Faith in your inner Guru – on healing the Earth

Questioner: Who is a Guru? I’ve heard a guru is like a GPS. Can we progress without a Guru?

Mohanji: Thank you very much for inviting me and thank you very much for this opportunity. My gratitude to the Healing Our Earth team and all of you.

About the question about guru – I follow the tradition of Lord Dattatreya who had 24 gurus. When somebody asked Dattatreya, “Who are you?”, he said, “I am just a worshipper of nature”. So, the fundamental is that anything and everything around us is teaching us something. And the greatest and the highest Guru is life itself – life gives you lessons.

And if you consider 24 hours, we have three distinct dimensions that we go through without any choice:

1) One is the waking state where we interact with the world outside. We gather experiences and we project ourselves into the world (and as per our projection we get experiences).

2) Then we enter into a state of the dreams, the dream state where we completely shut off the world outside, close the eyes and then go within the world inside. Then what we process here is from what we have collected and stored.

3) Then that is also shut down when we enter into a deep sleep state where we completely nullify all the experiences.

So when awareness is connected to the physical level, we have the waking state.

When awareness is connected to mind-matter (which is mind, intellect, and ego where mind processes emotions, intellect processes information and ego processes things connected to ownership), when we connect to that mind-matter and become fully immersed in that, then what comes alive is what is stored by these faculties inside.

And then we connect to the consciousness aspect when we have deep sleep, and we don’t know whether we are a man or a woman. We don’t know the time or space, we are completely not accessible to this world, and we don’t have the world to access.

We take a rebirth again every morning – we come back. So we go through this process, almost like a pattern. And then we decide that we are this personality that we have projected in the world.  We are also trying to figure out what we are in this world, based on our positions and possessions.

So at some point in time, we realize that this is not really giving us the whole satisfaction – we are actually roaming around for pleasures.

At some point in time we realize there is something permanent and perpetual. That’s a time when we start associating – that the first level of physical, second level of mind-matter and then the third level of consciousness : that it has got these three states, we start thinking about it. It is called manana, not dhyana (meditation), it’s contemplation. That is why various masters have time and again repeated that it is important to contemplate, not meditate. Meditation will happen spontaneously but contemplation is very, very important. The more you contemplate, the more you realize that there is somebody witnessing the whole show. And then it is a quest for knowing who is the permanent, unshakable witnessing this whole show and is always unattached. So this question happens inside. And then we start going within. And it’s an inner journey, it’s definitely not an outside journey.

So as far as the tradition that I follow is concerned, you’ve got to find yourself, and that’s the whole thing. When the student asked the teacher, “I can’t really understand all these scriptures – Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Shrutis, Smritis, and 33 crore Gods! I can’t really go through all this. I can’t understand. Tell me in one word what this whole story is”.

The teacher said,  “YOU! You are the whole story. Tat Tvam Asi”. (You are that)

Then the quest is to find this You, who is actually making all this experience possible.  That’s the way the connection happens.

So the Dattatreya tradition has great masters like Sai Baba who everybody knows.  He lived as a fakir and a Sufi saint. And though he was living in one place, his energy and power radiated in several places. As a perfect avadhoota, he had fully turned inward the faculties like mind, intellect and ego, and started  finding himself. And then he finally found the soul aspect, the atma tattva, stabilized there and settled down. Then what you see outside is your own reflection everywhere. So all the leaves, plants, trees, people, animals, birds, everything gives you a lesson. Because you see yourself in everything. And then you become one with the whole universe. So this is the guru principle that we are talking about.

Guru is definitely not just a human being. Of course we talk about Lord Krishna, as jagath (world) guru. Definitely because he lived the detachment. What he lived for is valid even now, because he was in everything and he was in nothing. Perfect detachment. So like that, there have been masters who time and again came and displayed the possibility of existing without boundaries and full freedom.

Freedom means freedom from the senses and mind, not freedom of the senses. We have misunderstood this concept too much. When we talk about freedom, we talk about freedom to do anything we like to do or to say whatever we like, that in society we can be ourselves as we are. That is not freedom. That is just an expression of patterns. What freedom is, is the freedom from senses and mind where we do not have any kind of binding to anything around. So this is exactly the freedom which the masters have lived, and expressed.

