Connection to the real Master

Conversation with Mohanji from South America

Speaker: Good morning, Mohanji.

Mohanji: Nice to see you.

Speaker: Thank you so much Mohanji for being here with us. I’m so excited that I have a big smile, thank you again for being with us.

Mohanji: My pleasure, I am happy.

Connection with a spiritual family

Speaker: People are really very excited about being with you again. I tell them to connect to your heart, to connect to your eyes and then just to open themselves to your energy. Okay, so can we start with the questions?

Mohanji: I’m ready.

Speaker: Mohanji, as you know, Peru is one of the countries that is most hit in the world with the Covid-19 virus. We are still in a very strict lockdown with a curfew, and there are a lot of people who asked me questions about death because they have relatives, they have parents who died of Covid-19, and they have people around them who are suffering from it.

Actually, there were times when this country was number one in the world for the number of people dying on a day. Apparently, a lot of people have issues with the immune system, especially people from the jungle or from the mountains. The question is when people are dying from this or diseases like cancer, what can we say to the relatives, how can we ease their pain, especially when they are not spiritually oriented, or when they don’t have a deep connection with God?

Mohanji: I fully understand this. This situation is all over the world now. What makes or what brings pain is our connection to our parents, to our relatives, or other people? We feel a deep connection. We feel a kind of real bonding, and when they are not there, we feel devastated. This is irreplaceable. You cannot change it.

Let us take a scenario. If we have somebody unwell in our house, what will that person see? What they are suffering or what they are going through, you cannot change, because it’s already happening. But what would that person need from us, usually? They would need understanding, love, empathy, or companionship and support; these four things.

Expressing fear and sympathy may not work, because that will aggravate the situation. Expressing indifference also will not work, meaning ‘I don’t care’ that will not work. Just from your heart if you say and act accordingly, “I am with you, I love you, let’s fight it together” that will bring more power and energy to that person to fight; basically, survival is connected to a decision; to win the war.

Sometimes in such occasions, if you say God is helping you, etc., it may not work because the question they will ask is, then why did God give this to me first of all? So, let’s not talk about God too much. Let’s talk about us, as human beings, what we can do. We can make a big difference in society, and in people’s lives, with our attitude.

I get many messages from people not because they connect to me spiritually; because they say Mohanji, you are somebody whom we can trust. You are there like a rock, solid; you never change your mind. So, we love to see you; we love to connect with you because you are stable. Our stability is a very, very good gift we can give to our relationship, any relationship. Stability has a lot of value when everything else in the world is unstable. Many things in life now, in the world now we have no control, but we can choose to have an attitude of stability.

Moreover, in situations like Covid-19, most people you see are depressed; they’re not happy. If you meet ten people, and nine people are depressed, automatically you will feel depressed; because most of the energy exchange happening is taking you to a state of depression. This is to be very clearly understood – with whom you are interacting. It is important for you to connect to something stable, strong; you should make such friendships or connection to a person who’s very stable and strong; because you need somebody to hold on to so that you can give strength to other people.

This cannot be a picture on the wall; it should be a connection to a live person. I am not talking about God as such, but you need a person who is stable, so you can also be stable by connecting to that person; because this is important in today’s time. This is why I have been really working on connecting people globally as Mohanji family so that people can help each other to stabilise themselves. This has worked very well. So many of our people, whom Mirella you know already, are very stable despite things around not being stable. Bring a community together, not for activity; but for love.

The activity makes them come together easily, but the basis should be love. It is just simply staying together; just for the sake of love – togetherness and family. We all have our family; we were born in a particular family, and when we probably get married, it becomes a different family. In our life, different aspects of the family happen. But when you look back, you may see discontinuity many times and in many cases, but it is a family, which is connected unconditionally; it will never change; it’s always the same.

A spiritual family is very, very important. That is your immunity, and it’s your immunity in calamity. Here, the love is not conditional; if you are giving me something, I love you; it’s not like that, its love is unconditional. Whatever you are, whoever you are, it’s love that united us. And love will maintain us; love is our oxygen. Whatever you are, whoever you are, wherever you are from, whether you are rich or poor, whether you are educated or not educated, nothing matters. Just love, love brings everybody together.

During this time, we should know how to behave, because people will look at us. You are a spiritual person, and how will you be interacting with the world. Very simple – stability. Spirituality should be stability. When people look at you, and they see you being extremely stable; they may ask you, how can you be so stable, when everything is in calamities. That time you can say, “I have a family; that family is stable. I’m stable. This family needs nothing from me.” This is very important to understand, “My family needs nothing from me; I am everything to my family; my family is everything to me.” To have that connection, what do you need? Very simple, yesterday, today, tomorrow, day after, you should be connected the same way.

It’s very simple because all you need is consistency. Don’t keep changing your mind. Then you will be nowhere. In a time of calamity, stability and consistency have a lot of value. That tells you who you are and what you are. This is not to gain anything from anywhere. It is just to be immune to all the problems and calamities of the world.

And you should have deep conviction and faith. Conviction in what you believe in. You should believe in something, and you should have a firm conviction in what you believe, and you should have faith in that. What is the easiest and the most important thing in your life that you must believe in or you must have consistent conviction and faith in?

Maria: We have to trust in ourselves; some people say unconditional love; some people say love; some people say, love and family.

Mohanji: Good! Thank you for participating. The most authentic, the most original and the most reliable person you will ever find in your life is you. So, you should believe in yourself. You should have faith in yourself. You should have a deep conviction in yourself. This is very, very important. What is your investment in the family? Yourself, as you are.

What is your investment in society? In all your relationships, take anything. What is your investment? It’s you. Not something that you have, because that’s temporary; permanent investment is only you. So this is very simple, right? Not complicated spirituality, we don’t need complicated spirituality; it’s too much of noise. We need to know what the truth is. The truth is only you, only one thing; you.

When you were born, you realise there is a world around you, and when you die, the world is still around you, but you do not know there is a world. When you wake up in the morning, you know there is a world around you, and when you sleep, where is that world? So it’s all about you and your life. This is the secret. The secret is to find you and accept you and love you; self-acceptance, self-love, self-respect and then it goes into society. This is the only thing you can give to society.

What can I give you? Only myself. I cannot give another person; I cannot give any other thing which you may accept or reject. Society has only two faces, either they accept, or they reject. This is how the world works. So, what best can I give you is myself. When you see yourself in me, you will accept me. When you see me as a different person, you may reject me,  but if you see yourself in me, then you may accept me.

This is very important; this is the time to make the real family. The Covid situation has given you clarity. This is the real time to make a real family, stable family, together. It does not matter where you are living, but we can all be connected in energy; energetic connection. So there is something positive during Corona time.

Speaker: Just reading some of the comments… People who have never seen you, they say that they feel so much joy and happiness in their hearts.

Mohanji: It’s not seeing, we are connected, energy-wise we are related, and some people who are sensitive will feel it right away; immediately.

Spirituality and selfless service

Speaker: Mohanji, I would like if you could tell what is the relationship between spirituality and selfless service? Because there are a lot of people that just like sit and meditate, and that’s it. Then they tell me, but I’m meditating, and nothing is happening, what would you tell them?

Mohanji: Beautiful. We all have our orientation. We have a particular nature. We like some things, and we don’t like other things. What is that connected to? What is that based on? Our orientation, our being natural – naturality. So, that tells us that we have our original state or our originality; our naturality. We are original; we are natural; so we can only interact with the world, as we are. There’s no other way.

Likewise, we like certain subjects. Some people like science, some people like arts, some people like math, some people like to draw or paint. Some people like music. This is all connected to our orientation. The same applies to spirituality. Some people are very intelligent; they look at life through their brain; they need answers. Some people are very emotional; they see the world through their heart. And some people look at the outside world in the context of, what I can do for this world; and these people like to serve the world unconditionally. All these three people are spiritual.

In Sanskrit, for the intellectual or knowledge type people, it’s called Jnana Yoga. Jnana Yogis will want answers for every question; they will never be satisfied. Now, the other set is called Bhakti Yogis; they like the path of devotion. They like to pray and to have devotion as their path.  Then the other group is called Karma Yogis. Karma Yoga means they like to serve, and they have happiness because of service.

This is all purification, and everything helps purification; inner purification. Which is better? Which is not so good? Everything is good. So, what you are, that is how you will do, you will connect, nobody can change it.

PC: Google Images

Karma Yoga is selfless service, and when you do not have any desire with your activity, that means you don’t desire name, fame or money from this activity, it is called karma sanyaasa. That means renunciation; it’s like a person who has already given himself for it.

All of these are good. But, how you are, that’s the way you interact. Sometimes you are a mixture, you would like a little bit of chanting, you like to serve the society around you, and you may like to have some knowledge; so people have different mixtures. We are all different things.

This is the approximate picture. Let it be you, connect to yourself and what makes you peaceful, what makes you happy, what makes you contented, you can take that; you should follow that.

Don’t think what I’m doing is not right and what another person doing is right; it’s not so. What is good for you is good for you. This is a very simple benchmark. No comparison, no competition, because you are the truth. What you want to experience from the world is the reason for your birth.

Hanuman – The Disciple

Speaker: Alvaro, you remember Alvaro, who translated last time when we had a session; he’s organising an online yoga retreat, and he has a meeting with his team. He asked me how he can be like Hanuman?

Mohanji: Hanuman’s strength was his unshakable connection to Ram. It is not a vague idea; it is not to some invisible God. There was a man, whom Hanuman identified as an Avatar. He understood Ram is an Avatar and he dedicated his life to Ram completely; body, mind, intellect, and ego, everything to Ram.

First and foremost, we should know who we are connected to and why we are connected. Hanuman only concentrated on Ram. If you concentrate on one thing, continuously, consistently, you will become so powerful. Hanuman had full awareness. He told Ram, “I prefer to be your servant; so I can serve you. But please remember, inside, you and I are one; no separation.”

What happens today, the mind gets distracted; the mind is on many things – many people, many teachings, many books; so this concentration is not happening. That is why the result is not happening. When you concentrate on one Master, with all your heart, all your mind, body, everything connected, then you become the Master’s responsibility. Then you don’t have a responsibility, because you have already delivered yourself, which is what Hanuman did.

That kind of strength of being a disciple is missing in today’s world. It’s not easy. Because of the internet world, you see so many things, your mind is everywhere, and then the concentration is not happening, that’s why we are not progressing.

Hanuman had full clarity. This is very important for a clear disciple; full clarity. He knows this is Ram; this is an Avatar. I will not leave him, whatever happens. One point of contact is very important.

Focus on one thing! If that happens, and you are very clear, then you should avoid all doubts. Doubt is very dangerous because if you’re not sure, your mind is distracted. No doubt, no criticism, no comparison, just acceptance, this is my Master, I connect deeply.

Hanuman never asked Ram anything. He never asked Ram, “Please give me something.” He never asked, instead he served. Go ahead. You ask nothing from the Master, and you get the whole Master. When you have the whole Master, you have everything. When you ask something, it becomes too small. But Hanuman asked nothing, and he got Ram himself. Ram himself was his property. This is the strength of the relationship. When you want nothing from the other person, that relationship is so pure and innocent. Hanuman was fully aware of who Ram was. He had full clarity and awareness; clarity and surrender.

I keep always repeating, do not look at the Master as a human or a person. Look at the teachings, look at what he’s delivering, and then you will not be distracted. If you look at a Master, “Oh! He’s eating, drinking, sleeping; he’s just an ordinary man”, then we lose the track. This is a very big trap that we must understand when the Master is in the form of a person. If the Master is in the form of a person, you have to totally ignore the form and the related needs. You should look at the teachings and connect to the consciousness through the teachings; then you are stable. But if you’re looking at the person, you may be unstable. You understood this point.

Many people that time, connected to Ram as a king, as a warrior, as a husband of Sita, in various forms, various levels, people connected. But Hanuman connected to Ram as the Supreme Consciousness; this is the difference. He was not distracted by Ram eating, drinking, sleeping, talking and fighting. He was not distracted by anything. He was only connecting to him as consciousness. Just imagine, if you connect to a Master as only consciousness, you will become that. Where you park your mind, you become that.

Who is a Master? There is a Master inside all of us. Understand this very clearly. There is a Master inside all of us. The true education or true teaching is to bring that Master out. This Master is simply quiet, silent inside us. We all have a Master inside, our true Master.

In Sanskrit, it’s called Atma tattva, which means soul factor. We have a soul inside, that is the energy, which is stable and running just like electricity, which is going through all the gadgets. When the electricity goes to a washing machine, it performs as a washing machine. When the electricity goes to a refrigerator, it performs as a refrigerator. When the electricity goes to light, it behaves like light. But electricity is the same. Like that, inside us, inside all of us, we have this energy particle; energy factor. This energy factor is not visible. You cannot feel it with your gross mind. It activates our mind; it activates our senses; it activates our brain; it activates the whole body, just like electricity. But we can’t find it; we cannot see electricity, right? Just like that, we cannot find it.

