16 signs of an Avatar

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There are certain signs which denote that a person has become one with God or has elevated to the level of God-consciousness. Usually, this is mentioned in the context of an avatar. What are the signs of an avatar? It’s approximately like that, so this is told in the context of an avatar like Lord Krishna.

There are 16 signs, which are mentioned in the scriptures, which denote that an individual is an avatar. Number one is Sri Sampada. That means a person of that stature will always have abundance, richness, inner richness, that means the richness of spiritual stability and the corresponding outer richness, which is the material wealth or the people wealth, all kinds of abundance, positive abundance. So that is Sri Sampada.

Number two is Bhu Sampada. That means these people will have many properties, various lands and those kinds of things, basically, an abundance of land at their disposal.

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The third is Kirti Sampada. That means they will have fame across the world, people who know them, can connect to them, people will feel them as a part of themselves or their family, there’ll be a universal acceptance for them. There will be fame in that context.

The fourth is Vani Sammohanada. That means their speech will be attractive to people, spontaneously attractive. Their words will soothe them, calm them, and make them connect to themselves. Their words and expressions will be transformative.

The fifth is Leela. Leela simply means divine play. People will be happy just by their presence. If you just look at them, you will be happy. Since they have recognized God, and they have recognized God within themselves, they will have divine play all their life. Life itself will be like a play. And it’s not measurable. You can’t really divide or put it into any frame. They might be very unorthodox at times, but they play with true life, and that play will be transformative. The divine play will be for the sake of transformation.

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The sixth is Kaanti. Their form will be very attractive. Their form will have a kind of magnetic attraction. And that’s obvious. Once you see that person, you won’t easily forget him. Their form would be in the corner of your mind somewhere, even if you’re not connecting deeply.

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The seventh is Vidya. They’ll be proficient in skills or management of things which are useful for human existence. In other words, they will be effortless in the management of their life.

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The eighth is Vimala. Their mind will be pure. They’ll be no impurity in their mind at all. They will always be operating in pure consciousness, pure awareness, and purity.

The ninth is Ulkarshaniyata. They’ll be very patient. They will encourage people to do good for the world spontaneously, and they will always aspire and be active for the ultimate goodness in the world. They will always be enthusiastic about doing something great for the world. And they will inspire people to do that. They will be extraordinarily patient with people. They may not be bound by the results of action, but they will continuously do good actions, good for the world.

The tenth is Vivekam. The power of discrimination or wisdom, displayed wisdom – Neera ksheera vivekam especially. Neera is water, ksheera is milk, to separate water from milk – that kind of wisdom, that kind of power of discrimination between the good and the bad, between the positive and the negative. They will have wisdom, and they are able to discriminate between the good and the bad. Just like the paramahamsa (swan), we talk about, who has the power to discriminate between milk and water if they are mixed together. They will make the people who are with them, stable, and even famous. They have that power because they have the power to discriminate between the positive and the negative.

The eleventh is Karmanyata. They will always be active; they will never be idle. They will also encourage others to be active in the right way, in a positive way.

The twelfth is Yoga Shakti. They would have controlled their minds, they would have controlled their senses, and they will be stable within themselves – inner stability through yoga, through the power of yoga (yoga shakti), they would have attained inner stability, and it’s visible in their eyes. They are very stable and still inside. The eyes will display that.

The thirteenth is Vinayam – humility. They will have zero egos. They will be very humble because they are very stable. They are not in competition with anybody; they do not compete to win, or to prove anything because they are very stable inside. Humility is a clear sign of an avatar. They will not boast. They have no pride. They will probably display only 10% of what they actually are. They will display nothing much. It is up to the seeker to find them. And the more you indulge in them or indulge in their awareness, the more you can find. But they will not display, and they will not boast or will have pride over anything that they have. They’ll be extremely humble.

The fourteenth is Sathya-dharanam. They exist in truth, they are always aware of the truth, and they display truth. They are extremely patient, as I said earlier. They will base themselves in truth; the truth may not be the truth of the two-dimensional society. Truth is more of karmic truth and mostly dharmic truth. They will be totally true to dharma – righteous duty. They will not deviate from the karmic flow, the flow of karma. The social dimension is different because that’s conditional, or situational. Here dharma is not situational; it is perpetual. They will be rooted in dharma, and they will operate as per the law of karma, totally adhering to those principles.

The fifteenth is Adhipatyam.  Their presence will be powerful, so they automatically become leaders. They can lead a lot of people by their sheer stability, vision, and compassion. Automatically they get predominance, even if they don’t want to, or even if they don’t display, because they can’t conceal what they are easily. Because of their energy and aura, because of their purposefulness, because of their determination, and because of the clarity and vision, they will attain leadership naturally.

The sixteenth is Anugraham kshamata. They will be able to transform people; they will be able to bring clarity to the lives of people. They will only exist for the sake of raising awareness of the people. Whoever comes to them, will not go empty-handed. They would have delivered whatever they can, as per their capacity, or the person who has come to them. They live to serve, they serve unconditionally, without expecting anything back. They will be powerful, and they will not use their powers for their personal gratification, manipulation, or for personal gains. Instead, they will be focused on the welfare of their subjects like an emperor. Like a true emperor, their whole focus, their whole life will be dedicated to their empire and their people. They do not like to disappoint anybody who comes to them, and they treat the people who come to them as their responsibility. They take care of them as best as they can.

These are the 16 qualities mentioned in the scriptures about the signs of an avatar, or the signs of somebody who is God-conscious. I have said this just to give you clarity and awareness. So, if you understand that, you can clearly see the signs of such avatars in your world. If you observe consistently, you will know whether that person is real or pretending. Only through consistent observation, you can actually understand the third dimension of an individual. I hope these signs will help you connect to the right guide in your life.

Have a great day. This is Mohanji for you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan

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Practical Steps for Challenging Times – part 2

Satsang with Mohanji  
16th August 2020

Question: We have multiple tasks being done at the same time; managing the home, children, etc and there is no time for spiritual practice. This is causing irritation. I would like to understand how I can make it more efficient.

Mohanji: We have a feeling that we have many tasks. We do have various responsibilities; home, office and a variety of responsibilities. Why don’t you take these as Sadhana or practice? It is possible. Do everything as an offering. Your work itself is worship! Everything can be worship. Breath is worship, thoughts are worship, actions are worship; everything can be an offering. Imagine like that – then it is perpetual meditation; all the time you are meditating. Don’t try to compartmentalise your life. It is one life, in which you are playing various roles; you are playing the role of a wife or a mother or a child or a father or uncle or any other role. You are playing these roles every day and it is part of your responsibility. YOU MUST! But there is a YOU in the middle. There is YOU who is playing these roles; connect to that you, who is no role, but the actor. Not the role you play, but the actor. Connect to this actor, the real you and meditate on that actor. Not the role; roles will change, even in a day it changes many times; let it change, play all the roles. But at the same time, connect to yourself, the actor. And you feel how it is. You will start feeling very peaceful and meditative.  The actor is not changing, roles are changing. You are everything. But you are NOT anything. You will understand that experientially. You will understand and experience that.

