just watch and witness them. What is spontaneous for them, strengthen that, support that. And the child will be really, really solid and stable in society.

Q9: Does truth have a boundary?

M: Absolute truth has no boundaries. Relative truth has. What is relative truth? A truth that is different between us about something. If you see one thing, I see another thing, it is relative truth. What is absolute truth? We all see the same thing. Relative truth changes with time. Absolute truth never changes. One absolute truth is that whatever is born will die. It’s an absolute truth. What is the relative truth? Everybody dies at their time. This is individualistic.

Q10: How do I know I am on the right path?
M: You will be effortless about it. If you are on the right path, you will love to do that. If it is full of effort, and if it is difficult, then you think again. If you are on the right path, you will flow through it. It is so effortless. Even the right relationships. It is like that. It will be easy and effortless. Whatever needs a lot of effort to continue and be consistent is not the right path for you. When you are connecting with somebody or when you are practicing something, or even you go to a place or you meet a person, if you feel nice and if you feel natural that is the right thing. Because you have a nature, everybody has their nature, and every activity has its nature. If there is compatibility between all these, then that is the right thing for you. If it is not, walk away. Don’t be there.

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan

Guru Purnima Satsang 2019, part 3

Guru Purnima Satsang
Bangalore, 16th July 2019

Part 3

Question: When we give the ancestral offerings and perform the ceremonies properly, that is, the rituals that are  done in Sanathana Dharma for the ancestors who have passed away, I understand that there is a lot of blessings that come along. But what do we do to ensure that this continues even after us? How will I know if I am being affected because someone (say about 16 generations before me) have not done something right and they have not taken care of such rituals/ ceremonies. And we so called “being modern” have not done the Pitru Kaaryas (offerings/ceremonies to ancestors) properly.  How do we  ensure such offerings, if pending, do not affect us?  Also, I also understand that pitrus (ancestors) come again and again, in our clan, so how do we make sure such pending ceremonies do  not affect our future generations?

Mohanji:  Well, how can you ensure it will continue? No assurance. It all depends on individuals of the family. See, every family has all  types of people;  out of which very few actually connect to the higher aspects of life. Many people only connect to the material aspect because they are fine with it. They’re probably successful in material life. Therefore, they decide this is good enough. Very few people connect to the higher aspects and they evolve. But when you come in contact with a master who’s totally aligned, a very powerful master, usually calamities increase because you start moving into a fast forward mode. Imagine something  was supposed to happen over 10 lifetimes; it may get crushed into one lifetime so that you finish it off.  Thus  you are free of 10 lifetimes.  Masters compress it  and people save their lifetimes that way.

Hence in the path of liberation, the right method is “total acceptance”. Okay, this is happening, and then you surrender to the master. So, then the master gives you a helping hand. When you are really connected to a proper Master, the sign is what you lose. You may lose a lot of things. First of all, you may lose impatience. Instead of thinking, “why things are not happening”, you will say, “have patience, it will happen”. That’s a sign of connection. Maybe you lose anger, jealousy, hatred, revenge, etc. Like this, you can count on your losses, depending on how deeply you are connected to the master. So the connection to a true master should be counted with your losses, not the loss of money or wealth. They are all secondary anyway. All that which is connected to your constitution based on your body, mind, intellect, ego and what you have earned from outside, are all temporary. So they come and they go but we try to cling to them.

As I said earlier, we have overwhelming instinct just like any other species. If you look at any species of the world, they have overwhelming instinct – survival instinct. Their food and sexuality are all connected to that survival instinct. For human beings, it is more imagination and intelligence. What we do, what we think, have certain set patterns. When a child is born, we are busy educating the child. After the child is reasonably educated, we have to get him into a job. Once he gets a job, immediately we are looking for a girl or a boy for marriage. As soon as he/she is married, you say, “When is a child coming?” Once the child has come, then we worry about the child. So, the cycle continues. Have you thought about what it is actually?

It’s only the instinct at work. It has no imagination or intelligence. As human beings, have we ever lived like human beings? You should always ask this question. If you have lived like human beings, lived compassion, lived kindness, lived selflessness, the highest qualities of human existence, like purity in thoughts, words, action, then you will automatically elevate from these sorrows and expectations. Otherwise, we are bound by expectations, disappointments, anger, hatred, revenge, etc. We are in that cycle and we are not crossing over. It is expectations that are ruling us all the time. We expect many things and if they don’t happen, we get disappointed. Then we change the guru because we cannot change ourselves. This is the easiest thing to do (laughter). We see this happening in the world all the time, don’t we? Now, when things are not happening well, we change the guru.

Secondly, we go to many gurus thinking somebody will help us. Eventually nobody can help you; because you are not staying long enough to be  helped. It happens this way in life.

There is no consistency in us, but we expect consistency in everything else. Look at look at the irony. We have no consistency, but we expect everything else to be consistent. If we understand that clearly, then we understand the whole story. Ask yourself one question “how consistent am I?” and “how committed am I?” If you are really committed to yourself, you don’t have to really commit to a guru. Guru has no role in that. Guru is your expression of your highest possibility. So you leave guru alone. And don’t worry about the guru. He will take care of himself. (laughter) But you should be committed to yourself.

As I said earlier, “tatwam asi” – you are that. That is your ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is that you are everything. You are the beginning, you are the life and you are the end, death. All is you. You need to invest in yourself, in understanding and aligning yourself.  You then look at the guru as a benchmark, as an aligned state. Instead,  when we go to a person with insecurities and you meet a person with insecurity to support you,  he could manipulate you. Then you will say, “This guy manipulated. He looked like a guru, but he manipulated”. Why did you go to him in the first place and what are you going to him with? – Insecurities.

Understand, most of the times people go to temples to beg. Very rich people coming in Mercedes cars go to temples and beg. You see beggars sitting outside of the temple and beggars inside the temple begging. Look around the whole world, always asking for something, entertaining poverty consciousness, always begging. When you entertain poverty consciousness all the time, poverty will be your reality. What is poverty consciousness? You are always telling the world you don’t have something – “Please give me this; please give me that”; never satisfied with what we have.

The feeling of contentment is the actual richness. With just one meal a day, if you are contented, you are very rich. Richness is your prerogative, your birth-right. You can be rich with what you have. Accept how things are happening and connect to one master, one path, one practice and one tradition, you will find success. Dig in one place long enough, you will find water. But we don’t do that today. We dig in lots of places and finally there is no water. But the effort was there, isn’t it? This is the reality today. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Paramahamsa or Brahmarishi or a Maharishi. You are not going to buy them and take them home, isn’t it? So, it doesn’t matter really. You will only connect with the ones you are eligible to connect with and those with whom you connect are the only ones you will be able to understand, feel and accept. Else you cannot connect. If you go as per somebody else’s wish, when the other person changes their mind, then you will also go away.

We see that happening many times. Somebody comes through because of somebody. If that person goes, this person also goes. Like one cow following the other blindly. We have herd instinct. One person goes, everybody goes. One person says, “Well, he is a bad person”. Everybody says, “Oh, he is a bad person”. One fox loses its tail, it tells the other foxes, “it’s amazing to have no tail”. Then all the foxes try to cut their tails. Herd instinct – we all have that. This is the true situation. No Guru is dependent on any disciple. No disciple should be dependent on any Guru. Because Guru is a benchmark, a road sign and a sign of alignment, sign of your highest aspiration, sign of stability.

Question: How to see our progress?

Mohanji: By looking inside. You can’t look outside and see your progress. Clear sign of progress is less thoughts, more silence, stability and fearlessness. You will be stable, you will be purpose bound. Your activity will have clarity; you will know what to do in life. That increased clarity is a sign of connectivity. You will know what to do when you wake up in the morning. There will be no problem. You will be eager to wake up. It is not like, “Oh my God, I’ve woken up. What will I do now?” Many people are like that. They do not know what to do when they wake up.

Question: I heard we make progress by learning lessons in life.

Mohanji: Who said lessons in life? I never said that. I feel that you have no lesson to learn. Because what you are experiencing each moment, is your reality. What will you learn out of it? It’s only experience. We call it good experience, bad experience. That’s just how we see it. But at the end of the day everything is experience. I don’t think we have any lesson to learn and can we learn lessons at all? We have too much of ego to learn anything. Our ego will not permit us to learn anything, will it? It’s all experiences. Look at everything that is happening to you as an experience, so that your connection with it will be very less. Everything is experience, everything comes and everything goes. Whatever is born will die.

It’s a short life. In this life, be happy with what you have, and don’t harm or hurt anybody. That’s why I said “Ahimsa” (non-violence) is my religion. I always say, “I don’t have a particular religion. If you want to do something for me, then go out and serve the people, the sick and the old birds and animals.” Because then you will experience purification, you will experience inner richness.

How do you feel richness? When you share what you have. When you are always greedy for more, you will never be rich. There are many rich people in the world; they only have money and nothing else. They are in fact very, very poor. Poor rich people! You can see the poverty. When you talk to them, they will always complain, “Oh, I got more taxes, I got this, I got that…” Come on, you have the money, pay  the taxes.

Devi Amma Speaks:

There’s a story… Once it seems Lord Vishnu came to meet people. The people complained that they had  many problems and that Shri Vishnu should solve them. Vishnu addressed two groups, one group of millionaires and the other group with very poor people and said “On this specific day, make a bundle of all your problems and come to me, I will solve them.” On the destined day, all the poor people came with a small bundle and sat on one side; the rich people also came and sat on the other side, but with empty hands. These poor people talking among themselves said, “How happy the rich are. They do not have any problem. We are all carrying a bundle. However they are so rich and they don’t have any”. One of the poor asked the rich, “how come you don’t have any problems?” to which the rich said, “Your problems are so small that you can carry them with your  hands; we cannot carry them, and they are coming in the lorry.” (laughter)

Mohanji: Being yourself is the best gift you can give yourself. Accept your reality and always remember that you are the most wonderful creation you have ever seen. All of us are indeed wonderful creations. There is nobody higher or lower. The real realisation is that we have value in this society and that is not to eat, drink and sleep. We can do something in this world as per our capacity. We can always deliver something. I do not believe in good and bad. I believe whatever enhances you is good for you. Whatever diminishes you makes you feel sad or makes you less, is bad for you.