So, how can you find it? How can you find the soul factor? Through silence. When you become silent; when you start accepting yourself, respecting yourself, loving yourself, connecting with yourself continuously for a period of time, then you start feeling the energy moving inside you. You can use Kriya, you can use meditation, you can use anything, you have so many methods. But the main thing is you are consistent. It’s about you. Catch one technique to come inside you. Go inside.

What is the aim of all these techniques? Why do we have meditation? Why do we have Kriya Yoga? It’s all to find the Master inside. Who’s the Master? Who’s the real Master inside us? You can use the knowledge path; you can use the devotion path; you can use the service path; it is all to find who our true Master is. When you really, really concentrate on yourself; going within, finally, you’ll find the Master – the soul factor, the energy factor, which is running your show.

Speaker: I’m sorry I was reading the question, and I didn’t hear. Could you repeat, please?

Mohanji: When you consistently concentrate on going inside, eventually you will find the Master inside; the soul factor which is running the show, which is making you function. If the soul goes from the body, we call it a dead body. Correct?

So, we are essentially this Master. We are the Master inside, but not the mind, or the ego Master. Ego tells us, “Oh! I’m better than other people; I’m a Master”, not like that. The real Master, the electricity inside, is making this whole thing function and experience the world. We find that person, and then you understood the Master. When you have actually understood your Master, you have become a Master. Very simple.

That means when you have understood the source inside you; the source which is activating you, making you function, making you experience the world, once you see that person, or see that energy, you have understood the real Master inside you, then you become the Master. So, somebody who has understood the Master, the real Master inside, He is a Master. The answer to the question, who is a Master – somebody who has recognised, understood, experienced the Master inside, is a Master.

Ram was an avatar. He came with full awareness. He knew why he was born, what was his job, what he was supposed to do, he knew the purpose of life. He knew who he was, so he was a Master. Since Ram knew his purpose of existence, he lived only that. Since Ram had full clarity about his existence, and about his life; in every twist and turn, in every level, he understood. And he was cool about it. He was not affected.

When you have clarity, you become cool. When you have confusion, you become angry, you become upset, you start hating and all those things. Whenever you have confusion, think about somebody sitting inside you, who has no confusion. The Master sitting inside is cool always.

Coming back to Alvaro’s question, you want to be like Hanumanji. First, create one point of contact. Remove all your doubts, confusions, jealousy, all those things connected to that and focus on that contact. Imagine Hanuman is your mind; when the mind is connected to the source, the mind becomes the source.

When the mind is connected to an addiction, then the mind becomes an addiction. The mind nurtures and holds addictions. If your addiction is your Master, 100% sure, you will become the Master. But you should not doubt; you should not blame. You should not compare, criticise, judge. Take your time to find the Master; you can take any number of years to find the Master. But once you find him, stay connected; make the Master your addiction. That means your heart, your soul, your body is given to the Master, and then you become the Master. That is why Hanuman became so powerful. In Hanuman’s case, it is said that even the hair on his body was chanting Ram, every cell had Ram inside. Ram, Ram all the time; that is addiction. Totally addicted to the Master!

Many people like to connect to a Master who is not in a physical body. What is the problem with connecting to somebody who is not in the body? Somebody who is not in the body, who has died and gone, but we know his teachings, we hear his teachings through books. When we connect to that kind of Master, what is the main problem? It is okay, it is not a problem for the sake of living, but for transformation, for connection, what is the problem?

The teachings that we know of a great Master today are usually interpretations. That means 30% is teaching, 70% is interpretation, imagination. It may not be the same what the Master said. The original teachings, nobody knows. Interpretations are what we listen to. Based on interpretations, people who are talking, or people who are interpreting may not have the same frequency as the Master. As I said earlier, in every generation, there are Masters who have mastered or who have understood ‘who is the Master’, experienced the real Master inside us. The Masters of the past are definitely authentic. Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, they are all authentic. And the Masters who have found themselves in this life also, are authentic. So it is your choice, preferably connect to somebody in the body, so that they can tell you where you’re going wrong easily. And it is the toughest to connect to a living Master. Mirella, can vouch for it.

Speaker: Yes.

Mohanji: What happens when you connect to a real Master directly? Your identifications, which is maintained by the ego, starts breaking. So, the fastest track is always through a living Master, but I’m not saying that a non-living Master is inferior. Not at all. They are good but follow your own heart, not the interpretations.

If you really like to be Hanumanji, you should be steadfast, clear in connection. Nothing else matters; nothing else. Only Ram matters, only the Master, your own connected Master, and that Master should be Ram for you. If you’re Hanumanji, who you are connected to should be Ram. Not that he is Ram, but the same way, and focus. And then you become that, become the Master, then you become very powerful, and you will know that; all your ego is lost. You have become completely free; you will experience tremendous power and freedom.

Now the question. What’s your question?

Speaker: Javier and Krishna have asked these two questions. It is about ego. If the ego is there, it is not helping us to find the Master that is within us, and what to do with a mind that is jumping all around and it’s very difficult to concentrate on one Master?

Mohanji: That’s a habit; pattern. We talk about not being able to concentrate, mind running after something; these are patterns which we have created. You need to tame your mind. You need to concentrate on one person, one method, one practice, one teaching, one path based on your orientation, what suits you.

Ego is there for everybody. You cannot run away from the ego. Ego is part of our system. Surrender your ego to the Master. “I leave it to you.” That is why a living Master has value. Master will squeeze your ego, and make you free. You can only follow what suits you; otherwise, it will not work.

If you are in the path of knowledge, you can only follow a Guru in the path of knowledge. Some people can only follow devotion, bhakti, that is their path. Some people can follow service, that is their path. We are all a mixture. What is predominant in you, that’s your right path. Understand what you are, what is your orientation; this is very important. Then you walk the path. And where you have parked your mind, that’s what you will become.

Understand this clearly. All our life, we are making prison cells for ourselves, our activity, our relationship, our possessions, our positions; they have made prison cells for us, they have bound us. Every relationship has restricted or made our boundaries, restricted our walking space. Every possession and position has restricted us. Can you see that? If you look at all our lives, whether you’re working, whether you are a family person, whether you are in a society, whatever you are, all these name and fame, and the possessions and positions, they all made us cages, prison cells. So, it is our job to be free. This is your spirituality.

Being free is spirituality. It doesn’t mean that we are not in the society, we do not have possessions, and we do not have positions; but having the awareness that this is not what we are. We are free in silence, and the only thing that is free inside, which is enjoying the freedom, is the soul factor.

A true Master will never bind you. The real relationship, which gives you freedom is your relationship with a true Master. Don’t compare a cult with the true path. This is a different path. One is towards brightness; one is binding. A cult is binding; they bind people with fear. We have to be free from all fears. A true spiritual path is a path of freedom. A true spiritual path brings you to yourself. A true Master brings you to yourself. That is the true path. So it’s easy to understand what is a true path and what is a cult. A cult binds you with fear. Here, there is no fear. You don’t have to be afraid of yourself, and you are the path.

So, to be Hanuman, very easy, is to be connected, permanently. If you want to be a Master; there are two ways. One is to connect to somebody, who has found the Master inside and settled in that awareness, or you have to find it yourself inside. Both are okay.

Speaker: I’m receiving messages that we should finish. We are 35 minutes over your time.

Mohanji: Is there a burning question? Is there a very important question? I would like to answer and then go.

Self-acceptance

Speaker: Yes, there is a burning question. She wrote to me several times here, and it is about how to accept myself 100%.

Mohanji: The simple answer is, you have no choice. You are the only person whom you cannot avoid. You are the only person whom you cannot escape from. If you understand that real freedom is freedom from the senses and not freedom of the senses and the mind, you will start accepting yourself better.

Real freedom is freedom from the senses and the mind; that means you’re not tempted by too many things outside. You are happy with what is inside, your Atma Tatwa, or principles.

The second level is gratitude, very, very powerful. When you start appreciating electricity, water, food, and everything like oxygen, start having gratitude for everything in your life, then you start appreciating yourself also. Take one decision. You will not take anything for granted.

Maria Rosa has a question.

Duality

Speaker: How to overcome duality that we have in those moments when we lose the connection with our Master?

Mohanji: Well, it’s always like that. We have to come back consistently. There will be times when you are detached, again, you come back. Again, you detach automatically, and again you come back. This journey is like that. It cannot be a hundred per cent consistent in the beginning. After a while, your top priority becomes the Master. Your only connection will be to the Master, or your only interest is the Master, then you become the Master, then you don’t have duality.

Mohanji: Clear? Is Maria Rosa happy?

Speaker: Perfect. Oh yes.

Speaker: Thank you so much Mohanji. It’s been an enormous pleasure. I think this conversation is going to help a lot of people. Thank you so much.

Mohanji: Love you all. At the end of the day, only love remains.

Please check the video link here

Transcribed by Seema Jamakhandi

Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan

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

Pearls of Wisdom – Conversations with Mohanji, part 2

Kailash, Sanatana Dharma, Naag Devas, Family deity

Namaste everyone!
A very warm welcome to all of you.
It gives me immense joy to be with all of you today.
Today you get to see the second part of my conversation with Mohanji. Go ahead, soak in the wisdom.

Kailash

Q: Father, I would like you to talk to us about the glory of Kailash Mansarovar, and what happens to humans who undertake this holy pilgrimage? If you could elaborate on this?

Mohanji: All these great locations, power centers of the world have transformative effect. We go to such locations for the sake of transformation. Transformation simply means more silence inside, fewer thoughts, less desires. So a place like Kailash is about stillness. In fact, Kailash is stillness. Kailash means stillness. Stillness means, it is the state of the Supreme Consciousness. Still, yet fully active, fully intelligent, and fully vibrant. When you have such a power center, many beings get attracted to that center, for their own transformation, personal transformation. Through personal transformation, when a lot of people are personally transformed, when they are not greedy anymore, when they have shed all their lower vasanas, gravitational vasanas, inclinations and tendencies, they become lighter, and then they start becoming brighter. So, a place like Kailash is a symbol or is symbolic of your own inner possibility; the possibility of inner stillness. Inner stillness means when there are no thoughts inside; you’re absolutely still then. When there are thoughts inside, you are always vibrating. You are changing, you are shifting. But that changeless state is Kailash. When you go to a place of that nature, you should go with full awareness; awareness that this is what you’re coming here for. This means you realize that you are coming here to transform. Once you transform internally, your life changes, and that reflects in the society outside. But not everybody goes to any place with full awareness. We go to samadhis of great masters, expecting something, praying, “Let me get married or let me have a child”, or things like that. This is the level of operation of the human mind. But Kailash Mansarovar has the effect of transforming you. There you don’t need to take any more births; forget about desires, you don’t need any more births! So that level is possible with Kailash.
Not only Kailash Mansarovar, there are many power centers. These are places which have high energy conglomeration. There are many centers like that, and that can transform people. See, the main thing you can see in the transformation is overwhelming compassion, kindness. You can’t hurt anybody, you can’t even think about shedding blood, no murder of any kind. People have shifted to become vegan, because of the inner shift within. The inner shift. This can happen, the big inner shift. People have reduced the quantity of consumption; sometimes they eat only one time a day; not because somebody told them; it won’t work that way. It should come from within. So less consumption means you are not utilizing more resources from earth, and you are giving back more to the earth. That shift happens. Otherwise, we are asking for more and more from earth. We have a voracious appetite. We need more. We take more and we consume more. And we don’t care about how the earth will be after our death. That will change to compassion, where we will receive less; we will take less from earth; but we would want to give more to earth. With different people the shift differs. We cannot say this would be it; but some shift will happen when inner stability settles within.
Yes, I have always felt this Baba. Twice that I went to Kailash, I felt that I have been twice reborn. It’s a new birth, after coming back.

Mohanji: We are reborn every day. When we get out of the deep sleep, we are reborn. The only difference between death and deep sleep is that, with the deep sleep we come back to the same body. With death, we come back in another body. That’s the only difference. So we are reborn every day.

Power Centres on the Earth

Q:Baba would you like to name a few more other powerful spiritual energy centers on earth?

Mohanji: There are many. Char Dhaams, they are all energy centers in India. Then there are the Jyotirlingas; they’re all energy centers. All the Shakthipeeths are energy centers. There are many outside: Machu Picchu is a very good energy center. We have Sedona, in Arizona, USA, it is an energy center, beautiful energy center. There are so many. But, see, it’s not essential to go to all these places. If you go to a place with awareness, it makes a difference. We go to these places so that it accents our evolution to levitation. It accents, provided you spend sufficient time to feel it. I always tell people, ”Go to a place to feel the place, not to see the place.” Many people go to those places, to take a picture against the backdrop, and post it on Instagram. I mean that’s okay. That’s one more wish list item checked. But that’s not the real reason for going to such places, right? It is to transform oneself.