That will make a difference in your life.

Question: What is the significance of special occasions, like certain times for deities?

Mohanji: Every time has its significance, just like day or night. Similarly, there is significance to seasons, certain planetary configurations which shift the energy frequency, and we perform certain rituals at that time, all of them have significance. Each of these, as you connect to it, is transformative, even if temporarily. When you participate in a festival, you feel excited. You forget your sorrows, wear new clothes, eat good food, and you feel great! The purpose is to rejuvenate you, to press the restart button! So what happens is you look forward to these holidays, those experiences. Whether it is spiritually significant or not, what happens inside is the real story. Are you happy? If you are happy, it is worth it! What is life for? Happiness. We want to experience what is happiness on earth. We want to experience ecstasy, bliss, love, great things in life which makes us feel good. All these festivals that society has created are for that purpose. If you really understand that you will start appreciating all these things.

If you look at festivals connected to Lord Krishna, all joy and dance and singing, etc. Why is it so? Because life should be a celebration ! Life means celebration. Janmashtami happened a few days back. Everybody celebrated the birth of Lord Krishna. Krishna was born about 5000 years ago. But we celebrated as if He was born now!  What happened in the minds of people?

A rebirth happened! Reborn, Rejuvenated, in a way, Reinvented!

This is the beauty of festivals. We must celebrate, Datta Jayanthi , Sai Baba’s Samadhi day, and so on. We celebrate everything and it is worth it. We sing, we chant, we connect, we rejuvenate and then we reinvent and we restart ourselves.

Question: A person who has always helped others, and never harm others still suffers greatly. How can this happen, is it karma?

 Mohanji: Life is a flow. We must flow with life. Two things life is a flow through bodies life flows. That means through rebirths life flows. So, we do not understand the flow completely. What has happened in the past lives? What did we do in the past lives, what is happening in this life, is a reflection of what happened, or what we did in our past lives. And so, we only experience this life right now. You will not understand the cause. That is why this question, why is something like this happening?

In fact, imagine somebody did all sorts of atrocities in another life; anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge, betrayal. He did everything possible in that lifetime. Then he produced a new lifetime based on the karmic wealth, he accumulated in that lifetime.

He took another birth. So he came in this life but he can’t remember what happened in the previous births, which caused this life.

Probably in his previous life, at the end of his life, he regretted doing all those things. He died with regret and he took a wow, “ I will never do these bad things anymore.” And he took a new life, a good life. This life is good, doing all the good things, but the karmic bank balance keeps following him.

In a Mirabai bhajan it says, if you betray a master, a spiritual master, it takes you about 80,000 lifetimes to come back to where you have been before. That means betrayal, criticizing, scandalizing, gossiping all these have a price to pay. Don’t think that,” Oh I can gossip about somebody and it doesn’t matter”. It matters.

Appreciation and honoring, expressing gratitude – these are good, because then you have reward. But if you gossip, talk bad, character assassinate, betray, all these things have huge price; you may end up paying that over lifetimes, many lives.  Because it’s as if you took a huge bank loan, gambled and lost everything. So you end up paying your entire life. It’s almost like that but in the case of betrayals and character assassination, and such issues, the price goes through many, many lifetimes. I always tell people do not engage in any gossip. If you don’t know, just forget it. Don’t talk bad about anybody; even if somebody has done something bad to you, leave that person to his karma; karma will take care of it. Don’t worry. You should not keep thinking about it and creating your own future.

There are people who will come to you as problems, because you might have been a problem for them in another life. As I said, life is a flow, it is a continuous flow. Bodies are temporary and to each body. They have experienced something, then this body is gone, another body, they experience many different things. This goes away, then,  another body; like this, we have taken many bodies.

We will take more if you don’t dissolve into the Supreme Consciousness in this life, we will take further bodies.

This is why you need a very powerful master to connect to, where you dissolve into him, and you don’t have to take any more bodies, unless you want to.

That’s the difference, birth by choice. Birth for the sake of Dharma is different from birth for the sake of karma. They are  two different things. So we may not understand why we are experiencing certain things but we can assume that if we are experiencing bad things in this life, we might have committed something bad in another life. So it’s come back to us. This life, if you’re done good things, the merits of it will go to another life. Probably you’ll be born in such a family in the next life where you get only the merits of it. This happens. So, what you do today will have its payment later. Means you do your work now and you get paid later. Like that whatever you are doing now, you will have the results later.

But please remember, there is no escape from karma.

If you have done something, if you’re committed something you must pay for it, especially death, destruction, betrayal, character assassination, gossip, the negative aspects. Also, please remember we watch these programs in the television and movies and different forms of entertainment; the soap operas where it’s about bad relationships, criticism, judgment, betrayal, and such in the stories and we occupy ourselves with these; we imbibe those emotions within; we can probably have a similar future, or   a similar experience in the future. This is possible. So please be aware! That this is why all the great Masters insisted on satsang – good company, good company.

satsangatve  nisangatva

nissangtve nirmohatva

nirmohatve nischallatatva

nischalatatve jivanmukti

That is exactly what great masters have said. That means with good company you learn to detach from the wears and tears of life, from the fluctuations of life. When you are in a kind of detached state your desires are reduce, desires becomes fewer. When desires become lesser, mind becomes still. What is causing the mind to be restless? Numerous desires.

That is why I always say let’s get it fulfilled, let’s do it and finish it off,  so that the mind is still.  The mind must be still. When the mind is consistently still, liberation happens to you. Moksha happens; mukti happens. We must understand that we are the source of our own destiny. We are creating it every moment; every day; every moment, whatever we are doing there is a reason, result.

So there’s a past for everything; there’s a present for everything and there’s a future for everything. You should understand this. And when you’re very involved and have a clutter of thoughts; you can’t see the truth. And we start looking at the world through our ears; through other people’s words. That’s the worst thing. We should not see through our ears. Ears are to hear but then other people’s opinion, should not be our spectacles to see the world; which means, we should look at the world ourselves as we are and experience it; and detach from criticizing, blaming, and talking bad about anything, including yourself. Do not criticize others; do not criticize yourself. Do not judge others; do not judge yourself. Like that if you respect everything, life will be better, for sure.

Question: This question came in relating to acceptance. Yeah. So how can we accept, even the bad aspects of ourselves? Why is self-acceptance so difficult?

Mohanji: Why is self-acceptance so difficult? It’s because we always worry about the bad aspects in ours ourselves. We all have it, 7.5 billion people, have good and bad in them; positive and negative in them. Don’t think that you are the only one who has all the negatives in you; it’s not true. All people have it, so we must understand that this is how creation works.  In every human being, there is positive and negative; and we must really understand that we have to focus, on only positive and ignore the negative. We have to ignore the negative. We have to focus on the positive, and that’s the way we can accept ourselves better. Let the negative be there with us, and don’t look at anybody in the world as only positive; it’s not possible. It is just not possible. There will be some negative in everybody, and don’t focus on the negative; because then we are missing the whole thing.  Focus on the positive; let’s strengthen the positive; we unite together; work together; be together like one family, and then it will be glory for everybody. We have that power!

