Guru Purnima Satsang 2020 – Part 1

Question: What is the real purpose of a disciple to do worship of a guru on this auspicious day?

Mohanji: Where does the Guru sit? This is the first question we must ask ourselves. Look at our whole life. We are only looking at a life which has happened from our birth so far, until our death in this life. This is what we consider as life.

All the masters, all the great traditions have said time and again that you are the thing you are looking for. I have mentioned that in my Guru Purnima message also, that you are the very thing or the very subject you are looking for. That means you have got to find yourself inside you. That means you got to do manana (contemplation). When you contemplate more and more, you will start finding your dimensions first. Eventually, you will come to a level where you will see yourself as a beacon of light and the rays spreading as dimensions; that means you have become one with your source, the one that is inside you. When you start connecting to the source that is inside you, you will start feeling the various possibilities beyond birth, beyond death. It means the possibility of the atma tatwa or the soul factor, which has no birth or death.

Once you understand that, you will see all your lives of the past and all the lives that are going to be in one spectrum, in one canvas. What happens then? That means you can see the whole role-play; various lifetimes you have played certain roles, and there is a continuation in between, like a stage in the drama. You go out, you change your dress, and you come back. It’s almost like that, very simple. That means you are almost going out and coming back. There is no birth, no death; just changing over, transitioning. So, once you understand that, the principle of Guru and the principle called YOU become very clear to you.

So, where is this Guru sitting? Inside! Then why do we worship a guru outside? That Guru is a reminder of what is sitting inside: just a reminder, nothing else.

So, when you respect (not only the Guru), the Guru in everything, which is the soul factor of all things, of all beings of nature, you will keep seeing the Guru. This is the main factor, the unchangeable factor. One who has actually recognised that soul factor and decided to settle into the soul factor; one who has found that soul factor from the physical factor, an emotional factor, consciousness factor and still further the witness factor, ( once you have settled down in the witness factor), you will see everything in the form of witness hood. You see everything as a witness. In that state, there is no caste, country, culture, colour, religion, language, nothing, just witnessing the whole thing.

When you start witnessing the whole thing, then you realise what exactly is awakening. That awakening only simply means you are a total witness of everything. You see the whole tapestry, not just the scenes of the drama, not the emotions, not the situations, not even the people acting; you see the whole picture. This is the journey that can only be achieved through our inner journey; you got to go within. You got to go inside, within. 

When you are worshipping a master or when you are coming in contact with a master, who has already settled down within and he is fully established, your worship, (forget about physical worship), even thinking, even remembering, even your meeting, connecting, all that amounts to one thing. What is it? This is the state I’m looking for. Give me that state of yours. The state makes a master. The state where the Master rests makes that person a master. If the person is resting on emotions of life, that’s not mastery. The mind is dragging us like a slave.

When our awareness rests in the body, we are in waking state. When our awareness rests in our mind matter, we are in dream state. When our awareness rests in deep sleep state, we are in a state like death; we are detached. We are only in consciousness. When our awareness merges with consciousness, we start witnessing the state of the soul. That’s the only time we really witness what the soul is experiencing. That is the journey.

So, if you worship a guru, do you think the Guru needs worship? Guru needs nothing. Why does the guru need worship? Guru is not dependent on things outside of him, because he’s fully established in the witness hood, peaceful, stable and happy. He or she doesn’t matter. When you go within, and you start connecting to your own soul as I explained just now, you don’t need any worship. You are happy; you are settled. You are not dependent on the world outside for your pleasures of senses. Instead, senses are existing, but the senses are not demanding. Senses are relaxed, the mind is relaxed; there is no thrust of desires, no push of desires; tranquillity, peace. This is the real state.

If somebody is resting in that state, what would he feel and what would he say? Just be. JUST BE. The highest is achieved through that state of being YOU, being YOURSELF. BEING; only being. That’s the beauty.

When somebody says you have to worship me, that person only displays insecurity. That person is insecure. Why is he insecure? It is because he’s still dependent on the world outside. For a person who is stable within, whether somebody respects, somebody worships or not, it doesn’t make a difference. But if you want to experience that feeling of connecting in your way, as you are, you can do that. You can do whatever and for the Master, it doesn’t matter.

Sai Baba displayed that all the time. As the disciple came, Baba allowed them to perform their chosen ritual. Baba just allowed it to happen. He never said, “I don’t like it”, because there’s no like or dislike; just being.

Question: I want to know, for somebody like me when I’ve not met you in person, how could I understand that you are helping me and uplifting in spirituality? How do I know that I am growing in spirituality?

Mohanji: Do we actually need any help? This is the fundamental question. What help do we need?

In fact, a true master always remains as a mirror, undistorted image. That’s what he gives us. So, he always remains like a mirror, stable and still, and when you look into the mirror, you see your own true reflection. You see yourself in your true form, as you are. And that itself is a big deal because, in the outside world, you are only getting opinions of people. Some opinions are good, some opinions are bad, some are criticism, and some are praises. But between this, there is a reality. You never get that reality from the world outside. When you come to a master, the mirror is so fresh, perfect and clean; you get the real picture. That’s the biggest thing a master gives us your true picture.

So how does a master help? It is by giving your true picture; you realise this is where I stand; this is what I am. The moment you understand what you are, correction is easy. Diagnosis is difficult; the cure is easier. Similarly, when you come in contact with a pure mirror, an undistorted image happens. You automatically know where you stand and where you should be. The Master becomes a road sign with his own life.

What is the main thing happening here? Amidst all the varied dimensions of existence, emotions, changes; HE remains unchangeable, still. So, when you look at that Master, and you see a zero change, unchangeable, steady, then you realise this is the state of happiness; not pleasures, which are changing every now and then. Pleasures keep changing. For some time they remain, then again, you need more. But here, happiness is a state where you are always happy, stable and happy. And that state is what you are looking for. That’s when you realise, this is the state. So a true master’s life itself is the lesson, message and path. And when you come in contact, how do you know that you are being helped? Are you attaining silence in the mind? Or are you continuing to be restless and affected by things around us around you?

If you are always affected by things around you; that means you are only expressing your inherent patterns. It means, patterns or habits have formed, and it’s like a cycle going on and on and on. But a master shows you, that there is a possibility of being still, being out of the patterns, overcoming them by accepting those patterns and not resisting them. By holding the hands of the Master, (as long as it takes, maybe it takes lifetimes we never know), you come out of your patterns of life, including habits, likes, dislikes, opinions, prejudices, etc. and you become free. When you become free; fewer thoughts, less desire, less wear and tear from life will be the result. If this is happening, that means this relationship is working.

Relationship with a master does not have boundaries when I say boundaries, not bound by time. It is a continuous process. What brings you to a master is eligibility, YOUR WILL to experience the higher aspects of existence such as happiness; this brings you to a master. (And again as I said, it is not pleasures of life. We have many pleasures in life. It keeps coming and going, and we are not happy. Because one time it comes and goes, you crave for more, desire for more, and this is a continuous process.)Then you are in a tranquil state, and you are happy by nature and contented. So the contentment factor is the connection factor; you can actually assess your connection with your level of contentment.

Question: If people take advantage of unconditional love, how do you handle such situations? Is there a boundary to draw when you give unconditional love?

Mohanji: We are unconditional love by nature. That is our nature. We are love by nature, and we expand with love. We contract with hatred, revenge, anger; it makes us shrink. But with love, we expand, and that’s our nature; our nature is to expand. So love is our natural process. Love is our nature. But the world outside, of seven billion-plus people, is of every dimension. They are of different dimensions. It is not easy to say or categorise them at all.

Everybody is a mixture of various types of people. So, in this whole mixture, how people respond is completely based on time, space, their moods or the fluctuations of mind as per that time, because of various reasons. So, we cannot predict. We can only generalise a person based on the most predominant attitude. We can never say, “This person is always like this”. Each day could be different, moods could be changing, and everything could be changing. So, we must never judge anybody and say that he/ she is always like this. So, we have to understand that the world operates in such a way where the gunas; the Sattva, Rajas, Tamas gunas are fluctuating, flowing. 

That changes time and again based on various aspects of existence, and that causes swings in moods. Sometimes Sattva is very high; people are tranquil and peaceful, then Rajas becomes high, they become very active, very explicit, and when Tamas becomes high, they procrastinate. So, this keeps going up and down, and according to that, a person will respond. Sometimes when the person is filled with Tamas, they may respond illogically, procrastinate. Procrastination brings forth anger, hatred, various types of feelings: feeling of separation, feeling of lack of love, etc. When that happens, maybe a disconnection happens between the person who loves them fully and the person who takes advantage of them.