Now when you talk about guru principle, the job of the guru was to live it and the job of the disciple was to connect to that principle of freedom and walk towards it, inside. Go within and find yourself. So this takes time. In my earlier days, I used to go to the Himalayas quite often when I was working in a company as well. And I was trying to find out this me and it took a long time. I did not have a personal guru at that time, but I connected to my spine – being aware of the spine when I’m walking, when I’m doing things, I’m still aware of the spine. And then automatically things started shifting, awareness started shifting, it took me many years. But the point I’m trying to tell is that if you really want to find your guru, you have to find yourself. If you have found yourself, you found the guru. Then everything around is your guru.  All the gurus brighten up when you brighten up. So this is already sitting inside. So that is why Tat Tvam Asi has a lot of value. That means, this is the fundamental principle of all the scriptures. If everything were put together and crushed and a juice made out of it all, you get one thing called You. That is the final thing you can get.

When we walk this path, don’t think it will be easy – because our patterns have become too strong. We have been used to so many things, we have been literally entertaining ourselves and our patterns for a long period of time. And we have forgotten that we are bound by patterns, bound by concepts, bound by prejudices. When we look at a person we decide that we don’t like him, or we like him. This is all connected to how we see the world. Basically, there are no enemies, there are no friends, it’s just as it is, and the world is as it is. We all have our space, we all have our relevance, our activity, we have to do something here and all that we are doing is projecting ourselves to the world and getting it back. That is what we are doing. But once you start assimilating yourself, once you find yourself, then you stop projecting, as there’s nothing to project. Instead you start reflecting like a mirror, you will be like a mirror. When somebody comes in front, you reflect that without prejudices, without expectations, without any kind of flavors – as it is. So that makes you a perfect master, total reflection. That is why great masters like Haidakhan Baba said, “When you come to me with anger, I become anger. When you come to me with love, I become love”. That means that you do not have flavors to project, instead you are being a reflection of the whole world, and that is a very sincere reflection, there’s no flavor. And that is consistent, no change. So when you become like that, you become like a huge magnet because you have no flavors. You become every flavor, you are everybody, you’re everything! There is no discrimination, you see the atma tattva in everything, the soul particle, the soul aspect factor which is in all things, and you connect to that – no barrier. So this is exactly what the soul principle is. And that is exactly what the guru principle is.

On Guru Purnima day, all I would like to tell you that whatever you are searching for is already within. And when you realize that, it is called self-realization. The realization is only of what you already have and what you realize at some point in time is that you have it. So that’s very simple, and all you need to do to achieve that is to spend time with yourself, not in books, not in rituals, not in activities, not with people. You’ve got to find time for yourself, assimilate yourself. For all that you need to accept yourself. Most of us have a big problem accepting ourselves. We judge ourselves, criticize ourselves, we doubt ourselves. And that creates the distance between ourselves and us. We find it difficult to come within because our acceptance is conditional for ourselves. And then the same thing gets reflected in society – you don’t accept everybody, then we don’t accept situations either. And then we sometimes have a lot of opinions. The world is full of opinions, but we have to go beyond opinions and realize the truth. Opinions are flavored because they are situational, and they are a play of duality. But reality is totally detached from opinions. So we got to really cut out all this, these kind of fringes. And then you come inside. And then you feel okay : ‘I’m complete as it is, I’m unique. I’m neither higher, nor lower or equal to anybody. I’m unique, and this is exactly what I’m supposed to express in this world, nothing more’. And then you start connecting to yourself.

So total acceptance is the first step, and complete liberation is the result. Thank you very much.

Questioner: My god, that was so enlightening. My eyes were glued on your eyes, trying to focus on this message.  My question for others. Freedom from senses and mind is one of the most difficult things to go through. How would you recommend this for individuals to go through?

Mohanji: Thanks very much. The first step is always acceptance, self-acceptance, self-respect, self-love. See, the most criticized person in our life is ourselves by ourselves! We judge ourselves, we compare ourselves, and we criticize ourselves when we try to compete with other people, and then we dilute our uniqueness in that way, and that’s the detrimental factor. We say – I am not good enough because of X number of reasons – this is not true.