Question:   Is there a way to dissolve past karma, and also what’s the consequences of any parent’s actions on the child destiny?

Mohanji: Past karma – We’ve taken this life to exhaust past karma; it means pending desires and our, our driving force, or our inclinations are our vasanas. Vasanas are our driving force, tendencies, and inclinations. And we are going ahead with experiencing our pending desires at each point in time in life, right from childhood till death. This is what we are doing. Part of it is lineage karma, that’s coming from the lineage, from our father and mothers’ side, coming together; that merges with us.  Each individual has personal karma, pending desires of personal nature, and also pending desires of the lineage nature; they are coming together. They come together, and we are experiencing that in life.

So, how do you exhaust them? Automatically, without your knowledge you’re exhausting it. Whatever you’re experiencing each day that’s exhaustion; every experience amounts to that karma. If you block it, it stays postponed. If you experience it and move on, then it’s done. So the best way to come out of all these karmas are, by being good and doing good; so that when you express your best in everything, whatever you can, as per your capacity ; and be kind; be compassionate; be generous, and then this karma gets dissipated. So the more good things you do; by good things I mean because of your existence, you help all the beings of the nature; then automatically your karmic configuration starts changing; and improvement happens, and you reach a level where there is no ownership of action.

When you have ownership of action, you have karma. If you, if you surrender everything to the Almighty, then there is no karmic binding. When you get up in the morning itself have the right attitude towards life; surrender attitude and connect to one master; seriously and consistently, whatever happens let it not change. Again as I said before, the Master and the man should be different, considered different; a person has his needs and requirements, but a Master is the settled aspect of that person; so connect to the Master aspect. You don’t have to connect to the person, so that you can avoid an illusion. That is why I said so. So, connect to the Master in that way, as settled consciousness; after you have sufficient proof for yourself for that sake. Don’t just look at the picture or somebody words and follow somebody; it won’t work, because if you look at just the picture and the words of opinions of somebody it may not be suitable to you, but you need to know whether this person is stable within. If it is not, don’t follow.

Once you start following; don’t leave. This is your integrity. This is how it should be. Then somebody else says at some point in time;” Oh! He’s not good or this is that. Don’t change your mind!” Your experience is true to you; your experience is most important for you and you follow that whatever happens in the world; then you will have progress. So this is an individualistic journey; it’s an individual journey. You are the traveler; you are the journey; you are the destination. You are the experience of the journey; everything is you.

So if you understand that clearly, you will not have lot of distractions, or distortions. This is the truth.

Question: How can we be liberated in this life, is it possible, with nothing pending that needs to be taken forward?

Liberation is possible right now, right here! How it is possible? It is possible firstly, by keeping that as your priority. Your top priority should be liberation. And then second is increase your awareness; increasing awareness is very simple. It means just be aware of your thoughts, words, actions; be aware and slowly start detaching from them, by just being aware. I am not the thought; thoughts are happening through me. I am not the doer; actions are happening correspondingly through me, so there’s no ownership. I’m not the action; actions are also happening through me. I’m not the doer, but it doesn’t mean that you go and kill somebody and say, “I didn’t kill, it happened through me.” Not like that. You should be responsible as well. You have to have responsibility. So, everything you do, you’re responsible; so only good actions, good thoughts, good words, and then no, no negative feelings or expressions or any of those kind of things. And then you have clarity that everything that is born will die. Everything has a duration. Whatever is born, will die. And all things are interconnected, you cannot exist alone. Everything is connected in the world; the plants, the trees, the birds, the animals, human beings; we are all interconnected; we all have something to give and take; so that kind of a total acceptance is essential. And liberation is a state which you experience right now, where you do not have binding on something, or something does not bind you. We do not have binding out of place, a person or situation or emotion or experience. We are not bound by anything. Our desire level is very low, very less.

Once you understand that and accept that and when you are in that kind of a mode; automatically you will start feeling detachment from the world outside. That doesn’t mean that you hate anything; there’s no hatred here, it’s just that, you don’t want it. You don’t want it; which means you have no need for it. When you have no need for something; you are free from it. When you have such freedom, you are liberated while living; and that means you’re not collecting more and more desires anymore. So, what happens? No desires, no reincarnations! Simple, so liberation is possible, just by investing in awareness. Investing in awareness – that is the secret. Invest in your awareness; be aware of who you are, what you are, where you are, why you are; of all those be aware.  Also understand all the things around you during waking state do not exist when you’re sleeping or it doesn’t exist for you when you’re sleeping. When you wake up, they are there. So, what is there? That your experience is connected to you! You can have experience or no experience based on your moods, your situations,  your emotion at that time. Everything is like that. So, this is very simple, it’s easy to understand. When you really know that you are everything; and you don’t need much, then you are liberated. So liberation is a state of mind; it’s an attitude, which you can easily cultivate, just by awareness. Awareness is the fire.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt and Padmini Ravi Kumar
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Practical Steps for Challenging Times – part 1

Satsang with Mohanji  
16th August 2020

 

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

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

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We must be considerate.

We cannot conquire, capture and kill.

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

We should coexist.

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

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

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

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

Sarve bhavantu sukhinaha – Let all the beings be peaceful!

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

Q: How can I know my purpose in life?  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth and Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

Fear at the time of death

Welcome to Mohanji Speaks.

These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them. Keep sending them; I will try to answer them as best as I can.

Speaker: This question is from another listener. They have been thinking about people who have never experienced much beyond the body and mind throughout their entire life. And so, when they are close to death, they are gripped by fear. Is it possible to help them come out of this fear in the last days? And if it is, how can we do that?

Mohanji: Fear is connected to illusions. There’s no room for fear. There is a saying that when you can sleep in brightness, darkness cannot touch you. That means, when we are connected to our inner brightness, the real truth, there is no possibility of any fear to happen. The secret for a fearless existence is connection, deep connection to our inner brightness.

We are bright inside. The real bright aspect of our existence is our atma, the soul. And to reach that soul, the path is silence. Not activity, not doership. It’s silence. Whenever there is fear, there is ignorance. Whenever there is a fear, there is a mind. Whenever there is a fear, there is darkness. Once we know what the source of fears is, we can easily come out of it. People are trained to live in the gross world. People are trained to behave in a particular way or to manoeuvre in a particular way, in the gross world. And that prevents them from the opportunity of connecting to the brighter world inside us. In other words, people are used to the candlelight while the sun is existing in the horizons, or people are used to the candlelight indoors, and fighting their darkness using it, while just by opening the doors and windows the sunlight can come in and take the darkness away.

We are conditioned; conditioned by our education, conditioned by our notions, concepts, and prejudices. Conditioned by so many factors apply, where truth is missed. Truth is sitting inside us, and it can be found only by connecting deeply, purposefully, and consistently with ourselves. How much time are we spending with ourselves? This is the all-important question. How much time? Are we spending any time at all with ourselves? That makes the difference. We can’t find truth anywhere in the world except within ourselves. The world has all the varieties good for experiences of the senses and the mind. That’s not good enough to find the brightness inside. In fact, they are distractions from the pursuit to find the truth inside – the brightness inside.