Sometimes people think that the people who take advantage are good people because they fail to see the truth. At the same time, a thought may come that the people who love them unconditionally, but pretty rigid in their attitude are bad guys. In such cases, they hate the people who are truthful, and they follow the people who are manipulative. We have seen that in life. Sometimes people go after people who are manipulative, and they realise it much later. By the time too much of water would have flown under the bridge. That means time would have changed, and it would have probably become irreversible. Then betrayals happen, revenge happens, so much of bad blood happens. At the same time, the estrangement takes root; it means separation takes root, so this might become a trauma. But a master you are connected to, the Master will remain unconditional.

In the story of Victor Hugo, the Bishop gave food and accommodation to an ex-convict. When nobody wanted him, the society rejected him and did not want anything to do with him; at that time, the Bishop invited him to the church, gave him warm food and accommodation. But the convict in him could not accept it. The convict in him accepted himself as a bad guy, and decided, “This is not possible. Nobody can love me”. Because the inherent feeling or the concept or the state that he was in, rejected the kindness which the Bishop showed unconditionally.

What did he do? He stole the silver candle holders and ran away in the night. The police caught him, brought him back to the church because he had those candle holders which had the mark of the church on it. The police asked the Bishop, “Did this man steal something from the church?” and showed him the candleholders and few other things. The Bishop said, “No, I gave it to him”. Thus, he saved him again. That transformed the man.

So I always believe CONSISTENT KINDNESS transforms minds. So all you have to do is, not to have any expectation if you are brimming with unconditional love. If you expect people to appreciate, people to accept you as unconditional etc., there could be disappointments. Whenever there is an expectation, there is a potential for disappointment. So, express unconditional love consistently and be kind again and again and again, and you raise yourself in stature, not status. Stature is your ability to be unconditional love all the time. Then what happens in society? Society cannot ignore you anymore. Society will come around you, respect you and glorify you and make you a legend or legend hood comes to you because you have been consistent. 

Consistency is a big deal. Many people do not have it. It is because they pitch expectation into an activity, and suffer sorrows and disappointment. So, this is something which we must remember. Be unconditional, but have the maturity to have no expectations. So you keep giving. Examples are Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi; we can find so many examples. They did not do things for the sake of earning glory, and because of that, glory came to them. Nelson Mandela, for example, He was behind bars in one cell for about 30 + years, that is, for most of his life. But when he came out, he was not affected. He created the platform for a peaceful society.

How can that happen? There was no revenge in his mind. Likewise, various great masters whom we have respected over time, they have been kind consistently, been compassionate, and been selfless consistently, and expecting nothing and that made them legends. Being unconditional is a beautiful thing. But it should have one more ingredient added into it. That is, zero expectation, and that will give you glory. 

Question: How can we be sure that we are doing Consciousness Kriya correctly? And how do we know we’re making progress?

Mohanji: Well, any practice for that matter, say a normal physical practice, how do you know whether you are making progress? In simple terms, your proficiency increases. But in spiritual practice, the idea of spiritual practice is to give you a certain level of stability. So one of the criteria if you are doing a thing right, with the full application, full commitment, with conviction, faith, and consistency; if you are doing it properly, the result would be stability. Automatically, you will be very stable, and you will not be affected by the things around you too much. Things will be happening around you as it would, but it will not affect you as much as it usually would. So that’s the real sign that you are actually in the right track; we can extend it to say with fewer thoughts, less desires, etc.

End of the day, when you are practising it right, when you are consistent about it, and you believe in it, (if you don’t believe in it, if you are testing it, it may not work that much.) then you will realise that there is a kind of stability happening inside you. You are not fluctuated by the fluctuations of the outside world. The outside world will remain outside; the inside world will strengthen. When the inside world strengthens, the outside world cannot affect you anymore. 

This phenomenon, you can see if you are getting more and more stable inside that means the external world will not affect you as much as it normally would. So, this is a clear sign of knowing you are doing it right. Sometimes, you know the method very well, but the effect is not happening because you do not trust it. Secondly, when we go to a guru with expectations and the guru gives you certain guidelines, but then we neither trust the guru nor the guidelines, we fail in the whole thing. It is because of one reason; we have not connected, we have not accepted. So, it’s important to accept wholeheartedly, experiment it, keep trying it, and after a while, it will start working. Maybe initially it may not work, it starts working as you go further and further.

There should be some kind of consistency in your practice; this is very important. If that’s not happening, the results may not happen. We become busy with our thought processes, so we do not have consistency sometimes. Then, that affects us, and we feel dejected, depressed because we are not progressing. Progress means less thoughts. Less thoughts means less desires. Less desires mean more detachment and more freedom.

Less thought = Less desires =Less needs = More detachment = More freedom.

That’s a benchmark which you can actually look for. But for that, you need to connect to your inside world more than the outside world. When we are running behind the pleasures of existence, entertaining the senses, entertaining the mind, etc., it may not work easily. On one side we are chasing things outside, but on the other side, we are trying to come inside, this struggle will continue.

So you must spend enough time with yourself. And I have always done that between 3 am to 8 am, early morning. That is because that time, the world is relatively free from you or you are free from the world. After that, you got to give yourself to the world. Maybe you are working, you are doing things, and then you are probably busy with your life outside. And that will take its toll. It’s okay, that’s part of life. But we got to spend time with ourselves, a personal time. That’s the time you should practise consistently with faith, faith in yourself, faith in the activity and also be clear that you are not keeping expectations ahead of you.

What are you doing? – Just practising. Just doing what it takes. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad. Just by focusing on the activity with full surrender, the results will start happening because you are starting to connect with yourself. End of the day, whether you are a Bhakti Yogi, following the path of devotion, or Jnyana Yogi, following the path of knowledge, or Karma yogi, following the path of service, or Raja Yogi, following the path of consciousness, it doesn’t matter. Everything leads you to yourself. Eventually, you will have to come back to yourself, and that’s the whole path. That’s the whole tradition. So this will happen anyway. This has to happen. So it doesn’t matter whether this practice is right or wrong, etc. I would say wrong practice means you need to put pressure to do it. Right practice is a pleasure. You are happy to do it. This is very simple.

Question: What would strengthen and help the awakening of consciousness?

Mohanji: Consistency strengthens our purpose. When we are consistent, what is our priority? We must ask this question some point in time. Imagine you came in contact with a very powerful master. But you contacted him for some personal gain or personal benefits, such as a job or a marriage or a relationship or some money or a position in the world, something like that. That’s very shallow. It may happen anyway.

But why did you associate with a very powerful Master? What brought you to him? It is your eligibility. What kind of eligibility brought you to a master of that kind? It is the eligibility for liberating yourself from the mundane existence of likes and dislikes, happiness and sorrow; this kind of duality. It was time for you to come out of it. That is how you came in contact with the master. Now, imagine you are still expressing your patterns, expectations leading to disappointments, ownerships, anger, hatred, jealousy, etc. What happens? You stand still! Your patterns are more powerful than your association with something really powerful (the master). That means your patterns become a wall in front of you, which disconnects you from that master.

Then that connection is wasted. You cannot use it because there is a wall in front of you. Your own patterns, concepts, prejudices make a wall, and the wall grows, because your ego enters. Ego sometimes manipulates you. Ego tells you, “Hey, look here! This is not how it should be; he should come forward to you, not you go to him” etc., all those things and it takes you away from reality and detaches you from reality and what happens is that the whole connection is wasted. So, when you come in contact with a master, you should have the priorities set right. And you should have extreme flexibility, flow like a river, and flow like water. Extreme flexibility helps you to progress in drastic speed. 

As I told in the beginning, imagine you have a lot of lifetimes, let’s say 200 lifetimes. As you come closer to your soul, you can see these 200 lifetimes in one frame, like in the zoom, we can see all the people on one frame, all the people who are connected to us are all in one frame, and they are all in these frames. Like that, we can see our various lifetimes in one frame and then we will know that we have been expressing almost similar patterns. Maybe, we have been a man or a woman or a child or anything in each life, that doesn’t matter. But in every life, we have been expressing similar patterns, insecurities, prejudices, all the things which you are experiencing now have been the same in all those lives and the coming lives as well.