Naag Devas

Interviewer: Yes Baba. Kindly tell us the role of Naag Devas on Earth? Are they still actively guiding humans? How does it work?

Mohanji: In the Sanatana Dharma principle, Sanatana Dharma is the essence of co-existence; essence of creation, essence of maintenance, essence of dissolution and an essence of co-existence – this is Sanatana Dharma in nutshell. According to Sanatana dharma principles – all the beings of the earth, all the beings of nature have frequency, vibration, relevance and interaction. Look at all the animals which are associated with our deities: lion, rat, swan, peacock, snake… all these beings are given respect. We respect them, because they are associated with the deities. Indirectly we are respecting those aspects of nature; we see it in the Dasha avatars of Lord Vishnu – Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha; all of them have their respect, their relevance; we respect them; we revere them, because ecology should be maintained. According to astrology, various trees are connected to various stars, birds connected to stars and animals connected to stars. They say, if you protect the animal, the bird and the tree connected to your star, it will stabilize you. Indirectly what are they saying is – you’re interconnected, you’re connected to one another. So when you protect them, when you worship them and you respect them, your life is enhanced. You will strike a balance inside. We are not just individuals walking in a concrete jungle. We are spiritual beings; we have taken birth in an environment which has spirituality. This awareness should be given to people all the time. This awareness is essential. So, that is why we have in our system, where we respect every being which is living, walking, crawling, swimming, inanimate, animate, everything is respected.
For example, consider the Shiva linga – Why that particular form? That is the form which can contain, store and maintain energy for a long duration of time. That is why all the atomic reservoirs of the world are in the shape of the Shiva Linga. Why it is not square, circle, triangle or rectangle? It is not because this is the only form which can store and maintain energy of a certain nature – a powerful energy for a period of time. We understood this centuries ago.

Thousands of years ago we understood and said, “Everybody should exist, coexist. Everybody should be happy and peaceful” Sarva Bhavantu Sukhinah –May all the beings be happy, may all the beings be peaceful. This is exactly the reason why we do not harm any being. We do not kill any being. We should not kill any being, because they all are connected to us. When you kill a being, it’s like chopping a hand because they are connected to us. So why we propagate Ahimsa as Parmodharma (paramo means topmost, ultimate, or supreme, and dharma means duty) . We say this because it is essential for our well-being. For well- being to happen, we should co-exist, we should connect to every being, we should love every being, respect every being. That is why we worship. When you respect, you don’t kill.
Sanatana dharma created a structure where we respect all beings. Regarding snakes , there is a world of snakes. It’s not snakes actually. There are so many lokas. There are planets which are visible to eyes right? There are various frequencies in this world in this universe. In the created universe -created universe means manifested universe. There are various frequencies. Some are visible with naked eyes, human eyes, some are invisible, but they exist. There are numerous frequencies, numerous beings operating in numerous frequencies in the universe.
One such world we call as the Naga loka. Naga loka does not mean that they are snakes in the form. Why we call Naga loka, is because they when they appear in earth, they look like snakes. When they appear on earth, they look like snakes, huge snakes. Why are they here as snakes, you may ask; it is just for protection; people will not go and touch snakes. They take that form so that they are protected. They are highly evolved beings; you can call them aliens, in our terrestrial term. Various beings have come to earth, because earth is a plane where life can happen, as we see.
Many beings are curious. Then we have a type of animal which we call human beings, who can actually attain the highest possibility of human existence; that means Realization of God. This (the earth) is a very interesting location for all these experiences. So, many of these beings do come, they do interact and they do guide people. But we have one good quality – thanklessness, ingratitude. So what did we do? We attacked them, killed them and we made a lot of mess for them. And what is the result? If you destroy the environment, what is the result? Sickness is the main result. We become sick.
If you destroy the connection to the Source, what happens? Confusion, alienation, depression. This is what happens when we disconnected from those people. The whole structure of Brahma-Vishnu- Shiva that means Creation – Maintenance – Dissolution was explained to us in that detail, by these people, who appear as snakes. Around the neck of Shiva, you can see snakes. Maha Vishnu is lying on a serpent. That serpent is a symbolic representation of infinity, which cannot be defined. Ananta is infinity. Maha Vishnu is lying on Ananta. Maha Vishnu is lying on Ananta, means He is lying on Infinity, which means He is fathomless. He can’t be measured. He is existing in Cosmic Consciousness, in the Ridhambara buddhi and beyond, the intellect, which is vast and all encompassing.
Then Lakshmi is at His feet; that means the material aspect is at the feet of the Supreme Consciousness. When you enter Maha Vishnu, the stature of Maha Vishnu, when you enter into that frequency, wealth comes to you. That is also an antidote for poverty. Poverty is coming to you because you are disconnected. When you are deeply connected to Supreme Consciousness, wealth is coming to you; wealth will come to you. Lakshmi has to reach you. When you are completely disconnected, you are your ego material, your mind, then, no Lakshmi can come to you because your frequency is so low. That is the secret of poverty or richness. Everything is within our system. Naaga loka does exist. Naagas do exist. They are not snakes, but they appear as snakes here, so that they can stay away from people.

 

 

Photo from the installation of the Nagaraja murthi at Skanda Vale

Family Deity

Interviewer: Baba, what is the significance of family deity? How important in today’s times, you know in modern days, how important it is for people to acknowledge and revere the family deity?

Mohanji: There is no modern day or past day. Relevance remains the same. Our awareness is the difference. In modern day, we have more materialistic awareness, less metaphysical awareness. But earlier there was more metaphysical awareness, probably that’s the difference. But family deity is just like the guest who you are invited to your home. Some of your ancestors decided to bring a deity; which means they brought a frequency and an energy into your house, for the sake of worshiping, with one contract, “I worship you, I revere you, I take care of you, please take care of us.“ That’s the deal. So they brought this deity home. In the Western countries, there are Patron saints. Patron saints are similar; they bring the energy of a saint into the house and they honor them; the saint takes care of them. Like that, we have family deities, Kul Devetas in our house. Then they made temples, they had worship and the family was flourishing at that time. As I said in the beginning, everything that rises will also fall. The family deities were really happy when they were taken care of. It’s like the guest of the house. You bring the guest to the house and you ‘re all eating food, but the guest is starving. What will the guests say? They will run away.

Interviewer: So bad.

Mohanji: Similarly, the coming generations did not feel the importance of the family deity and did not take proper care. There are two ways you can take care. Either, you worship as it used to be before; second possibility is that you bring this deity to a temple, where there is already a worship practice set up and merge the deity with that temple. Both are okay.
But some people, because of lack of awareness, do nothing. They neither worship nor do they bring the deity to a temple, where there is worship. You can pay some money for maintenance. However, both are not done. Then what do you see in the household: energy shifts, mental disorders, various problems connected to being a family. When a family has taken a vow to take care of something, the family is responsible. Everybody in the family is responsible. This is the important.
For this, you have suggested Baba (which I do almost with every meal, from the time that I learned it from you) wherein you said that before we eat, we can offer the food to Ganesha, to our family deity….. Would you like to share that ?

Mohanji: No, you say what you do.

Interviewer: So what I do is what I’ve learnt from you. You suggested it to us. You said that it would be wise if before every the meal we offer the meal mentally from our heart. We offer the meal first to Ganesha. Then we can offer it to our family deity; we can offer it to the form of God with whom we feel really connected to. We can offer it to our gurus. We can offer it to our Pitra Devas and to the final absolute stillness.

Mohanji: It’s a good idea, because many of us do not know our family, original family location, family diet etc. That’s when I suggested this and it’s really having a remarkable effect in people’s lives. I always say -start with Lord Ganesha, because Ganesha is the Supreme Unmanifested form of Lord Shiva, son of Shiva. There are two aspects to Shiva: one is the manifested aspect and the other is the Supreme Unmanifested aspect. The Unmanifested aspect is much larger. That is why Ganesha has a huge body. The Unmanifested aspect has huge consciousness, huge intellect, big brain. That is why it has the elephant head. So first we give it to the Unmanifested aspect, which is our original aspect. So we offer to Lord Ganesha, then to the family deities, our guests whom our ancestors have invited home, then the ancestors themselves, then favorite deities whom you like in this life, next to gurus, personal deities and so on. Also to snake deities – the Naag Devatas. Naag Devatas represent wisdom, as well continuity of existence, continuity of good fortune, family, children, continuity, all those things.

108 Chants

Interviewer: Baba would you tell us the significance of mantras and why do we chant them 108 times?

Mohanji: Well, 108 times is like scratching the surface. You should chant much more; for mantra siddhi, you need to chant much more; 108 is simply like a smelling or tasting. Instead of not chanting at all, 108 is okay. Mantras are frequencies. They are vibrations, frequencies. When you constantly chant a mantra inside, it’s 80 percent inside and 20 percent outside; that’s what is said, or 90 percent inside and 10 percent outside; it helps your alignment. You are aligned when you chant mantra. So when you constantly chant, when you are aligned, your energy and aura is powerful. It’s as if you increase your immunity from the wears and tears of life. When you are constantly chanting a mantra or connecting to a Master and chanting a mantra, your focus is on the Master. You chant a mantra like Hanumanji did. He focused on Ram and chanted ,”Ram, Ram, Ram”; so He became so powerful; Ashta siddhis and Nava niddhis happened in Him.
These are all potential from Lord Ram. But Ram never used them. Ram lived an ordinary life. But connecting to Ram, Hanumanji used them. This is what happens when you are fully aligned or focused on the Supreme Consciousness, like Ram and you are chanting the mantra, automatically you become very powerful. Powerful means your immunity increases and your aura becomes stronger. This is possible with mantras. Mantras are frequencies and if you connect to it and chant it continuously and consistently, it stabilizes you; you get mantra siddhis.
Would you also please shed some light on rituals like havans and specific pujas to certain deities, and actions like annandan? How does it help a human being ? What is the significance ?

Mohanji: How many hours do we have this interview? It’s such a vast question. It will take at least four hours to complete.

Interviewer: Okay, fine. Then Baba I’ll take another day from you then for this specific topic.

Mohanji: Well I’ll tell you one thing. Rituals are for yourself. Everything is for yourself. What is the purpose of all these activities is to connect yourself with yourself. All the deities, 330 million deities are inside us; 330 million deities of the Sanatana dharma tradition are dimensions which are possible of the Supreme Consciousness. They are all inside us. Because inside us we have various frequencies, and which frequency is predominant in you -that is you. That is what people conceive or perceive as you. This is exactly how we work. So a person who of very sattvic nature will worship in the sattvic way. A person of rajasic nature will have that kind of worship. A person of tamasic nature will worship in that way.
This is how all these worship methods are configured. Now, all the rituals connected to these worships are for the sake of activating that aspect within you. So if you broadly specify the havans and pujas and all the things which you just now said, they all have their distinct effect in that particular mode. One cannot be swapped onto another. A temple has a particular idol, idol representing an ideal and a particular method of worship to create and keep the energy in the idol , which will transmit to the worshipper, the energy. Means there’s an energy exchange happening when you go to the temple. Each deity has a potential. The deity is installed in the temple, prana is infused into it, so that the energy exchange can take place, and puja vidhis or the methods followed are to maintain it. Usually saying, broadly speaking, the energy exchange is between 8 seconds to 40 seconds, depending on the intensity created in the idol deity. Our temples are definitely not places of prayers, they are places of transformation. We have created temples in that way . That is why it’s very, very relevant. We must preserve our temples, because they are all places of positive transformation. This is why we must take interest in our temples, take care of our temples, maintain them so that so many people will get cleansed from within. What do you get cleansed from ? It is from the base emotions like just such as kaama, krodha, lobha, moha, madha, matsarya and such emotions to compassion, kindness, unconditional love, selflessness. They are daya, karuna, bhakti, and all those things. They come because from there by through purification. All the rituals are connected to inner purification. All the temples are for inner purification, rejuvenation, transformation, regeneration and all the activities are individualistic. That is why we have such a big variety. It is needed, because all of us are individuals. If we do not connect to a suitable deity, we can’t transform ourselves. We can’t get transformed. That is why.
If you connect to a deity, because there is no other possibility, stagnation is the result. Like for example, a rajasic person connects to a taamasic method, he will not have transformation. As you are, you should connect. What you are, that’s exactly how it should be. So the aspect within you, which is like some people worship Shiva, some people worship Vishnu, some people worship Shakti, some people worship Hanumanji, some people worship Sai Baba.. Various people worship various deities, because of their orientation, their disposition, how they are, because we are unique creations. It is as simple as that.