So  anger, hatred, jealousy and revenge are  bad for you because they   shrink you. But acts of kindness, compassion, unconditional love, selflessness and such are good for you. Because they expand you, make  you rich. It’s very simple. You don’t have to really complicate it. Also, in every situation, only ask one thing, “Does this this activity expand me or reduce me?” If it is expanding you, go for it. If it is shrinking you, don’t do it.

Even talking about people; sometimes close friends are talking about other people. You should decide whether you should participate in it. Don’t listen because they are talking. What it creates inside you is your benchmark. If somebody tells you bad things about people, if you feel shrunk, if you feel less or drained, don’t listen to them. Just say, “I don’t have interest in it”. I always say that. “It doesn’t suit me. Whatever you’re discussing about another person or people is not my cup of tea”. We have to say that so that, as much as possible, we are always being clean and pure. That is all we can do.

Question: How to experience liberation at the time of death?

Mohanji: Be consistent and we’ll work on it. Liberation is something which you should experience right now and not just at the time of death. If something cannot be experienced now, there’s no guarantee it will be experienced in the future. So, when the seed is sown now for liberation, and if you really cling on to it, it has to happen. When the concentration, conviction, commitment happens on one thing, it has to happen. It must happen. Then the grace will support you. You take the steps and I will support you.

Question: In life many people whom we come across say, “You are the creator of your own destiny”. Sometimes they also say, “There is a mystical power and nothing is in your hands”. Some say, “Whatever  was  supposed to happen, happened”. So what is real in this? How do we correlate this? How do I know what I created and what is not in my hands?

Mohanji: I’ll clarify in simple terms, try to assimilate it, catch it while you can. First of all, Subash (the name  of the person who asked the question) was born. You have a time of birth and a time of death defined. This is set. You are born at some time; you will die at some time. Now in between this birth and death, is life which has various aspects to it.  One is that you are not stable. Your size changes, your body changes, mind changes, everything changes. Thus there are waves of change that come and go and changes are constant. Change is a must. This is number one.

In this whole journey, what faculty have you actually controlled? You thought you controlled it but you have controlled nothing. That means a force was driving it. This force is called destiny.

How is it laid out? It is laid out based on unfulfilled and pending desires – . We don’t know what it is because we cannot see our  past life. Now of course through regression therapy, etc. people are going to past life, that’s a different story. But normally,  we cannot see past life. So the flow of life has happened; and is still happening; and you have no clue as to what will happen the next year, or the year after. You have no clue on what will be your thought process, what sort of situations you will be in, the financial conditions, engagements, relationships, etc. You do not know anything, do you? So where is the control over it?

Question: Can’t someone extend life and postpone the time of their death? There’s anti-aging, medicaments…

Mohanji: Try. Everybody would buy. There are many rich people.

Know that there are so many people very, very rich people and they have had everything in life, which money can buy except the time duration or the extension of death. Some people have pumped themselves with machines and have been  in the hospital. That is not called life. I am not saying extending the life is not possible. Extending the life is possible provided you have nothing to do with the body. In certain states of Samadhi, it is possible. But that’s a different story, first you need to reach that state and then you should have nothing to do with the normal worldly activities. There are certain ways of prolonging the body for any number of years, hundreds of years. That’s a different story. I’m talking only about the terrestrial life, the usual way.

There are various masters who have defied deaths, which is definitely possible. And there are certain methods of holding the breath in certain areas and controlling, these are all there. However, this is not the platform for discussing it. Right now, the question is coming from the mind level, from an average person – using mind matter (mind, intellect, and ego) like, “why can’t I do that?” Of course, you can do that. But how?

If it were  easily possible,  medical science would have done it. Or rich people would have definitely chosen that. Also if they had a clear definition, to transfer whatever they earned in this life to next life, they would have done that. Every Arab oil baron would have done that. It is not possible that way. The thumb rule is when you are born, you will die. Whatever is born will die; whatever has birth, has death; whatever is created is uncreated. This is the rule of nature. Because everything has come out of energy, everything has to return to energy. When you have already become energy, you maintain a form; that form, existing in the form, doesn’t matter.

Question: If I let go of everything, who creates karma then?

Mohanji:  Are you letting go of anything? You are the one that  is creating. That’s why I said earlier, what creates your karma, what creates your destiny – emotions with thought, word, action creates destiny, isn’t it? Who creates it? You. Nobody else has anything to do with it. And also emotions with thoughts, words, actions happen only during waking hours. Now, if you surrender all this, then Krishna said, “You surrender everything to me, I release you from its  karma”. There are numerous higher powers, there are great masters, there are beings in energetic plane, so many different faculties, there are billions of creations and all of them  have their frequencies, they have their existence. So definitely all these exist,  but how much do you connect to them? You can’t connect to them with the mind matter. You have to connect to them with an increased frequency, which is beyond the mind matter. You have to reach a certain state to connect to them. Otherwise, you do not even know that they exist.

And we don’t believe it. We don’t believe it. We only know the transactional side – like and dislike, why I should connect; why not I connect; and so on. These are  from the mental plane, mind plane. You have to grow beyond the mind plane to actually connect to frequencies, which are of higher nature. There are frequencies that are non-interfering. There are also frequencies that are interfering.  Like the “controlling beings”, the beings that control you when you are tuned into their frequency. For example, if you have anger, similar beings of that nature possess you and they control you. If somebody has jealousy, beings or the energies, which are jealous by nature, can get attracted to you. These are all definitely there.

But you can also very well connect to higher sphere, higher frequencies;  just like  there are  many channels or frequencies in the air and according to the capacity of the television, channels are picked up and shown on the screen. Otherwise, you won’t get some of the channels on the screen, even if you have the gadget. You need to have that facility and the faculty to tune in to higher, and you will definitely experience it. This is for sure. But the flow of life is controlled by destiny. That is why you are experiencing certain things only at a certain point in time, not before, not after. What you are supposed to experience tomorrow, cannot be experienced today. That is because it’s laid out over time.

Situation, place, person, possibility, everything is laid out on time. Every moment is like that. That is what Srinivasan Ramanujam talked about – “The time-space-junction point”.  Everything happens at a particular time at a particular space to a particular set of people. If that is changed, the outcome will change.

That is why I said, “This is fully laid out”. Where do we have grip over  it? We think that we are controlling it. It’s not true. Certain patterns are happening in life. Like, we wake up in the same bed if possible every day. Every morning when we wake up, it’s the same place. That is possible. However, that’s a pattern. That’s something which destiny has provided. See, I never sleep in one bed for more than 10 days. I’m in a different place. So I don’t have the luxury of sleeping in one place for long. This is also part of destiny. Everything is created by destiny.

The best thing you can do is accept it saying, “Okay, this is what’s happening”. Therefore, when you connect to the situation  with full acceptance,  you overcome it. That is the only way to overcome.  Resisting or  thinking you can change it, won’t work.

You can change things, provided the awareness shifts. The same awareness that created a problem cannot create a solution. It has to be different awareness. You have to look from a different angle. That is why when you are in a deep problem, people say, “Go for a drive or go for a walk, come back and solve it”. That is because you are changing the whole structure so that you can address the problem in a different way.

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Guru Purnima Satsang 2019, part 2

Guru Purnima Satsang,
Bangalore, 16th July 2019

Question:

Devi Amma has described our master, Mohanji as JagatMitra and VishwaMitra, that is, friend of the cosmos and friend of the universe. The highest master Agastya Maharishi has delivered this revelation about Mohanji. I am asking this in the light of the fact that he is delivering a few things that no other master had done before. When he went to South Africa, he delivered Shaktipat for sharks and crocodiles. He is a VishwaMitra not only for human beings, but also dogs, crocodiles, sharks, tiger cubs and lions.

In Kedarnath, I witnessed this phenomenon.  There was a dog that looked  like a wolf. Nobody would dare to go near it. However, Mohanji gave Shaktipat to that dog! When asked about this, he said, “I want to accelerate the progress of that dog”. The very minute he gave Shaktipat, I could see the transformation in that dog and it is for everyone to see. I would like to hear Devi Amma say a few words about Mohanji on this Guru Poornima day.

Devi Amma:

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was wandering in a forest along with disciple when a tiger approached them. Upon seeing the tiger, the disciple got scared and was shivering uncontrollably but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu remained blissful because, he connected to the tiger at the soul level. In the same vein, Mohanji connects to beings, not from the mind, but the heart, from the soul. So, when there is a soul-to-soul connection, everything is possible.

I will share my experience. We were living in an estate and one day, suddenly a snake came in our kitchen. The labourers working wanted to kill the snake. I opposed it saying, “No, you shouldn’t be killing Naga Raja (king of snakes). You have to take him out.” The labourers refused and wanted to kill it. I didn’t know what to do. I was also scared.  Yet, I stood in front of the snake, took a big stick and just pushed it. He was hissing at me. I said, “See “I won’t harm you or have you killed and I will tell everybody not to harm you. You just have to come and roll yourself in this stick and I’ll take you out”. The snake was staring at me for a moment. I repeated, “I promise you, I won’t kill you but I’ll take you out and I’ll tell my family members also that they should not hurt you”. Immediately, he listened, came to the stick, rolled and he was sitting like this (showing the posture of how the snake rolled in a stick). I didn’t have any fear at that moment. I just took it from the kitchen to the gate. Everybody was behind my back and I was holding him. My mother was scared he might slip off, but he didn’t! I just carried him and let him lose in the road. So it was soul-to-soul. But it happens at times, not always… just sometimes… (Laughter…) hence it is the same soul-to-soul connection that matters.