We are good enough, we are unique. Nobody is like us. Our thumb impression is unique to ourselves and our retina is unique to ourselves, and we are unique creations. This has to be accepted, the first and primary step. And that is the moment we start accepting ourselves, we stop competing and stop comparing. Then we start connecting with ourselves with wonder, like a child. Like you know, when a small child is given a toy. The child will be playing, touching the toy and feeling the toy and literally  enjoying the toy for a long time. And then it really is fully occupied, full concentration Like that, we have to accept ourselves as a unique creation and start experiencing ourselves with wonder, not as somebody in the society (that is only when we are awake).

There are two things to understand: one is pratheethi and the other is anubhoothi.

Pratheethi means we open our eyes and we see things outside and we connect to those things, and we have an experience.

Anubhoothi means even if you close your eyes, you have that experience inside, you don’t need an object. For example, when you wake up in the morning and you say, ‘Oh, I’m happy, I slept well’, there was no material, there was no person, there was no interaction, but still you’re happy. So we realize that for happiness, you don’t really have to interact with the world. So that kind of awareness takes you to yourself and you start exploring that aspect of yourself. This is all simple awareness that we should have. Awareness.  Bodh!

Awareness is the key, when you are aware of yourself and you accept : the 2 A’s (acceptance, awareness.) You do that all the time – when you’re working, when you’re traveling, when you’re sitting in one place, when you’re interacting, just be aware of how you are, what you are, and be fascinated by yourself. So then after a while, you will be fully connected to yourself, and you will be very much linked and happy with yourself. See, all our frustrations, anxieties, insecurities everything is connected to the world outside – all of them will have no value anymore, because we have a lot to see and a lot to feel inside.

And that’s the way we come inside. There are techniques defined by various traditions such as concentrating on the heartbeat, concentrating on the breath, and also assimilating, you are controlling, the pranayama kind of stuff. All those things are there. Anything which is suitable for you is good for you. That’s no problem. But fundamentally, everything should start with acceptance. And there you go, and then be aware. When you’re angry, be aware of the anger, when you’re jealous, be aware of the jealousy. Always be aware but do nothing about it. When you’re constantly being aware, already your witness. You’re taking a step backwards and seeing it. When you are seeing it, that thing loses its intensity. When you are experiencing anger and you’re witnessing the anger, the anger will happen, but you are not angry. This is the difference. So when you take one step backwards and start looking at it, you know that you are actually powerful, you’re not a victim of all these emotions. Instead, you are experiencing all these emotions and you’re still the same, you are completely a witness. This is possible. It takes time, but the first foremost step is acceptance. That is why I keep insisting on acceptance because if we don’t accept yourself; society will not accept us. So this is as simple as that. When you look at the whole society, so many people love you so many people hate you – so you have an element of non-acceptance, which is getting reflected. Whatever you get from society is your own projections. And when that projection ends, then you become a reflection, then the society loves you because they only see themselves in you, they don’t see you. So, there you become lovable. You’re one with the world. You’re part of the world, part of the universe in fact. Everybody enjoys your presence because you are Brightness. You’re like a mirror!!

Questioner: That was a very strong answer! Something I picked up from there was self-recognition, self-appreciation, self-approval. It is so vital to do that, to actually recognize yourself that you are the person you are. That’s awesome. Now it’s interesting, this philosophy, this concept is amazing. I will read the message. I will take home this message. However, to live this message on a day-to-day basis : how strongly do you feel the power of association is? Because if you engage with like-minded people who think this philosophy, live this philosophy, breathe this philosophy, it’s that much easier to be with them in order to think that. Now, can you reflect your message on a day-to-day basis?  What to do, how can we make this a part of our life, our breath?

Mohanji: There are two parts to this question; one I feel that we should not detach from anything that comes our way, we must accept. Because when we detach, there are two things happening: one is suppression, other is escapism, and these two are equal to postponement. We should not postpone – we are postponing to some other time. When fears happen, we look into the eyes of fears. When situations happen, accept them. Some situations may not be very easy to accept. If you don’t accept, they hang on, they stay, they persist. So whatever we resist, persists. So I always recommend acceptance in everything: ‘Come, come, we look into the eyes. Bring it on.’ And that makes you free, liberated, because you’re not hiding from anything. You’re not avoiding things, you’re not escaping nor are you trying to manipulate things. It is as it is. We are taking it, as it is.