Interviewer: Baba, what is the importance of rudraksha beads? Why we do wear that, and why it is that generally saints and sages always wear rudraksha beads?

Mohanji: Rudraksha is a stabilizer. The energy, the frequency is more stable nature. Like tulsi plant. Tulsi plant has a great aura. We consider the tulsi plant as connected to Lord Krishna, who had great aura. When you bring tulsi plant and you consume, it really enhances your aura. When you wear the mala, when you when offer this to the deities, it enhances the aura. Likewise, rudraksha has a stabilizing stillness energy connected to Shiva . But we should know about all this. Otherwise, lot of people wear rudraksha and go to toilet, and you know various things. You should be refraining from eating meat, taking it to toilet and when we need to wear only is only during Sadhana, meditations, prayers etc… If that happens, it stabilizes, it enhances our efforts. That’s why. These materials enhance our efforts for higher elevation.

Interviewer: Okay

Mohanji: I wish great success to your video YouTube channel. I wish you great success!

Interviewer: Thank you very much Baba!

Mohanji: Thank you for interviewing me.
My love to all those who are listening to us or seeing us.
Thank you very much.

Interviewer: Anjali Kanwar
Transcribed by Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Be Committed to One Master and Path

Mohanji is a Spiritual Master whose awakening was graced by Sai Baba of Shirdi. He guides many on the path and works tirelessly to spread His teachings. Mohanji speaks about the necessity of being committed to one Master on the spiritual path.

This whole concept about many Masters is one of the highest illusions. We need to look into ourselves. We need to connect with ourselves. We need to concentrate on the reduction of thoughts. That is only possible through acceptance – self-acceptance. When we constantly work on connecting with ourselves, we raise our frequency. We increase our frequency, or automatically the frequency increases. Then we get in contact with such Masters.

The whole idea of this Guru, that Guru, my Guru, another Guru etc. are all external factors. They are all illusions. In fact, there is only ONE GURU, which is the Supreme Consciousness. And THAT does not need Forms. Anything that has a Form has come for a purpose and for a duration. That is something we must understand. None of the Masters is dependent on you. The real Masters will be the most unassuming of the whole lot. They would not even care if someone follows them, respects them, or criticises them. As in Shirdi Sai Baba’s case – when somebody threw a stone at Him, it hit His head and blood started coming out. When people asked Him, “Is it hurting?” He replied, “The injury is here, but the pain is there.” (The pain is with the Tradition.) It is as simple as that. That means Masters live in a very unassuming way, fully surrendered, and with zero ownership.

If you wish to connect to such Masters, you must develop that kind of eligibility. Eligibility is simply a lesser number of thoughts and more emptiness inside. For more emptiness to happen, there must be fewer desires. So one definitely needs a lot of:

– Self-acceptance

– Contentment (being happy with what you are given; with what is available)

– Doing your utmost in any given circumstances and;

– Acting with surrender – without ownership and without expectations.

These will help inner purification and emptiness. Inner purification is selfless action and emptiness is connected to acceptance – which means no resistance. No resistance means no postponement; no residual memories. Everything is accepted. As they come, they go. Everything that is born will die. Then, you are connecting to a Master only as a complementing frequency.

The Master delivers what He is, or as per your eligibility, the Master’s energy liberates you. Also, do not look at various Masters; it is only one Master in various Forms. You connect to the Master who has appeared in front of you. There could be a better Master, bigger Master, higher Master and a more reputed Master elsewhere. But he is not near you. You do not have to worry about that.

Always remember: the one who has come to you is the one for you. The one whom you are connecting to is the one for you. It is not about the Master, it is all about you.

How deeply will you connect?

How consistent will you remain?

How much conviction do you have?

These are the benchmarks. Then, the Master’s presence is complementary.

The Masters at the level of Sai Baba (who is a perfect Avadhoota), are not worried about anything. The great Masters will never try to prove something to the world. That is not important for them. This whole idea of having to prove something is from the mind level and they have crossed the mind. They are not worried about whether people accept or reject them, whether people appreciate or criticise them.

We are the same society that took Jesus to the Cross and took Baba to the Court. The society is the same and is full of variety. People look at others in different ways. When Baba was alive and living in Shirdi, many tried to harm Him, ridicule Him, criticise Him, or gossip about Him. This is how life is. You cannot change it. People are of various types.

However, what we need to do is, maintain purity through selflessness – CONSISTENT selflessness. We need to connect to ourselves and increase our emptiness within. Also, ensure you do not have expectations and do not have too many desires. The usual things like food, clothing, and shelter are fine. But apart from that, the greed factor (that I must have many houses, many relationships, and many other things, Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Mada, Matsarya, kind of things), anger, hatred, possessiveness, positions, possessions, jealousy etc. are all binding factors.  Have nothing to do with any of them. Accept everybody as they are, and understand that nothing happens in life without a purpose. 

If there is an incident that occurs in life, there is a reason for it. For every EFFECT, there is a CAUSE. For every CAUSE, there WILL be an EFFECT. Therefore, it is collective, and there is no point in blaming anybody.

People go to a Master with various expectations. It is a very nonsensical thing. It is foolish to go to a Master thinking that you will never die. You will die. There have been various people connected to various Masters. If you look at history, you can see that they have all died. When something is born, it will die. Everything that is born will die at some point in time. Even the Master cannot stay in the body forever. We should understand these fundamentals.

“Oh, I am connected to a Master, but then I am not well.” That is because you have collected all these residual things over a period of time and it is affecting your health. What has the Master got to do with it? When you are deeply connected to the Master; when you are not resisting too much; when you increase your acceptance with the energy of the Master; most of the diseases and blockages drop off. That helps to heal. Otherwise, you need to be consistently serving the society selflessly and increasing your eligibility/ frequency, so that Masters can connect to you, and transfer whatever is possible to you. And, that should come without asking. I have always maintained this. This is one of the benchmarks that I had when I was practising.

Firstly, I never thought that I would come out and speak in public. I always thought that I would work in an organisation; I would work for a living so that I would never be dependent on anybody and I would do my Sadhana (practices) without telling anybody and without anybody knowing about it. This was my idea. I was happy and contented. But later on, it so happened – Yoga, the appointed Duty; I started talking to people, people started coming to me, I started operating in public, and my public life began. But one of the benchmarks I have always kept is :

 My PRESENCE should be more powerful than my teachings.

Therefore, the intensity that I was looking for, or I was trying to collect and assimilate, was THAT FREQUENCY, which will be TRANSFORMATIVE.

Transformation is equal to inner silence – more silence, more stability, more stillness, more peace. That was the idea. Likewise, I never went to any Guru or asked something from them. I have visited various Masters, but I have never asked them for anything. I never asked them for a title. I never asked them for any Siddhis (spiritual powers). I never asked them for any favours. All of them helped and supported me, to the extent I was eligible. I was very much contented with it. So, when you are approaching a Master, go there just for the sake of blessing, just to connect to that energy and that is all; just as you go for a pilgrimage, or to a place of power.

A place of power is of a particular frequency. Therefore, when you go to a place of power, it helps your alignment. It helps you to align yourself. Align yourself means the Mind, Body, Intellect, Ego and Spirit come together. Thus, when you go to a Master who is already aligned, it helps your alignment.

When you sit in the smoker’s room for five minutes, everybody will think that you smoked because your entire body will smell of smoke.

Like that, when you are connected to a great Master, you will automatically start assimilating yourself and start integrating yourself more. That way it’s fine, but otherwise do not look at various Masters and keep wandering, believing that you will get more from everybody. It is quite the opposite. Nobody will take responsibility for you. Always understand that it is our insecurity or the display of insecurity that is visible when you wander. Our insecurity takes us to various Masters, thinking that everybody will bless us and life will be better. In fact, you will be more insecure, because you will have a lot more insecurities by visiting Masters with expectations and that will affect you more.

Please understand that the great Masters were the most unassuming Masters. The greatest of them all looked like nothing. “The glitter and the show are all for the sake of the stomach”, as Adi Shankara said. However, the great Avadhootas wander like madmen, sometimes in rags, sometimes in clothes that people don’t really appreciate, or sometimes not wearing any clothes. This is exactly how a true Master looks. They all look like ordinary people, one of the crowd, or probably not even connected. Because they only have the inner world, they do not have the outside world. That is why when you give them food, they may not even touch it. Because what will they do with the food? Now if you put it in their mouth, they may eat it.

Neem Karoli Baba

Like the famous story of Neem Karoli Baba. Many times when Neem Karoli Baba was wandering, he was hardly aware of his body. When he was wandering, somebody asked him, “Babaji would you like to have some food?” He asked his companion, “Did I have food?” The companion replied, “No, you didn’t eat food.” He then said, “Yes, I am hungry, I want food,” and then he ate food. Five or ten minutes later, he was in another place, where another person asked him, “Would you like to have food?” He again asked his companion, “Did I eat food?” Then the companion got curious and thought, “If I say ‘No’, then what he will do?” So he said, “No, Babaji, you didn’t eat food.”

Actually, he had eaten, but this companion was testing him. So, Babaji again ate food. It happened seven times in one or two hours. Then the companion understood that Babaji does not have body consciousness and he is actually reflecting other people and just following.

Many of the Masters do not have body consciousness, because they are already in a state of bliss and their external world is just a drama going on, the play of the Divine. They are fully occupied with themselves, in a state of deep Samadhi.

With a person in this kind of state, people may not even connect, because people connect with those who can predict the future or materialise something, miracles, or similar things. But that’s just the shallow part of this whole thing.

True spirituality is not about show; it is about TRANSFORMATION. Transformation means you connect to yourself more and more so that, because of your present incarnation, you do not take more incarnations. That is true spirituality.

True spirituality is that you integrate into yourself all the way, fully, so that you do not have to take any more lives. That means you come in compromise with all your patterns, emotions, feelings, notions, prejudices, etc. Then, everything dissolves and finally, there is nothing. Then the whole desire factor itself dissolves, so the mind-matter dissolves. Then you only exist in Consciousness. In that mode, when you die, you only expand. You do not die. You do not leave. The body is there, and in the body, you are already a unit. Not scattered, because the mind-matter has dissolved. Then when you finally leave the body (your Mahasamadhi), you are not leaving the body, you are expanding from the body. That is why the place where the body of such a Master is kept becomes a shrine. Because they have not left, they have just expanded, their unit is still remaining. And it will live for thousands of years. It depends on the intensity of the Master.

As we see in Sai Baba’s case, a hundred years after His Mahasamadhi, we are discussing Him; we are experiencing Him; we are seeing various temples in His name, coming up in various places. All this is connected to the intensity of the Master, at the time of His existence. Do not connect only to the behaviour of the Master; such as what He was doing, how He was, etc. Baba used to smoke chillum. Probably He was smoking just to feel His body. He may not even be aware that He has a body. At the same time, He had to interact/ talk to so many people who came to Him. For that, he had the need to probably bring Himself to Himself, bring awareness to His body unit and talk to people.

There are so many such occasions, where you need something else to feel your presence, your body; because you do not feel the body.

When your practice becomes deeper, when you start assimilating, you will all experience that state; a state where you are not aware that you have a body. It is not an unconscious state; it is with full awareness.

You have a full awareness state, but you are not bound by the body. Your boundaries are different; your boundaries are beyond your body. That state happens. The point I am emphasizing is, we do not know how the Master operates. We should never judge, we should never criticise, because when you judge or criticise using your limited awareness, the Guru principle in us dies, or its frequency reduces. Then the ability to connect to subtlety also reduces.

Instead, you should develop greater acceptance.

“Okay, if there is a cause, there is an effect. If there is an effect, there is a cause. There will be some reason. Maybe we do not understand the reason. No problem! But because there is an effect, there would be a cause”.

Also, you should leave all those things to Karma. If something wrong is happening, Karma will equalise it. If something right is happening, Karma will reward it. So allow Karma to have its course. We are nobody to interfere. In case it is society, the law and order will take care of things. You don’t have to worry about it. We have a man-made law and order system to maintain discipline in society. We trust it and we leave it at that. Then we have the elected members of the Board, an elected Parliament, etc. We trust them; we give them the full authority to look after us. We should not interfere in any of these things. Also, we should not judge, criticise, gossip, talk ill, etc. because it immediately reduces our frequency. To gain frequency, it takes time. It takes a lot of effort, consistency, and conviction. To reduce in frequency it takes no time, it happens just like that; you will drop like you do when on a slide. Then it takes a lot of effort to climb up.