Questions to Mohanji continue…

Question: There is a cause for an effect. For a cause there will be a cause behind it. I would like to know what that cause is.

Mohanji:  It’s not easy to see the cause. It is like we do not know why we are born. As each moment happens, we realise, “Oh! This was supposed to happen”. Forget about life, even thoughts. Do we know what our next thought is? We don’t know. Last year we did not know that we would be here at this time. Everything is situational in that way. So it’s not easy to see the cause. The causes are many. And the effects are also not equal to the cause. Sometimes it’s conglomerated; it happens that way.

I’ll give you a story. There was a woman who was happily married and had one child every year for 12 years; 12 children in total. Her only prayer to God was, “Please save me from this”. But according to their religion, if there was a possibility, they had children. This lady was tired and she was praying but there was no chance the prayer could be answered. So her deepest thought in that life was to save herself from repeated motherhood. In her next life, there were no children; she had no children because her prayers were answered. She had prayed, “Please save me from this”. But in the next life her prayer is “Please give me children.” This is how life works. Cause and effect.

So, usually you cannot look at the effect and say what the cause is, but approximately. Now I will tell you another story about compound causes. There are numerous beings in the in the sphere around us, whom we don’t see. But they all represent something like viruses, bacteria, so many things. They all have their effects in our life, if they come in contact with us.

So a person, who has anger by default, will attract all the angry kind of silent beings in the atmosphere onto them. Once upon a time, there was a great master who was standing by the side of a village road overlooking at a tree. A passerby came and asked the Master, “What are you seeing?” He said, “There are three people sitting on the tree. I’m wondering what they’re going to do. I am watching them.” Then this man said, “I can’t see anybody.” The master replied “You won’t be able to see it, but I can. I see it. Touch me and look and you will see.” Then this man touched the master and looked and there were three beings without bodies on the tree. Such beings are dead creatures; they don’t have bodies; but they were waiting for somebody. Even though they do not have bodies, they still have desires. This happens usually in the case of suicides, etc. that is, unnatural death, which I talk about later.

They were waiting for something, waiting for gratification. How can they gratify without the body? They waited for some BODY. Then while they were standing there, they saw one man, dead drunk walking through the village road. He was completely drunk, was falling, getting up, falling again and pulling himself up.  He was going somewhere and did not even see these people on the side of the road. He was so drunk, he went ahead. Then the Master said, “Okay, now let’s go”. So the passerby asks, “What happened?” The master replied “Four of them have gone; this man plus three of them sitting on the tree;  all of them joined him in his body, and they  went”. So this man asked ” Where did they go?” The master replied, “Oh! Just around this corner, there is a brothel. This drunkard is going to that brothel and these three beings also have the same desire. So they joined this body and went”.  Thus we can’t say that is only the desire or the cause of this one man; it can be compounded cause.

Imagine a person is supposed to live 80 years, but he killed himself at the age of 40. So he has the remaining  40 years as per the normal agenda. What happens then? The body is gone, but the story is not done. Minus the body, you cannot complete the story. Then it is a desperate situation. That is why, if the proper treatment and proper rituals are not done, it is very difficult. We have some rituals like “Narayana bali” etc. because these beings cannot find their way and it is very difficult. They do not know what to do. Body is gone, but the story is not complete.

That is why all the great masters have said that it is better to have a natural death as much as possible. But if it is an accident etc. and you are deeply connected to a master or a God, that will help. Because that is the way, you exited and you’re supposed to exit. You did not do it deliberately, in other words, it is not a deliberate attempt to kill oneself. In that case, it would be better. In short, what I’m trying to convey is it’s not easy to see the cause.

But when you know the effect, when you understand and experience the effect, we realise there is a cause. Take for instance a stream of thoughts; we don’t know what thoughts are happening. Thoughts have their input from external data that we have collected indiscriminately and stored over a period of time. We don’t even know that we stored them. Yet, they exist in the system and create an effect.

Question: What does this storage contain? How to deal with what we have stored and exhaust karma?

The Sanchita karma (heaped together) has its roots in three major aspects. One is the Prarabda or unfulfilled desires. The other is the lineage karma, and the next one is all that you have acquired from outside. Whatever you have acquired from outside usually becomes your pending karma, for which you may not have enough time to fulfil, in this lifetime, while you are living.  So it is what you wanted to experience from another life plus what the lineage has given you. These two are usually under consideration.

How do you fulfil karma?

That is exactly what we are doing every day. Karma gets completed through fulfilment (i.e.) cycle of desire and fulfilment of the same. This is the usual pattern of karma. Karma, as I said earlier, is activity along with ownership. That is the only way it can create karma. In other words – thoughts, words, actions with emotion become karma. Otherwise, it won’t become karma. A thought, word or action – surrendered cannot become karma. But, thoughts, words, action with ownership become karma. Thus ownership is the source of karma.

So what can you do when karma happens/ has happened?

The ideal answer or remedy is fulfilment.

How can you ensure that fulfilment will stop the karma there?

By being objective about it; which means, you do not catch more emotions from it.

For example, some people smoke their first cigarette because their friends suggested it or in order to give company to a friend. After a while, you will buy the pack, even if the friend is not suggesting it. That is because it easily becomes a habit. A seemingly innocent activity can become a habit. It is possible. So you should always be alert and aware that this habit is happening and it should end there. When an activity ends, the story should end there. Do not carry it forward. The more memories you keep, the more desires will happen.

If you still have some memory, but say, “That’s okay, that’s done. Now I’m okay”, and thus at each point in time, you fully complete whatever you wanted, then it is over. This is one way.

The second method is through increased awareness; meaning – you connect yourself to masters. When I say Master, I refer to someone who has overcome the pull of the mind, intellect and ego (mind matter). A person who is not bound by the mind matter is a master. He has mastery over the mind, mastery over the intellect and mastery over ego. That is mastery. It is also called alignment.

Alignment means – body, mind, intellect, ego and spirit, together as a unit. Usually mind matter is outside of you. Mind is going outside, intellect is going outside and personality is projected outside. That makes us dependent on the world outside. When you are not projecting your mind outside, you are free. When you are free, you are aligned. If you are aligned, your karmic baggage reduces; your mind is inside and is focused inside. Intellect and ego are focused inside as well. Body is already aligned. Spirit is already aligned by birth. Only mind matter is the problem. Senses have no function without mind matter. Senses are free by themselves. They are being used by mind matter, isn’t it? Mind – intellect – Ego use senses. Otherwise, the senses are completely free, always.

So the second aspect is that, be aware of it. What is enjoying an activity? Ask that question. Usually if it is an emotion, mind will be happy. When you are in romance, which aspect of you gets happy? Emotions – the Mind. When you are become aware of something technical, say you bought a new mobile phone and you have learnt how to use it, found all the possibilities, then intellect becomes happy. When somebody appreciates you, rewards you, honours you or respects you, what becomes happy? Ego.

This is the way our functions are. After a while, you wouldn’t care about any of this. No emotions, no material for analysis, no questions. Question itself dies and answer is definitely not needed. Then freedom happens, karma gets dropped. So first of all, the formation of karma is connected to ownership. Fulfilment is its natural culmination. Beyond fulfilment is awareness. When you are fully aware of all this activity, it loses its value and it starts dropping.

Now the third, which is said in the Raja Yoga path – Integrate into a master, plug into a master, be in the consciousness of the master. The master is already aligned and when you are in the consciousness of the master, then automatically you will be aligned. Then it’s easier. But it’s very difficult to be in-tune with the living master. Why? Because ego will not permit it. Ego will say, “He’s after all a human being, he’s eating, drinking, sleeping, snoring, etc.” Understand that you have power over everything. If you take a firm determination, just a simple decision that no words will happen from your mouth without your mind being present, see how much difference it makes. Likewise, no activity will happen without your mind being present (i.e.) No unconscious activity. If you start doing it, that itself will make you more aligned.

Question: So, as you rightly said, we are the soul, aatman, paramaatman, the supreme consciousness. In the initial state we all are very pure. Then where is the origin of Maya (illusion)? How does one switch over from a pure consciousness state to being caught in Maya? How does this distance happen from our pure state?

Mohanji: I think everybody is influenced by Lord Krishna. He is the perfect Brahmachari (celibate). But he had 16,008 wives. How is that possible? Have you thought about it? Shri Krishna was a perfect Brahmachari. But He was in every aspect of existence. He was totally a Brahmachari, even though he had many wives.

Audience: Isn’t that a concept?

Mohanji: It is not a concept. It is a reality. You’re saying it is a concept. But what is a concept?

A concept is something that you are not aware of, but you believe it is real. But this (Krishna being a Brahmachari in spite of having many wives) is real. I will explain to you how it is real. So far, all these things that you said like contamination, impurity, etc. are connected to which state? The waking state, which is only one of the three states.

You still have a dream state, a deep sleep state, where this is all invalid. So, your whole concept is connected to one state, is that correct? In that waking state, say, you are fully withdrawn inside, all the activity that you involve in outside, is not yours. A 2 or 3 year old young child is into all sorts of activities,  whatever he can handle, how impure is he? Imagine he is playing in the mud. Is he impure? Isn’t impurity a concept in this case?