And secondly, often we can’t avoid many situations in life. For example, workplace situations – one can’t change them. So, being yourself there is the right answer. And always one thing in every situation, we do not have to respond. There are two ways you can interact with a situation. One is to react emotionally, which we usually do – egotistically, emotionally. And the result is usually regret or guilt. Or the other way is to respond using the intellect and just take it easy, take a foot back and look at it and then respond with awareness, and with intellect so that it will not create emotions. These are the two major ways we can interact with society. I always recommend responding, not reacting. Reacting always leaves some bad residue, which is not good. So if you constantly respond, and you have your time, your space and you respond, then you are always light and free. And then you do not have to handle so much of the hangover of regrets or guilt. So that itself saves a lot of time, because we have to handle a lot of all these kinds of things.

So in this society, whatever happens, let it happen. We are not trying to change it. We can’t change it. So we interact in our social life, in our family life, in business life – it’s all one life, but in all the situations we are playing different roles. And in those roles, just be ourselves, keep responding. And our equilibrium, our inner stability, our peace quotient is very vital for us. The peace quotient, and that’s inside us, we already have it. Peace is a state of the soul. Soul is always peaceful whatever emotions we go through. In turbulences, and similar situations, the soul is not affected. So we are coming in contact with our inner core all the time. Or just be reminded that there is a situation inside, which is completely unaffected and try to imitate it. And then we respond and not react. And this is also connected to ownership a lot. Means we own our actions that” I do this , I do this” , this I factor is sometimes very painful. So instead, like what Krishna said, in the Gita,

Yadaa yadaa hi dharmasya
glaanir bhavati bhaarata
abhyutthaanam adharmasya
tadatmaanam srjaamyaham

That is what He said: “I happen”.  He did not say, “I take birth”. “I happen”, He says.

Life is about happening. Happening means you are actually happening, or life is as it takes place; not that we have created it. There is of course a history for everything, something has produced a situation and something will happen to the situation; there will be a result, but at the same time everything is sprouting. So we understand that. And we assimilate that, and we accept that. We are not the owner of the action. Ownership of action creates pain, disappointments and also karma. If there’s no ownership, the karmic structure is different. When you do not own it and you are surrendered, (like kaayena vaaccha manasendriyairvaa). And there you are detached from your action, and you’re flowing through.  When you are flowing through, you are always free.

And that is what Vyasa said when he ate all the sweets, which the Brajvaasis (residents of Braja) had brought. The Yamuna River was overflowing and Krishna was on the other side. The Brajvaasis said, “We want to cross to the other side but can’t go as no boatman will take us, because the river is overflowing”. Vyasa asked, “What did you bring for Krishna?” They showed him all the sweets and he started eating them. They were embarrassed to tell him not to eat because he was Vyasa. And then Vyasa said, ”Come with me”, and when they reached the shore, he said, “If I have not eaten anything, let the river part”. And the river parted. The Brajwasis went to the other side but were surprised as they knew Vyasa had eaten all the sweets in front of them. Finally they found Krishna sleeping on a bench in the garden, and they waited. And Krishna got up and asked them, “What did you bring?” So they said all these things. Krishna said, “Sorry I can’t eat them because my stomach is full after eating the same things a little while ago”. That means when Vyasa was consuming it, he was offering it to Krishna,   and though it was going into the mouth of Vyasa, it was going into the stomach of Krishna. So this is exactly the point.

The point is that if you are absolutely, completely surrendered to existence, then karma cannot take place. The other side I’m saying is that, when we know that everything is happening in life, and you are completely floating through it, like you’re cruising, there will be turbulences, but it doesn’t matter – the ownership and the pain connected will not be present.

Questioner: This was an amazing tip that you’ve given, and this is why they say that we need a guru who can guide us properly so these are some amazing tips that you should share, thank you very much for sharing !!

Transcribed by Padmini Ravikumar

Proofread by Geetha Iyer

A journey called life

Mohanji Zoom satsang with Ayush Keshri

May 5, 2020

 

1. Why do we need peace in our lives and in society?

It’s very simple. The need for peace is to experience life completely. When it is the other way round, if it is a war situation or a situation of calamity, we can’t experience, because we are scattered. Peace brings us together. Peace means alignment. So the need for peace means the need for alignment. The very reason for taking birth on earth is to experience the many things that we are experiencing in life. That’s the very reason for taking birth. However, to experience it, we need to be together. If our mind is scattered, if our intellect and ego are scattered, we can’t experience (life), we experience it only partially. So the very need for peace is that we experience life completely and it is our birthright.

2. How can someone find their purpose in life, I’m talking about the youth, those who are between the ages of 14 and 24.

We all have our inclinations; we call it vasanas; the driving force is vasanas. We all have our unique vasanas. All our life we are chasing the fulfillment of our vasanas or tendencies. As a child, we have certain vasanas, certain fulfillments, when we become a young adult and then an adult, at each time the vasanas drive us forward. Desires and vasanas are mixed together.

So the purpose is very simple, the purpose of existence is what you are experiencing every moment. But you can have a goal. Goal and purpose are sometimes different. The goal means you set a target for yourself, a destination so to speak, just like you program in your car, where you would like to go. Similarly, you can have a destination clearly defined, so that all your activities will be towards that. That’s fine. But what drives you? We are all bundles of inclinations, tendencies, that is what we are, we cannot extract ourselves from that. So the purpose is to exhaust and fulfil all these tendencies and inclinations and desires, all put together. It’s like a mixed box, a cocktail. So this is what we are here for. And this what we are doing, our entire life. All our life, we are going after fulfilment, of some kind.

Sometimes we get misled, we may think that by making a lot of money we will be fulfilled; maybe not, because that becomes more and more of an initiative or an inspiration for more money. And what happens is, people, make a lot of money, but they fail to be fulfilled because sometimes money cannot give you that. Satisfaction also is in enjoying the wealth and the time. It’s all happiness, we are all seeking happiness and peace and such things. So in that mode, we should live in that moment fully, completely, not distracted. When we are in that moment, we will be completely and fully satisfied. That’s a life of contentment. Contentment is important. I always call contentment, the factor of contentment as a success, not the wealth or the things you earn. Are you contented every moment with what you have? Then, you are successful.

You can see some very, very poor people; but they’re very contented. They’re happy with their life. And you can see very rich people, totally discontented, with no contentment. So is that success? Success is a question mark here.

3. When we are young, where to go and how to choose a career can be confusing. With your experiences, can you help us? How can one choose a career and be happy and satisfied?

Choosing a career is very simple. We have our nature; certain things which we like, as I said earlier, inclinations and tendencies. Our nature is our guideline, like the outfit you’re wearing. If you get an outfit two sizes smaller, you can’t wear it comfortably. Like that, we have to strictly follow our nature, what are we comfortable with? And what makes us happy, and is effortless.

You may choose a subject that takes a lot of effort, or people tell you to choose a subject for the sake of a job or the sake of success in life, etc; people equate success with money. People say a job with good money. You know, sometimes what happens is that there is only sorrow. This is because first of all, it’s not in your nature. What you want is something that suits your nature, but you can’t do it. Then all your life you’re dragging your feet. Instead, the right job for you is one which is your nature and is suitable for you. What that is, only you can tell, because nobody else can guide you.

Some people like engineering because they love to be an engineer. If somebody joins engineering because it fetches more money, they may fail in life. They may succeed in the examination, but they may fail in life. For the youth, I always say, strictly follow your nature, your inclination. You ask a fish to climb a tree, and when the fish fails because it can’t climb a tree, we call the fish a failure. That is how society works. Likewise, you don’t have to teach a fish to swim, it knows how to swim. Like that, everybody has their nature and they are very, complete and comfortable in their nature. So look at your own nature. What is your nature? Based on that, you select a subject and choose a career. You will be successful because you love to do it. Not that you have to do it. There’s a difference here, doing something which you love to do.

It even applies to a relationship. Some relationships bring you a lot of pressure and but some relationships are a big pleasure for you. So the pressure and the pleasure, this equation, and it’s all connected to your nature. You get connected to somebody and that relationship will be so beautiful. It’s like a smooth breeze. But in some relationships, there is always a problem, so that means it’s not suitable for you. Education, relationships, and life, you look at your nature and choose accordingly.

4. Once I decide I would like to go ahead with a dream, but my parents may not want me to go ahead with this dream, they want me to be an engineer, doctor or something else. How do I tackle these issues, how do I justify what I’m doing is right?

Yes, sometimes you have to do something else; that means, you become choiceless, this happens in life. Everything in life is not what we choose. Sometimes you have to do some things which are not your choice. Then you should not leave your dream, you should not leave your basic nature, start a hobby on the side. For example, if you like music and like singing, even when you are studying or doing something else not connected to music, you can still have music as a passion, as enjoyment, and have your natural ability or your natural flow in that subject. It will help you to balance your life. Otherwise, if you focus on, or are completely bound to things that you don’t like to do, then you will have a big pressure on you and you will become older faster. So my suggestion always is that you should have a hobby, which is what you love to do, parallel to what you have to do. If you carry this forward together, you will be peaceful.

5. How do I convince my parents that I want to go ahead with my own dreams? 

The only way you can convince your parents is only through your success. There is no other way. Only through your success, you can convince and sometimes it takes time. You know, when I started moving around and started talking, people called me crazy, because I was doing something else. I had a different job. I loved that job, in the shipping business; I loved it. But I moved to a completely different track. People said he’s crazy. You need to prove yourself to society, parents, and others. You need to prove, otherwise, they can’t see. But that’s because they are security-oriented. They want you to be secure. They don’t want you to take chances.

This is natural because nobody would want to see their children stranded or on an uncertain path. So they guide them to the beaten tracks, the tracks which are travelled by people before so that you know the dimensions of the track. They push the children towards that track because it’s known, it’s comfortable and there is predictability there. But if we have to really prove ourselves, we have to strive for it. We should have that fire while walking the path, which you are guided to walk. At the same time, you should follow what you love to do. With both together, you can prove, but in life, you cannot prove right away, you have to live it. You have to walk through it, live it, perfect it, only then people start seeing. But you must really believe in what you do; so, first of all, you should believe in yourself. You should be sure that you will do this in life, whatever you love to do. Secondly, you should believe in nature, which will help you to accomplish what you want.

There should be honesty and truthfulness in that which you love to do. First of all, believe in nature for time makes success, not that you make success. You can only do or put in the best effort. Put the best effort, but only time will tell about success. So you should not worry about what will happen, don’t focus on the result. Instead, focus on the activity, consistently. And even if you fail ten times, don’t stop, keep going, keep going and then comes success. So sometimes you have to really, really, really work hard before you actually reach success. You have to believe in yourself.

You should have purity in thoughts, purity in concept, and purity in seeing success happening. It will take time. There’s nothing called instant success. It doesn’t work that way.

6. You have spoken very important words. Within that time when I haven’t received success, there is pressure from my parents, surroundings and society. How do I decrease or minimise the pressure, tension and negative energies?

The pressure is part of existence. If we live for about 80 years there will be some kind of pressure or some kind of disturbance all the time. When there is a positive there is a negative, this is part of existence, both travel together. It’s not always that things can be positive, and you can always be positive.

What we need to do is that we must also connect to ourselves. When you are deeply connected to yourself, then you will be confident that whatever you have to do for a living, whatever you have to learn, you will, until you can walk on your own. So, in the initial days, where you need help from the parents when you need help from others, you do what they ask you to do because sometimes you don’t have many options. But don’t let go of the dream, let it be within you so that the spark in you remains and it will wait for fulfilment or realization.

There have been extraordinary people like Sachin Tendulkar, he started playing cricket from very early days and he proved himself when he was in his teens. There have been such prodigies. But remember, the only investment which is really important is to take time to connect with yourself; you will have success. Success is not rocket science. The goal needs to be perfect. If you do not have a vision you can’t have success. Vision means how do you see yourself in the future? You should actually visualize yourself as you would like yourself to be seen. Then you can walk, take a bicycle, a car, or any other mode of transportation, but you will reach the destination.

You start with what is available, and then you increase or add more. You will find that all successful people have started their life against many obstacles. Against all odds, they kept the vision and focus very clear; but it takes time. If you look at them, all of them found success possibly, after 40 or 50 years because they had to work hard to reach there. They believed in themselves and all the people who left their mark on earth have believed in their project or their vision and goal. So, vision is very important and determination is even more important. Iccha shakti (will power or determination), is very important and nothing should stop you. People may say this is not right or people may not approve of you or may not accept you, maybe they will reject you also. Still, we move on, because if we believe in ourselves, nothing can stop us.

7. How can someone motivate themselves to do what they like?

Motivation should be what you want to achieve in life, it should be self-inspiration. Don’t expect inspiration from other people. Don’t expect everybody to understand you, recognize you, and accept you. But what you can always do is believe in yourself and believe in your project or what you want to do in life. That means your goal. That should be the motivation, not anybody’s opinion because people can have any opinion about you. It may be a good opinion or a bad opinion. But how does that matter if we trust in ourselves? If we are truthful if we are honest, we do not betray anybody, we do not cheat or steal, we have nothing to worry. If we try to do something through negative ways, we have every reason to worry because nature will not support you anymore. When you do things positively without any selfish interest when your attitude is selflessness and you have a larger vision, which is also noble, then nature will support you; then the environment will also support you. Otherwise, it’s very difficult. Many people have very selfish dreams, to achieve a house, or make a factory for earning money, and all these things. By the time they earn a lot of money, they are already sick, and they spend all the money in the hospital. This is how sometimes the cycle works. So we have to be very careful. We need to understand that for walking on this earth we must pay, we must give rent.

What rent can we give? Selfless service. Help other people and hold hands with people. When you’re walking on this earth, you should be walking for the sake of the world, not only for yourself. Of course, you can eat, drink and sleep, there’s no problem. But then you need to walk for the sake of humanity, for the sake of the world. Then the whole world will support you, the world will look after for you. That is exactly how success stabilizes.

8. When we decide to do something great in our lives and don’t receive the desired results, we have a lot of negative energy in our minds and a lot of negativity in our hearts. How do we minimise it?

As I said, you can’t avoid negativity. That is nature, and also other people will give it to you. Even if it is a journey in the spiritual path, people tell a lot of stories – “Oh, that is not good. This is not good. This path is not good. This Guru is not good.” Everybody confuses everybody.

These are all opinions of people, opinions related to fears, opinions related to concepts, opinions related to their phobias, prejudices; they are going to give us many different things. But do we have to buy it? Our job is to ensure that nothing enters our system, our focus remains clear, and only we can do it. When we are really sure about what we want in life, nobody can stop us. Then that will be an inspiration. Many people have discouraged me. Oh, don’t go out and do these things, that people are crazy. Sometimes they malign you, at times they character assassinate you, talk badly about you. People say all these things -why do you waste your time, you are a professional; you can get your salary from a company.

People talk like this, but if you buy fears, you can’t discard them. Many times you buy all this negativity from society, just like you buy a lot of things you don’t want from the market. What do you do when you bring them home? You can’t discard them. You don’t know what to do. It’s like that. When you attract a lot of fears, a lot of prejudices from people, and you buy them and you believe in them, then you can’t really succeed because then your own bank balance will be this. What I mean is there will be clutter in your own mind. And clutter means a lack of clarity. So you need to be very clear that none of these things touches you.

You should always make sure that nothing touches you. You should be focused on a pure path; the intention should be very, very pure. The intention should never be some selfish interest, if it is, it will not work. The intention should be pure, and the activity should be positive. If you firmly stick to that, you don’t have to worry about negativity.

Let the negativity happen. Like Winston Churchill said, if you start throwing stones at all the dogs that bark on your way, you can never reach your destination. So there will be obstacles and obstructions. But we keep going. And that’s exactly it. People have tried their best to topple me many times, but I’m still surviving. I keep going because nature helps me. The world helps me, Existence helps me. That’s how we are moving and the right people will come to you; they never leave you. And the people who come with expectations, and try to take something away from you, don’t stay. They leave whether they get it or not. But those who truly care for you, those who really love you, they never judge you. They support you. They stay with you. They stand with you. Those people are your responsibility also. You must take care of them. So this is how you build a world or a large family; a family of people who are really united; they have integrity, and they are powerful. And they stand by you, whatever happens. Even if the whole world speaks poorly about you, they stand by you. With such people, you can build something great in this world. This will not happen in one day. You have to kiss many frogs before you get a prince. So you must be ready.

9. How can someone purify himself?

Purifying yourself is very simple, introspection. Ask yourself, are my intentions pure. First is intention. Secondly, introspect on- are all my actions pure? Are they selfless or selfish? These are two things. If they are selfless, you’re on the right track. If they’re selfish, you’re on the wrong track. It is that simple! How much selfishness do you have within you? To that extent, you are going down on the wrong track. Wrong track means, that track doesn’t have or will not have much life. You will have some success, but it will not last. Eventually, failures will come. Those who attain or achieve things through wrong ways or by walking down the wrong paths, such as, by disturbing people, betraying or cheating people, stealing or abusing, whatever they amass, they will not be able to use easily because there is a lot of guilt in it. But if it’s pure money coming out of selflessness, good intention, pure intention, activity with purity, if that happens, then it provides good energy in your house. It is not just for you, all those who are associated with you will have a great life ahead. So what we should focus on is, to ensure that zero selfishness exists in our activity, in our life, in our mission.

There should be zero negativity in our intention. No negativity and negativity means selfishness. Even if you get an opportunity to cheat somebody, never take it. If somebody says that you can do this, nobody will see it, don’t do it because whatever affects your conscience is very, very important. Conscience is your guard, protecting guard, protecting armour for your own self, your own stability.

Never, never, never do anything against your conscience. Conscience should be very clear, and for conscience to be clear, your activity should be pure. This is a very good test. You can do it to yourself – is your conscience compromised? If your conscience is compromised, don’t enter there. I mean conscience, not consciousness. Don’t do that job. If your conscience is intact, your activity is good. That means it is selfless. That means the activity is honest, compassionate, and kind. Such activities will always enhance the strength of your conscience.

10. Is there a connection between success, love and relationship? 

All relationships are experiences. We have multiple relationships in a lifetime. They are all giving us certain flavours in life. They’re all experiences. Love is our nature. Love is the basis of our existence. Love is not something that we cultivate; we have it. It’s like a realization, self-realization. Self is already existing. At a certain point in time you realize that self, that’s what we call self-realization. Not that something is coming from outside. Self, or the soul, is already existing, inside. Like that, love is already existing, inside.

And how love gets eclipsed is when the other emotions come, like anger, hatred, jealousy, revenge. All this negativity will pull you down. They are negative, draining emotions. So, emotions that drain us, come in and overlap the love, but love still remains love and will never be lost.

The love that we mostly are talking about on social grounds is between a man and a woman. But that’s one part of it. There is much more to it. There are a father and child love, the mother and child love; we have so many relationships without expectations. They are all based on unconditional love.

And there are so many other relationships, for example, our connection to the air, the oxygen that we breathe; there is a love in it. Nature loves us, that’s why we have oxygen, otherwise, we’ll be dead. And like that everything has love involved in it. Love should be seen from a much larger perspective. As regards relationships, they change. With our life, it changes right from childhood till death, relationships change, the flavours change and we have different experiences. At each stage we have different flavours and experiences; this is all part of life. So relationships are our experiences of being human beings, of being human. All the experiences are connected with multiple relationships. And I would say that you experience every relationship because that’s all part of your existence. And also in a relationship, there should be a deep element of respect. We should respect relationships. We should appreciate relationships. We should honour relationships so that each relationship will be pure and kind. Otherwise, if we try to take relationships for granted, if we take a relationship as a nuisance, then what happens is there are a lot of conflicts, and the conflicts leave scars, and those scars sometimes take time to heal. Instead, we could appreciate; even if there is an enemy you appreciate because that man became eligible to be your enemy. As you might know, everything is based on eligibility. All things in life come with eligibility. So that person, an enemy, became eligible to be your enemy, good enough. Everything is fine. We experience certain flavours even from enemies, whether we like it or not. Maybe he disturbs you, doesn’t matter. But we experience that flavour. In life, we should experience every flavour. So it’s not just a man and a woman relationship.

Of course, inspiration happens in the youth when a boy meets a girl and that’s an amazing feeling. Experience it, that’s good. That’s the time to experience it. You can’t experience that at 60. (laughs) Each time, each location, each space in time, we have different sets of experiences, and when we put it all together, we call it life. If you want a life well-lived, you have to live in the time appropriate for you in the appropriate way. I never call anything good or bad. I never judge. But one thing I tell you, never involve yourself in cheating, stealing or betraying. It is important especially, to never betray trust because that is our integrity. If we really want to be good, powerful human beings, no betrayal, no cheating, no stealing, no lying, so that you are you’re expressing yourself powerfully in this world. We have every right to do that. And we must.

 

Transcribed by Shyama Jeyaseelan

Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan

 

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