While practising, such instances will happen. First of all, your connection with the Master (is important). Then you may start judging. There are various Masters who are/ were very aggressive in their behaviour. Even Shirdi Sai Baba used to shout and scream at people sometimes. He would even beat up people. There are many such stories. As for Bhagwan Nithyananda of Ganeshpuri, people used to be frightened to go near him. They used to be afraid because sometimes He was very aggressive. However, that was to remove, to ward off many things sitting in us.

Bhagwan Nityananda

We have collected many things over time. We have no idea what have we collected. Just like the viruses and the germs in the air, we do not know what enters our system through our nose, mouth, ears etc. Like this, many things are coming into our system. The Masters will see what is in you, and they may try to completely flush these out. If you are afraid or if you are scared, and if you hold on to what they are trying to remove, you lose. They do not lose.

I always believe a reliable benchmark for spiritual awakening is, “What have we lost by connecting to a Master?”

Have we lost our Anger Quotient – the amount of anger in us?

 Have we lost our jealousies, pride and ego?

Have we lost whatever we were clinging on to, as part of our personality?

Has it all been diluted?

Then the connection with the Master has worked. It is not how much he taught you, or what you gained.

The gain in spirituality is in losing. The gain is in the loss.

In spirituality, what you give up is your gain. In spiritual terms, whatever your share and whatever you give to the world, that’s your gain, because you have earned grace with that, an abundance of grace. A great amount of grace happens when you share what you have.

Share skills, share love, share time, share money – whatever you have, you can share. That will bring more and more grace. This grace will not only help you in this life, but it will also help the ancestors, the lineage karma.

I have explained about lineage karma, it is called the ‘Dhananjaya Prana’, which enters the system when the sperm meets the egg. That means before everything else, when even the body is not formed, before that, the lineage karma enters. And it leaves only after every other Prana has left. So, the Dhananjaya Prana leaves much later, after all the other Pranas have gone. That is why during cremation, when the body is put on fire, this Prana leaves immediately. Therefore, when you burn the body, at that time this prana immediately leaves, because the body is burnt to ashes.

In case of a burial, this Prana is the last to leave. When there is a body, this Prana stays. Until the body completely disintegrates, it stays. This is something we must understand. Lineage Karma is very vital. So when you share what you have, when you do plenty of it, such as feeding birds, feeding animals etc., it has a great effect. I always like Annadaan – giving food, serving food. When I say fishes and birds, I am talking about all animals in nature; feeding birds, feeding animals, feeding fishes, which are in nature. That will give a tremendous amount of grace to you, and in turn, it helps the lineage karma. Thus, the weight is reduced by serving (Annadaan). Similarly, taking care of the sick and the old, abandoned children, abandoned women, etc. also helps. All these acts will help in the reduction of lineage karma.

That is why I always say that if you want to do something for me, take care of these people. I always call all the species as ‘people’, because every being has a personality, every creation has a personality, so every creation is a person. Therefore, I call them ‘people’ – people of various species. They all have their distinction. They all have their personality. They all have their purpose. Coming back to the point, taking care of the people is one way we can probably reduce the whole impact.

The interest of the Masters is always to elevate you to the highest point and not just to give you some gift or some entertainment. Also, whenever we keep on asking, indirectly we are demonstrating our “Poverty Consciousness”. When you keep on saying, “Please give me this, please give me that”, it means we are telling the world, or the substratum, that we don’t have it, we lack something. When we constantly say we lack something, it means we are expressing a state of ‘not having something’, that means Poverty Consciousness. Such an expression will bring more of that state. This has to be very clearly understood.

Abundance cannot happen when you are expressing poverty consciousness. For abundance to happen, the best prayer is the prayer of gratitude. Say “Thank you!

Thank you for whatever you have given me. Thank you for my life. Thank you for my breath. Thank you for oxygen. Thank you for the system (bodily system) that is function well like circulation, respiration, digestion, functions of the brain, the senses that are working well”. Be grateful and express gratitude, and keep thanking, so that, that richness will remain all the time. By sharing what you have, your inner richness will be maintained. That ensures more abundance. Also, nurture positivity by talking good – only talking good, even if somebody betrayed you or somebody did not behave well with you, etc. You leave it to Karma to take care of them and you concentrate on positivity.

We should not gossip, talk bad, or convey things, which are negative, like character assassination, shaming, defaming etc. All these things are very bad and will come back to you. Whatever arrows you shoot, it will leave a backward residue. Whatever you produce from your desk, will come back to you. Therefore, we should not have anything to do with any of these things. We should only look at the positive side, and only think about what we can do for others (to add value to people around us). Even if there are enemies, you bless them. They are enemies because of their ignorance. If somebody is really aware, they will have no enmity towards anything. Because we are talking only about karmic beings on earth, how can you be an enemy with another karmic being? It is impossible.

If you really are a spiritual person, if you have clear awareness, you can’t have enemies. You will accept everybody.

Each person is expressing his character. People are of all types: good, bad, ugly, etc. All people have their mixture and nobody is perfect, nobody needs to be perfect. God and the Guru are well aware of it. Everybody is aware of it. All beings are aware of it. They are not looking at your perfection. They are looking at your disposition, your attitude. Your attitude should be that of Purity. The pure message, pure expressions. If you are really spiritual, you can never have an enemy. You will never defame anybody. You will never talk ill about anybody. Forget about Masters, even about your neighbours, your friends, your family, you will not discuss, gossip or talk ill about anybody, because they are all leaving more and more dirty, negative residue in your system. We don’t want them because you must cleanse everything you have before you leave.

On one side, you should be fully focused on purification like acts of kindness, acts of compassion, acts of love, etc. and on the other side, you are always thinking, “Ok, I am alive, I am here, what can I do for this earth? What can we do here? And so on. “That is why I have always believed in being practical. I do not consider myself as a Bhakti Yogi. I would rather be more of a Karma Yogi, somebody who is practical and out there in the world. Instead of sitting and chanting, I usually like to serve. I like to give people some kind of transformation in their own way, in their own capacity. I tell my people – the people who love me or like to connect to me – if your heart is beating, let it be for the world, we live for the world. And the best you can give to this world is yourself – as pure expression.

In old times, in Bharat (ancient India), before all these locomotives, before the invasions of foreign people in Bharat; in every village, it was a kind of an unwritten rule, that if you are born in the Sanathana tradition, every individual must go to Kashi (Varanasi / Benares) once in their lifetime.

Sanathana tradition/ Sanathana Dharma is the dharmic tradition based on the actual ground rules of existence, based on dharma, righteousness.

The usual practice was that people in their Brahmacharya stage (youth time), learn skills. They learn various skills as per their disposition, as per their orientation. They learn their relevant skills from the mouth of a Master who is experienced. Then the next stage, the Grihastha (householder) stage, is where they execute their skills. They do their job, they earn their income, they make a family, they probably will have children, houses etc.

Then comes the next stage (Vanaprastha or retired life), after everything is done and the children are settled, they are also probably married and have their own children. In such stage, they decide, “Ok, now we should go and visit Benares” because once in a lifetime, one must go there; that is an unwritten rule. When they leave, sometimes a few of them from the village will also go together because you have to walk a lot or use bullock carts at times. I am talking of a time, many centuries ago, when the land was covered with jungles and there was no conveyance. In those days, there was no public transport system. For many miles, there would be nothing available to eat. There would be no shelter, no food.

Sometimes the kings used to build some highway inns, like a shelter where such travellers would take rest and sleep. The wandering people also used such places. The people in the village would give them some rice, wheat, flour, sometimes a bullock cart, a bull, sometimes a cow with a calf etc. These people would take all of them and continue on their journey. It would take months for them to reach Benares. Finally, they would have darshan of Lord Shiva in Benares – Kashi Vishwanath. By this time, they have already detached from their family. It is almost as if they will not come back, because it takes a long time to reach there, especially from the Southern part of India. Then, they stay there in Kashi and often leave their body in Kashi too.

Look at this whole journey. First, they had a childhood, a meaningful childhood where they were taught the skills for an existence. These skills are usually useful for the village, for the society, such as cobblers, carpenters, doctors, physicians, etc. Whatever the society needs for a healthy lifestyle, those were the skills that were taught. After a while, they had their families. Because of their skills, they had their money/ income. The money sometimes would not just be physical cash; it would be materials to survive, so they got food to eat and other necessary things as well. The people in the village share all these things, so there was a big harmonious existence.

In those days, the temple of the village was the main meeting point. Everybody surrendered everything to the Deity and the distribution to everybody also happened from the temple. So the temple and the temple system made sure that nobody slept hungrily. Even the wandering monks staying in the temple would get food and shelter. It was not just a place of worship; it was a place of distribution. Temples used to have lots of land and local villagers farmed these lands. All the produce came to the temple and they (the people who manage the temple) would take what was necessary and distributed rest to the people. That was a beautiful system. Temples were involved in training people, in distribution and plus of course, religious/ spiritual ceremonies. The temple was of great significance then.

The Deity of the village played a big role, like the Mayor of a town. It was all justified because no one would want to cheat the Deity, for they all loved and respected the Deity. We never had the concept of ‘fearing God’. God-fearing is not our path. Our path is about loving God, being one with God, being connected to the frequency and energy (of god). That was our path. That has always been our path. So, we never feared God. We respected God, loved God, and hence we never did anything against God. This was the structure.

So, when they left after their healthy existence as a Grihastha (family person), or a state where they executed their skills and earned their money, they walked away. Each step they took amounts to detachment. Each step was a detachment from all of what they had earned – their families, their relations, their possessions – they were going away from it. Each step they took, they realised inside, “Now this is over”. It’s learning in detachment. Whatever you have earned and collected – all the possessions and positions – you are leaving behind and you are not sad about it because any way you have to leave it behind. You must go and meet Kashi Vishwanath, once in your lifetime.

They were like the Muslim brothers who go to Mecca today. Like that, they used to go to Benares. It takes time to reach there. By the time they reach Benares, they are already detached from the whole past. Finally, they settle down and only connect to God – Kashi Vishwanath. They chant, pray and stay there. Then, they leave the body there and their body was burnt on the Ghats. It was a very powerful system then. Even now, the first Abhishek or the offering, to Kashi Vishwanath, is the ash from the funeral pyre.

They were totally objective in this whole thing. When they learnt the skills, they knew that the skills had to be executed in a justifiable manner. Not for competing or cheating somebody or trying to make more money. Everybody has had a good existence. In addition, they had a deep connection with Deity of the temple, the presiding Deity of the village and that Deity is like the Lord of the village, the Mayor or the President of the village. They had that level of connection and simplicity, judicious behaviour, good behaviour, a balanced life. Once it was all done, they were going to the next space, where they were detaching from all that they had earned. Everything was distributed and given back. Whatever they had picked up from the village was given back. Every villager supported them, so all these people were participating in the journey. Then they went to Kashi, and by the time they reached there, it might be over two months. By this time, they learnt detachment & were very detached. This is called Vanaprastha (going into the jungle). Actually, you are not going into any jungle, you are actually detaching. Then, the last stage is Sanyasa.

Sanyasa means to be occupied only with God, connecting only to God.

Kashi Vishwanath

Varanasi is the place where they arrive, and connect to Kashi Vishwanath, and only thinking about Kashi Vishwanath, they leave the body. By the time they leave the body, they are totally purified of desires, of everything. There is no junk inside. They are completely empty and purified. That ash of the funeral pyre is sacred enough for doing the Abhishek to Lord Shiva. That level of purification was achieved. Look at our system; it was so grand and so profound. We had a great system in our country and most of us still do not know this. I would suggest that we revive that kind of system. Today, we have access to go to Kailash. In those days, Kailash was very, very far away and one in a million could go there; because it was very tough to go to Kailash, in Tibet. Therefore, Kashi was the place where people went. However, very few actually ventured into Kailash and those people were almost treated like Shiva. If you reached the abode of Shiva, if you had the vision, the Darshan of Kailash, that was a huge purification. This was the structure.

This is exactly what Gurus say about the structure of our existence – the dharmic existence, the dharmic structure – there was depth in it. That is why I say, “Don’t search for Gurus, Gurus will come to you”. However, if you search for Gurus, it is just for your mental satisfaction. If you keep wandering from one Guru to the other, it only shows your insecurity.

PC: Google images

If you are deeply connected with yourself, you will not have to wander. The right connections will come, the right energy will come, the right transformation will happen. Have patience. Baba says, “SABURI”. You need to be stable and steady, and that needs patience.

Always be stable. Always be steady. When you are chasing something all the time, there is a big chance that you are always distracted and never satisfied. Satisfaction happens when you are fully occupied with yourself and fully contented. Be happy with what you have. Appreciate everything. Do not criticise, judge, throw stones or do such things. Because when you throw stones, more stones are coming your way. Always remember, Karma retaliates. Karma gives back the same thing. When you say something is bad, somebody is bad etc., you are actually creating that thing in you. You are actually nurturing that pattern in you. Unless you are supposed to experience something, it will not come to you.