Understand this clearly, it is how you perceive it, it becomes the truth. Veda Vyasa impregnated two women. Did he get contaminated because of this? How can a great saint impregnate somebody? Did he get contaminated? PURPOSE. He had a purpose to do that. There was a reason to do that. So when you perform something with the right reason and without ownership, your purity never gets affected. But many times it is your mind that is pushing you, such as your likes and dislike, your fancies and fantasies. That is where all this contamination happens. But even that contamination is only during waking state. Your dream state and deep sleep state have nothing to do with it. You are unnecessarily storing the data, you’re surfing the web, all the cache memory comes into the hard drive, you never store it, it happens. It comes just like that.

So we are born pure, we will remain pure and we will die pure. Why? Because we are the SOURCE of all these drama, NOT the drama itself. If you understand that, you understand the story. The energy that drives or empowers this drama is you. If you look at everything from that angle, there is zero contamination. You cannot be contaminated.

The rest of the things such as mind matter, time, space and body changes, and re-incarnations happen. So in no way we can say that we are contaminated. We are carrying dirt and garbage. Why? Because we have collected them. We are storing them. Just like cache memory in a computer. You never store them. It comes by itself because of your intelligence in the in the web world. It’s absolutely like that.

That is exactly what we talk about mastery. When we realise what we are, we are completely pure and we are in this world walking around and playing the drama as per the appointed order. The ownership makes us feel heavy.

No ownership = no weight. That was Lord Krishna. Whatever was the desire in the mind of the person who comes to him, He expressed Himself in that way. That is it. He just reciprocated. And it was not for His gratification. It is a completion at some level. We will become like that. I’m not saying everybody will become Lord Krishna. What I’m saying is that you will understand how it’s all operated.

A story

Here is a small story to explain this further. When the Yadavas (a clan or a tribe to which Lord Krishna belonged) wanted to cross the river, which was overflowing, Vyasa asked them, “What do you want to do?” They said, “We want to go to the other side to see Krishna.” Vyasa asked, “What have you brought for Him – Sweets? Show me”. They showed him and he ate half of it! The Yadavas were embarrassed. This was supposed to be an offering for Krishna, but Vyasa ate most of it. Hungry man!

Vyasa then said, “Come with me.” He went near the river and said, “If I have not eaten anything, let the river part”. The river parted. The Yadavas saw with their own eyes that Vyasa ate the sweets. Is it a concept? So what is concept? These are all truths; how does it happen? Vyasa did not have ownership of food; he surrendered everything and had it on behalf of Krishna. He said, “I have not eaten anything and I have surrendered”.

But we can’t do that by using our mind. It is from the point of view of absolute surrender, that is, unity of consciousness. If you kill somebody and said, “I have surrendered”,  it won’t work that way. There has to be unity of consciousness in order to have that surrender. Surrender then becomes spontaneous.

The river parted and when the Yadavas met Krishna on the other side, they said “We brought these sweets for you”. Krishna said, “I can’t have it. I just had the SAME sweets a short while ago”. This was because Vyasa was connected to Krishna, Unity of consciousness. If we understand this, then there is no contamination. Digest it. It will be very useful to you. If you understand this very clearly, you would have understood the entire science of spirituality.

Read Guru Purnima satsang, part 1

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Open the Door for Grace, part 2

Satsang with Mohanji in Canada, part 2
26 June 2019

Q6: What is the significance of a Guru living in a body, compared to a Guru who has left the body? 

Q7: Whenever we think of or remember you when we are at home, will you be thinking of us too?

Q8: What are the signs of presence when connection happens?

Q9: Can one have two masters?

Q10: If I think of Sai ji (Shirdi Sai Baba), will you come into my path?

Q11: What if I am able to be connected to multiple gurus simultaneously? If you pray to Sai Baba, then go to another place, you may get answers. I may be able to connect to god/guru/ energy in many different ways. Is this a sign that you are going towards a spiritual path?

Q12: How do you get empty?

Q13: Is that time when we are empty i.e. without thoughts or desires when we need to intensely pray?

Q14:  In today’s world, as householders and those working at jobs and doing different roles inside and outside the home, we cannot shirk our responsibilities or roles. What should be our methodology to reach that supreme goal of Oneness?

Q15: Everything is pre-decided, and I’m responsible for what I’m experiencing in this life. Are the people I interact with or family members just the instruments for me to have those experiences?

Q16: But when do I break that kind of give and take?

Q6: What is the significance of a Guru living in a body, compared to a Guru who has left the body? 

M: A guru in the body is difficult to handle.  If the guru is just a picture, you can handle the picture the way you like, because he is not going to eat you. See it’s very simple. Technically, all gurus are powerful. But the ego aspect is very difficult to deal with. We all have our ego. What is ego? The skeleton or structure of your personality is ego. At an elementary level, it is necessary. Why? Because that is the identity part. When you have zero ego, meaning you are totally diluted (which will happen anyway when you attain higher levels of samadhi), if somebody were to ask you who you are, you may say you don’t remember. And that is not a good idea while living in society.

So at the elementary level, mind-matter consisting of the three aspects of ego, intellect and mind, is important. But for a master who has already left the body,  you are accenting mainly on imagination, and your connection is based on that. And the teachings are what you receive. You do not know for sure, right? It may not be first-hand, it might come through somebody else. But if you are able to lead a disciplined life, fully focused on this master, you don’t need anything else – living or dead, no problem. However if you have a mind to tackle, the intellect to tackle, the ego to tackle, the proximity of a living master will be a good idea, although rather dangerous! Because what the masters do is they keep beating the ego, you know. When the ego sprouts up, one kick is given! When the intellect goes into analysis, one kick! And what does the intellect need? Answers. If answers are not given, the intellect suffers. The master will keep quiet. If answers are not given, questions will remain and the intellect will be very annoyed. The questioner will feel like pulling the hair of the master, or his own! Then there is the mind. When people come to the master with emotions, the master will be like stone. No reciprocation. What will happen? They will say – insensitive master, bad guy. All this happens with a living master. When Shirdi Sai Baba was living, the people living at the time said all sorts of things about him. They called him a mad man and so many names. Now a hundred years later, we understand his power. Most of the masters who are living are never appreciated by their contemporaries – because people cannot “see”. They cannot go beyond the physical form. They only see the physical form and take decisions. The senses and the mind can only base decisions on the data provided to them. Those data are physical form and expressions – not anything else. You can’t see the consciousness.

And why the third or fourth generation after the master’s time, sometimes connects with the master, is because based on the available data, they try to figure out something suitable for a connection. And secondly,  if there is no personality to handle, then everybody can connect. You know, personality is a big problem because we ourselves have personality and this personality has to match with the that of the other.

What do the scriptures say? Question and believe. They never say to have blind faith. Questioning here means address the question to yourself. The first question is:  do I need any master? Because I have a master within.  What is the master? The soul. The subtlest part of you, the non-interfering part of you, is the master. This non-interfering part of your whole system, your soul, never tells you what to do. It just allows your journey. It just energizes your faculties, the body, mind, intellect, and ego. But it never tells you where to go, or what to see or what to look for.

So the soul is non-interfering, completely neutral. God is like that. True masters are like that too. And this detachment present in a living master is not understood by most people. Intensity will be interpreted as anger. So if you are approaching the master and you are a tough nut to crack, the master will be intense. What will people think? Master is an angry guy. I have explained this in the Atmananda book where a person came to a master, and decided to stay with him for some time because he was fed up with life.  So he was watching the master – he saw that the master was restless, then angry, that he was irritable with people. He thought to himself: what kind of master is this, people say he is a great master –  but he is completely irritated all the time, he is angry, abusing people. Yet he continued staying with the master…

After a while, he saw the master being very quiet and silent, non-intrusive, loving everybody, and then he was surprised. This didn’t seem like the same guy, he had changed all of a sudden, how come? And later on, he found the master very cool, and completely relaxed. Then the master called him and said, “You are done, you can go now”. Before he could leave, another person arrived who sat next to him. He asked him, “Is this guy always like this? He so irritable and angry.” He learned that the master was actually only a mirror. It was actually these people who were angry and upset, and the master was just reflecting them. The master was always calm and quiet. But when this person’s own mind settled down, he then saw happiness, calmness, quietness, and peace in the master. When his own mind was agitated, he only saw the same thing in the master. The master however always remained the same – calm, quiet, and peaceful.

And this is actually how every person who is aligned will be like – he will be a perfect mirror. You go to him with anger, he becomes anger; you go to him with love, he becomes love. So these true masters are true mirrors. You can’t define them. How you are is what you will see. And you will see nothing else.

So this effect is not possible when a person is normal – then it is only an understanding.  But I will tell you once again that Krishna has not gone, Rama has not gone, Baba has not gone.  Any master whom you connect to, on earth, is not gone. They all have capacity, they have power, they are doing work. They do their work through people. All the great masters like Sripada Srivallabha, Bhagawan Nityananda, Guruji in Delhi – all do their work continuously. Because they can’t die – they just expand. They leave the body once the connections are all finished, what do they need to stay for then? All they had to connect with, the connections, they are all done, so why sit in the body? Better to work without the body. So what do they do?  They leave the body. And they work better. Through hundreds of people. To reach hundreds of people. And who will connect to them? Those whose frequency matches their frequency, will connect. That is why we have numerous masters. They are each unique, not comparable. You can’t compare them. Each one has relevance. What we only need to have is perspective. Nobody is higher, nobody is lower. None are equal. Everybody has relevance – they have a purpose and they continue with that.