So what you are really doing is that with each death, you are just going out, changing clothes and coming back into a new life. So it’s like a new scene in the drama. We are acting scene by scene by scene. If you take a drama, in that kind of boundary/frame, you are enacting a role. And you keep coming back in a new costume, and you play the role. In between, you are coming in contact with a master who says, “I will take you out of this. You had enough of roles in life, you have played a lot of roles, and I’ll take you out of it”. But then again, you have been used to certain patterns all these lifetimes, similar patterns. So what will you say? “Okay, I would like you to take me out of it. But you know what, I have something more to settle because I have left some things on another screen, another time so that I want to go back to complete that. That man cheated me. So I must go back and cheat him. He betrayed me. So I must betray him.” Like that, we have scores to settle.

We have things to complete, which provokes further lives. So in this whole bargain, in various lifetimes we have come in contact with people who have come out of this drama; they have finished their acting, they have already settled within themselves, they’ve understood there’s no need for this drama. They’ve experienced everything connected to this whole life, and they don’t want it anymore. They know it very well, and they have come out of it. These people still hang on to guide others to come out of it. But then our patterns are so strong, that we may even blame the people who are already detached from it, saying, “No, no, this guy doesn’t understand, I have to take care of this thing. This is more important for me.” ‘I’ am important. I factor. ‘I’ is the association with the role not with the actor. This is the problem. We associate ourselves with the role.

If Mohanji associates himself as a guru, then Mohanji has a problem. I’m not a guru all the time. When I play with Mila, I’m not a guru. I’m her father. Like that in every scene, I play a different role. And the sum total of it is what is called this incarnation. So, that acceptance should happen. With extreme flexibility, when you play the role, you play it well, good enough for an Oscar. You play it supremely well, and when you come out of it, you have nothing to do with it. That is the detachment we talk about. We have that experience every day.

Remember, when we go to bed, we shut off from this external world. We are completely detached. We shut the screen; there is nothing on the screen, no world outside. Then we connect to the internal world, and we see the drama of life as dreams. We get tired; we shut that also. Then we go into a deep sleep where you shut off everything, body, mind-matter, everything is shut off. You are totally sitting in consciousness with consciousness. You are sleeping with consciousness. Then you come back again to the waking state, where you and the world come alive. Again you wear the costume of this incarnation as per your projection, and the world recognises you as you are known in this incarnation. But is that you? Ask this question – Am I this? This role play is important in this act for sure, because you play that role, but is that you?

Why do you set boundaries? Why do we have boundaries? This question will happen, and that time we will start understanding the role play. So, everybody’s life is just acting, or role plays and patterns are guiding. The inclinations, tendencies push them to express what they are into this world. That means we are projecting what we are into this world. That means we are seeing or experiencing this world as WE are; we cannot experience the world as it is. We are not experiencing the world as the world is. Instead, we are experiencing the world as we are. What do you see around? What do you get from this world? – Opinions, concepts, prejudices, and so many factors of that kind. Think about it.

The world is full of opinions; it may not be the truth. Somebody says, “This person is not good.” That is his perspective. That person thinks that the other person is not as good as per his criterion. But another person may say, “This guy is very good.” So who’s telling the truth? Nobody is good. Nobody is bad. It’s our perspective; it is the way we see it. We see a person, and if our frequency is not matching with something, we call it not good – For whom? – For us. So, when we tell another person, “That person is not good, stay away”, are we missing heavily here? Definitely. We are missing a lot because we fail to see the truth. Our opportunity to see the truth or our opportunity to be neutral and have clarity is taken away because we see the world through our ears, not through our eyes. Eyes are given to see the world, to see the truth, but eyes cannot see the truth because ears work more.

We experience that in life. So this has to be clearly understood. The world is as it is, but we see the world as we are. And then if you see this whole 100, 200 lifetimes of our existence, you can see the same pattern at work. But because we are getting involved in the drama, we cannot really come out, because each person changes the costume and comes back and we must be there. We are addicted to this play, and we keep coming back: the same people, different costumes, and different order. They all come back, and they all provide similar emotions because they’re all coming with patterns; similar emotions. We enter into the drama, and we really suffer from that drama, sometimes happy sometimes sorrow, but do we see this drama? We must. The moment you start seeing the drama, and then you realise, “Oh, this is the story.”

Do you know why we have assassinated most of the people who spoke the truth? The people, whom we assassinated like Jesus and Socrates, were great masters who saw the truth and told the truth – undistorted truth, but we killed them. We character assassinated them. Why did we do that? Because we do not see, we can’t see. We are blind to reality. We only see what WE are, what is our pattern through the eyes of the pattern. We only see through the eyes of the pattern, through the eyes of our prejudices and concepts. Through the spectacles of what we have carried forward and what we have collected, we are watching this world. We are witnessing this world, and we don’t see the truth. We do not even accept the truth. All these people are like that. That is why racism, speciesism is all because we are eating concepts right from our breakfast till we sleep.

Somebody says, “It’s okay to kill an animal and eat” and we eat. We do not think that they have a life. They have a right to live as much as we have. The right is the same for every species which we don’t see. Likewise RACE. Each person is born in a certain community, and that’s about it. Nobody is higher or lower. Nobody can be higher or lower. Experience wise, everybody has the same right; the same kind of experience. If you touch fire, your hand will burn. The same happens with every race, everybody.

If we start seeing beyond all these seeming boundaries that we have created for ourselves and we fail to see the truth, then we realise, ”Oh, so there is a pattern”, but when do we get to see it? Even when somebody who has seen it tells you, we may not accept it. We may ask mundane questions. What will happen to me in the future? Does that mean you are asking what is the script? Or ask what will happen after my death? You will come back in the same way. It doesn’t matter. What you can do right now is your only reality. Try to connect yourself and try to see the truth now. That can change your future. Not that the future can change by sitting doing nothing, or entertaining the patterns now. Future will not change like that. Future will be future, patterns will continue, and patterns are ruling us. Our inclinations and tendencies are ruling us, which we don’t know. Even if it is told, we do not accept, nor do we understand. We do not allow changes because we are too bound by the patterns. We don’t even see. I have to sleep; I have to eat; I have to do this. I have to do that. You are completely preoccupied and bound by patterns, where your freedom is lost. As I have explained in today’s message, freedom is freedom from the senses and mind, not of the senses and mind. But unfortunately, what we have always been told and what we tell others is that I have freedom because I can go out and do whatever I like. That means being a slave is freedom. When you say, “I have the freedom to go out and do things that I like”, you are saying, “I can exercise my patterns and I call that my freedom”.

That is not freedom. Freedom is a state where you are free from your own senses and mind. Senses are pretty much sensors; they cannot operate on their own, the mind provokes them. So when you are free from your mind-matter such as intellect, ego and mind, then the senses are in control. If they are not bothering you, if the mind is not bothering you and if you are detached from your mind, and in the state of witness hood and mind is not really provoking the senses to go out, that’s the only time you experience freedom. Otherwise, you don’t. Whatever we say as freedom: freedom of choices, freedom of doing things; that is not freedom. That is just another word for living your own patterns.

Freedom is when you need nothing from Earth. Freedom is when you are free from your mind. If you understand that clearly, you have understood the whole tapestry. You have understood the whole thing. So when you are coming in contact, or when you are fully in contact with your own soul factor, then you see life in the whole picture, the whole frame, every life, and all the lifetimes together. That time you realise, if I miss the chance to get out of this drama, I’m stuck again. That’s the time when we realise this connection which you have received in the path of spirituality is worth millions, or it’s totally priceless. That’s the only real thing in Life.

Forget about the patterns and other things. You want to get married; you want to have children, a house, etc., all these are patterns. But look at the reality now. Look at the truth which you have come in contact with. The truth of being you, the truth to be you, connect to you, accept you, understand you, assimilate you, align you, be you and realise you. We call it self-realisation, and that is priceless. You cannot put a frame or a price to it. And the role of a master is to bring you to this awareness, not to force you into this awareness. No master will force you, why should they force you?

A true master will show you a mirror, “Look here, this is where you stand”. “Then where should I go?” – Into yourself. Which way? You connect to yourself through contemplation, understand yourself, and accept yourself. Acceptance is very important. You have to accept yourself with all your weaknesses and strengths. You have to feel yourself as you are and be yourself. This life is a golden chance. Do not chase the rainbows now because we have been chasing it always, in all the lifetimes. Now, we have got an opportunity to be aware that reality is at hands reach. We have come in contact with reality. And this is worth anything. That should be the first priority.