Imagine a person living in the gross world, engaging in the world of noises consistently, thinking that’s the reality and suddenly realizes death is at hand. Death is the only companion that you are born with. As soon as you took birth, death also took birth. And death walks with you and finally engulfs you, takes you over. Death is a constant companion, but we ignore its presence, just like we ignore our shadow. That is an inevitability. So why do we fear death? Because we have an instinct to survive, the instinct is inbuilt in us and it tells us that survival is our birthright. It is so, it is indeed our birthright. But death is more powerful.

 

As I said before, death is inevitable. Death has to happen at some point in time, whether we fear it or not. So, what’s the best way to deal with this fear? Perfect awareness. All that is born will have to die. Death is our most loyal companion. All others will come and go; death will stay. Awareness is very important. And using this time of existence on earth to connect to the brightness within us will help us to stay with this companion without emotions, understanding fully well its inevitability, its necessity, and its relevance. Awareness is the key, awareness is essential for a good life and good death.

Thank you for listening to this podcast. Do contemplate on it. Do discuss with your friends. And let me know how you feel. If you have further questions, send them to me.

Thank you. This is Mohanji for you.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan

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Personal Effectiveness

Welcome to Mohanji speaks.

Hello, my dear friends,

Today, let us think about certain aspects of our life, which are taking away a lot of our energy; the aspects that consume our energy more, are the wasted matters of our life, not the necessary aspects. I will talk about a few of these. Look at three C’s of our life and I mean the alphabet ‘C ‘- Criticism, Comparison, Competition.

Let us begin with the last one, competition. We have been trained to compete with somebody or something. But have we ever thought, at any point in time, whether it is necessary, or not? And usually, more often than not, it is not necessary. We don’t need it. But competition is not a negative word. You can definitely compete with yourself. That will help you to improve yourself.

 

The second C is Criticism. Who is our most bitter critic? We ourselves are. We criticize ourselves more than the whole world criticizes us. We judge ourselves more than the entire world. We are our most beloved friend, as well as the most hated enemy. It’s all us. Everything is us. Criticism takes away a lot of time. It even affects our self-esteem. We compromise our experiences for the sake of critical view, comparisons. What are the comparisons with?

Imagine you are an orange, and you are comparing yourself with an apple. Definitely, you’re not the apple. You are an orange and be proud of it.

You are who you are. You are inevitably yourself. You are unique. You are original. You are authentic. 

If you clearly understand this, you realize that you can’t compare with anybody else. Comparison is stupidity. In fact, that time can be used for actualization; that means coming closer to yourself, exploring your authenticity, your original state, your originality. That time is worth it. This is the alternative to comparing ourselves with others, creating a type of competition within and in the bargain, exhausting us too! Is it worth it? Absolutely not! It’s a waste of time.

Along with it, we see that children, (because we have groomed them or we have tuned them like that) are always in the mode of competition or comparison. We compare them with other children. “Hey, look at that boy, or that girl, how well they are doing, how good they are!” etc. This, in fact, creates more divisions in our children, more confusion in them. Instead, if we gently help them to come to terms with their own uniqueness, originality, that would be the biggest gift that we can give to our children. 

We have a great life, but only if we understand it with clarity. Our life is great; it is an amazing life. We don’t experience its greatness, first and foremost because we resist a lot; we resist too much; we cling on to certain bad things of the past. And we don’t let them go. A thing of the past stays on, only if the mind holds that experience or the mind analyzes it and enjoys it in a way, to be in its presence or having a presence in our life. But that’s unnecessary junk. The past is finished; we have nothing to do with it.

Today is our reality. How our authentic are you today? How effective are you today? How much are you able to experience life today?

We are only experiencing our authenticity, our uniqueness. We are not experiencing anything else; we are experiencing the world, as we are. This connection with ourselves will help us much with the contentment factor. 

If we stop criticizing, comparing and competing, look at our world; how will the world be with all unique people, all authentic and all original, walking this earth, expressing their originality and authenticity? The world will be brighter. However, at present, 80% of the people in the world are busy competing, comparing, criticizing, judging and analyzing each other. And what do you get at the end of the day? Disappointments, sheer frustrations, anxieties, fears, jealousy, guilt and regrets are the effects. We can avoid these. We can indeed avoid all these emotions, easily, if we were to connect to our authenticity; if we could connect to our originality, accept it totally, against all odds, and if we could ignore the opinions of others about us unless it is creative criticism. If the criticism is from somebody who’s guiding us to actualize ourselves, it is creative criticism. Someone who is guiding us to explore our own authenticity is creative and that is a good suggestion or criticism. That’s fine. Apart from that, nothing else is important.

Our own connection with ourselves is the most authentic connection you can ever make in a lifetime. Anything else, any opinions, any criticisms, is not important.

Anything that helps you to connect with yourself is good. Anything which explores your authenticity is good. Anything which reminds you of your originality is good. And those are the good things of life, not the materials you get, not the positions, or the possessions; they are all temporary. But your own exploration of your authenticity is permanent. And that makes you an effective person and a compelling personality.

You are your own ally. Don’t be your own enemy.

I’ll leave you with this thought today; think about it. We’ll talk about something else, next time. Have a good day.

This is Mohanji for you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopal

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Invest in awareness

Hello friends.

Today, let’s talk about a personal bank account. What is a personal bank account? We all know bank accounts; we invest money in our accounts. And we are confident because we have that bank account. We have money in the bank; we can withdraw from it when we want. This bank account is like our confidence, our self-esteem, and our security. So, this is the bank account.

Think about another bank account; the bank account that is inside you. You have a personal bank account within you. What will you invest in it? Have you thought about it? There are so many things you can invest in it. And that’s the only thing you can withdraw as well; only what you invest, you can withdraw. If you invest goodness, if you invest righteousness, if you invest kindness, compassion, positivity; if you invest beautiful, large vision, great goals for the improvement of the society; if you invest the things which are regenerative and rejuvenating into it, what you can withdraw is the same. What you sow, you reap. 

So, this bank account is very important, much more important than the physical, monetary bank account. If you do not have much bank balance in this bank account, what comes out are insecurities, addictions, self-hatred, lack of self-esteem; and so many things which make you feel pretty insignificant or low in your own eyes, just like a poor man. But if you have great things in your bank account, then you will behave like a rich man; very happy, you have your money, you can fulfill your wishes, like that. I hope this is very clear.

The bank account inside is your choice. What do you want to put in that? It’s almost like your own personal locker; you can keep anything you like in it. But what is put there determines you. I always recommend people to put your highest aspirations in your bank account locker and take away all the fears and anxieties and those kinds of stuff and discard them. You don’t need them. I always used to tell people the best investment in a lifetime is in awareness. When you invest in awareness, it grows. When you concentrate on your own awareness, it reflects in the society as brightness, as kindness, as compassion, as positivity, as reliability and so many other good factors, positive factors. When you invest in your own awareness, you will stop complaining, you will stop comparing, you will stop all those things which drain you. You can easily come out of your addictions, which are bound by inertia, tamas, and you can look at your own life, fresh and as a great opportunity.