Also, let’s say you want Babaji as your master. How will you get him? You will need to tune in your frequency to communicate. Just like you do with your television. There are so many channels out there, but what can come into the television? What the television has capacity for, isn’t it? Nothing else. The vibrations and transmissions are coming, the channels are all there, but you can’t catch them – because the capacity is not there. So you cannot connect to all the gurus. There are numerous masters existing without the body. They work – they do guide. But we won’t connect to them all. Why? Because we are probably on a terrestrial frequency. Often, we lose when we compare. We really cannot compare them –  we can only respect. That’s why I say never ever disrespect any master. The guru tattva in you will die, when you disrespect one guru. The guru principle is not two-sided, it’s one thing. Guru tattva, the Guru principle, has to be respected. So all masters should be respected. It doesn’t mean you go to all masters. You see every master in your master, the one you are connected to. Yogananda said the same thing, “If you consider me as your guru, I am all gurus. Look no further.” Every master is like that – who you feel connected to, that is your master. What the Upanishads say is: ”The master that has happened to you is your master.” Not the one whom you chase. It’s like when in school, you never went searching for a teacher. Some teacher came to your class and that teacher helped you go to the higher class. Like that,  the right teacher is sent to you when you are eligible. And how will you connect? When your frequency is right. And through acceptance: ok, this person has come. And that’s it.

You can never say that Shirdi Sai Baba is not active. From our own experiences, we know he is very active a hundred years after he left the body. Chattarpur Guruji is active, so is Bhagawan Nityananda and we know many more masters that are active. How can you say they are not active? It’s not possible.

Q7: Whenever we think of or remember you when we are at home, will you be thinking of us too?

M: It’s all auto connection. There are two things you must understand. One is this physical form which exists for the sake of communication, for interaction on the physical level. But there is a consciousness form too, which never dies. That form is always available. So when your frequency connects to my frequency, that presence automatically has to happen. In fact the presence never goes.

A story goes that Brahma told Kali (Kali of Kali Yuga) that during your time, you must not touch or disturb those who are deeply connected to masters and traditions. Then Kali replied, “What happens to my job then, if everybody gets connected? For my job is to disturb people!” Then Brahma said that time would be his friend, the prevailing times would help him. If time were so confusing and kept people unstable then he could work easily.

Then Kali asked how people would connect to masters at all, in unstable times?

In the Treta Yuga which was Shri Rama’s time, connection happened through yagna, homa and such things. In Dvaapara Yuga, it was a different way. In each Yuga or Age, there was a different format for connecting to God. So what is the format in the Kali Yuga?

Brahma replied, ”Remembrance”. If you remember, you will be connected. It’s that simple. But even remembrance is a problem during Kali’s time. When you remember, energy presence happens. They said to just remember, they didn’t even say chant or sing. Those are fine too – if you want to do it, no problem. But the minimum is remembrance. Just remember and the connection happens. So the consciousness is always available. The physical form needs transportation, but consciousness needs no transformation – it is always expanded. And you will feel it, you will get signs. Everything will happen per your intensity, according to how you connect.

Q8: What are the signs of presence when connection happens?

M: Signs can be many. There can be fragrance, for instance. There are 5 senses, right? The sign will be based on your orientation. For some people it will be a feeling of presence, some people are nose-oriented, so for them it will be a feeling of fragrance. Others may be visual-oriented, so they will probably see. Sometimes it can even be taste, so a nice taste in the mouth. Sometimes a fragrance, a smell. It depends on the orientation. It’s not easy to generalize it – various people feel it in various ways.

Q9: Can one have two masters?

M: There are no two masters. Consciousness is one, so there is one master but in many forms. What you should connect to is the master you feel connected to. There is nothing you will gain by changing the master. Because it would be just another form since it is the same story, the same consciousness. So if you just connect to the master you feel deeply connected to, and consider that person as all masters, then all masters will help you.

The entry card that gets you support of all masters, is the respect you have for one master: your own master. That is what is told by all great scriptures. They say to just stay put, and every master will come and help you. In other words, to have a steady connection to one person – this is the secret. It is the mind that takes you to different masters, that thinks that the other one is better, or that I can get more from many people  – it’s not true.

An example of this is an incident about a film actress, a staunch devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba – she has actually spoken about it on video and Youtube, so I’m not naming her. She had been filming somewhere in New Zealand or Australia. And she was going through tremendous confusion over some serious decisions she had to take. She prayed intensely to Shirdi Sai Baba that she needed an answer that night itself, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to do the film shooting the next day.

Since I didn’t have her number, I called up one of her friends, CEO of Sunil Shetty’s company I think, and I said, “Do you know this lady?” She said, ”Yes, I know her.” I told her to convey the answer. She asked,” Did she contact you?” I said, ”No, don’t worry, you just give her this answer.” So she called up the actress and gave her the answer and the actress exclaimed, “My God, how did you know this?” to which she replied, “I don’t know, Mohanji called me up and told me.” The actress said, ”How did Mohanji know? I did not pray to him!” Then she contacted me, “How did you know this question was from me?”   I replied saying, “Just see if the answer is right.“ She said, “The answer is accurate, thank you very much. I can take a decision now.”

And about a week later, something again happened – not so serious but similar. And again I answered. She had been praying to Shirdi Sai Baba, this also she related on video. She said that she was completely surprised, since she always looked upon me as just as a friend. She said,” How did Mohanji know, although I was praying to Shirdi Sai Baba?” So what does that mean? It’s all one canvas! I’m not Shirdi Baba, I’m telling you this straight. I look upon Baba as my father. But how did the answer come?

One canvas! That is why it is not about this physical form – you will not understand then. This consciousness is one. So you pray to whoever you are connected to and answer comes some way. And we have no give or take in it. I’m not taking any extra favor or I’m not telling them I invented this. It’s   not possible, you know. It happens automatically. It was accurate for that person, so she went and put that on video. Sometimes this type of thing happens, though not always. It depends on the intensity of the prayer and the intensity of the connection to your master. But many people don’t receive that because they keep wandering. They are neither here nor there. They don’t know who to pray to, and when they pray, there is no intensity.

There are two things in life: intensity and intention. Sankalpa or intention should be strong. We do sankalpa before a havan and puja: I am doing this puja for myself/ my family/particular person so that they are protected. The priest takes the name, gotra and all that, and then they do the chants and puja. Sankalpa should be clear for whatever action you take. Then intensity or single pointed concentration. The answers will come, and I’m sure you have experienced it. But the thing is you don’t have to pray to different gurus because they have different forms. All gurus are one. You connect deeply to your guru – everybody will come and help you. So there is no need to change anything and I will never recommend that also. Because what will you change? Only the forms right?  After that what will you do?

Q10: If I think of Sai ji (Shirdi Sai Baba), will you come into my path?

M: That’s possible, but not necessary. Maybe Sai himself will appear in the thoughts. I gave this example only for your understanding. It happened and the actress herself has said this on video, otherwise I would not used that example. But there are numerous such instances. It’s not necessarily me, Baba can work through anybody, through different people. But for Baba to work, that person should be empty, with zero ego. Any master can work through anybody, he can work through all people: there are 7.5 billion people who are options. But how will he work through someone? You should have no ego, you should be completely empty. Then he will take over and he will work and he will talk.

However many people do many predictions, and I don’t believe in most of them. One person came to me and said you will be doing this, you will be doing that.  I completely discount that. These kind of things I do not endorse – I’m a practical person. It should  be tangible and practical. And I don’t like to mislead or misguide. If things are not happening, they are not happening. Why things don’t happen is mostly because there is no intensity in our prayer. Intensity means single-pointed concentration .

That’s why Babaji always talks about concentration first. He insists on concentration before any practice. Learn to concentrate first, then you practice. We are all scattered, attention is distributed over so many things that our intensity on each is reduced. So each thing doesn’t receive the intensity.

Q11: What if I am able to be connected to multiple gurus simultaneously? If you pray to Sai Baba, then go to another place, you may get answers. I may be able to connect to god/guru/ energy in many different ways. Is this a sign that you are going towards a spiritual path?

M:  The secret of connecting to all the gurus is connecting to the one guru in you. A disciple asked a guru, “You know I am completely confused. You are talking about 330 million or 33 crores of gods. I can’t even begin to start worshipping one god, and here you are talking about 330 million gods. How will I worship all of them? He replied, “Worship 33% of yourself”, which means the mind and consciousness. If you worship these two aspects, you are actually connecting to 330 million aspects of one thing. One is supreme consciousness that has 330 million possibilities. You are connecting to every master, everything.

So, the secret is connecting to yourself, and for connecting to yourself, you have to accept yourself – self-acceptance. And self-acceptance has to start with recognising yourself as a complete being. Totally unique, totally perfect, totally complete. No comparisons. People waste a lot of time comparing themselves with other people. Oh, that person is good, that person is better, all that is absolutely not true. Since each person is unique, so you can’t say that somebody is better than the other. So when that kind of self-acceptance happens, you will automatically start connecting, you will appreciate and respect yourself, you will stop judging yourself. You will like and love yourself and then you will start experiencing the same outside.

And then when you look at one guru, you will see all the masters, millions of them. And then you understand that he is just a representation, and not the reality. See, I’m a projection, not the end. There is a continuation, there is a flow. And I will be ‘alive’ even after I leave the body. So this flow continues on and on. Before me there were so many, after me there will be so many. But still the flow will be there.

Q12: How do you get empty?

M: Emptiness is connected to less thoughts. Less thoughts are connected to less desires. It has to start with this: when you are experiencing something, be fully that. That means no resistance.

Imagine you are experiencing happiness. Be happiness fully, be like a small child – like the baby that was walking around. Be fully that thing and at that time, whatever it is. Tomorrow or the day after, it doesn’t matter. Yesterday doesn’t matter. So that you are there, experiencing fully. In that mode, desires will be fully brought to completion. In that mode, no more such desires will crop up. That automatically reduces your thoughts, leading to more and more emptiness.