There is a cause for anything and everything that has happened in your life. Maybe there is a pattern, which you have maintained. Even with betrayal, jealousy, hatred etc., you have kept the pattern. Revenge is a very dangerous thing. Because when you take revenge on somebody, you almost die. A part of you dies. When you are attacking somebody, a part of you is dying. The goodness factor is seriously messed up. We need to maintain the goodness factor; allow Karma to take care of all the things that we don’t agree with. We should only focus on purity. That is why I insist that our group of followers practise positivity.

Let that be your benchmark – practice positivity at all times, and forget about negativity. Whenever there is positivity, there is negativity. Whenever there is light, there is a shadow. You cannot do anything about it, and you should not worry about it. When you are consistently focusing on positivity, you are automatically being purified. That is all you need and that will bring all the right frequencies into you. Remain PURE. Remain LOVE.

 

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

 

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Who is Sai Baba?

 

I have heard of this confusion: “Who is Baba? Who is Sai Baba? Is he a God? Is he a Guru? Is he an Avadhoota? Is he a Master of a certain path or segment like the Nath Tradition or the Avadhoota Tradition?” Various questions of this nature come up. It has come to me as well. I have heard that. I have read that.

I always think about one thing – Does it really matter? The lifespan of a human being in the Kali Yuga is about 100 years. Out of these 100 years, the effective years are the times when you are available to the world, when you are serving the world, when you are giving something to the world. That’s the only effective years.  Out of 7.5 billion people on Earth, many people do not have any effective years. They live their whole life for themselves – eating, drinking, sleeping, entertaining themselves, some pleasures of the mind, and things like that. But if you look at the life of Baba, almost 100 percent of his existence, as we know – in Dwarkamai and beyond – has been for the world. So, his life has been totally effective, almost 99 percent, we say. We don’t know about the time when he was not in Dwarkamai, or before that. Who is Baba is what he has delivered.

We only know certain things from certain literature, but I am 100 percent sure, and we all know, that he has done much more. As you know, he is doing a lot today for thousands of people across the world. You can see his presence in all the continents. A person who lived in a small dilapidated place in Shirdi has reached every corner of the Earth, many years after his physical existence. Isn’t that a miracle? It’s a huge miracle! So who has the power to create that miracle? That is him.

Whether he is an Avadhoota, whether he is a Siddha, whether he is a Guru, whether he is God, it does not matter. As far as his presence is concerned, he is pure Consciousness. If there are boundaries, like we have boundaries – physical boundary, emotional boundary, and intellectual boundary – we have all these boundaries, various boundaries, various frames, and we are those frames and we can’t go beyond those frames, because we do not allow ourselves to cross those frames and boundaries. This is our usual life.

But Baba never had a boundary. What does that mean? He is pure Consciousness. Then what is his body? Just a representation. Without that representation, you can’t connect to the pure Consciousness. He brought himself as a representation for the sake of humanity, and he took a suitable form. He is neither a Hindu, nor a Muslim, nor a Christian, nor a Buddhist… He is everything – as a form which is suitable for everybody to connect to the pure Consciousness.

So whether he is a Guru… If somebody looks at him as a Guru, he is a Guru. If somebody looks at him as God, he is God. If somebody looks at him as an Avadhoota, he is an Avadhoota. If somebody looks at him as a Nath, he is a Nath. This is a round object. He is everything.  Pure Consciousness is everything. Pure Consciousness is you and I. Pure Consciousness pervades the whole Universe – not only the Earth, but well beyond. Representation of that pure Consciousness in a body which can be related to, conceived a body which can be connected to, and that is what he is. We define him as per our capacity, as per our boundaries, that’s all we do. But is Baba that? For you, yes! As per your boundary, you have understood him as per whatever you think he is. That’s about it. So we must understand that great, great Masters are never born, they will never die, as Baba is proving every moment. They are all-pervading, and through every idol of his, he talks, he communicates, he gets people to connect to him.

So pure Consciousness without boundaries – that’s him. And whichever form that goes in, that form is the pure Consciousness. That does not limit the pure Consciousness, that’s what we should understand. No limitation. We have a limitation, we discriminate people, we look at people – “Oh, he is this form.” We only understand based on forms. That is why we have confusion between Gurus. What is the role of a real Guru? To connect you to the Supreme Consciousness, or to remind you that you are the Supreme Consciousness, which you are searching for. This is the role of every Guru. But we look at a Guru as a problem-solver, or somebody who will tell you your future. If you want to know your future, you are a bundle of insecurities. Only when we have lots of insecurities, we will want to know what will happen tomorrow. If we are completely surrendered, and if we are fully merged with the Supreme Consciousness, we wouldn’t want to know what will happen tomorrow, it doesn’t matter. Or something like, “Okay, if I am born, I will die.” That’s about it, in between what happens doesn’t matter.

So like that, when you are deeply connected to a Master as powerful and as glorious as Baba, we will only feel ourselves in him, what we are in him. That’s exactly why thousands of people are coming to Shirdi today. They all see themselves in Baba. They get their problem mirrored or reciprocated from Baba and that gets solved, most of them get solved. How does it get solved? It is as good as how much you surrender. Say, “It doesn’t belong to me, I leave it to you. My life is not mine; this physical form has no value, I leave it to you.” That brings you more and more peace, more and more stability. So, who is Baba? The fundamental question. Baba is YOU. How you are, that’s how you see Baba.

But is Baba one thing? He cannot be. If he is one thing, all these people in the world cannot connect to that. A flat object – only a few people will connect. Not everybody can connect. For everybody to connect, that object or that person should have a round character. He’s not bound. Whatever is bound needs liberation. Whatever is unbound needs no liberation, because they are liberation already.  This is Baba. So if ever you have that question as to, “Who is Baba?” ask yourself, “Who am I?” And then you will find the answer.

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan

 

 

 

Time to Unify Based on Love – part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth

Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelantttt

A Spoonful of the Highest Knowledge – Birthday Satsang

The blog post moved here

Know Yourself – part 2

Satsang with Mohanji-Montenegro, Luštica Bay, 17.11.2019

PART 2

Q11: Is my spiritual path real, and should I dedicate myself to the gift that I have?

M: What is spiritual path? Every moment, what happens is spirituality, not doing something apart from that. We have a body and we all feel the body. Am I right? We have a body, we agree? We have a mind, do we? We agree or not, it’s there. How do you know you have a mind? If you have emotions, you have a mind. Then we also have intellect, the analytical part. How do we know? When we start analysing, are we judging, that is also coming from the intellect. If you do that, you do have it. We also have an ego. That is definite, right? How do you know you have an ego? If somebody abuses you, do you feel hurt? Or do you feel nice? If somebody tells you, you look like a donkey, do you feel good? If you feel good, you have no ego. If you don’t feel anything then you again have no ego. If you feel angry, then it is ego working. See, we call people fools, right? We call them, you are an idiot, you are a fool.” Whom do we call like that? (Audience – to ourselves). No, to somebody who is not an idiot or a fool. When a person is actually an idiot we will not even call like that, because there is nothing to call.

So we have a body, we have the mind, we have intellect, we have an ego. When do you feel all these? When you are awake. When you sleep, you don’t know its there. In a state of dreaming, you don’t know whether you have a body, mind, intellect, or ego, you don’t know. But when you wake up, you feel all these. You see everything happening. And in our 24 hours, we have a deep sleep state, where we don’t know whether we are a man or a woman, we are like the dead. Have you ever thought, who is running this show? There is some energy in us, which is managing all these. For 24 hours it is all happening: various experiences, various emotions, various feelings, so many things are happening in every 24 hours. And, somebody is running the show. Are you with me on this?

There is an energy which is activating all these: physical, emotional, intellectual, egotistical; something is activating all of these. That is how we are gaining experiences. What do you gain from this world? Experiences. It can be good experiences or bad experiences, forget about good or bad. What is it actually? Experience. These faculties are giving you experiences because of an energy which is operating through it. Otherwise, we have no experiences. Do you agree that we have something like that? We may not know the energy, right? But there is something which is waking us up, which is taking us to our dreams, which is making us deep sleep, experience all these. So, there is something going on. That awareness is spirituality. Very simple. Awareness of the spirit body, which is the energy body within us, within ourselves, which is activating our experiences, that awareness is spirituality. So, we are all spiritual.

Nobody has to give you spirituality. We have that inside of us already. We do have it. Nobody is giving you from outside. You are only becoming aware of your energy which is already inside in you, and that awareness is spirituality. The more and more you go inside and see this, the more spiritual you become.

How do you know when you deeply connect to that energy? How can you connect to the energy part of you? By being aware. Very simple. How do you know whether you are actually connecting? When you connect deeper and deeper into your own energy, what experience you will have? Less thoughts. More feelings, you will have more feelings of yourself. When you have less thoughts, there is more peacefulness. When your mind is more peaceful, you have a high level of clarity. When you look at something, you will see through that thing. Because you are fully focused.

Do you know why our experiences are sometimes not very fulfilling? We have experiences but we don’t feel contented. Do you know why? Because the mind is scattered. The mind is not fully there. Otherwise, when you are doing a job or doing something if your mind is fully focused on that, your experience will be very good. Good in the sense that whether it is positive or negative, you will have a complete experience. Sometimes it’s sorrow, sometimes it is happiness. But, when you are fully in that, that is fulfillment. That is completion.

True spirituality is your marriage to yourself. It’s a deep relationship with yourself. You don’t need any help for that.

When I used to practice, in the early 2000s, I used to wake up every day at 2.30 am, because I used to work for a company. I had a job to do from 8:30 to almost six o’clock. During that time I worked for money, but the night was mine.  But because of the profession, sometimes travells, sometimes parties, all those things were there. But, every day, I get up early morning at 2:30; then take a bath. I had very short hair,so it was easy to take a bath; now it is not easy. Then I sit in a room, which I created for myself, just one lamp, nothing else, connecting to that and I used to connect to my own energy. Just like I said , I just tried to be inside, just to feel. My point of connection was my spine. Because we are always focused on the front: eyes, nose, everything is focused on the front. We hardly remember the spine unless we have a back pain. My whole meditation was: I connected to my spine, I feel the spine, and I sit like that for five hours, until 8 am. Everyday. After a while, the whole thing started changing. Awareness shifted. I was the head of the country. I sit in the office, I see myself doing my work. No anxiety, no fear, no stress, no ownership of action. And serious situations I faced. But I overcome all that. This is the experience you will get when you marry yourself. That marriage will last forever.

You wouldn’t even believe how powerful we become when our body, mind, intellect, and ego are all together. Because they are scattered, we don’t know. The mind is scattered on a lot of things, things of the past, many anxieties about the future. The mind is all over. Past and future, less in present. Intellect is busy analysing things. Am I progressing, is this ok, all those things. Ego – looking at the people if they are respecting me, accepting me, this is the problem. Everybody is busy with their world. We are all everywhere. When you look, you don’t see. Because your mind is not there. Eyes are looking, but the mind is not there, so we don’t see. When you bring everything together, when you look, mind, body, intellect, ego, and spirit, everything is looking. Imagine that power. It’s intense and powerful. Every experience becomes powerful. Then you don’t want a repetition. You will experience that 100%. Every point in time. Whether it is happiness or sorrow, 100%. Imagine a life like that. Every moment we are being 100%. Because body, mind, intellect, ego, and spirit – everything is together. Nothing is scattered. The past is finished. Future – whether it will happen, we will see. Right now, what we have, we do 100%.

If we live like that, every moment is powerful. Living in the moment. It happens by itself. We are not planning like that. We are not thinking like that. It happens.

Did you understand? We are all spiritual. We cannot be otherwise. The problem is that we compare, or we are thinking that religion is spirituality, that is not true. Spirituality is your connection with yourself. Religion is a road map to attain or to realise God. Religions are road maps to realise God. But spirituality is your relationship with yourself. These are two different things. If we continue between these two, we will not understand the story.

Q12: How to control emotions and our attitude?

M: How to control emotions – I would say do not try to control emotions. Be aware of them. Do you like somebody controlling you? Nobody likes it. What happens when somebody tries to control you? How do you feel? Suffocated, angry. The same things happen when you try to control your emotions. It becomes suffocated. When you suppress something, any emotion for that matter, when you push it down, its like a spring. When you take your hands off, what happens? It bounces back. It’s important that we accept those emotions as they are part of us. Anger, hatred, jealousy, all those things. If it is inside of us, we don’t know what is the reason, it doesn’t matter, whatever is the reason. If you have them, first and foremost, you need to accept them, ok they are all there. They are all my companions, partners in life. First is you accepted them, they are all sitting there. They are sitting with me, walking with me, sleeping with me, no problem.

Second level – why should I feel them? I didn’t ask them to come with me, but they are with me. After acceptance, you are not supporting them. So, what happens, when you become angry? You watch yourself becoming angry. You are becoming angry and enjoy that feeling. When you start accepting your anger as it is, it will come and it will vanish. But, when you have ownership of anger, when you actually become angry, you will know that you will become weaker. You become very weak. When you accept it, ok, this man is getting angry or this woman is getting angry or Mohanji is getting angry, I am seeing myself getting angry. But I know that I am not the anger. How would it feel? It will be very weak. Just like a mother telling a child, ”If you don’t eat medicine, I’ll punish you.” Mother is not angry with the child, but the mother is concerned. The root of that anger is love. When the foundation of your anger is love, it has purity. If it is anger out of disappointment, there is an expectation. Disappointment – anger. That is not pure, because there is an expectation. But if the expectation is not there, and it is love, in that case, that anger itself has purity. It is not sustained anger. It comes for that purpose, for intensity, and it goes. Just like a wave coming from the sea. It comes out, it goes back. It always comes like that.

The answer to all your questions is very simple – it’s YOU. If you have a lot of emotions, ask yourself, ”Have I accepted myself?” Don’t try to heal your emotions, let them come and go, no problem. But – acceptance, you have no choice. If you accept yourself 100% today as you are, freedom starts now, then you will start living a life. Otherwise, you are existing, with all the baggage. But if you accept yourself totally, with all your weaknesses and all your strengths right now, you will start experiencing freedom. You will start living, not existing.

What is the clear sign of accepting yourself? You will not compare yourself with anybody. There is nothing to compare. You will accept yourself as a complete creation. If you did not accept you will think,that guy is better than me, or I am not good enough. Complexes and all those things are because of non-acceptance.

Please understand, that you are incomparable. You can’t be compared with another person. All of us are unique. We have our own uniqueness. That is our signature.That is not comparable. If you really, really accept yourself, you don’t worry about any of the emotions coming and going, because they will all come and go, but the level of acceptance will be above everything. How do you manage your attitude? Some people have tremendous attitude. And that isolates them completely from the society. How do you manage that? Any idea, suggestion? Gratitude. Have gratitude for everything. Gratitude for being alive, gratitude for breathing, for digestion, shelter, cloths, be grateful without reason. Your ego and attitude will obey that behaviour. Gratitude is a very powerful thing, very, very powerful. It’s the opposite of ego and pride. Gratitude is very good medicine that you can eat every day. I believe that your spiritual progress will be very fast if you base it on gratitude.

When you go deeper and deeper into silence, you will start experiencing realities that you don’t normally experience. Sometimes you become very egoistic, ”I am better than the other people. I can see all these things. I have all these powers.” That is dangerous. That is the time when you start falling.

When I was going through these experiences, before something happened, I knew it will happen, and it happened. I decided, ok this is now not a good game. Because I may become very egoistic. And I will start falling. So what I was practicing was, one, gratitude and the second was insignificance, which means I am not important, not special, I am ordinary. It maintained my practices. It didn’t affect my practices. Third thing, I didn’t discuss my practice with other people nor I told what I was experiencing. So that nobody could inflate my ego or pull it down. I never spoke about it. I never discussed. When did I start speaking? Six or seven years later, after I settled down in my practices. Until then, I didn’t speak. I was not available to the world. So, everybody needs some time. We all need time to settle down. All of these things will happen. Because awareness changes, it shifts.  You will have so many different experiences, and if you become too eager to tell people, everybody will shut it down.

Q13: Do you believe that you have crossed the border of suffering? Do you think you are one with God?

M: I think it depends on how you look at me. I was saying in a television interview, that I went through a series of tragedies at one time in life. In 2000 I lost my daughter, then I lost all the money I had which I invested in a property and that man ran with the money. All my materials got stolen. Whatever I had at one time, I didn’t have in another time. I was pretty much naked and totally alone in the world at a certain point in time. After having everything and reaching a certain level in my work, I was the head of the country. At that time, I had lots of friends. My position was good, money, social status, everything was good. Then everything went away. So at that time, when I used to call some friends, they wouldn’t pick up the call. So-called friends, people who were friends with me, they wouldn’t take my call,  thinking I would need money or support from them. Then I stopped calling. But that was good. That is what I was saying in the TV interview, I didn’t complain. I understood one thing. At the end of the day, your only true friend is yourself. Other people come to you, when they need something. Mostly, not everybody. There are some people who really stand by you even in your worst times. There are people like that. And I try to be that person for everybody now. I stand by people when they are in their worst situation. Because I learned it that way. I experienced it. Then later on, I got a job and I became a CEO of the company, I got all these people back. They all came back. This is very interesting this was a case study for me. I understood life. In every situation, there is something to learn.

If you stop resisting and complaining, you can learn so many things from life. These are real lessons. I really believe it was, if you really want to become a great ornament, you have to go through fire. Gold is beaten, and put in fire, melted before it’s made into an ornament. Everybody has their parts. I decided one thing: I will never leave the hand of somebody when they are in a problem. If they are successful and they don’t need me, this is ok, I’ll leave them, I allow it. I don’t leave anybody. But in the weakest time, when you leave somebody, your integrity is a big question mark. I remain solid and stable, that is probably why a lot of people are coming to see me, wherever I go. I believe they see stability, they see consistency. I feel there are no fools in this world. There are no idiots. People have awareness, they have eyes to see. They see truth. Whatever you try to pretend, they will see the truth. I don’t pretend, I just present myself, and people connect naturally. This is what I like. I do not tell them I am close to God more than they are closed to God. Nor do I tell them I am a realised Master, I just say I am one of you. I am your friend, you can talk to me if you like to talk to me. I am always with you. This is my offering to this world. That is all I can do. I remain stable and that is the only thing I can do. There is a lot of hardship before you reach a certain level. Which level, we don’t know. What will happen tomorrow we don’t know. Today is our reality, we do the best today. That is all we can do.

How do you know the operating level of another? By their range of operation. For example, you have a night light, that can probably illuminate this room. But if you have a flat light, you can see something a mile away. A person becomes a power when he is fully aligned. His range of operation will spread all over, which nobody can deny. So, there is no need to ask somebody where they stand, look at the person and their level of operation, many people are operating from the mind level. Many people are operating from an intellect level, and so many people are operating from the ego level. When you cross over all these levels, then you become everybody and everywhere. That’s a sign you can depend on. Because I can say whatever I like, how do you know I am not lying? This is how you can understand somebody’s operating level so you are not fooled.

Q14: Did you cross the line of all forms?

M: Of course.

Q15: How to become peaceful within?
M: I answered that question. Self-acceptance. Accept yourself. Totally, with all your weakness and all your strengths.

Q16: How do I channel the creative energy from the second chakra? What to do when there is excess of this energy?  How to transform it into spiritual energy?

M: You don’t need to transform any energy into another energy. When you engage yourself into activities of positive nature, when you deliver more to the world and to the earth etc. then that energy automatically gets channelised. Each chakra is a regulator. It regulates each aspect of you. For example, the second chakra regulates the water aspect in your system. So everything to do with water of your body, it has its role. And 80% of our body has water content. So it has a big role. When you channelise your activity for a selfless purpose, automatically the second chakra will align.

Q17: Why it is difficult for me to meditate, and how to start meditating?

M: If it is difficult for you to sit down and meditate, don’t do that. Instead, what you do is make sure all your activities happen with your mind being present. That is good meditation. In every activity you do, let the mind be there. No unconscious activity. That is a good way of meditating. Then you bring yourself to yourself.

Thank you!

Transcribed by Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Shyama Jayaseelan

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

Cultivate Change, part 1

Mohanji Speaks Zoom satsang
on 09th June 2019

Q:  What is more important in spirituality – faith or being objective?

Mohanji: Being practical. This is very important in spirituality. Spirituality is not apart from you. Spirituality is your connection with the spirit aspect of you, which is the consciousness aspect. It has three dimensions, the waking state, the deep sleep state and the dream state. In these three states, you are experiencing this incarnation, your life on earth, through three states, every day, 24 hours. So while you are awake, it is very important to be practical. For example, many have come to me and asked, what is the right path? You can’t generalize the right path, because it is individualistic;  because it is as you are. Some people love to experience devotion, bhakti, because their orientation is bhakti. Some people like the path of knowledge, the questions and the answers, because they operate from their intellect. You cannot deny that. That is the way they are, so when somebody is operating from their intellect, they need answers and that is the gyana marg –  the path of knowledge. Then there is path of service. They are very kind at heart. They want to serve the world. They love everybody. They have lot of compassion. The kindness overwhelms them. All these are signs of a Karma yogi, somebody who is there for the world. So it is very important to recognize our orientation and based on our orientation, we should choose our path.  Hence, no generalization is possible.  That is why I said practicality is very important. Objectivity is not as important as practicality. Even if a guru or spiritual master gives you something that you can’t use, guides you to a method that is not suitable to you, you should be very practical about it. You should say that this doesn’t suit me and instead choose something which suits you, because the entire spiritual journey is about you. This is similar to a situation where someone gives you an outfit that you can’t wear; you don’t try to somehow fit into the outfit. You can have a million questions, but the answer is you. Everything starts with you and everything ends with you. When you wake up, your world wakes up. When you sleep, your world sleeps. The world exists, but the existing world has no value for you, unless and until you wake up. If you don’t wake up, you don’t see the world. It is as simple as that. So we have to be practical. If you are not practical, you miss life because we are based on concepts – concepts and opinions of others. They are others. They are as per what they are, not as per what you are. You need to have a life as per what you are. This is very important. Only then, it becomes realistic. If a life time goes without full conformation, to your nature, to yourself, then it is a wasted life. You were trying to become something, you were trying to compare or you were trying to position yourselves your whole life. It does not work that way.

We are born with a particular frequency and that frequency can be changed only with change in awareness.

Change in awareness is completely dependent on how much you accept yourself.

Awareness will not shift, if you don’t accept yourself.

So accepting yourself has a big value here.

Accepting yourself – this is very important. It does not matter whether you accept the many things around you; because when you sleep they don’t exist for you. You exist as a dreamer, as a person who is in deep sleep. You exist as a person who is awake. So “You” have a lot of value.

You should definitely attend to yourself. If you don’t attend to yourself, you miss a lifetime.

So my opinion is that being practical should be first, before trying to be spiritual. You are spiritual anyway, whether you like it or not. Because being spiritual means your connection with this awareness or connection with the awareness that the spirit in you is running the show. This whole show is run by the consciousness, the energy behind it.

Consciousness operates and it has three distinct bhaavs (forms), which are waking, deep sleep and dream.

Once your awareness is above these three states of existence, it shifts to the fourth. It’s called Turiya – the fourth state.

Turiya is like witness hood. It is objective witnesshood of these three states. So this is all part of you. And everything starts with you.

If you do not recognize and don’t conform to what you are, then the journey is affected. Please understand this very clearly – spirituality is not activity. It is not about activity. It is not about doing so many things. It is not about meeting many masters or going to places. They all help you, but everything is you.  Spirituality is about transforming you to higher awareness, to the level of awareness where you only see consciousness in operation, nothing else. Nothing else matters. It is consciousness at work, through plants, trees, animals, birds, everything – consciousness is working. And that becomes your experience. Your experience becomes consciousness at work.

Then you start understanding yourself, “Oh this is the show! This is the drama, which is being played out. I am an actor; I am playing various roles, just like any actor who would play different roles in a feature film.” We play various roles – role of a father, a child, a husband, a wife, maybe the role of a pedestrian, a shopper or a shopkeeper, whatever you are. You are playing all these multiple roles and you play them well.

Even situations, such as a situation of confusion, where your clarity is very low, be that situation of confusion 100% at that point in time. Because that is your reality at that time. Otherwise in some situations you are excited and happy, very happy. Be happiness at that time. Be happiness. Not the situation, the essence of the situation is happiness. A situation has provided that state, or the opportunity to be there, become that. Sometime we are in deep despair and sorrow, be sorrow at that time. Be the essence of that. Each point in time as per what is provided to you, be that. That is the height of fulfillment you can have in a life time. Each moment fulfillment. No resistance. No comparisons. No criticism. Don’t judge. In the path of liberation, judging yourself and judging another are equal. Because when you start looking at yourself as a karmic being, when you take a step backwards and look at yourself, you will see that you are also another actor in this whole world, another player, another object, with duration; we have a certain time on earth. So you don’t see much difference between other people and you. All are actors. All are going around in this world doing their act, and in that point in time you will know that criticizing yourself, judging yourself, blaming yourself, having guilt, all these things are same, as if you have it for other people. There are no other people. It’s all expressions. Numerous expressions. It’s all time bound. 100 years later, we will not be here. So everyone is just a player and an actor. There should be complete harmony in this operation, the entire place, all its people should be in harmony. A person includes other species too. All beings  in all species are people, because they have personalities. Whatever has a personality is a person. So that way we will see this whole Maya – the role play. When I say Maya, it is something that gets transformed, which changes. When I say Mata, it is something truthful and unchangeable. “Maya” – we see the operation in this world, with complete Maya, beautiful drama being played out each moment and you will know that you are witnessing. This is the objectivity. It happens to you. You are not creating it.

When you create it, you are involving your mind. When you involve your mind, you have ownership. When you have ownership, you have Karma. Ownership is the main ingredient for Karma. When you have ownership, possessiveness over the possessions or positions, that creates Karma. That creates emotions. Emotion is the glue which attaches the thought or word or an action to your subconscious which eventually becomes your habit or need, desire or pattern. This has to be very clear. So being objective is important, but being practical is ultimately important and also please understand, don’t connect to a master or a path or an exercise thinking, “Oh this is now going to change me.” You are changing, not the thing. Anything outside of you is but a guide, a mirror, a road map. How you benefit from it depends on how well you use it. If you don’t use it, it remains as it is, not a problem. But if you use it well, it will transform you. So your transformation is the ultimate aim. Nothing else. Nothing else can be the aim. Your transformation is your sign of spiritual stability. Being spiritual should be transformative.

­­­Q: Anything bad that happens in the world is attributed to Karma. This includes the atrocities that happen like raping young children, killing people in holy places etc. Are we using the excuse of Karma as a way of escapism from our Dharma towards the society?  Why weren’t the souls protected by the Supreme?

Mohanji: I think it is an incorrect way of looking at the issue. I do not think our judiciary system ever talks about Karma, at least I haven’t heard of it. It is we who are talking. Judiciary is taking care of various things of the society with law and I think that’s the way it should go. There are certain reasons for creating certain effects, one of them is collective consciousness. Collective Consciousness is the awareness of a group of people. Again it boils down to each individual. Your world is how you are; your world is a reflection of yourself. Now to answer why some people have certain perversions, certain psychological disorders, usually in a generic manner you can say it’s suppression – suppression of something. Human beings and all other species are driven by instincts.

Instinct is the basic driving force of creation. What is the major instinct? Survival instinct. Survival instinct has major two aspects, the first is our need for food to sustain the body and the second aspect is the need for sexuality to sustain the species. These are two important aspects. Besides these,  there are numerous other aspects. If you are able to look at the larger picture, you see that every animal, every bird, every reptile, in fact, every being has the survival instinct and they also hunt for food. The survival instinct depends on their orientation and species. They have clans and boundaries. They keep all these for the sake of survival; human beings too. But with human beings, there is a difference. They operate also on intelligence and imagination. This is the difference between human beings and other species. All the developments you see in this world are connected to intelligence and imagination where instinct is sometimes considered inferior. It is considered lack of refinement. Then what happens is suppression. Suppression causes disorder. You can see that young children do not have such problems. That is because they are very natural. As you become more natural, you also become more relaxed and in tune with nature.

Dharmic law– what is the Dharmic law? Dharmic law is based on naturality. Everything is natural. Being natural. Being one with the nature. One frequency.  Frequency means there can be various frequencies rooted in one frequency. Dharma is the large substratum, based on which Karma is the operating table. Karmic law means desires which need fulfillment; it causes birth, events, experiences and death. This is Karma based on Dharma. Dharma is the substratum, the ground. Karma is our operating pattern or our road map for existence. Third is the human law. Human law is connected to social well-being and again it is all connected to survival. If you look at all the human laws, they are based on peaceful survival. Now in this society, there are various types of people, 7.5 billion people. They are all universe of their own. They are all in their own world or they are a world of their own, in their own right. So in this world we can’t have uniformity because they have been created by Karma, unfulfilled desires.

Now if there is a suppression of some nature, their predominant interest will be to fulfill that. So whenever we suppress, deny, avoid or make it sinful, associate guilt with it, etc. that will definitely stay within and become something else. When you continuously and consistently suppress something, that will become your predominant emotion, need or desire for fulfillment. That is the way it is. Because in your own life you see, if somebody says, “Hey you can’t have that!”, that would be your only thought. The main point is we will always think about  that which has been denied, even if it is not significant in life, it. That is human nature.

Thus with this kind of structure, creation has made us like this. Certain things when suppressed over time, for example, an abuse happened in childhood, that person grows up with the fear of a potential abuse. Some people have the fear of a theft in the house and they attract that. They attract that effect. So whenever you fear something, you suppress something. When you think about something as unhealthy or not good, (I am not talking about healthy food or unhealthy food), something which is not good, a taboo, that is what we are trying to move towards. You remember that. We always remember and we try to get that. This is human nature. Hence with this nature, the only solution is  the right awareness. The needs and desires are unending, but you can bring your awareness to the level where the highest human potential can be experienced in a lifetime, which is compassion, kindness, unconditional love, selflessness, companionship without comparisons, togetherness. This, we can nurture.

Also I believe very strongly that from childhood, at the school level, you should have more counselors – people who talk to children. Many times we don’t talk to children. We are busy making them bricks on the wall just as we want and that is causing a lot of calamity in them. They are not natural because they are chasing something. They are always running after something and that’s what we train them to do. We train them to be more and more result oriented, not fulfillment oriented. Fulfillment does not happen in this manner. While going through education, everybody is learning how to earn money. They also are later trying to earn money. But what is this money for? They believe that when they have a lot of money they can have great life. That is not true. There is no guarantee. You can have lot of money and you can be completely unsettled. We can see many like that. Insecurity can grow with money too. But we do not train children to be content. Hence we are not attending to the mind factor.

Till date, we are busy attending to the physical ailment part. What causes physical ailment most of the time? An unsettled mind causes a physical ailment. An unsettled mind, insecurities, suppression, depression, all these kinds of things are connected to mind.

We have three faculties to experience the Earth – mind, intellect and ego. Mind is the seat of emotions. Intellect is the seat of knowledge or it needs answers. Ego is the seat of personality. These three factors are vital for us. When someone respects you, honours you, appreciates you, applauds, your ego is happy, ego feels settled. When you get answers, intellect is happy. Intellect asks for answers. And sometimes intellect will need answers that it will accept, which means, the answer is not the truth, but one that suits it. That is based on the stored data, what you are. Likewise emotions, romance, love, various emotions of life – these are food for the mind. So in this mode if you don’t attend to the mind matter, which is mind, intellect and ego, we miss life. That is the reason for calamities such as wars, displacements, bloodshed, the expressions of anger, hatred and insecurities; you see a tremendous amount of insecurity. If you are not insecure, you will not criticize another. This is the simple truth. If at all we are looking at someone else as bad, it means we have that insecurity in us. We are eager to prove ourselves. Who wants to prove to other people? Those who are not settled inside. If you are settled inside, you don’t have to prove. People will recognize you as stability, stillness. If you are unsettled, you are insecure, you feel the need to prove. We keep proving and ultimately become tired of it too. We become more and more tired and unstable because of that. So it is very important to understand, the entire society has come out of us and also every child is the responsibility of the society, not just the parents. Every child is being groomed by the society. Society grooms each child, not just the parents or the teachers, it is society. So it is the responsibility of the society to bring children to the right path.

Now you had asked a question about what god is doing. God is doing exactly what your soul is doing – not interfering, but aiding your life. Once the soul leaves, you call it a dead body, which means this body, this constitution has no value. God is the larger soul, the whole universe is inspired and energized by this large soul, called supreme consciousness. And God does not interfere in your micro matters. He does not script your life. It does not even write a script for the world. What he does is that all scripts are accepted, which will have a hero, a villain, a comedian and every role there is. All these roles are perfectly accepted. As long as the drama goes on, the entertainment goes on. And that’s about it.

Nothing has permanent value here. Every creation has duration. Everything has it’s time, space, situation, relevance and death. This includes galaxies and planets; the sun, the moon, the stars, everything has a duration. Thus god has nothing to do with it. God is the supreme consciousness, out of which all this manifested universe has happened and into which the manifested universe will dissolve at the end of the day. And we are like small ants in the whole system; maybe not even an ant, something tinier than that! Our ego makes us feel great, but otherwise we do not have much importance. Thus God does not get involved. But every child, every baby born in this world is the responsibility of the society, not just of the parents. And society has to groom them. Society has to behave well. In a world of corruption, in a world of competition, in a world of comparison, how do you expect each child to be individual and free? It is very difficult. That is what we are feeding the child with! The child is fed with the thoughts of comparisons, thoughts of competition, thoughts of success and success means failure is unacceptable. All these things have created the child in a mode which emphasizes – “Go and kill and win”. This is what we are teaching children.

As I said earlier about our nursery rhymes, “Humpty dumpty fell down and broke the crown…” That was a disaster and nobody could fix it. Hence we are telling a child, “You can’t fix the life, it’s not easy to fix life.” But that’s not true. You are life. Life is about what you see and what you express and everybody is fine. Nobody is higher or lower, nobody is a master, nobody is a disciple, nobody is a Guru, nobody is a shishya (spiritual teacher). Everyone has a role to play in this world and that has duration. I call it effective years. Effective years is the time period you are actually delivering to this world. Rest of the time, the world does not care, neither is it good for you;  the time you used for accumulating wealth. We accumulate, accumulate and accumulate and finally die, leaving everything behind. So what was this whole show about. Usually, the people who chase money, wealth, fame, etc.  don’t realize it is short lived. It has duration.

Also don’t expect everybody to appreciate you. Forget about appreciation, many people won’t even recognize you. Many will criticize you, because you don’t fit into their frame of mind. This is all part of existence. How do we care or what can we do about it? We should do nothing about it. All these things happen mainly because of insensitivity. We are not looking at this whole world as heaven. We can create heaven here. Just be harmonious, just accept, just love. We all have weaknesses, every being has weaknesses and strength. Every being who has walked this earth has experienced success and failure, these are part of life and we cannot say only success or only failure. It’s not so. Only strength or only weakness, this is not so. Everyone has everything – success, failure, strengths and weaknesses. We have to accept them all. Instead if we try to prove to the world, we hide our weaknesses, it is a big disaster and that is what is causing all these events we spoke about.

When we suppress a lot, when we hide our weaknesses, over a period of time, it will bubble up. That will push for a realization. Then what will happen? It will cause calamity in life, be it personal life or in the society. So whatever you suppress for a long period of time, it expresses itself with violence or sometimes in an uncontrollable manner, compared to how it would have, had it been channeled out.

All of us experience excessive anger today, insecurity connected to anger. Why does anger happen? Again it is suppressed expectations. When expectations are not met, disappointments happen. Disappointment causes anger. And this is how it is. There is no other way. We have a tremendous amount of suppressed emotions. We have many expectations about ourselves and other people. We have expectations from the society. We always talk about rights, we never talk about responsibilities. All these things are creating a society which is on an explosive mode. Also ideas such as “my god is better than your god, my guru is better than your guru” are of no value. Each guru, each god, each religion, everything is valuable to somebody, respect it. We need to learn to respect everybody. A person who appreciates his Guru, will feel good about his Guru, that’s why he appreciates it. But that does not mean everybody else is bad. All people have their relevance; like you – you have relevance on earth just like everybody else. We all have relevance. We have our time and our space for relevance. This has to be respected.

I have suggested in many forums that we need to have many more counselors in schools, just to understand children, be with them. Teachers and parents are busy. Sometimes they are not able to complete even their work. So there should be a system of counseling. Just ask questions like, “Are you alright? How are you doing today? Is there anything you want to talk to me about? “I visited Mohanji Kā Aangan in Delhi only two times. I went there on my birthday February 23^rd and I was with all the children. One girl came up to me and asked, “Do you remember my name?” This is because the previous time I had asked her name.  I said, “I remember your name.” She did not expect it. When I uttered her name, she was very happy. Then I asked her, “Are you happy?” She said, “No”. I did not get enough time to talk to her and understand what she was going through. So I called somebody and told them they should go there and talk to all children individually, understand what they were experiencing, ideally it should be a lady. What I mean to say is that we don’t understand what the children of the society are experiencing. We assume that everything is ok, everything should be ideal; these are assumptions. Assumptions may not be the reality. We must face the reality. We must look into the eyes of the situation. Then you can understand. And if you try to strengthen the children of today, society will be much better tomorrow. It’s our responsibility, everybody’s responsibility, not one person’s responsibility. And there is no magic wand to change the whole thing. We cannot change in one day, what we created over time. You need to cultivate change and that will happen over time.

Transcribed by Kishore Mundanat
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Read Cultivate Change, part 2