If you invest in awareness consistently, you will be brighter, you will be lovable in this world and you will not have complexes. Usually, people have an inferiority complex or a superiority complex; both these things will be alien to you. You will be fine; you will be happy; you will be stable in yourself. So, investing in awareness is very important in a lifetime. And that’s the best investment you can ever do in a lifetime. This investment matures and gives rewards, just like a bank account; you get some interest for your investment, like that, the investment on awareness, gives you clarity in life. The clarity that you get in life is your interest. When you continuously invest in awareness, in your own awareness, in your bank account, your goals will be clearer, the purpose will be clear and there will be clarity in the activity, in planning, in the road map because you are consistently investing in awareness.

Awareness is vital in anybody’s life. Life is always an opportunity and awareness is its oxygen. When you consistently invest in awareness, you will always be optimistic, bright and energetic. You will start seeing life in everybody because you have life in yourself. You will see life, in life. It’s not a heavy, depressive, disappointing life; instead, it’s a bright, positive, rejuvenated lifestyle every day, every moment, self-inspired. When you wake up in the morning, there will be only one question; what else can I do for this world? And the answer would be instantaneous. It may differ each day but it will be fulfilling. When you continuously invest in awareness, your life will not only be fulfilling but will have immense contentment each moment. A successful life is a well-lived life filled with happiness and contentment. We will love everything, we will love everybody, we will not judge, criticize, talk bad about people, about situations. Instead, we will only see, what can we do now in this situation? What best we can do now? How can we improve this? You will not talk about people, instead, you will talk about situations!

Imagine, you are working with somebody, and the attempt failed. There are two ways you can respond to this situation. One is to blame the other guy and say, “Because of him, I couldn’t complete it, or it was not successful.” Or you can say, “I can do better homework, and I can improve on it, along with this person; or I can give him better awareness and put him on the same page as what I think, and we can do it together.” Which is better? It is always better that we upgrade ourselves with every situation. This needs awareness. Awareness each moment; awareness over each activity, so that when you face situations, you will see, okay, this is the situation. What can I do now? How best I can do now? Here I am not asking you to reinforce your ego aspect, here I’m asking you to consider, what is your best potential? Then there are other people also, you cannot expect them all to see what you see or come into the same frequency as you. So, what can you do?

Discussion. If something has not worked, discuss the options, the pros and cons and say, “Can we work it out together?” And then attempt again; if it fails, again you make an upgraded version of the same situation and try. A few times later, it will become successful. Sometimes our own consistency, our own determination and discipline, this brings success. Our own self-confidence and ability to rise beyond the usual or ability to rise above each situation brings success. That needs awareness.

So, investing in awareness will never go wrong. You will start looking at everything, you will understand its value, you will understand the merits. If there are certain things which you don’t have to do, you will discard them, and you will not feel much about it. Only when you don’t have awareness, you are afraid to discard the unwanted. If you are fully aware, you will discard what is unwanted; you will keep what is required so that there will be clarity and there’ll be a clear purpose, while you’re at it. Everything will be visible and then it’s easy to put this together and get on with life. Bringing people together is very, very important and that shows your open-heartedness, large-heartedness. We can’t insist that everybody sees what we see, but we can definitely guide people as per their capacities and expect less, give more. Expect less. So, this is a good combination, just like awareness and flexibility; maturity and flexibility – good marriage. This is all within us. Our world is within us, we see the world as we are.

So, these thoughts might help you to understand yourself, assimilate yourself, align yourself with awareness and you can have a great bank account, very rich inside. This is your choice. Nobody is born poor in this context. You all have your potential, you can have a great bank account; you have it with you already.

Wish you great success.

This is Mohanji for you.

 

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Padmini Ravikumar

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Q&A – How do we best raise our children in these difficult times?

Mohanji: Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them, keep sending them. I will try to answer them as best as I can.

Speaker: This question is about parenting small children, especially in the current times. The question really centers around, how do we keep spirits alive and help them realize the beauty and goodness in the world, despite having to constantly remind them not to hug others, not to touch articles outside, not to meet friends? And for this person, it’s breaking the heart to see the child indoors, alone at home.

Mohanji: The question is about how to bring the children up the way you expect them to be. First and foremost, every child born in the world is the responsibility of society, not only the parents. First of all, try to get your ownership away from children. When you do not have ownership, then you have a better connection. When you have ownership, you have flavored connection. You own the person. This is my child. I want this child to be like this, etc.

You have to gently bring them to this awareness of how they should be in the world, and you have to lead by example. You cannot avoid the pressure or the presence of the society from the lives of your children. Not even you. That presence and pressure will affect everybody; in a good way or a bad way. Do we have any control over our children? They came through us; that’s okay. But they don’t belong to us. Every child belongs to only themselves. They don’t even belong to the society; but it’s the responsibility of the society, which is a conglomeration to take care of each child. And what we have in the society, what is the mental structure, collective consciousness; that’s reflected in each child of the society – every child.

Parents, teachers, society, if you take all these three, the highest and the most important in the society; then comes parents and then come teachers. All these aspects have to be equally understood. A child is a complete character. A child comes to this world with a character, a constitution, a particular inclination, tendency, and a set of desires. It’s obviously not the same for everyone; each person has their inclinations, tendencies, likes and dislikes, desires, all distinct, even in the same family. What contaminates a relationship is the ownership and what enriches a relationship is freedom.

Freedom is the best message you can actually deliver to a child with your own life. Freedom is not freedom of the senses and mind; it’s freedom from the senses and mind. If you live that in your own household, and if you demonstrate that on an everyday basis, not as a teaching, but as a lifestyle, children will pick it up. If we demonstrate the power of compassion, kindness, unconditional love, selflessness, caring, sharing, every day; and bring your children along with you while you demonstrate it in your own life; not to teach them but to show them that this makes heaven on Earth. Then the child will start connecting to it at some point in time, even if they get influenced by the bad effects of the society for some time, they will have this in the back of their mind that there is a possibility of heaven on Earth. This is within us. We have that power; we have that means and stability to bring forth. So, this is the thing, when we talk to a child, don’t try to give them lessons, instead, try to give them awareness. The best way to give them awareness is through the life stories of great Masters. When I say Masters, do not think they are saints or spiritual people; Masters is somebody who has exercised their purpose against all odds and found success.

Again, as I say, according to me, success means the contentment factor; satisfaction over life. Every moment satisfaction, not like a satisfaction at the time of death, or to the latest stage of life, not like that. For me, contentment is much more important than possessions and positions. For me, richness means contented life. This is real richness; having a contented life is real richness for me. It’s not about what I have. It’s about how I perceive life, how I accept life, how I live my life. Even if you have billions, you can only have one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner; you can only sleep in one bed. You can have any amount of luxury but how would you use it? So, contentment factor is not connected to materials; it’s not connected to relationships. We change relationships quite often to find the right relationship; but mostly we are not contented. It is not about changing relationships; it’s not searching outside, it’s searching inside. You search inside and find yourself. You are contented, and that gives contentment to everything outside.

These are fundamental things which we can guide children into with our own life, not through teachings, not through messages, not through punishments. I hate punishing children; there’s no need to do that. Instead, you can live a great life and show this to children. For a small child, the father and the mother are great personalities. They admire them, they should admire them with their own lifestyle. And don’t ridicule or gossip or talk bad about any spouse in front of the children. When you say that “Your father is not good”, or when the father says “The mother is not good”, the child develops conflict within. The child doesn’t understand; he feels that there is a betrayal going on here. (Not exactly in those words but that’s the effect) A child looks at a relationship, in terms of love, (a small child) hug, love, feeling, kissing, very much understood; but disparities, enmities, revenge, not understood. And if a child grows up seeing that; how can you expect a better society? So, it’s important!

A child is the responsibility of everybody, the society, as well as the parents as well as the teachers, in a different order. When we consistently show compassion, kindness, love, the child will be stabilized in that. By the time the child is five or six, he would have established himself in love. And he will not choose any other option because there’s no better option than love. So, this is the point, when a child comes up in love, basking in love, swimming in love, filled in love; he will not express anger, hatred and jealousy, in the world outside. Even he would probably transform the world with love. And this possibility is always there.

So how do you groom your children? Very simple, you have to lead by example. You have to be love, you should never pretend, no hypocrisy because children catch it very fast. You got to live it yesterday, today, tomorrow, day after; that means, every day, live the same thing; love, compassion, kindness. And always understand that discrimination of any kind, including racism, speciesism, and all kinds of ‘isms’ which discriminates people and beings and every creation; is not understood by a small child. They don’t see the life that way. But as we grow up with our conditionings, we start looking at things in that way. So, don’t bring this to children. You should live a life beyond every ‘isms’; beyond man-made barriers that will give stability to a child.

We need a society rooted in absolute compassion. We need a society away from corruption, selfishness. We need a society rooted in selflessness. “How can I help you?”, should be the question. “Can I help you? How else can I help you? How else can I serve you?” This should be the question, and let the child see you performing this all the time. And the child will transform itself into a powerful personality, filled with compassion, with kindness and love. This is the best thing you can give to the world – great child, a great son or daughter rooted in compassion, kindness and love, with the ability to transform the society with it. There is nothing more powerful than love. And here, you are creating legends, great personalities. You have the capacity, every parent has the capacity. Do not restrict the children, do not bind them. Instead, give them freedom; as I said, again, freedom is not freedom of senses; it’s freedom from senses, and give contentment, with what you have. Love as you are, and leave the world better, much higher than you got the world from the past.

Thank you for listening to this podcast. Do contemplate on it, do discuss with your friends, and let me know what you feel. If you have further questions, do send them to me.

Thank you. This is Mohanji for you.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Padmini Ravikumar

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When to express myself? No sensual activity for enlightenment?

Dear friends, welcome to Mohanji Speaks. These are answers to questions from listeners. Thank you for sending them. Keep sending them. I will try to answer them as best as I can.

Speaker: This question is from a listener, and it’s actually a series of questions. So we’ll take them one at a time. The first section is around sensations in the body. How do you accept these without judgment?

Mohanji:  In one word, the answer is witness hood. Let us compare your body to a car. What is the purpose of the car? Utility; for travel, from one location to the other. What is the utility of the body? To experience the earth, and various aspects of the earth; the journey is from birth to death. When you are going through various sensations, various emotions, various experiences, when you have various expressions, just witness them all, because that’s not the end. They come and they go; witness them, enjoy them, appreciate them, so that you will always be stable. You don’t have to be involved in it. At the same time, you can experience it. Experience life as it comes, with gratitude; look at everything gratefully, even anger, hatred, jealousy; look at everything as flavours of life. But you’re not any of them. You have nothing to do with them. They’re just experiences, various flavours you are experiencing. It does not matter what the cause is, take the experiences as neutral, as they are happening. They come; they go. You’re watching. 

Speaker: Along the same lines, the question asked is, when is it important and necessary to express feelings? How do you prevent abuse? And is it enough to just acknowledge these feelings and write them down, rather than actually addressing them to a person?

Mohanji:  The situations of life have reasons for it; the causes. One of the major causes of every experience of life is patterns. Patterns have their roots in some kind of suppression, fear, guilt, and such emotions. One other reason for these events of life is desires, inclinations, tendencies, fears and concepts, or other aspects connected to various aspects of existence. So they are within us, and corresponding experience happens in life. What is the best way to handle them? First of all, accept them. Okay, this is my situation, and unique to me. And then, what is the best that I can do in this situation? If discussion will work, definitely discuss with another person and sort it out. If acceptance will work, accept it. If something has to be changed, say, for example, relocation, removal, or any other aspect which takes you towards becoming peaceful, which helps you to be peaceful, that’s fine. But violence is not alright. If somebody is expressing violence, and you also become violent, it only aggravates the situation, it’s only adding oil or fuel to fire.

Firstly, have awareness of the situation, of each situation as it comes; look at it objectively, accept it as it is. Then, ask the question, “Now what can I do here? What is the right action?” Always choose discussion first. Discuss peacefully. Sometimes the other person is not able to listen properly. In that case, you may have to use a different method where he listens, maybe through a friend, or someone he or she respects. Thus, you can convey the message properly. Else, it can be through your own kindness and compassion; through your own lifestyle, you can transform people. This happens. Some people do not get love at home, but they get enough and more love from the society because of their kindness and compassion, because of their disposition, because of their orientation and expression, they get love. So, instead of expecting love from everybody, you choose to experience or you choose to express your highest potential. That will fetch a lot of love and respect from the world. That will compensate for your situation.

Speaker: And then about certain situations; this question is about stopping, engaging in enjoyable activities, sensual touching or sexual… and a view that a dogmatic approach to enlightenment is dangerous, as the person is trying to kill pleasures.

Mohanji:  You cannot kill anything. Sensual, sexual and what is related to senses is usually connected to instincts. The primary instinct of every being on earth is survival. Survival has two major aspects. One is food, for sustaining the body. And the second is sex to sustain the species. For all the species on earth, both of these are not difficult to handle, because they go about their ways, just as their instinct leads them. But for human beings, because we have a potential for higher awareness and liberation, we consider some of these as a problem. They are not problems. They are essential necessities; the body needs them, the species needs them; we have to handle them in its own merit. Whatever is connected to your body should not be kept in your mind. Whatever has to be handled by your mind, let it be so. What is required for the body, such as food, should be given to the body, when you have the appetite; when the body asks for it. Sexuality is also essential in our system, otherwise, without sexuality, there are no species. These are all essential aspects of existence. By suppressing them, denying them, or thinking that it doesn’t exist, or that you have grown beyond it, what happens is, they come back with more energy and more impact. I always recommend accepting, because that’s the right way to handle everything. Accept whatever your conditions are, whatever your situations are. And if you accept everything in life; I have these inclinations; I have these tendencies; I have these desires, and that’s fine. All people have them and address them with a cool head. Don’t deny it and say that I don’t have it and you try to pretend to the world that you are beyond all this; it won’t work because no pretension ever works. Pretensions do not work!

When pretension happens, suppression happens. Suppression happens, then, postponement happens. It will come back in its full capacity at another stage. It’s important that we handle everything of life, anything connected to instincts, anything connected to desires, tendencies and inclinations with its own merit and respect it. We have to respect ourselves. We have to respect our feelings and emotions.

Then how do you overcome it? By focusing on something much larger, much higher; so that the lower drops off. That’s the way to completely eradicate certain things from your system. Keep your focus steady or a larger goal, such as your own personal growth, through increasing the awareness in the society to something much larger, such as you have the right to be peaceful inside, and nothing outside can touch you. If that kind of a situation can be conveyed properly with your own life, leading by example; that would be a good goal in this lifetime because the potential of being a human is well used. That way you can come above everything. And you can attach yourself or connect yourself to a very large goal, where eventually liberation would be the only option, and it will happen.

Thank you for listening to this podcast. Do contemplate on it. Do discuss with your friends and let me know what you feel. If you have further questions, do send them to me.

Thank you. This is Mohanji for you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopal

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Change your life, change your attitude, be powerful.

Hello, my friends, we spoke about domestic violence, psychological disorders. Attention Deficit syndromes, all those kinds of things. Where are all these things coming from? We discussed that in the last episode. I decided to take this to one more episode because this is very important. It’s about our stability. If we are stable at home, a house where there is a lot of love, there’s a lot of stability; the society sees that happening as well because these people bring that stability to the society. We need a lot of stable people. We need stability, within us, in our household and in society. We must, while we can.

So, I was talking about how I was experiencing life. Many times, in childhood, in youth, and also during my work life, I have faced failures, in fact, tremendous failures. And each time I faced failures, I realized that there is hardly any company! People don’t appreciate you when you fail, rather they don’t appreciate those who fail. They only want winners. The criteria used to assess winning is money or richness in materials that are visible; even something like a good pen or a car. But how they earned it, we don’t know. Sometimes, some people have compromised their conscience to earn, but people do not have a problem with that.

I have experienced trusted people either cheating or otherwise betraying me. And society sometimes supports them. I am so surprised that society has no problem, even if they do something wrong, such as putting someone down, betraying, cheating or stealing. Society has no problem if they bribe and get their way through.

So, we are looking at a corrupt society with aberrations. We can’t look at society and decide how we should be, because that’s probably not the right benchmark. What we should be is what helps our conscience. Do we feel good? Are we stable in our conscience?This is a good benchmark to talk about because if our conscience is clear, I think we have a good existence.

When we are violent in the house when we abuse our family members, we are angry and fighting with them or maybe ignoring them, disrespecting them, we don’t feel good; our conscience is affected. And we must understand why it’s happening. Sometimes we need external help or counselling. We must get it. We must go for it.

Every time domestic violence is happening, we should not just blame the person; we should look at the psychology of the person. Probably, that person has gone through many sorrows, many disappointments, many betrayals or many rejections. This frustration is boiling within and domestic violence could be the expression of the same.

Beginning from school days we must counsel children. We must reward them for small things; recognize them for their talents, appreciate them and bring them up with confidence, where their own talents are what they need to give to society, not what the society wants. You know, it’s not about the marks in school; It’s not about the grades, not even about succeeding exams, it’s about their own talents, how well they can own it. They will then be peaceful and settled from within. If such little appreciation does not happen early on, then even large appreciations, later on in life will not have value. Every small thing should be appreciated.

I’ve experienced different difficulties. One is the workplace competition, discrimination. I even had a situation where there was a hardship allowance, which is granted when you have to work in countries that are fragile and have difficult conditions. At that time, it was Iraq. Iraq was a very difficult place and they decided to give me a set of hardship allowances and a different set to my colleague who was a British person. When I asked why there was a difference, they gave me some lame excuse, which did not hold water. I had to tell them, “See, this is not good because everybody’s life is the same. All of us value our lives equally. And this is not good; having two different sets of hardship allowances in the same office is discrimination!”

Such things happen. I was not feeling good about it at that time but still, I did my job. I decided, “Okay, forget about all that. A job needs to be done and it should be done”. I don’t believe in protesting and ignoring my job, so I did it well and that earned the company money. I believe that we should not ignore our work and we should do what we have to. I continued despite workplace difficulties.

The point I’m trying to make is, we can do a lot in the world, in OUR world, to bring balance in people’s lives. We can easily implement in our life, qualities such as equality and equanimity, where nobody’s higher or lower; where everybody is appreciated for their good work. You know we appreciate, we respect, we reward, we recognize; all these things can help stabilize.

And society brands you very easily. When I lost my daughter in 2000, I also lost many other things of life in the following years. The best of friends were not available then. They were busy with their own lives and did not really want to spend time with a loser of society. I experienced all this and was wondering how deep is our love? How deep is our friendship, commitment, conviction? How deep is our companionship? How deep is our ability to love, unconditionally or against all odds? All these questions were happening, and I decided, they are not worth a thought. What you can do is work on what should stabilize you; your expression; that’s your stability. I was completely focusing on myself. I ignored the world around me and that stabilized me.

The questions that came are connected to domestic violence. I will not deviate from that, I will talk about it and conclude. Suppose you have no appreciation from home; what would you do? You have to love yourself. You have to accept yourself; you have to really consider and respect yourself as a great personality. It has nothing to do with other people’s appreciation or rejection. So, if you really believe in yourself, if you really appreciate, even small aspects of yourself, such as your heartbeat, your breathing, that you are eating, you are sleeping and you have so many good things happening in your life, such as shelter; you have a roof over your head, you have food to eat. All those things can be considered as merits. Just count on what you have. Or even the Mohanji platform; the platform gives you a lot of opportunities, connections, visibility, and so many other good things.

If you are looking at what you don’t have, you will always be sad. Instead, look at what you have and start walking; that’s the only place from where you can start walking. This is what I did. When adverse situations were pulling me down all the time, I got up and started walking again. Many times, I got knocked down but I got up again and walked. And that’s exactly why you have Mohanji today. It wasn’t easy. Because many whom I trusted the most, betrayed me and decided to go against me. Yet, I continued to walk. I didn’t ask them why. I didn’t even discuss with them. “If that is the experience you want with me, go ahead, have it”, I thought. I can’t change whether one chooses to love or hate me and I will have nothing to do with it.

If somebody hates you, abuses you, have nothing to do with it. Instead, you can be kindness. Your answer to this world should be your kindness, your consistency, your compassion and your conviction in what you do. If you answer in this way, eventually, the world will look at you with the same effect. This means that all that you express, will come back to you. My suggestion is, do not believe, ”I can’t do these things because my family does not approve, etc.” You can still communicate. If you have a laptop, if you’re talking, if you’re using your phone to communicate, communicate, If you can’t do it at home, because the people at home don’t approve of your meditations and other activities, you still have a phone, you have an internet connection, you have your laptop. Talk about it, connect to people, network, and communicate. Now today, you can’t really go to a place and meditate because of the COVID-19 situation. So, we have to use our internet facilities, our Skype and all these portals where you talk to various people through the internet through the laptop. We have to keep looking at what we have, not at whether the other person approves or not; then fight, get frustrated and then depressed; that’s not the way to live. We have to just keep flowing like water, like a river; we should keep flowing, and this is our ability, we have to really keep flowing.