Emptiness doesn’t happen in one day, because we have already stored so much inside of us, without our knowledge. We have served a lot of days, right? We are served a lot things that are all there as cache memory. Let it be, no problem. But just be aware. “Oh, it’s there, let us sit together!”

Then secondly, what do you reject in yourself? What is it that you don’t like in yourself? There might be plenty that is connected to other people’s opinions or your own comparisons. We are compared to other people. Or other people told us we are not good enough. We take all that seriously. But they don’t know you, nobody really knows you. Nobody can know you, and not only that – you don’t even know yourself!  And this is because your conscious mind is available just during the waking state. The waking state is only one of three very vibrant states: waking state, dream state and deep sleep state. The dream state is real: you are having experiences, and even memories in this state. Then in the deep sleep state, you don’t know whether you are man or woman, nor do you know time or space. You don’t know your nationality, country, class, culture, possessions, positions – you know nothing. When you wake up, you know. So there is a death state too, every day. Every night we are dying, every morning we wake up and when we wake up our world wakes up. The world was existing before that but we did not know that world, because when we slept, our world was asleep. That is our whole story, isn’t it?

Now, how do we compare? How do we criticise each other or judge ourselves? In karmic law, whether you criticize yourself or criticize another person, it has the same effect. If you judge yourself or another person, it’s the same in karmic law. Because you are not accepting yourself.  Not accepting oneself and not accepting other people – these are both equal. We only think that karma is towards other people, this is not so. In karmic law, you are an incarnation too, and just like other incarnations. Then if you don’t accept yourself, it’s equivalent to not accepting every other person. When you criticize yourself, it is like criticizing another person. From the karmic angle, there is no difference here.

So it is when you start accepting yourself with all your happiness, all your sorrows, all your weaknesses, and all your strengths, that the mind starts to settle down. It will be less turbulent, you’ll say, “Things are ok, it’s fine, let me manage myself.”

And then, step by step, there will be decline of thoughts, of the TPS – thoughts per second. That leads to emptiness, the subsequent reduction of ups and downs, of the fluctuations of mind. The mind fluctuates only because of thoughts. Remember, the mind is like a projector that needs a film reel. The mind doesn’t have its own data. The film reel has memories, impressions, your desires. If you are not providing it any film, what will the projector project? The screen will be blank and empty because there was nothing to project. That means there were no thoughts. No thoughts means no desires. So though the projector or mind will remain, there will be nothing to project. That means total emptiness and peace.

Q13: Is that time when we are empty i.e. without thoughts or desires when we need to intensely pray?

M: Then there will be no need for prayer. When you are in a totally empty state, which is the state of most of the masters, you don’t have to pray – they don’t pray. I don’t pray, what to pray to? There is nothing outside to pray to. You decide, you intend.  Tathaastu, they say, right?  Based on somebody’s input they say bless you. There is nothing to pray to, because there is nothing outside of you to pray to. You just feel everything inside you, the whole universe inside you. In other words, tat tvam asi, which  means “You are That”. That’s when you realise that state when it’s all empty: aham brahmaasmi  or “I am the Universe”. When you are the universe, you are one with the Creator. Creator means Pure Consciousness.  Then when there is nothing or emptiness within, even a small thought or intention can be very loud. But when there are a lot of thoughts, you wouldn’t understand that. Like a person who is smoking all the time, won’t know how it feels to have the lungs of a nonsmoker. It’s like that. So that thought (prayer) is not needed. It will be operating on the dharma  – what has to be done will be done.

No unconscious action. No compulsive action. Nothing can provoke you at all, because you are empty.  That’s the state of masters. State of mastery needs no prayer. Until you reach that state.

Our prayers are very weak, you know why? Number one reason, our prayers are to someone. Number two, our prayers are for something. When you say, “Please give me this”,  what are you telling the universe? That you don’t have it. So they say “tathaastu”. So you don’t have it anyway. When you keep on praying because of the lack of something, you will only continue to experience the lack of that thing. That is why our prayers are very weak most of the time.

So the right prayer is: “I am grateful. Thank you. Thank you for coming into my life. Thank you for being the grace of my life. Thank you for the abundance that You are, in my life.” Understood?

That is why (before the Mahabharata war), Arjuna said, “I need only Krsna”. And what did Duryodhana  say? He said, “I need the Yadava army.” Krsna said, ”Take it”. Duryodhana looked only at the numbers of warriors, not the talent. Arjuna said he only needed Krsna. One man was enough to defeat a million people – Krsna. Krsna’s presence was more important. Duryodhana thought Arjuna was stupid – why did he not ask for the army. Duryodhana said, “I negotiated very well. I got a whole army, a huge army. Millions of soldiers.” Arjuna said, “I have only one, Krsna. Enough. Thank you for being here as my grace. Now I will win the war.”

All you need is the presence of the master, then the war can be won. Because the master wins the war for you, if your surrender is absolute. But surrender is not absolute.  Shirdi Sai Baba says this: “You leave your mind here and go back. I’ll take care of it, but don’t look back. Don’t ever look back. If you look back, you are not trusting me. You are looking back to see what I am doing with your mind. I’ll take care of it, don’t worry. But don’t look back.” And we look back all the time. We plant the seed in the ground and expect it to grow, but every day we dig up to see the seed. Then we complain: “God, why didn’t you make it grow? God is not being very helpful”.

Q14:  In today’s world, as householders and those working at jobs and doing different roles inside and outside the home, we cannot shirk our responsibilities or roles.  What should be our methodology to reach that supreme goal of Oneness?

M: One word answer: Awareness. Be aware.

Decide that not a word is to be uttered without your mind being present. Not even a spoon is taken, not even a finger is moving without your mind being present. Practice awareness.  Awareness is all… be aware. You practice awareness all the time, not only just sitting down and practicing but also when you are working and when you are traveling. When you are watching television, be aware that you are watching television. When you are talking to people, you must be aware you are talking to people. Whatever you are talking about, be aware you are talking about that thing. The only problem will be in the mind, because of thoughts. You don’t know what you are going to think next. So you can’t help that.

But you can understand the thought after it happens: “Ok, this thought happened. No problem”. No resistance, no comparison, no criticism, no judgement. So, everything is flowing, and there are no good, bad, ugly or dirty thought segregations. Anything can happen in the mind. You don’t even look, they all coming and going. Everything is coming, everything is going. So you are not comparing, criticising, judging. If you practice this bodh or awareness, it stabilises you, and you become buddha when you are stabilised in this field at all times. You are no more interested in talking about people. When people are talking, you are not even listening – and people talk according to whatever they are, not what you are wanting.

See, nobody can talk about the truth of something, because nobody really understands the truth accurately. If you want to know the truth, you need to know karma. Like, if I want to know why you are doing something, I need to know your karma. I am only able to see your doing, which is really nothing – it’s just an expression. That expression is caused by some pending desire. So someone says to you, ”This guy is drinking alcohol”. Now why does one do something? Because there is a pending desire. That is what is provoking that action. It can become unconscious action, turn into addiction, etc and it may start ruining his life, and that’s the time when you can guide them or warn them. But in truth, nobody knows anything, and nobody really knows anybody, right? So when people are trying to influence you etc., you say, “I am not interested.” That is what I have always said to those people who try to tell me about other people. I always say that I am not interested. (I think I know this person anyway and sometimes I see through them also.)  I don’t want opinions. I don’t take opinions from anybody because opinions usually contaminate your mind. You know, if somebody were to talk to me about you, then when I meet you next time I will be remembering that, more than the fresh connection. So why should I even try…. I just keep away.

So you just concentrate on your bodh or awareness, and try to stabilise it as much as you can. When you drive your car, you see yourself driving the car.  Every time you see yourself – whether you are watching a picture at the movie theater, or you are interacting with people, or you are taking decisions – and when you do this, what will it be? It will be perpetual meditation. I’m not asking you to sit down and meditate because as you said, you have all your duties towards your family, your dharma. This is what the scriptures say – never deviate from your dharma otherwise you will have to come back. This is something that you chose before you took this birth, so continue. And secondly, karmic. What brings you to that point is karma. That you must perform beautifully, without any self-interest. Then the structure is: maata – pita – guru and God. Follow that structure. First come mother and father, then guru, then God. Worship, connect, or serve in that order so that you are maintaining that structure, so that you are maintaining your dharma. You are calm and quiet. And no guru or god is dependent on your prayers or anything from you, because they are already independent from you. For you to connect you don’t have to give anything.

In 2003, when I started ACT Foundation, I had an interview with either Times of India or Hindustan Times. One of their questions was: “So what is your investment in this organization?” I replied, “Myself”. You are the best investment you can ever have in anything. If you are connected to a master, more than in anything material, invest in yourself. If you want to rise to the highest levels of awareness invest in yourself. Everything else that you got from here is temporary. But you – you brought yourself here. That is the difference, and that you should remember. You are the only original thing which you brought – everything else is received from here.

So what can you give to the master? Only yourself. And at a certain point in time, you will understand that you are one with the master. Master is not outside, it is inside. Then that acceptance level will take you to great heights. Your awareness will soar and soar and you will see all the things transparent. Then emotions won’t disturb you, situations won’t disturb you, time and space won’t disturb you. Nothing disturbs you. You are free.

Q15: Everything is pre-decided, and I’m responsible for what I’m experiencing in this life. The people I interact with or family members are just the instruments for me to have those experiences?

M: In other words, your projection.

Q16: But when do I break that kind of give and take?