Destruction of patterns should be your first priority. But you can’t destroy something and stay empty. You got to catch something higher. How do you catch it? What will you catch? TRUTH. The Truth inside you; the truth is what you are catching. That truth is inside you. That’s the real you; the witness who needs nothing from Earth, nothing from anywhere. Beyond relationships, beyond time, space, beyond matters, materials, possessions, positions, this is you. You start connecting to that; you will see immense power happening inside you, overwhelming power.

Because you are free, you feel the power of freedom. It is great freedom to feel that power. That power is not to display to somebody, not to show off. The power is big, the power of beingness, the power of being you, you have nothing to prove on Earth. There’s nothing to prove; there is nothing to ask for or nothing to gain from Earth. Instead, you are giving the Earth all your brightness. Imagine, this is the truth of liberation. This is a liberated existence. If we understand that, we have understood everything. This is within you; it is not something which is kind of unreachable. It’s not a tall order. It’s within you. It’s you, connecting to you, assimilating you, aligning you and being you.

The connection with the master is to bring that spark, to light that fire. Then the fire catches, burns you and reduces you to yourself. All other things go away; all the patterns, concepts, everything burns into ashes. Then you become you. If this is really understood, you have understood everything. This opportunity is right at hand, and you have it. This Guru Poornima is the right day to think about it. Sage Vyasa, Vashishta, Saptarishis; everybody came to tell you this story, that human birth is extremely important. And in human birth, you have this opportunity to recognise, understand and assimilate your true self, the truth.

It’s not a linear existence. Life goes linear from birth till death, but that is only for the sake of experience. However, truth does not go linear. The truth remains vertical, always vertical. All the time, the truth remains the same. When you are a child, the truth is the same. When you are an adult, the truth is the same. In your old age, the truth is the same. Truth never changes. But in linear time, experiences changes, perception changes, body changes, mind changes, intellect changes, everything changes. And we confuse ourselves by thinking, “I am changing.” However, nothing is changing. You are the same, you cannot change, and truth cannot change.

So, if you’ve really understood this, you will start recognising the truth every moment. What you get out of it? – Immense stability, peace, tranquility, freedom. You will experience the real meaning of freedom only when you reach that state, where you are connected to the truth yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after. It doesn’t matter what your moods are, what your surroundings are, what your emotions are. Not a problem. Nothing matters. You could be anger, hatred, jealousy, lust, anything. Not a problem. It is a state of freedom. That’s exactly how great masters existed -consistent, stable, integrity, unchangeable because you are connecting to the unchangeable.

Transcribed by Rakshitha Ananth

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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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Q&A – Unconditional love Part 3

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 is the final podcast in a three-part podcast series on the topic of unconditional love, based on questions from a listener. This one concludes following on from the question, how does the unconditional love of a master operate?

Mohanji:  The basic thing that chains us are our patterns, our inclinations, tendencies. That’s what we entertain. We fight to keep it. We don’t allow it to be broken. And that’s exactly what should go to connect to yourself. You are not your patterns. You are not your patterns; you are not your inclinations and tendencies. You’re not your desires, they all come and go. They don’t stay. So, once you understand that, just imagine your freedom.

When a master has understood this, that is what is mastery. He has understood life, he has understood the patterns, he has understood the likes and dislikes, inclinations, and all those things. When has he become freedom? When you become something, how do you look at the world? As you are, right? So, he has recognized what is real freedom. He sees the world as freedom, acceptance happens. So, he accepts everybody as they are, not as he wants them to be. That is their job. If a person wants to evolve beyond their mind, a Master is available as a benchmark. But Master never says, “Become me.” What will a Master say? “I’m available, like a mirror, you can look at me and find yourself.”

When you look at the mirror, you don’t see the mirror, you see yourself; the image in the mirror and the mirror stays neutral. A mirror never says, “You must look at me”, or “You must look at the mirror”, it’s your choice. You go and look at the mirror, you’ll find yourself; you see yourself as you are at that time. That’s exactly how the Master projects you back. Master gives you yourself as you are, at that time. You come to a Master with anger, the Master will reflect back anger. You come to a Master with love, the Master reflects back the love, as it is, as you are at that time, that’s what is getting reflected. Another time you come back with a lot of affection, love, care; a Master becomes that.

So, the Master will be a true mirror always, because he has no expectations. He is total freedom. Just like a mirror, he’s totally free. If your face is not acceptable to you, a mirror has nothing to do with it. Just like that, if you’re not really acceptable to yourself, the mirror will only project that, and you blame the mirror for your face? That is stupidity. That’s non-understanding. A Master operates that way like a true mirror, reflects you as you are without expectations. And mostly we don’t like a Master, because we don’t like our own face, not because the Master is bad. Master gives you what you are. Master reflects you as you are. Same thing. Society judges a Master, “Oh, you should not reflect exactly what he is, or she is, you should give something different.” That is said because society manipulates thoughts. General mind manipulates thoughts, which means pretense; pretension happens, right? Pretension. You have a thought, an original thought, you think again. Can I actually express this? Then your mind will say, “No, it’s inappropriate.” So, what happens? Manipulation happens. Society has masks, face caps, they mask and provide to the society, only what is acceptable, which is manipulation basically. But it is like a small child. You’re able to express to the world, your likes and dislikes, like small children, toddlers – they have no worries about society, they will cry if they need food. They want to sleep, they will sleep, they wouldn’t care what the society thinks. That’s the true innocent existence and a Master becomes like that.

When you have crossed over your mind, your attachment to the world outside, your likes and dislikes are in control, you have no particular interest with the world. But at the same time, you are enjoying the world unconditionally. Then the Master becomes innocent. That is mastery. A sign of mastery is innocence, like Shiva, we say Bolenath – innocent. Because he’s mastered everything. And he is spontaneous, flexible, flowing; that’s mastery. So, they can only reflect what is in front of them. They cannot be different. So, if you ask a Master, “Why are you doing like this? Why are you not trying to change people coming in front of you?” That’s not their problem. You don’t have to change anybody. You don’t have to convert anybody. You don’t have to transform anybody. You are the transformation. And that’s the message you’re giving to the world. You are contentment. You are peace. This message is what you are living and portraying. Looking at it, connecting deeply, integrating into their consciousness, anybody can change to the same state. That option and provision are given, but they are not sitting to convert anybody.

Conversion is a very, very ugly thing; you just change your shirt, inside you are the same. That is conversion. Here it is not that. Transformation.

Transformation is finding yourself. One who has found himself is a Master, and when connecting to that person, you found yourself, then you attained mastery. Who will connect to the Master completely, as he is? 1%. Rest are all coming with expectations, so they get only as per their capacities. That’s why conflict happens. Society accuses a Master because society expects things from the Master. It puts frames, saying that Master should be like this, talk like this, walk like this, behave like this, dress like this. But once you become freedom, you’re a flow, you are flexible. To maintain a frame, you need to have all those – mind, intellect, ego stuff. You have somehow crossed over.

So, how does the Master look at the world? Simple, as freedom; living, walking, talking freedom. Society may not understand that. Society is bound by social, moral, stuff. The society believes this is how it should be, somebody has read in some books etc. Individual uniqueness is never accepted or understood. Associated freedom is also not understood. I don’t mean that freedom means freedom to go and kill somebody. No, no violence. Ahimsa is ‘Paramo Dharma’, greatest Dharma is ahimsa, nonviolence, so that’s not the point here. Freedom is freedom from senses, freedom from the mind, freedom from intellect and ego, freedom from the world, outside world, detachment. This is freedom. A Master lives that, true Master. Not the people who have learned from books and teaching. Learning from books and teachings are different from experience. One drop of experience is better than a thousand books. So, when I say a Master, somebody who has experienced himself, found himself as a Master.

So, this is approximately the answer. Do discuss this with your friends. Contemplate on it and increase your awareness, step by step. Wish you great success in life.

Lots of love. This is Mohanji, for you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Q&A Unconditional Love Part 1

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: Mohanji. This is about love. So, it’s asking the question Q: When is true unconditional love possible?

Mohanji: Unconditional Love is the only possibility. All the other things are relative love, which is loving for a particular reason. For a cause, means loving with expectation. They are all unnatural. They’re all mind oriented. Unconditional Love is the substratum. That means it is permanent, it’s permanent always. Means something which is permanent is unconditional love. And why we do not experience it? Because we are connecting love with something external an external object or an external being, and we decide that we have a choice to love or not to love. But if you remove all these choices you have a state where you are sleeping, you have a state where you awaken and you’re a state where you’re dreaming. All of these states are real. And that which transcends all these states is unconditional love. But how do you know about this? That means, how do you know that there is a state where you need nothing, but you still love?

You have to connect to yourself. You have to look at yourself.

Look at the harmony, which is called you. All the organs of the body, which are different functions are working in perfect synchronicity in harmony. And you understand there is a deep love or deep connection. The connection between all these activities which are happening, which makes you stay alive. That cementing material, or that which unites everything is deep love.

If you really connect yourself, you will be overwhelmed with love. It’ll be like a treasury, treasure house of love within. You do not see that outside. When you’re interacting with the outside world, you’re looking at people, you’re looking at differences, you’re looking at materials. You have expectations, you have desires inclinations tendencies. When all these things are happening It’s not easy to feel love, because we are occupied with all these things. In that mode, very, very difficult to find unconditional love. But if you take a close watch at nature, you’ll see a tree gives fruits with zero expectation. It’s only desire, by giving forth the fruit is that its seeds get distributed and new trees will come. But it produces much more fruits than it actually needs to have another tree. Why so? So, it’s doing its Dharma, its duty to serve the world unconditionally. It gives shade. even to a woodcutter somebody who’s come with an axe to cut its branches. It gives shade. It gives shade to birds, shelter to birds. And it gives nourishment to the beings, without any expectation. You can see this harmony this truth everywhere. This is unconditional love.
Love without conditions. And you are able to observe yourself the true yourself. There’s a physical aspect of the gross aspect. We a subtle aspect, the experience, aspect, which consists of the intellect ego-mind, all these things. Then we have further a causal aspect which causes everything to function within us. Look at all these aspects. On the gross aspect, you have an identity, you have a personality. You have a certain existence, and you are identified as a certain person all these things. Then the second level, subtle level, where you are nurturing and maintaining these things. In both these places sometimes, sometimes you can’t find unconditional love, because desires surpass our feeling of unity. Desires overwhelm. Sometimes we don’t even see the possibility of unconditional love. But when you go still further deep within, causal layer, it has no interest in any of the activities. It has no interest in any experiences. It is completely neutral, but it is love, its expression is love. It continuously assists all the other faculties to experience life, with totally free and unconditional existence. So, inside us, we have deep unconditionality. But why do we not experience it? Why are we not experiencing it is because we have so many emotions, connected to expectations connected to our existence when all these emotions are happening one by one like waves on the ocean. We fail to see what’s behind all this. When all these emotions are gone, you never see a calm sea always, calm in the sense, waveless sea. There are waves all the time. Such emotions keep on happening, we fail to see there is a sea underneath. So, you got to take some time, connect deep within. Go within. I say contemplate, contemplate, contemplate.

Contemplate going within. Deep analysis about what you are not. Anger comes – I’m not anger. Hatred comes – Why should I be hatred. Hatred kills me. It disturbs me. I’m not hatred. Jealousy comes -Why should I be jealous about somebody, I’m unique internal focusing on my uniqueness why should I look at somebody else? Like that with the contemplation, you can remove the intensity of each emotion. Then what remains is unconditional love. One by one layer by layer, you remove the grip of emotions. Then emotions don’t grip you anymore. When you’re fully yourself when your inner journey is strong, you’re more inclined to go inside than outside emotions can’t catch you. Emotions exist with outside objects outside entities, beings, people, places, all these things. But when you go within there’s nothing to hold on, except some memories, something which is stored, such as fears memories inclinations, likes and dislikes tendencies experiences impressions. Apart from that, there’s nothing inside. You are constantly seeing the existence of these materials inside. You start feeding, ‘That’s not me at all fleeting things, something which comes and goes. So, I’m not all this! Then what am I? That’s when you really start connecting to the deeper core, where there is somebody something in you, which needs nothing. Totally free. Unattached with all your activities, all your likes and dislikes, all your emotions, all your desires, everything, and still happy.

So that’s when you realize, oh, there is something much deeper, much happier than this fleeting happiness or pleasures of life. And that gives you that awareness. There is something very deep and unconditional within. You got to find it. It’s like finding a treasure, you’ll dig and dig and dig and beneath all the mud and rubbles there is a treasure box within us. When you find that you’ve found everything. There’s nothing more to find. Meanwhile, we are deceived trying to find something outside of us like a relationship, some possessions, some positions. We are on a mad rush all the time. But are we happy? We are not happy. We need more. We need different things, we need variety, plus we engage in emotions such as criticism judgment comparison and that hooks you to the outside world. If you just leave it. Don’t judge anybody. Don’t criticize anybody. Don’t compare with anybody, you are unique.

If you’re less hooked to the world outside your inner journey becomes easier. If you are more hooked to the world outside first of all you have to unhook; that’s why we have The Power of Purity meditation, unhooking. Unhook yourself from the world outside. And then come inside slowly, slowly. Take one step at a time. It may take time; I don’t even know how much time it depends on individuals. How deep you’re connected to the world outside. If you’re lesser connected to the world outside easier to come inside. So, this is approximate, I mean I’m just giving you a broad picture because unconditional love is something which you got to feel where you are able to love everybody, everything like a mother to the child, mother of any species to its children. How deep is the bonding, how much love? With no expectations. And if you look at the animal kingdom, their love is far more unconditional than the human kingdom.

Speaker: This is the first podcast of three on the topic of unconditional love. It was quite extensively covered by Mohanji. So, there’ll be two more to come. We hope you enjoyed it. And the next instalment will come very soon. Have a good day.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Maja Otovich

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We are the World

Hello, my friends, welcome to another episode of Mohanji Speaks. I hope you have enjoyed the previous episodes and hope you have discussed them with your friends. Probably some clarity would have happened inside. That was the intention.

Now, here we talk about a new thought. This is the thought that many of us have asked ourselves. What is this world? Who are we? What am I? All these things. The point that we would like to discuss here today is, we are the world. The world is us. I’ll explain.

There are numerous expressions on Earth. All the human beings, all the species, Nature, the plants, the trees, the animals, the birds, the water, the air, the sun, the moon, and all the things that we see around are expressions. All these put together is the variety of life. We are also an integral part of that, we as human beings, as a species, and we as individuals. We are all an integral part of this whole existence. This is what we are talking about today. Who is the world? What is the world? We are the world.

We all have a role to play. This role that we play must be with full awareness, or this role must be understood with full awareness. If we don’t understand this role clearly, we are almost operating in an unconscious mode. I think many of us agree with that. We wake up in the morning and we don’t know what to do. We do so many things mostly in an unconscious way, we do so many things just because we like to do it, or we are habitually doing it. It’s habitual, not that we really wanted to do that thing. We are habituated to have coffee in the morning or tea in the morning. We are habituated to have breakfast. These are all habits. If you take our whole life, we are mostly run by habits; that means subconscious. How much is the conscious mind at work? Very little. Because we are often not even aware of our activity, we are doing it in an unconscious mode, because we are used to it. Habits mean unconsciously, more or less, almost mechanically doing it. Multitasking is almost like unconscious because when you’re thorough with something you don’t have to really focus on it, you can multitask. But when you really have to focus on each action, you can’t, you can only do one thing. That’s the real work, that’s a real thing. A cluster of these activities put together is what we call life.

When we look at the whole world, when we understand the world, when we feel the world, we must also remember; we are the world, and our contribution is very important. Many people live and die; we don’t even know them. There are 7.5 billion people, many, many faces, many countries, many people, many types of people, but they’re all the same. We don’t even see them. We don’t recognize most of the people, we don’t see them. We recognize very few people in the world. And these people whom we recognize, whom we can call successful people or people who are known – they have invested themselves or invested in cleansing themselves or cleaning themselves to remove the clutter, and they have focused on an activity, which is close to their heart. And they’ve invested in an activity.

When you invest in an activity, you should believe in it, otherwise, it doesn’t work. When you’re sure about an activity, it can be a profession, it can be an idea, it can be a concept – whatever you believe in, invest yourself totally. In 2003 when the newspaper people asked me, what’s your investment in Ammucare, I said, “Myself.” There’s only one thing you can really invest, yourself. And if you invest yourself totally with conviction, there’s no way failure can happen because Nature helps you. Nature LOVES people who have conviction. Most of us do not have conviction in our actions. If we have no conviction in the action, actions become so weak that they do not get the required result. In order to be successful in life, in order to express yourself in the world, in order for you to become the world to people, you’ve got to invest yourself. There’s no other way. Investing yourself is the best investment. But then you should believe in what you do otherwise it will all be vague. You should believe in what you do and invest yourself totally, and then you can see that you are actually progressing. Otherwise, we are procrastinating. Most of us do not go forward or we have disappointments because we have not invested ourselves in it.

Have we put ourselves fully in our actions? Have we really put ourselves in our actions, in our thoughts, in our expressions? If yes, success is just around the corner, for sure. Don’t worry about planetary positions; don’t worry about the likes and dislikes of the people around you. People may call you crazy, people may call you mad. People may agree with you, disagree with you, it doesn’t matter if you are sure about the activity that you’re doing. If you have full conviction over your actions, then nobody can stop you, you become a powerhouse. So that’s the real expression that makes you the world for a lot of people.

I’m leaving this thought on your plate. What is the world? We are the world! We decide how the world should be. Let us decide that the world should be harmonious. The world should have one religion, humanity. The best religion for the whole world of human beings is humanity. Humanity also means all-encompassing kindness, compassion, unconditional love, and selflessness towards all the beings of the Earth. All beings are the same on Earth. For Nature, for Mother Earth, there are no differences between beings; they are all using certain faculties of Mother Earth for their own gratifications as we do. So, we have no right to control, capture, manipulate, and destroy, anybody or any species, period. We must understand that all the species on Earth are interdependent and not for humans’ sake. That’s a very, very wrong thought – that this entire world is for us, one species; absolutely not. It’s for every species; we are all the same in the eyes of Nature.

So, harmony, humanity, nonviolence, these are the qualities which we would like to deliver into this world, as perfect human beings, as quality human beings, as powerful human beings. And that’s why we talk about getting up early in the morning as the Ayurveda says. Between 9 pm and 12 midnight, the body repairs itself. That means we must sleep at that time. The body needs sleep to repair itself. Between 9 pm to 12 is the right time to sleep for the sake of the body, the body repairs itself. Between 3 am to 6 am is the time when the mind repairs itself. So this is the time when you should get up. And you should feed the mind with good thoughts. When we do that, in that manner, we will see that the Earth is also better because we are healthy, we are balanced, and we give that balance to the Earth, to Mother Nature.

I leave you with these thoughts. Think it over, discuss it, share it with your friends. And let’s come out with something beautiful. Let’s nurture it, let’s perfect it.

I’m always with you and I love you. This is Mohanji.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Shyama Jeyaseelan

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World Environment Day. Be sensitive. Be loving.

My dear friends.

Today, I feel very sad, disappointed. A wild elephant walked into human habitat in search of food. Why does an elephant come into a human territory for food? Because there is no food in the forest. We have encroached into the forest, which belongs to wild animals, and we have made farms for our sake. The elephant that wandered in was alone, lonely, hungry. And she was pregnant. The human breed fed that elephant with a pineapple laden with explosives. The hungry elephant ate that pineapple, which exploded in her mouth. Acute agony, pain and disappointment. The elephant trusted people. She thought they genuinely cared because they gave her food. But the elephant did not understand the treachery, the betrayal of our species, it was badly hurt. It had a baby in its womb. It had to protect the baby. But it knew that it cannot eat food, it’s mouth is totally destroyed. It walked into a river, immersed itself in it, probably to appease the pain, and it died there. The elephant left the body, the soul left the body, it died. Who’s responsible?

 

We are responsible. What each person of the species does, the whole species is responsible. We are responsible for our insensitivity. The basic cause is hunger. The driving force is hunger. We have insensitively expanded our territories. We have encroached into every sphere; dividers, huge dividers, impregnable dividers. The beings of nature have one simple need: appeasing hunger.

The human greed has wiped out many species on earth. It is still wiping out many species on Earth. Today, it’s World Environment Day. There is no food in forests, there are no forests, so many forests are burned all over the world to create farms; to bring agony and suffering to every species. Human greed, human insensitivity; man is everywhere. 7.5 billion people, 7.5 billion hungry mouths, we are everywhere. Our life has become a spelling mistake. We have lost balance, we have degenerated. When we kill indiscriminately, it’s a sign of sheer degeneracy, it’s not the sign of refinement.

The sign of refinement is compassion, the sign of refinement is nurturing and caring, the sign of refinement is being sensitive to every being around us. Human insensitivity is choking people to death. Human insensitivity is blasting animals to death. Human insensitivity is waging wars. Human insensitivity is releasing viruses into the air, human insensitivity is destroying our own species. When the whole environment is destroyed, what will we do? How will we live? We are creating our own grave. Insensitivity has a huge price. It must not forget that.

In the same state of Kerala, a while ago, a poor, tribal, hungry man stole some food from the village because he was hungry. He was caught and beaten to death. The only reason why he stole some food was that he was hungry. We brand people as thieves. We brand people in the name of colour, caste, country. We brand people and kill them. Our insensitivity has no boundaries.

In mind, we have many boundaries, many barriers, we do not people if they are not like us. We do not like species if they are not useful to us. We breed to kill for our own taste, for our own selfish pleasure. We have a huge price to pay for our sensitivity. We, as a species has to pay a huge price. We cheat, we steal, we betray our own species. We have polluted the environment. We have made gadgets to torture, to kill every species. We have sophisticated machines; war machines, equipment that destroys. A refined generation will never do this. We call ourselves refined and we encroach and disturb families. We take children away from mothers in factory farms.

We wreak havoc in the life of everything. We wreak havoc in the life of all beings, and we call ourselves refined. We sit in air-conditioned offices, we sit in air-conditioned spaces and discuss nature, preservation, nurturing nature, but we do nothing about it. We plant trees, but we don’t nurture them; hypocrisy, insensitivity, human greed, there is a price to pay. There is a price huge price. When we continue to be insensitive, nature strikes back. Nature has put us in confinement by releasing a virus; an invisible virus to tackle a bigger virus called human beings.

Today, I may sound bitter and angry; that’s because time and again, we have spoken about the necessity of being nonviolent. Time and again, I have told Ahimsa, non-violence is necessary for our lives; for the sake of the world, for the sake of the next generations, for the sake of the future of Earth, but we do not understand. We are not understanding. We are not listening. We are still going to supermarkets and buying the dead bodies of babies, small babies of various species. And we believe this is okay. It is definitely not okay.

Every being has the same right to live on Earth. Human beings are not special. We are just one species on Earth. We cannot betray any other species; we cannot betray our own species. We can’t kill people of any species; we have no right. If we have to show our supremacy, it should be with compassion. If we consider human beings as more refined, it has to be through kindness, selflessness, unconditional love, sensitivity. Let there be a better world. We have to repent. We have to seek forgiveness from nature for our insensitivity. We have to educate the new generation, the coming generation, the importance of being sensitive and loving.

I leave you with this thought.

Lots of love. This is Mohanji.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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Be authentic, be yourself

Hello, my dear friends. Welcome to Mohanji Speaks. Hope you are doing well. And I hope you’re enjoying the podcasts of the past.

Today, I have a question and this is based on my quote, “Never be apologetic to anyone for being natural and being your true self because you cannot be anything else, authentically.” This is a quote, based on an idea ‘On being yourself.’ So, the question that was asked is, “Can you please explain this?” Maybe this question brings out ego in people and they say, “I am like this, take it or leave it.”

This quote is very true. You cannot be apologetic for being yourself because you are unique; you are neither high, nor low, nor equal to anybody. You are unique. Having said that questions such as these come up; how would you work in the world? How is your disposition in the world? What is the right method? When you are operating from a place of humility, respect, kindness, compassion, unconditional love, and selflessness, there is no way you can go wrong. You do not have to be apologetic for being yourself because you’re yourself, and that’s how the world will look at you. And that’s the flavour you’re adding to the world. You can’t add any other flavour, because everybody else is already taken. So, your best expression is your natural expression in the world. Your best presentation is of yourself, your natural self without prejudices, without masks, and without pretensions.

 

When you are in this world as yourself, totally, you are actually placing your mark on Earth. People love others when they are being themselves. Not everybody will accept. It is certain that not everybody accepts all that we do. Some people will like it. Some people will dislike it. Whatever we do, there will be opinions. The world is full of opinions and opinions are based on individual views, individual ideas, concepts and theories and many other things.

The world is not unbiased; society is not unbiased. Why is it so? That is because society is looking at people through its eyes, through its spectacles. In this situation, what is the best you can do? The best way to approach it is to be yourself, with all your authenticity, your authentic self, which means your total self. You display your complete self, which is the highest of human potentials, such as compassion, kindness, Ahimsa which means nonviolence and respect. Respect, this means respect for everything; even a cup of water is respected, people are respected, everything on is earth is respected. If you live your life like this, your total authenticity will be well accepted. Arrogance will not be accepted. No one likes arrogant and egoistic people, those who are difficult to handle. You know, they sometimes are very tough to handle, because they are full of ego, pride, anger. You don’t like such people, right? Please stay away from them. You know, as such we are also always in a revenge mode, we are against things, we are fighting things and we do not accept things; we are at loggerheads with people and situations. When we are operating continuously and consistently in this manner, society will avoid us and say, “They are crazy people!” Or call one a crazy man. This is very important to understand. People accept you according to your disposition. Being rude, arrogant and unkind, doesn’t take one far in this world. But being kind, being compassionate, being loving, being respectful being humble, helps. So, your disposition is very important.

There is no compromise here. Good words, caring and nice conversations, humble and respectful behaviour, these carry a lot of weight. But at the same time, I still insist; never be apologetic to anyone for being natural, because it is your birthright to be natural. You are natural by birth and being your true self is important because you cannot be anything else. You are authentic, you have to be authentic. You are unique, you have to be unique; you will be unique; you will remain unique and authentic.

With this thought, I leave you to think it over. Discuss, if you like, amongst your friends and share it as much as you can and try to make the world a better place.

Lots of love. This is Mohanji.

 

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

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Japa Yoga

 

My dearest embodiments of pure love,

When the inner and outer worlds are challenged by various factors of our existence, meditation is difficult. One can still meditate if he or she is well established and well settled within the world inside (inner world) and dependency on the external world is minimal. When an individual uses his senses purposefully, and if his mind is not affected by the most enchanting of sense objects the world can offer, he could always bring his senses under control and detach from them at will. We are living in a world of fancy. There are many glitters around us to hook ourselves with, sometimes consciously and mostly unconsciously.

We are living in a world of fancy. There are many glitters around us, to hook ourselves with, sometimes consciously and mostly unconsciously.

Inertia is easy to sell. Television and internet sell it well. Most of the objects that we experience with using the eyes, sell inertia. At the same time everything in moderation, has value. They are part of our life. We cannot ignore them all and be part of society as well, because human existence is oriented in relationships which are the tangible extensions of relativity, the basic substratum of creation. This is also because there is an underlying flavor of emotions spicing up our relationships.
Do remember, anything in excess is BAD.

When inertia is at its peak, one cannot even handle the slightest of turbulences in life. They blame other people for their situation, which they themselves consciously or unconsciously created. They resort to excessive food, alcohol, sex or drugs to maintain their comfort levels.

The sale of tamas is rampant. Tamas means inertia. When we become couch potatoes, it is a clear sign that we have swallowed a lot of tamas, and that we have already bought ourselves into it. When inertia is at its peak, people cannot even handle the slightest of turbulences in life. They blame other people for their situation, which they themselves have consciously or unconsciously created. They resort to excessive food, alcohol, sex or drugs to maintain their comfort levels. They watch sob stories such as soap operas and enjoy the sadistic pleasure of watching others suffering with an inner glee that they are relatively better off than those characters in the films! But they do not understand the most important point:  that they are accumulating similar karma in their own life through gathering and storing such emotions.

Whatever data is entered into our system or whatever is consumed through thoughts, words or action, or whatever food we consumed through our body, mind and intellect, becomes the ingredient and basis for our further existence, this one and the next.

Data of suffering is unconsciously entered into their systems. Since they are emotionally participating in those stories, they are living it or experiencing it. Those impressions are stored in their minds. These will become realities or ingredients of their next incarnation. Some people don’t have a clue about the causes of their suffering. They do not know why they are suffering in life despite many good deeds they might have accomplished in this existence. It is simple. Whatever data is entered into our system or whatever is consumed through thoughts, words or action, or whatever food we consumed through our body, mind and intellect, becomes the ingredient and basis for our further existence, this one and the next.

Remember, inertia sells well because its buyers are many. Food for the senses always sells well. If a new book is released with a title, “Tantric Sex for you”, or “100 new ways of making love”, it will sell well, and such authors who do this for money will be respected well by the society, while people will avoid true satsang or company of an enlightened master because they think, “Ah, the same boring lecture about the SOUL which nobody has seen”, or, “This man brings forth my worst hidden fears into light”. People will choose to keep their fears rather than let them go, pretending they do not exist.

People rather say, “This man brings forth my worst hidden fears into light”. People will choose to keep their fears rather than let them go, pretending they do not exist.

Society consists of people and when it is mostly tamasic people, they either convert the not-so-tamasic to their group or they destroy them. That means the tamasic community makes people in their own image or it destroys them. Digging a little bit into history, we can see that we have consistently destroyed – either killed or silenced all those who spoke eternal truths. If we were not able to do that, we ran away from them and their teachings. Human Existence!

We can see heavily tamasic and greedy people sitting in places of power, which is actually a big tragedy. They dish out ‘believable’ excuses for not performing any positive action. They have impossibility pasted on their forehead loud and clear. Then again, they have come out of the same society that we belong to. The society created them. People will only get rulers that they deserve. Hence it is important to shed the tamas at the grass root level in order to create a better world. Positive transformation should happen in every heart in society.

We can see heavily tamasic and greedy people sitting in places of power, which is actually a big tragedy. They dish out “believable” excuses for not performing any positive action.

When the times create restlessness, it tests the talent of even the most consistent spiritual seeker. This is natural. Meditation and practices (sadhana) will become difficult. On one side the looming cloud of tamas which constantly push one to ‘sleep a little while longer’, and on the other side, the lack of environmental support. The mind really sways. Many give up. Many will become disillusioned. Many change their Gurus, imagining that it is because of their Guru that they are suffering!!!

When the times create restlessness, it tests the talent of even the most consistent spiritual seeker… The best recommended practice during such time is Japa Yoga

The best recommended practice during such time is Japa Yoga, or the Yoga of Chants (chanting of the Lord’s name).

Lord Krishna and almost all the great masters who walked on earth have acknowledged the importance of Japa yoga. “Among the various types of yajna (a ritual or sacrifice into fire, with chants or mantras and materials),  I am the yajna of Japa”, said the Avatar Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita also emphasizes the importance of chanting ‘which destroys all afflictions, sins and sufferings’.

Patanjali instructs that Japa be done for prolonged period without interruption so that we become one with the chant and this should be done with deep reverence and respect. Japa is the very form of God. Perfection can be attained by chanting the Divine name. In this context, I remember the story of the great Valmiki – the transformation of the hunter Ratnakara to Sage Valmiki! He attained the highest possible state of spiritual elevation and total transformation (metamorphosis) by just chanting the name of the Lord Rama and thus becoming one with the name.

Constitutional change can happen when we become one with the name of the Lord. God is the subtlest of the subtlest. In that context, even the name is gross. But, the name itself can be considered as the form of God, where the sound is the form. The sound ‘OM’ can be considered the form of God because God is formless or all forms.

The name itself can be considered as the form of God, where the sound is the form. The sound ‘OM’ can be considered the form of God because God is formless or all forms.

Jagadguru Adi Shankaracharya says, “Control the self, restrain the breath, sift out the transient from the true. Repeat the holy name of the Lord and still the restless mind within. To this universal rule, apply your heart and soul.”

Zarathushtra says that Japa (name of the divine) cures all ills.

Guru Nanak said that the Holy Communion with the Naam is the only means to have oneness with the Lord Supreme.

The great saint Kabir Das says, “Without sincerity, thought or chant of the Lord’s name is not possible. If one ‘imbibes’ (be one with) just one particle of Naam – no, even half a particle, all one’s sins will be reduced to ashes”. This is profound indeed.

Chant from deep within. Be one with the chant. Keep your spine erect, and chant in your spine, if you could. Chanting just from the throat out is of no use. That will just be an addition to the already existing sound pollution. 🙂 Going within while chanting is important and being one with the name you chant is also equally important.

Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti said, “If you rub the mirror of your heart with the name of God, you will see God’s effulgence reflected on it”. Beautiful!!

Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi said, “Mantra is a channel of shifting current of thoughts. Mantra is a bund or dam put up to divert the water where it is needed. Japa is clinging to one thought to the exclusion of all other thoughts, that is the purpose of Japa. It leads to dhyana which ends in Self-Realization.”

Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi said, “Mantra is a channel of shifting current of thoughts. Mantra is a bund or dam put up to divert the water where it is needed. Japa is clinging to one thought to the exclusion of all other thoughts, that is the purpose of Japa. It leads to dhyana which ends in Self-Realization.”

Bhagavan Nithyananda of Ganesh Puri says ,“Japa is a means. Very easy as well as highly efficacious. Through japa sadhana and the vibration thus created, the body gets cleansed and by that the mind also becomes pure and Divine. Continuous Japa will result in nada-upasana and such a state will help to reach the state of Self-Realization”.

Bhagavan Nithyananda of Ganesh Puri says, “Japa is a means. Very easy as well as highly efficacious. Through japa sadhana and the vibration thus created, the body gets cleansed and by that the mind also becomes pure and Divine. Continuous Japa will result in nada-upasana and such a state will help to reach the state of Self-Realization”. Here, Bhagawan talks about the cellular level purification due to the vibration created by chanting. Since body and mind are integrally connected, cleansing happening in the body also cleanses the mind. Sincere Japa with a steady mind on the sound and the Lord, will ensure an all-round cleansing. This is the most effective practice possible in turbulent times.

Saint Teresa of Avila found completeness “when each breath began to silently say the name of Lord”.

Eknath said, ‘Remembrance is liberation. Forgetfulness is regression. Utterance of the name is essential devotion”.

Saint Teresa of Avila found completeness “when each breath began to silently say the name of Lord”. Eknath said, ‘Remembrance is liberation. Forgetfulness is regression. Utterance of the name is essential devotion”.

Shirdi Sai Baba said, “God’s name is eternal, Allah Malik!” Baba also implies that God has no name. He is beyond name and forms.

Shirdi Sai Baba said, “God’s name is eternal, Allah Malik!” Baba also implies that God has no name. He is beyond name and form. But for us, a name or form will be helpful to transcend to the formless. So we should catch the rope of the name and climb to the highest possibility of our existence, while we can.

One more thought and I am off… Tukaram said, “The Lord’s name is eternal. Do japa of Ramakrishna Hari and He will always save you. THIS IS MY LAST REQUEST AND ADVICE!” Thus concludes Saint Tukaram.

Even when we can meditate, chanting can lead to deeper meditation. The name of the Lord, the sound, the breath, the vibration, everything helps silence of the mind.

The scriptures have given a few road signs or guidelines for chanting, especially on its results. Some of them are as follows:

1. This is the era or Yuga (Kali Yuga) where people can achieve the same results that one might achieve through penance, rigorous practices or rituals through the chanting of the Lord’s name.
2. In this era, while mantra recitation needs a certain systematic approach, the chanting of the Lord’s name can be done by anybody at any time, without any restrictions. Hence the best practice to follow in this era is chanting of the Lord’s name.
3. The only requirement that any devotee need is absolute bhakti or devotion or faith on the deity of worship.
4. Lord’s name has the power of fire which burns hard karmas.
5. Those who consistently and with absolute surrender and dedication, chant God’s name will become as powerful as a yogi who has done years of penance. He will be as purified as one who has done penance on fire.
6. One who chants more than 30 million times the name of God, will even change his hard destiny. The lines of his hand will change for good. Diseases and afflictions will leave him.
7. Those who chant more than 40 million times the name of God will never suffer poverty and will be rich inside and outside.
8. Those who chant more than 50 million times the name of God, will have the awareness equal to that of great masters. Their stature will grow beyond limits. The more one chants, the nearer one approaches inner purity. Nothing that belongs to earth will ever affect them again.

I shall leave you now to contemplate on these thoughts. When we cannot meditate, chanting helps. Even when we can meditate, chanting can lead to deeper meditation. The name of the Lord, the sound, the breath, the vibration, everything helps to reach silence of the mind. Chant the name, contemplate on the name of your chosen God or Guru and merge with that constitution, which would be the state of oneness. I wish you that.

Finally, let us sincerely chant ‘Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavanthu’. May all the beings of the world and the whole world itself, be happy and peaceful. All are one. One consciousness – or various expressions of One Consciousness.
I love you
M

May all the beings of the world and the whole world itself be happy and peaceful. All are one. One consciousness.

In the name of the Lord?

Dear all,

While I was sitting with Mohanji today afternoon, I saw him checking posts on Facebook. Suddenly he came across a picture of a young boy sitting next to his mother, waiting for her to wake up. However, his mother was not sleeping. They were outside, in Gaza war. He didn’t understand his mother was dead. She won’t wake up ever again. Mohanji’s subtlety couldn’t ignore the suffering. He immediately surged into action. He started typing, and after five minutes his consciousness delivered this message.

Love,

Bilja

Awareness is the key. An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind. These are not my words. This is a famous truth. There is no way we can buy justice through wars. One man’s gain is always another man’s loss. When will we understand that?

How many children became orphans in the last 7 days! How many children died! How many people lost everything? Who will answer? In the name of what is this? Land? Power? Politics? Supremacy? When will man understand? Gaza is burning. The world’s conscience is burning even if we try our best to ignore it.

Whether it be Gaza or any other country where beings are bound or murdered, conscience must get burnt.

Awareness is the key. An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind. These are not my words. This is a famous truth. There is no way we can buy justice through wars. One man’s gain is always another man’s loss. When will we understand that?

Our soul cannot be owned by any body. Likewise, earth cannot be owned by any being. It can only be used for a certain period of time. What is expected during this time, is peaceful co-existence.

Earth cannot be owned by any being. It can only be used for a certain period of time. What is expected during this time, is peaceful co-existence.

Earth cannot be owned by any. Earth is just a platform. Temporary possessions gives illusion of ownership. Transactions in paper makes us feel proud and money’s worth. But, when we die, we leave the paper and the property behind. Who owns earth?

Who will answer for the deaths and destructions that takes place in the name of land, religion and politics? All people are the same. All countries are the same. None higher or lower. None have the right to oppress or suppress another. Life must continue. When we walk on the blood paved paths of existence, our feet must hurt. Tons of accumulated atrocities and murders have weakened the natural vibration of earth and make it lesser and lesser habitable.

When emotions are ruling, wars are inevitable. Expect the backlash. Hit on conscience causes guilt. Guilt travels through time and lives. When collective guilt takes over, destruction takes place. We may fall lucky to shed the body earlier than the backlash to express itself fully. But, we may either come back or our own generations to come will curse the generations past for taking the soul out of earth, for killing the “life” of earth. None can escape the fruits of his action. This is an eternal truth. To keep a blind eye towards a crime is equal to committing it.

When emotions are ruling, wars are inevitable.

We are too selfish. We only like to sit back in the virtual world and watch the pictures of dead women and children on the facebook and hit “like” in support of the cause, irrespective of whether it is towards or against. We live in the artificial world of make believe and cheat ourselves in believing that everything is good outside there and inside within our own household. The children brought up completely in the virtual world are total misfits in the world outside. Everything happens for them in the virtual world and they cannot care less for other people’s suffering. We never consider even once that inertia has indeed left us totally bound and helpless. The only part of the body that actually moves are the fingers which click “like” on Facebook.

Now, I know that even these words here are useless, I know, because it is not possible for individual consciousness to fight against the gross and ugly collective consciousness hell bound for destruction and death. Useless because the comfort zone oriented man will just discard positive words as tall order and discard any potential for collective action. I know very well that even if a 1000 of us join hands against human atrocities, we will all be crushed mercilessly. The only permanent solution is increased awareness and different system of education.

Motherhood should happen in a more profound way. No mother will order the killing of any children. It has always been man. Love should prevail through motherliness.

Motherhood should happen in a more profound way. No mother will order the killing of any children. It has always been man. Love should prevail through motherliness.

Now, this mail is meant as food for thought. I am with the suffering and helpless. I love those who even help heal a small wound of the body or mind.

I am always hoping for Peace to prevail. Again, collective consciousness is too strong to grow any seeds of sensitiveness. Yet, let us not give up hope. Let us grow seeds in our own garden and distribute selflessly to other’s garden, too.

I love you unconditionally

Love

M