Personal Effectiveness

Welcome to Mohanji speaks.

Hello, my dear friends,

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is Mohanji for you.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopal

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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 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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These podcasts are to transform you

Hello, my dear friends. This is Mohanji.

Welcome to the podcast.

Today I would like to answer a question which somebody had posed to me. This is about the podcast itself. He asked the question, “Why don’t you add more matter to your talks? Even if it’s a bit longer, it’s fine.”

So my answer is, I have started this podcast not to give you answers, but to give you questions, to give you food for thought. There is a very important concept in the world of knowledge. A good teacher should show a student where to look but not what to see. If I tell you what to see, then there is no creativity for you. Your creativity is stunted. So my job is to just give you certain thoughts, certain questions, which should mature in your own mind through discussions, through sharing, through talking about it, so that it transforms you. This is my intention, not to give you so many ideas. We have done so many videos to give you answers of that kind. The reason for this podcast is not to teach you anything, I have nothing to teach you. Instead, I have some thoughts to give you, which can probably grow and mature in your own mind. So if you use this well; if you use this for your own thought processes, or you contemplate on it, you share with others and discuss it, and formulate certain ideas; that is the kind of maturing which I expect out of this podcast.

So, it’s not just to listen and forget; it’s not to get answers; instead, it is to think. The very reason for these podcasts are to convey this idea that we are all unique, we all have our thought processes, we have our inclinations, we have our tendencies, we have complete uniqueness. What can you do out of this uniqueness? Create a unique understanding; create unique expressions. So this is exactly what I want out of this podcast.

I would like you to mature these thoughts are in your mind and let the seed become a tree. And also, I’m making sure that all these thoughts are positive. We’re not trying to discuss negative thoughts. We are not trying to bring talks about people. We’re not talking about concepts and prejudices; anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge; this is not our subject. We talk about love, we talk about gratefulness, we talk about various aspects which nurtures you, enriches you, empowers you. This is what we would like to discuss. So, your thoughts are welcome.

I got a question, “Why don’t you talk about love?” So I said, I have spoken about love a lot of times. When we talk about love – we talk about love which is our very nature, it is unchangeable. It’s the same every time. There is no change at all. When we talk about love between human beings, love for materials, love for positions; that’s all temporary. That’s all waking state affairs. Let’s not confuse between the real love and the waking state expressions of love. When all other emotions end, what remains is love, just like our self. When we talk about self-realization, it’s only a realization of what is already sitting inside you. Like that, love is sitting inside you. Love and self are the same, love and God are the same, love and guru are the same. So, don’t equate that love with the transactional love in a man-woman relationship or love for materials, wealth, possessions, positions; that’s all very small and short – abbreviated form of real love.

So, let me reiterate, the reason for these podcasts is not to educate. It is to give you food for thoughts. I would like you to digest them as much as you can. Ask me questions, we discuss so that eventually we will see ourselves transforming without our knowledge; as we are growing without our knowledge, as we are evolving without our knowledge. There is no time limit for this, there’s no age limit for this. So all we need to have is just that fire inside; that fire to understand, to assimilate, to align, the fire to transform. If you have that fire inside, that kind of attitude, then these foods for thoughts will grow very, very rapidly within. And it will definitely help you to see the world differently, see your life differently. So this is something which I would like you to understand.

And then people ask, “Is there an age limit?” What age limit? Until you die, you can grow, you can evolve. And also there is a concept that at 50, a person attains his death, and from 50 onwards, it’s a new life. So 50 onwards, we are to start from one. It’s an interesting concept because, by the time you’re 50, you’ve completed one set of your life, that means half a century, then you’re starting again. So if we are in that mode, we understand and sometimes you can see in life that at 50, you transformed, you changed, something changed inside. This is also possible to see, there is no age limit. There is no age at all. Age is just a concept. Age is not at all a reality that way. You know, when you say age, it’s about physical age we’re talking about, but that’s not important. What is important is your attitude, the attitude to transform; your attitude to destroy your comfort zones and evolve. This is important.

So I would like to leave you with these thoughts anyway. I hope you understood the idea behind this podcast. It’s not to educate, but it is to inspire you to think.

Lots of love.

Transcribed by Ulla Bernholdt

Proofread by Rekha Murali

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