M: It breaks by itself. You are not breaking anything. You didn’t consciously create, so that you can break. You see every situation has happened. In real time. Krishna said, “I have happened.” He never said that he took birth or that he did something. It happens. So you did not create that particular person or situation – that person was right for giving that experience you got. Neither do you create nor do you uncreate. For example, your asking this question here. Did we know this 3 months ago? Last month? Only now right? So this is the way it happens: everything happens at its time and we are not deciding all of this. This set of people came her together, an exchange of energy happens, the exchange of information happens and it’s all beautiful…. I can’t stop this and neither can you. So total acceptance is the only way it can drop off.

You know the only remedy in the path of liberation is total acceptance – “This is happening now, let me witness it…. “  Maybe you will appreciate, maybe you will criticise, maybe you will like it, maybe you won’t. No problem. But my reality is this, and let me have it. So that when you look it in the eye, you see that this is really nothing. I am much greater than all these incidents of time! You feel and start seeing your real grandeur. You will say, “I am the universe”. Only when you wake up does your world exist. When you sleep, there is no world for you. The real world existed before you, and it will exist after you. You realize that only you created your world – means when you wake up all this is amazing. When you wake up during some time, you might realize, “Oh, I am in Canada.”  Why so? Because actually your reality only opens up when you are awake. Like that, when you truly become awake, your whole consciousness opens up.

Even the three aspects of consciousness  – do we never think about them, the waking state, dream state, deep sleep state. Do we ever consider those every day? They are all existing but we don’t know about them, right? We are only after some silly emotions of life, relationships, likes and dislikes. This food I like this, the other I don’t like this. This person I like, the other I don’t like. Our range is that way. Now look at the limitedness of it. We have created nobody and nobody can we uncreate.

Only through acceptance can you dissolve everything. Through resistance you will only maintain the same thing. Very simple. Through acceptance you dissolve, through resistance you maintain. If that is understood, this whole story is very simple. We are not chasing anything in life. If something comes to us, receive it. If something doesn’t come, no problem.

So like that, when you are totally at peace with yourself, the world can’t do you harm. If somebody hates you, it’s their problem, isn’t it?  If somebody hates you, you are not responsible. How can you be responsible for somebody’s hatred? If somebody says, “I hate you, I don’t like you”, what will you do? Nothing. We have no control over these things. Do we have any control? If somebody compares me  with another person and says you are not all that good, I say it is ok, I am not that person anyway. If somebody tells me I don’t look like Sylvester Stallone, of course I know I don’t look like Stallone and I should know. He can’t say what I myself say!

You see, spirituality is very very simple. Our spiritual journey is very simple. We complicate it with so many dos and don’ts and rituals. Everything is to finally connect you to yourself, for that matter. But if you get stuck with the external, it takes more time to go internal.

The whole spiritual journey is about the traveling from outside to inside. Very simple in one sentence: it’s a journey from outside to inside. If you understand that, you understand all the scriptures, the whole philosophy. Then it’s a question of journey and the elementary, the fundamental is self-acceptance. Accepting yourself, with all your faults and all your merits. That’s it. Simple.

Transcribed by Sjarn Mansoor
Proofread by Geeta Iyer

Open the Door for Grace, part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M: Awareness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Kaali said,” You are not afraid?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No.”

“One month less?”

“No.”

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

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

So he asked, ”What is the range?”

“Something physical.“

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

So she said ok.

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

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

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

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

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

So what does a guru do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcribed by Sjarn Mansoor
Proofread by Geeta Iyer

Effective Personality, part 2

Zoom Satsang 7 July 2019, part 1

Question:  Can people who do Kriya regularly, but are not an active participant in the Foundation or have the need to be in close physical proximity to you, still evolve spiritually?

Mohanji: Physical proximity is an illusion. By sitting next to me you probably may not gain a lot. If your mind is connected to me wherever you are, if your mind is connected to me, you are with me. There are a lot of people who might be around me physically, but their mind is elsewhere, those people are not with me. So the connection is always the connection of the mind. When we see our parents, our grandparents, our relatives, when our mind is with them, we are with them. When the mind is elsewhere, we are not there.  Many people live together but they are not close, and you always see that in life.

When we really love somebody, we will whisper, when we do not like somebody we shout. See the tone of our voice. It’s mostly connected to the depth of our affection. You can almost take it as a benchmark.  When you are shouting, screaming etc. means you’re already separated. When you’re really close to somebody you’ll be whispering, that expression will be there.

Kriya is a tool. It’s a method to stabilize and align yourself. A child who is born is already aligned. There’s no alignment needed. What are you aligning? The mind, intellect, and ego called mind matter. Mind matter is the faculty of perception. That is how we see the world. There are millions of things in this world. To experience them we have the mind, intellect and ego. Of course, through the senses eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin, we experience life around us. And to actually feel it, we have the mind, which is the emotions, intellect, analysis, ego, and the personality through which we experience life. We feel life, we relish or we taste life.

In this mode, what you actually are, that lack of alignment is when it’s all spread out. Body is already aligned, spirit, the energy which operates the body is aligned. Mind, intellect and ego are all over, sometimes in the past, sometimes in the future, and hardly in the present. So we are bringing this mind, intellect and ego together. Body, mind, intellect, ego and spirit together, you become one unit. At that point in time, when you look, the whole faculty looks. Otherwise, your eyes will be looking and if the mind is elsewhere, you don’t see. If your eyes are looking and your mind is also looking through your eyes, you experience reality. When you’re eating food, you’re consuming something, when the food is in your mouth and your mind is with your tongue, then you actually feel the taste of the food. Otherwise when you’re eating, and your mind is on the TV,  you’re fully occupied, eyes are on the TV and the mind is on the TV,  you don’t even know how much you ate.

Your life depends on where you’re focusing. Where your mind is. Kriya and all the meditations and the numerous methods are all to align yourself to a level where you are fully there, right now, right here, all the time. This is in waking-up time. In the dream state you have an active state but you don’t have any control over that state. In the dream state, the data which you are using is the stored data, what you’ve collected, or what is stored inside. They have all come from experiences. Experiences become a memory, the memory becomes an impression, the impression gets stored, and they manifest in the screen of dreams or in the screen of waking state. Deep sleep state is the same as the death state, you don’t even know whether you’re a man or a woman, you don’t know the time or space. You’re completely dead, then you wake up in the morning, again you are a personality and that personality is maintained by the ego. I’m so and so and this is my existence. I’m connected to all my positions and possessions and relations. All these things come when you wake up. When you’re dreaming, that’s all different. Probably you are the president of America in your dream. So the boundaries change, things change. Everything changes in the dream state and the dream state sources from what is stored inside. The waking state is connected to the world outside, usually.

That is why at that point in time, meditation is very important. That means while in the waking state and being awake, you’re turning the mind, intellect, and ego, within. When all these faculties are turned inside, that means the senses are closed, there is no world outside, while awake with awareness. When you are focused inside, all you see is what you have stored over a period of time, from your experiences. Experiences have their connection to actions, thoughts, and words, the chronology of life.

To cut across all this, to think vertically, you’re connecting to the higher awareness through a Kriya or meditation and all these things. If you are doing that, it is for you. Now your connection with me, it is called integration. That means you identified Mohanji as a person who’s stable or who’s aligned, this is probably what brings you to me. If you are aware of that, and you’re thinking about me, remembering me, or connecting to me with your mind, intellect, and ego, whichever faculty or mind matter, then you are with me. You don’t have to be physically with me, and by physically being with me, there’s no guarantee that you are actually with me.

Also, I am not insisting that you should work within this Foundation, I only say be good and do good in your society and how much brightness you can bring to your society, in your neighborhood. That’s all you need to do. You don’t have to do through the Foundation, through anybody. You can perform the way you can. That’s why I said to feed the birds; feed the animals, people, the sick and the old. Do whatever you can in your society to enhance the lives of people and the beings around you. I call everybody people. There are people of every species. Every species has a personality. A cat has its personality, a dog has its personality. All beings have their personality. When a being has a personality, it’s a person. A person has a personality. So by being available and being useful to this society, you are being with me, you’re connecting to me, that’s the activity which I’m asking you to do. I’m not asking you to be in the Foundation or to operate only through the Foundation, but it will be helpful because in the Foundation people inspire each other, they all support each other, and you will understand, okay, this is what we’re doing in the world.

As I said, this year, the main theme is practicing positivity. That is because so many things are negative. You open the newspaper or on the TV, and all you see is negative news. People killing people, people on the verge of war, people not agreeing with each other, they are shouting and screaming and making life miserable. This is what we see in this world. So how do you stay positive – through acts of positivity, through positive thoughts, positive words, and positive actions. That’s why I said this year the main practice is practicing positivity during waking hours. So that your self-esteem grows and your value in this world increases. And in that mode, you are being very effective in this life.

As I said earlier, the effective years are very important. Effective moments are important. Effective time is important. Effective time is when you are actually available for this world outside and you’re delivering. Not when you’re eating, drinking, sleeping and you’re just immersed in your own activities. See, that’s very comfortable. Today, the world has shrunk to a tablet or a mobile phone. Our world is a mobile phone. We don’t even need eye contact. You don’t have to look at people and you are very happy to be emotional with somebody by sending some emoticons. We just send the sign of love and we tell people we love you. If you hate somebody, you unfriend them from Facebook.  We have actually made our boundaries so small, we have become more and more introverted. And this has actually made an insensitive world. Today’s world has become very insensitive.

When I was growing up, there was no tablet or mobile phone so we had some time together with other children.  We played and we had some time outside. Whether it was extremely effective or not effective, there was a public relation, there was an interaction. But today, this is where it is. Our focus is on this phone. And we are happy to fall in love through the phone, divorce through the phone, talk and not talk, convey our anger, hatred, and jealousy, through the phone. Everything is all virtual. In reality, we don’t even look into the eyes of people. We are afraid to look into the eyes of people. We don’t know what we will see and rather not look. Technology is amazing, because of technology we are seeing each other. I’m sure you’re all sitting in various parts of the world. And you are listening to me, we are talking because of technology. So that’s a good side. But then we also have the same technology that has actually controlled us and taken over our lives.  We must understand this also.