When I felt discrimination in my office, I did not stop working. I did not protest, I just told them, “It’s unfair!” Then I left it because I expressed my thought to the concerned person. And then I left it because then it’s up to them. But I did not stop working. I worked hard and proved myself. I did my best. Similarly, in every situation, you can prove yourself. You can actually make a difference in your own environment, by expressing conviction consistently, with a lot of determination.

 So, we can change anything. I think there is nothing we can’t change. Change your attitude. If you change your attitude, you can change anything. If we don’t change our attitude, then we will just sit and complain. I believe that there’s no room for complaints. God has given us so many facilities. We must appreciate them. What we don’t have, leave it. If it comes, it does, if it doesn’t come, no problem. But what we have we must appreciate, and we must really use it well. We have that capacity.

 You have friendships, great friendships in the Mohanji platform also. So this you can use very well. And then, collectively, you can create great things. There is the Early Birds Club and through these, you add value to the lives of many people. Your life too will have more value; you will feel that reciprocation, rather it will be reciprocated. This means that when you deliver, you also get a lot of rewards. So, if your family cannot see you as a great personality, society will see you; that is compensation.

I leave this thought on your plate. Contemplate on it. Improve your life, change your attitude. Be powerful. 

Lots of love! This is Mohanji.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopal

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How to enhance your awareness?

Awareness is always available to you like your shadow; awareness is not outside of you. Awareness in some degree is always present in us or in any degree, it is available to us. But what we choose to use is what is actually our reality. Although we are able to tap into our own awareness (a huge reservoir of awareness is available), we choose to use only a tiny bit of it. That is why we are conditioned because our mind always uses only a fraction of what is available; the mind does not have the capacity. You have to go beyond the mind to reach the actual level of awareness; for example, the transformer outside has high capacity, but that electricity cannot be used by this house. It needs to be toned down to the level through smaller transformers before it can actually light a lamp or operate a washing machine; like that, awareness is huge, and it’s available to you. But we choose to use a very small part of it.

So, to increase the awareness, you need to go beyond the mind, beyond your ego, beyond your intellect and beyond the whole setup which you use normally  in the waking state. On a usual day what you use, you have to change the pattern. And the best way is to watch. Watch your thoughts. Watch your words. Watch your actions. It’s not that you stop doing things and watch; while doing things, watch it, observe it, be objective about it. Do not criticize, do not censor, do not suppress, then what happens? Spontaneity happens; you are moving through situations in a spontaneous way. And the further and further you move through the situation spontaneously, there will be no happiness or sorrow. There are only effects, its particular experience, whether it be good or bad, or a particular expression.

That means every being is a unique constitution. Seven billion people on Earth have seven billion constitutions, uniqueness! There are no two people alike; the same way. So, once we know that we are unique beings and why we are here, we can express ourselves in the most unique way. We cannot be stereotyped, we cannot be somebody else; somebody else is somebody else. They cannot be us. So, our expressions are unique and this is exactly what we are here for. Once we understand that and when there are no big ups and downs in our mind; we are relatively stable and we are relatively detached from the daily activity. While we are doing it, we are detached from it. It means we are not indifferent, we are enjoying it, but that is not like a craving or a front-footed affair like we are always in a kind of pressured mode. Then awareness cannot survive because the mind is taking over. And when the mind takes over; many things are possible, many negative things are possible, such as wrong decisions, pressured decisions, pushing into thought, word and action; you are pushed into activity.  Also, the mind distorts reality. There is probably a reason for an action to take place in a particular location, the mind inflates it, connects it to our past. You know, sometimes it mixes our past events into an event of the current time and inflates the whole situation, at least in the mind. It makes you feel, “Oh, this is a big deal, it’s a great thing, or this is bad, it shouldn’t have happened.” Actually, there was no problem, probably it was a very normal situation but our mind creates it. Like we watch a film, some people really get affected by the feature film; some people say, “Ok, it’s a good movie, a good story, nice.” So, why is there a difference? The same thing has a difference in different people. It’s because the mind operates in different ways; our constitution is different. Likewise, awareness is available 24/7 in the most expanded form. But what you choose to use is what is your reality and your understanding. Your understanding level will depend on what level of awareness you’re using. So, the higher the awareness, the more is the enjoyment; the higher the awareness, your visibility is higher, you can see things with clarity, You can see things much more distinctly, clear, based on necessity, so that you will not be interested in so many things. You will be objective, you will do what you have to do, and you will be very clear about your functions as well irrespective of who’s around you, and what the situations are.

Often, we are encouraged or discouraged by the people around us, or the situations around us, or even our upbringing; my parents did not do well, or they did not do good to me, so I am angry. So, we have somebody to blame. All this will change because awareness will take you higher, and say that these are all situational, that situation is over.  We are moving forward and time is taking us forward whether we like it or not. When time takes you forward and then you are absolutely existing in the time as it moves; that means not the time of the past which is dead nor the time in the future, which is not here as yet. You are existing in the Now. This is the only reality. Let me be here now. That is perfect awareness. That is perfection in awareness. That means your operational level has shifted to the now; energy loss will not be there, because maximum energy is lost when you are moving towards the past, entertaining guilt or moving towards the future, entertaining anxiety. These two suck you away, insecurity sucks your energy away, and you feel drained. Why should there be insecurity at all? If you’re eating food today, tomorrow there should be food. There’s an old saying if God has given you the mouth, He will provide the food as well. Trust that God, whichever God you like, but this is the truth of existence. God has provided for everybody’s need, but not for everybody’s greed. This is the difference.

So, when you are in higher awareness, there’ll be no greed, you will perpetually be operating, more or less, in the plane of the Almighty. Because you cannot be self-centred or narrow-minded, with a higher awareness; both cannot sit together; both will not sit together. And what is the nature of God, the highest entity – Unconditional love, nothing else. The operating level itself is unconditional love. You and I are one, there’s no duality. This is a higher awareness. This is understanding.

So, higher awareness is available. It can be easily achieved if you’re able to objectively observe your thoughts, your words, your actions. At that time, I do not exist, a situation exists and a situation has been brought by my inherent karma; it brought this time, space and myself into it. So be it. It’s fine. That awareness will help you to move on in life, or float through life without many upheavals, even if there is calamity around, we will be fine. If society is filled with people who are fine, society will be a better place. Calamities, murders, rapes all those things will not happen because suppression brings forth reactions. The more you suppress, the more is the tendency to burst the wall and come out, eruption happens.

So, higher understanding, higher awareness always brings you into a perfect balance. It gives you equanimity in existence and equanimity leads to liberation.

Transcribed by Padmini Ravikumar

Proofread by Rekha Murali

 

 

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