This is why aligning with oneself is the best you can do in this lifetime. Mind, body, intellect, ego, and spirit together as one unit inside. That means you have become a total unit, you are not in the past or the future, you are right here right now. Then automatically expansion happens, the consciousness expands. The unit spontaneously becomes the universe, that is God-consciousness. Then it actualizes, that’s the state of samadhi we talk about. It transcends the waking state, transcends the dream state,  transcends the deep sleep state and it enters into the zone of turiya, the fourth state where you are witnessing all the other three states. Then you transcend further to the turiyatita state, where you’re witnessing even the turiya state.

As per your witness-hood rises, your expansion happens spontaneously. Then you are not expanding the situation, your position, or what you are, it spontaneously grows, it expands. So the point is, if your connection with me is firm, then no question. You’re thinking about me. You’re remembering me, you’re connecting to me. You don’t have to do anything else to connect to me. When you’re plugged into the socket, you will have electricity, like that. You think about me, remember me, you’re connected to me. Activities are all for your sake. No God or Guru says that you should do this or do that. No God is waiting in a temple so that you can come and see him, nor the idol in any place of worship for that matter. No God or Guru is dependent on anybody. When you talk about a Guru, that only means an aligned personality. When you talk about a God-man, he is somebody who has expanded himself and he only sees his reflection in the world. That means he only sees the energetic plane, not the physical plane. When they look at another person, there’s no other person, only their expressions. And they always feel that.

Karl Marx said the same thing, your personality overflows from yourself and merges with the personality of the society, you see your own reflection in everybody’s eyes. It’s the same philosophy, here energetically we are connecting to all the people. We see everybody, as expressions of the same consciousness, we are all one. Then we feel that it’s myself in another body.  Each personality has a relevance,  a purpose,  and also time and duration. Understand that you are expressing the state of God, where God never interferes, just like your soul. The soul is like the petrol in your car. It never cares about the destination, but it aids your journey. If there’s no petrol, you can’t drive a car. If there’s no soul, we call it a dead body.  God or the soul has no interest in your life. But it helps your life. Electricity has no interest in your refrigerator or washing machine, but it’s essential to make them perform.

Just like that, when you are always connected to me, and you have always been connected to me over lifetimes, you might be connected to me in the future lives also. I as a person have duration, this body will also die, I may die someday in the future. But that doesn’t stop the story, the story will continue, the energy will continue, the presence will continue. And that’s exactly how it is. How do you make sure the presence will continue? Stop existing for yourself and start existing for the universe, your immortality begins there. The journey or the path of immortality starts there. The less you’re living for yourself, the more you’re living for the world. The more and more you live for the world, you become the world and the world becomes you. Otherwise, it’s a very unit existence, small scale, where you look at a picture and think you know this person, but you have no idea who they are. A picture only tells us about a form. But there is an energy, there is a purpose, there’s a reason, and there’s a duration, we don’t see that.

When you are connecting to somebody, try to connect to the energy of that person and you will see yourself. There’s no difference. Everybody is the same. All the people are the same. Nobody’s higher, nobody’s lower. I am not special. I’m the same as you are. But the thing is that I decided that if I am breathing, my heart is beating, it will be for the world. I do not live for myself. That’s the only decision I’ve taken. I chose not to have material richness only for myself, I decided that I will share my riches so that everybody becomes rich. When you are connected to me, your practices will help you align yourself more. All your practices are for aligning yourself. Be aligned, become a unit and spontaneously you will become the universe, there’s no effort for that. The effort is to bring your scattered mind into you. Bring your mind away from all your anxieties, fears, skills, phobias, all those things and come inside.

But please understand, the compulsive habitual memories, which you have collected over the past will definitely try to drag you outside more and more. When you go to a restaurant, you taste the food, the food is great.  The next time we feel again, oh, I would like to go to the restaurant. Because memory compels you for that action. This will be there until and unless after a while you lose interest in all those things.  If the food is there, it’s fine, if it’s not there, it’s okay. You are not occupied by a place, a time or a relationship, anything. Everything is fine. But at the same time, you’re always remaining unbound, you’re not bound by anything. At that time, freedom starts.

Freedom happens only when you are unbound. If you can’t detach from anything, all your relationships are real, all your possessions and positions are real, then everything is real.  Your connection with all that is real, it has to be. But at a certain point in time, that connection changes, the flavor changes. And you say okay, I’m fine,  Fine as myself in this incarnation, and all the external factors are only complementing this existence. That awareness will come,  that awareness will grow, and then you realize, I am Mohanji, and Mohanji is not separate from me. When you feel yourself as awareness, you will know that you are connected to me.

When you feel yourself as your mind, you may connect, disconnect, connect and disconnect. When you look at me through your mind you will never understand me. But look at me through your awareness, your own awareness, you will see me there. That’s why I said my place is within you, not outside of you. If you see me outside, you’re not connecting, you’re connecting to a man, a person, a personality and that’s temporary. Because, I may also die someday, sometime soon. So this is not the right connection. The connection is that connection to the consciousness, the energy, where you see me inside you, just like you’re not a picture on your wall. And then what you see inside is the real you. That means I live inside your heart. I stay there. And then you see that there is no Mohanji outside. There is no Mohanji, it’s me, and it’s all us. It’s all one consciousness in many, many bodies. Many dimensions, even a tree, a plant, a bird, an animal, you see your own reflection in everything. So everything is you, that is the truth.

That integrates you. That will make you stable. That will completely stabilize you. Then we have no separation. If you connect with me with your mind, you will compare, you will analyze, you will judge and then you will separate,  it’s a matter of time. If you’re connecting to me with your heart, we will have no separation. Those people who love from within, never separate. People who connect with the mind, then it’s an option. If you connect with the mind, mind changes, relationship changes, that is not permanent at all. Connect to me with your heart. And don’t change your mind or let the mind change. Don’t be affected by the mind. Let the mind do whatever it takes. You don’t have to worry about it. But your connection is real, connection with me is real. Whenever you look at me as an option just understand it’s a matter of time before you leave. Because it’s an option.

Also, when you look at me in terms of an expectation – expectation and option are same – if the expectation does not happen, something was not delivered as per your expectation, or the delivery did not happen as per your expectation, understand that delivery always happens as per the eligibility, not as per expectation. And if you think of something, I want this to happen through Mohanji and it didn’t happen, then you will separate. Because expectation came in the way. Expectation leads to disappointment. Disappointment leads to estrangement. Estrangement leads to confusion, confusion leads to a lack of self-esteem. Delusions, anger, hatred, jealousy, and revenge can all happen. We can slip as if going down the slide all the way, to an utter despair situation. Check your expectation, okay, I have surrendered it. That’s what Lord Krishna said. You have the rights of only your action, not on the results of your actions. Because the result is not in your hands, that’s as per your eligibility. Results happen as per your eligibility.

You have control of your actions. Control means you can act or not to act, yes or no. When you act, do your positive action, give your best, and leave the rest, then everything will happen. So, your connection with me if it is from the heart, guaranteed, there’s no separation. We will not separate. Imagine your connection with me is from your mind, then it’s just a matter of time because all the comparisons, expectations, disappointments, anger or hatred, anything can happen. Always understand, when you’re judging somebody you have not connected with that person. This is one benchmark you can look for. Have you judged people, have you criticized people, have you compared people? These are all from the mind, you’re not connected from the heart. If you really connected with somebody from the heart, you will not judge them. You will not criticize them, you will not even think of them as separate, you will accept them. There will be perfect acceptance.

For connection with the heart, the benchmark or the sign of connection is total acceptance. If the connection is from the mind, you will have all these things. Look at which faculty you are operating through. It’s important and interesting to see. You might be thinking, oh, I love this person, I really like him. All those things you will say, but then ask yourself, How am I connecting? If you’re connecting from your mind, understand there will be separation sooner or later. And the mind is never stable. The mind is a monkey mind. It keeps changing. Based on which, your relationships changes, the flavor changes, life changes, opinions, all these things change. Based on this, your relationships also get affected.

Remember this very clearly, if you’re connecting with your heart, it’s total acceptance. When you accept somebody, you must first and foremost accept the weaknesses of the person, not the strengths. We all love to portray our strengths. And also, we all love to accept somebody’s strengths. But it’s the weaknesses that we must accept. Everybody has weaknesses, everybody has strengths, and we are all a mixture. Don’t go for perfection. Perfection is a completely hypothetical thing. It’s individualistic, based on capacity. Everybody may not have the capacity to do everything as per everybody else’s expectation. It is impossible.

Each person delivers into this world as per their own inherent capacity. And that’s the only thing you can deliver, only based on capacity. Imagine I can lift 100 kilos of weight. I tell you please lift 100 kilos and your capacity is 20 kilos. How will you lift 100 kilos? So, based on what you are, your orientation, whatever is your capacity, you’re delivering to this earth, and that should be accepted as it is.  Don’t say oh he’s very poor, he can’t lift 100 kilos. That’s our notion, our comparison. That’s totally not the right way to make these connections. If you really like somebody, connect to them from the heart and don’t judge, don’t criticize. Accept them as they are with all the good and the bad. Good, bad, ugly, everything. Let it all be there because that’s a personality, that’s their orientation, The personality of what they are. Take them as they are. Then everything will be stable.

Wish you all a great Guru Poornima. Keep shining bright, the world needs light. Lots of love. Thank you.

Transcribed by Kishore Mundanat
Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan