Janujee, Author at FISU Meditation

The Way, the Truth, and the Life: The Universal Message of Truth and Love

Acceptance, Attitude, Buddha, Christ, Consciousness, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Enlightenment, Eternal, Eternity, God, Guru, Gurushakti, I and my Father are one, Joy, Krishna, Light, Love, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mind, Omnipresent, Purity, Samskaras, Self, Soul, Spiritual, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Surrender, Universal, Universe

THERE IS ONLY ONE CONSCIOUSNESS When Jesus said: “I am the way. I am the life. I am the truth.” Which “I” did he speak about? Jesus never said that as Jesus the body, but he said that as Christ. There is a difference between Jesus, the embodied little being and Christ, the Universal Consciousness. To become one with the Father, one has to reach that level of consciousness, and that level assumes or becomes just as vast as God, and then honestly, you can say, “I and my Father are One” – for there is no other way at all without achieving this consciousness. You could call it Christ consciousness, Buddha consciousness, or Krishna consciousness; it means the same: the emphasis is not on the man’s name. The emphasis is on consciousness, the totality of consciousness, pure consciousness, which embraces the entire universe. So those sayings are very accurate, and that is the only way, and the only way can be the truth. THERE IS ONLY LIFE, AND LIFE IS LOVE, AND LOVE IS GOD Everything is alive. There is no such thing as death. Nothing can die. It is only because of your conception that you say when I leave this body, “I am dead”. Which part of you says you are dead? You will not even know it. Someone else will say, “Oh, Guruji died.” No, they will never say that. The day I say, “He passed over.” There is only life, and life is that love, and love is that God. The way, the truth, and life are different aspects of the same thing. He who can live life lives God. But we do not live life; we only exist like anything else, like even a piece of stone that exists. But we think we live because we walk around, talk, believe, do this, and do that. Is that life? If it was life, then why are there contradictions in our lives? Life itself has no contradiction. How come all the conflicts come about if we live life? So, we have forgotten what life is. We only have a peripheral view of things and not the centre. We live off-centred. How will the wheels go if you have a cart and the hub is not in the centre? They will not turn smoothly, and that is why our lives are not turning smoothly. Therefore, you go through this guff, guff, guff. THE INNER SELF OF MAN REQUIRES NO TRANSFORMATION Our spiritual practices aim to bring us to our centre; the centre is life. The centre should control the periphery, like in a wheel with its spokes and the rim, so that the wheel can run smoothly. We live in the peripheral world that we are so conversant with, and only the true spiritual seeker will try to find the centre. I made a massive study where I found that when people join a spiritual organisation in the beginning, ninety-eight per cent of people do not enter it because they want to see the centre or find Divinity; they join it because of all kinds of troubles they go through. This could be emotional, physical, domestic, or job problems. That is why they start on the spiritual path, but they have started, which is begun. These things would smooth themselves out, by going nearer and nearer to the centre. We have been hearing of many of the experiences of our meditators, and they just find it so miraculous this mercy, which we call Gurushakti, that such transformations come. You are not transforming the centre; the centre is perfect. You are changing the spokes and the periphery and fitting it into the centre. That is the transformation of man; for the inner self, the centre, no transformation is required. Transformation means change, while the centre in man is changeless. As soon as Divinity starts changing, it loses its Divineness, and yet, the periphery we see, the unbalanced wheel, is an expression. WHEN ONE APPROACHES THE CENTER OF ONESELF, THE PERIPHERY BECOMES PERFECT TOO Now let us look at this differently: if everything emanates from the centre, why is the rim buckled and not running smoothly? Goodness can only come from goodness. Manifestation comes from the Manifestor, and every Manifestor is Divine, so its manifestation must be Divine. From a rose, you will have a rose fragrance. From a Jasmine, you will have a jasmine fragrance. True or not, but then why this? Is there any reality at all in this? There is no reality in the world you see around you. We live primarily in an illusory world. In his Vedantic philosophy, Shankara would say that you perhaps go through a street in the semi-dark, see a piece of rope lying there, and mistake it for a snake. But on close examination, you find it is not a snake. It is a piece of rope. So, when one approaches the centre of oneself, what happens to the periphery that seems imperfect? They, too, become perfect, and when you observe the perfection even in the manifestation, only you would say, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” for then you see everything to be Divine, even the buckled wheel is Divine. So why not “That guff, guff, guff.” IT IS ONLY THE EGO SELF THAT EXPERIENCE THE BUMP We are experiencing that because we bumped the cart through our samskaras and past lives, and it is only the ego self that is experiencing that, not the authentic self in you. When we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we will look at everything from the hub, the centre and every imperfection which the ego self conceives of; you will find that, too, will seem perfect by not looking at it from the mind and ego centre. Therefore, we say, “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.” But which part of you is the beholder? Your centre or the periphery? As we go deeper

The Essence of Union: Understanding the True Purpose of Marriage

Bliss, Compassion, Effort, Enlightenment, Evolve, God, Happiness, Heart, Joy, Kindness, Love, Meditation, Oneness, Relationships, Self, Spirit, Spiritual Practices, Universal, Universe

WHY GET MARRIED? In every man, there is a bit of a woman, and there is a bit of a man in every woman. But if they are in equal proportion, then you become a homosexual. No man can achieve enlightenment without going through the experiences of a woman. So, in a previous life, all of you guys must have had some lives as women as well, and therefore, that bit of woman in a man is a carry-over from previous lifetimes. You will find that men and women are built with different qualities. The man is the breadwinner, the hunter. Since primitive times, he has been the one who brings home the bread and beans. At the same time, the woman has certain qualities like tolerance, patience, kindness, and compassion. She has all those gentler qualities to make her fit to become a mother. A mother could never look after a child well if she has not got kindness, patience, compassion and all those things. So, marriage is for one purpose, where the qualities of man and woman can combine. In love for each other, the woman imparts her qualities to the man, and the man imparts his qualities to the woman so that wholeness can occur. And marriage is one of the best ways to learn these qualities. MARRIAGE IS A PARTNERSHIP Linda loves David very much. Why? It is because it is an overwhelming thing that wells up in her heart. She does not analyse it that David is so handsome and his lovely blue eyes and what-have-you. No, that does not matter. I told my wife so many, many times she is a beautiful woman, that even, God forbid, even if she has an accident and gets shrivelled and burned, I will love her just as much because I do not love the outer shape that she is. I love her inner Self, which is God. So, before you love your spouse, you love God first because God is love. Marriage is a partnership, in or out of wedlock. In wedlock, there is more caring, more responsibility and things like that, and it helps them grow and evolve. So, it is an outstanding institution. And then, little Bubba is born, and both care for the little child. Look at all the goodness that is coming out of us. We will do anything for the child. Even if the child is crying, the mother or father will wake up at two, three, or four in the morning to see the child. A woman has a certain quality; you can call it a kind of telepathy, that if something is going wrong with the child, she just suddenly wakes up and goes and sees the child. Some of you married women that have children, you will know. These things happen, and this forms coordination. If this coordination can be formed between two or three people, it can expand more and more so that you start loving the whole town, the whole country, the whole world, and the entire universe. Of course, the love between husband and wife is different from the universal love you develop, and that is what life is all about. THE INNER SELF IS THE IMPORTANT THING Marriage is an institution created by man. God did not create marriage, and man created marriage for more significant social stability. Till death do us part. That is one of the things you say when you get married. I say, “Even death shall not part us.” That is my view because my Spirit has become so at-one-ment with yours that even death, shedding these stupid little bodies, cannot affect you. Do you know what this body is worth? It is worth one dollar and twenty cents if it is brought down into its chemical components. That is taking into consideration inflation as well. The important thing is our inner Self, which is helped so, so much through meditation and spiritual practices. Through sincerity, through self-help, you try to help yourself. You know the saying; God only helps those that help themselves. We do not just sit in our seats; we do something about it, also. And combining all these things makes our lives much happier and more conducive to living. And we feel the throb of energy going through us vibrating, jubilant, joyous, blissful, ecstatic. I could empty the whole dictionary for you there. THE WEDDING FORM IS FOR SECURITY Many times, mainly in Western countries, we find people that live together without being legally married or without a piece of paper, and they feel guilty about it. And they come and speak to me, and I say you do not feel guilty about it. That piece of paper is of no sense, of no use. That is just made for the security of the woman or the man’s safety so that no economic injustice is done to them and the children can also be protected. That is all there is. The paper we find in the toilet is even better than marriage certificate paper and is much nicer and softer. But if you live together, by all means, you have my blessing, but be sincere. Be sincere, be truthful. Be truthful. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1984 – 43

The Absolute Within: Discovering Your True Pure Self

Awareness, Bliss, Buddha, Christ, Consciousness, Divinity, Evolution, Force, Heart, Joy, Krishna, Law of opposites, Light, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mind, Philosophy, Purity, Relative World, Self, Self-integration, Self-Realization, Spiritual Practices, The Absolute, The Abstract, The Three Gunas, Unity

EVERYTHING IS PURE The absolute is forever a pure entity, and being a pure entity is always a simple entity. All the relativity that we perceive around us is always very complex. Primal simplicity has become complicated, and we have forgotten how to recognise clarity because of the complexity. It is through this process that the pure seems to become impure. It is in the same way that the water vapour becomes a solid block of ice. Water vapour does not harm you, you walk through it, but the solid block of ice blocks you. So, melt the block of ice, and that block of ice is there in the Heart, and as that is melted, it becomes vapour, and when it becomes vapour, we march through it to our real nature, which is Divinity, the forever pure. What is the reason why and wherefore, and how has simplicity become a complexity? This has been a philosophical question debated throughout the ages, and no philosopher has ever been able to give an intellectual answer. The reason is that the primal simplicity, which we know as Divinity, is infinite, and man’s mind is finite. The finite mind could never comprehend that which is infinite. A question of this nature can only be answered in a parable form, which is why great teachers like Krishna, Buddha and Christ used the parables because the abstract value of Divinity can only be interpreted to a limited degree in symbol form. All parables are symbols because the mind works linearly from A to Z. The infinite existence does not operate in a linear form because it does not need to progress from A, B, and C to Z, it is a continued existence, and all the A, B, C, D, E, F, G exists at the same time. When it exists at the same time, then there is no space and no time. All the dimensions man’s mind can think of is here and now, but because the intellect does not have the full comprehensive ability of comprehension, it cannot take in the entire existence at one glance, that is, in the area of Divinity. Man can only see a section at a time, yet the units one sees one at a time are not perfect because if you put five people together and each one sees the same object, they will have a different interpretation of the same object. This proves that man’s mind functions according to its particular level. Because of these levels, comprehension is incomplete, which is why the mind cannot see the whole. Because it cannot see the whole, it sees parts which logical, and all the problems and all the inconsistencies and all those things that seem impure we see to be impure because of our limited vision. Meanwhile, in reality, everything is pure. Only the unreality of the mind imparts impurity to that which is pure, and that is why we have the old saying that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. A particular object might seem ugly and impure to one person, while the same thing would seem very beautiful to another person. That is why a highly evolved person in communion with Divinity only sees the good in everything, and there have been men of that stature like Buddha, Krishna and Christ. BE YOUR REAL PURE SELF When the greatest sinner like Mary Magdalene, the prostitute, came to the Lord Jesus Christ, he saw in Mary the inner essence of purity, and that is why he said, “I forgive you, my daughter, but sin no more,” that means that be your real pure Self and discard this limited view which your mind and body has given to you. Jesus could see the person as a total whole, while the ordinary people at that time could only see her as a bad woman, and everyone wanted to stone her. To comprehend purity, we must have that developed awareness, achieved through meditation. I will give you an example; we can use the sun analogy. It is through the sun’s heat that water vaporises into the sky, the same water vapour raised by the sun becomes condensed, and when it becomes condensed, it forms a cloud, and most times dark clouds, the sun is not affected. Yet, the cloud created by the sun obscures the sun and down here on earth, we find it dark. So, the pure sun has been the cause of the cloud, and that cloud has produced darkness, which is the process of nature. So, because of our limited conceptions, we only see the darkness and the cloud and never think of the sun above, which is pure. Yet, the essence of the sun is there in the darkness and the cloud because it is light that has created darkness. THE RELATIVE SPHERE OF LIFE ALWAYS HAS ITS OPPOSITES When we see light and darkness, we look at the pair of opposites, and everything in the relative sphere of life always has its opposites. Pain and pleasure, light and dark, black and white, everything has its pair of opposites; it has polarity. It is like a stick with two ends, where pleasure is at one end and pain is at the other end. Goodness at one end and badness at the other end because one cannot exist without the other. Through understanding and realisations, awareness of the mind and opening of the Heart through our practices, we perceive from the ends of the stick to the middle, and when we reach the centre, the limitations do not affect us; we are in the middle. If you take a stick and try to put it on your finger at the end, it cannot balance; it falls, but if you put the stick right in the middle of your finger, it stays in balance. It is, therefore, a practical demonstration. In our lives, the same thing happens through our spiritual practices. We leave the ends

Meditation and Spiritual Practices: The Spiritual Art of Transforming Aggression

Ancient Sages, Buddha, Christ, Darshan, Divine, Divinity, Force, God, Guru, Heart, Krishna, Love, Meditation, Mind, Path, Peace, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Practices

HOW TO HANDLE AGGRESSION? You can become non-aggressive yourself, but you cannot change this world. Rama tried nine thousand years ago. Buddha tried two and a half thousand years ago. Jesus tried two thousand years ago, yet the same form of aggression remains. Even in Jesus’ time, there was so much aggression that he was hanged on the cross. Look at that aggression against such a God on earth. Aggression will always be there, but we, as meditators or some of you that are not yet, would become so; we take away the aggression from ourselves through meditation and spiritual practices. When you are freed from aggression, remember that the people you encounter will feel that non-aggressiveness in you. In Sanskrit, it is called Ahimsa, non-aggression. You will feel it within yourself, and when you feel it within yourself and live it, then whoever’s path you cross, they too will become non-aggressive because everything emanates a specific force, a certain energy. ALL OF US ARE EMANATING A CERTAIN ENERGY Every one of you is emanating a special force, a specific energy. Even this flower is emanating its fragrance or whatever. There is an emanation all the time, and if you emanate peace because you are peaceful inside, then others around you will feel that peace too. I have never known anyone in this world, and I do not speak from books; I only speak from personal experiences; I do not know anyone who hates me because I love everyone. So how can they hate me if I love everyone? You radiate that peace; you radiate that power; you radiate that force of Divinity. So how can you hate? And hatred is behind all aggression. An imbalance also backs up aggression; you can call it psychosis, neurosis or whatever terminology you want to use. But that, too, is created by oneself. Anything that you make, you can uncreate always. There is no such thing as impossible. If I quarrel with my wife, for example, it must have happened about thirty-odd years ago, but by the time I get to bed, there is no quarrel. Therefore, if you sleep in twin beds, chuck them out and buy a double bed. An average person has an aura; it radiates to the extent of six feet around him. A Spiritual Master, his aura extends your whole city. But we are not talking of Spiritual Masters; we are talking of us here now; we develop an aura or an emanation – aura is a word used in occultism, and we are not interested in occultism, extending this emanation for six feet. Husband and wife sleeping together bathe each other in each other’s emanations, so more effective and greater closeness forms. You are imbibing from your partner, and your partner is imbibing from you, and those same energies that you are exuding become one energy between the two, and then there are no two left anymore. There is only one left: the emanation. That emanation is always there, even during sleep, intermingling with your beloved. I would still like to find someone who has slept in the same room with me and not feel better about it the next day. They definitely would, and that is true. ALL GREAT MASTERS HAVE TAUGHT UNDER THE NEED OF THEIR TIME Many reformers came upon this Mother Earth, and yet people that lived during the time of Jesus are non-better than the people that are living today. The teachings I give are the same as all the great Masters have taught. There is only one difference that I teach according to these times. I teach according to the times when people can understand. In Jesus’ time, he had to teach those fishermen and peasants differently. In Buddha’s time, he had to in his way, in Krishna’s time in his way, in Mahavir’s time in his way, to suit the times of the people. If there were a group of University Professors here to whom I have lectured many times, I would make it according to their needs, technically correct, which they would appreciate more. But that kind of talk will not help here. You want to drive a message home into the human heart and not talk above their heads. When you know what you are talking about, you can speak of the most profound truths in the simplest terms. That is what I learned at Santiniketan, the Institution which Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel Prize winner, founded, Santiniketan. He won the Nobel Prize in nineteen thirteen for his book “Gitanjali.” It is a beautiful book. You must read a slim little volume; just try to get it. I remember there is one poem in there which is so beautiful. I have quoted it so often, not only quoting but living it, even before I read Gitanjali “I am nothing else but an instrument, a piece of wood, and He blows his Divine melodies through this little piece of wood so that the world could enjoy the beautiful symphony.” I am not the doer; He is the doer, the blower. If you ask me half an hour later what I spoke about, I will not remember. DARSHAN, TO BE IN THE PRESENCE OF A MAN OF GOD Back to aggression – how aggressive do you feel sitting there? After speaking for about forty-five minutes now, do you think you are less aggressive within yourself, yes or no? Put up your hands. Nearly everyone. What caused this? Ask yourself what caused this. I will tell you what caused it. He is blowing the tune, and you are listening to what He is blowing through this little piece of wood. All your troubles and problems get forgotten immediately, called “Dharshan,” a Sanskrit word; it means to be in the presence of a man of God. That is what it means, Dharshan. The day will come one day when I will just sit here, just quiet with my eyes closed, and you

Living the Essence of All Religions: The Universal Message of Love in All Faiths

Acceptance, Awareness, Belief, Christ, Compassion, Consciousness, Divinity, Ego, Faith, Force, Free Will, God, Heart, Integration, Joy, Karma, Kingdom of Heaven within, Law of Nature, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Omnipresent, Philosophy, Religion, Self, Separation, Spiritual Practices, The Abstract, Universe

IN OUR TEACHING, WE GO BEYOND ALL DOGMATIC BELIEFS If someone asks me, “Are you a Christian?” I would say, “Yes.” If someone asks me, “Are you a Muslim?” I would say, “Yes.” If someone asks me, “Are you a Buddhist? Hindu?” I would say “Yes” all along. We can say yes that I am a Christian, I am a Buddhist, I am a Hindu because we do not get tied up in the dogmas of religion. It has to be remembered that all dogmas in religion were inserted afterwards for the organisation of religion. A certain kind of organisation was required to make religion go on for ages and ages. Therefore one gets tied down to various types of rituals and multiple varieties of beliefs within specific confines. But behind it all, if we study Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism and examine the essence of these religions, then we come face to face with what truth really is. You get the bare facts without the trimmings. In our teachings, we go beyond all dogmatic beliefs because there is nothing in the world that has caused more harm than religion, and nothing in the world has done more good than religion. In the name of religion, thousands and thousands of people have been massacred, as you know. Some religions rose with the power of the sword. Take the example of the crusaders; rivers of blood flowed. Following dogmatic theology, one develops a fanaticism that my religion is correct, and your religion is wrong, and the other would repeat the same. All the conflicts begin between various beliefs, while the true purpose of theology, the true meaning of religion, is to resolve disputes, not create conflicts. That is how the definition of religion has been defeated over thousands of years. This has happened in every religion, even 5000 years ago. If you study Hinduism, there have been conflicts and fights and fights and fights. The Shaivites (worshippers of Shiva) would say this, and the Vaishnavites (worshippers of Vishnu) would say that conflicts are forever created. THE BASIS OF ALL RELIGIONS True religion is found when one transcends the dogmatism of religion, then the essence of the Bible is known, then the essence of the Gita is known, and then the essence of the Quran is known as well as others. Our purpose and what we teach here is to go down to the fundamental nature of religion, and the basic essence of religion is so simple, there is only one word that covers every religion and the meaning of all religions, and that word is love. Show me one religion that denies love. All of them say God is love, and love is God. To make the abstract quality of God a practical living reality, we must practice love. Love thy neighbour as thyself. That quality can be consciously created and enhanced through meditational and spiritual practices. Through meditational and spiritual practices, a greater integration occurs within us, and we are more able to give and portray love as a living reality. In other words, we do not believe in God anymore, but we live God, day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. That is the purpose of all religions. Religion promises you a realised God, excellent; where will I meet him? Where am I going to meet that God? Some place called heaven, am I going to go there to meet him there? I want to meet him here and now, for heaven and hell are here and now. When one develops this quality of love, consciously, all the positive virtues that constitute or should constitute religion are associated with that. If you can love, you become more compassionate; you become kinder; you become self-sacrificing; you become giving. With that love, when you start thinking lovingly, your thoughts become positive, and positivity attracts positivity; negativity attracts negativity. By following this one simple principle which is the basis of all religion, we automatically and very spontaneously gather to ourselves all the virtues that are required to live a religious life, and to live a religious life is to live the living God, for He is here and now. I LECTURE TO GIVE A CONSCIOUS RECOGNITION OF WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT This is the basis of our teachings; it does not conflict with any religion. You have heard me say this many times before, if you are a Christian, become a better Christian, and understand the essence of Christianity. If you are a Hindu, become a better Hindu, and understand the meaning of Hinduism. That which I teach is the essence underlying all these religions. I am a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Hindu, yet I am above it all because we try to grasp religion. I do not discourage anyone from having any religion, for the greatest disfavour one could do to another is to break his faith. Perhaps today, his faith is a little faith; maybe it is entangled in dogmatism, but be sure that once that seed is there, it will grow where he will go beyond all the dogmatism. We teach to live a practical living god and not deny the beliefs of others. We encourage them, and at the same time, by encouraging their religions, we also point out the essence of it, and you do not need to make a big detour or send the man in the opposite direction. He is walking on this road, and we teach the person to develop greater awareness. This greater awareness is developed through our meditational and spiritual practices so that the target is in view. Still, at the same time, everything else connected around the target, the entire environment, is also perceived, which is called an altered state of consciousness. An altered state of consciousness means that you are more aware. At first, it was in a narrow channel, but now the same mind, the same consciousness, takes a greater panoramic view of what life

Turning Difficulties into Treasures: A Spiritual Perspective on Life’s Challenges

Ancient Sages, Attitude, Awareness, Buddha, Christ, Compassion, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Eternal, Evolution, Force, God, Grace, Gurushakti, Happiness, Joy, Karma, Krishna, Laws, Love, Meditation, Mind, Omnipresent, Path, Peace, Relative World, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Spirituality, Strength, Subconscious, Unfoldment, Universe

WORK CAN ALSO BECOME A SPIRITUAL PATH Being on this spiritual path does not mean one must shirk all one’s worldly responsibilities. The body needs food; after all, what is your body? Nothing but food. It is the food that is eaten by a person that produces the muscles and the blood cells and all that, and all these things are necessary. You know the saying that the world owes you a living, but you have got to work for it. You got to work, and work is also a form of spirituality. To do one’s job well can lead you to the highest spiritual goals. A doctor does his work dedicatedly and filled with devotion; this can also become a spiritual path. A shoemaker puts all of his energies and whatever power he has into making that pair of shoes to such perfection that he brings forth that eternal spiritual energy within him. IN THE BEGINNING, STRICT DISCIPLINE WITHIN OURSELVES IS NECESSARY Many people want to be on a spiritual path not with total dedication but with wishful thinking that “I wish I were on a spiritual path,” and because I wish that, I am on the spiritual path. The wishful thinker is not necessarily a seeker. That very search you have in you must bring about specific difficulties because, as I have said many times, there are always polarities in this worldly life. The more you try to pull in the right direction, the wrong direction has some hold over you and tries to hold you back. The reason is due to your own making. Remember, we are creatures not just of today but of many, many lives before this one, and we are set in certain grooves, specific ways, and certain modes of thinking. One has to overcome that by exercising strict discipline within oneself. Discipline is necessary until we are well-established on the spiritual path. Then conscious discipline does not become essential because your life is a discipline, not within the norms of artificial laws, but within the norms of spiritual laws where everything you do is just right. It is suitable for your spiritual evolution and your spiritual unfoldment. DIFFICULTIES ARE THE GREATEST TEACHER When there are these difficulties, they must be welcomed because the problem is the most outstanding teacher in life. If you had all the happiness and things you think you want, then you would forget God and Divinity. You never remember Divinity when you are totally happy, and no one is really happy, but you remember Divinity mostly when you are in trouble. You say, “Oh God! What a life, what a business. Oh, Lord, if you are so merciful, then why all these troubles and difficulties?” But the poor Lord has nothing to do with our difficulties. The Lord does not give you pleasure, and he does not provide you with pain. It is a neutral energy, delivered to you as your birthright, from which you have originated, and you are that Divine energy. Still, because of all the conditionings of the experiences of previous lives and in this life, you block the Divinity from shining through. You, you, and no one else but you produce this Divinity. EVERY ADVERSITY CONTAINS WITHIN ITSELF AN OPPORTUNITY These talks and spiritual practices aim to bring about a particular understanding of the difficulties, for as we know, every adversity contains an opportunity within itself. What do we see? Do we see the adversities only, or do we see the opportunities? If our attention through understanding is led to opportunities, the sting of the difficulties and adversities disappear. They just disappear, and all the difficulties people have are typically exaggerated. There is no foundation in problem, a little perhaps, and that is necessary to goad you on. If that were not there, you would just become a vegetable, a non-thinking being, unable to function. So, if you have some difficulty, may you have some more. It keeps man awake. If I have a business that runs independently, with no opposition and no competition, I will become so self-satisfied that the business will not progress. But, if there is competition, it will put me on my toes, I will be on my toes to try to overcome competition to do better, and that is how the business will expand. Otherwise, expansion is not possible. Likewise, difficulties in our lives are there for growth, greater awareness, and a greater understanding of life. So, the difficulty is a blessing in disguise. But when a man’s mind is wrapped up in difficulty, he loses balance. He just sees darkness and not light. He considers the adversities and not the opportunities that are there in those very so-called adversities. No man in this world has difficulties if you look at it from the right angle. They are lessons to be learnt forever; after all, life is but a school. If your whole mental make-up, if your entire Karmic self, were not composed of difficulties, you would not have taken on this birth. Great Saints and Sages purposely take on life and difficulties, as Christ, Krishna or Buddha, or Mahavir did; they purposely take on an incarnation, a life, to be able to help people and give them some understanding of what difficulty is to take the sting out of difficulty. The snake of difficulty will bite, but it will have taken out the poison from its fangs. It will not poison you. Why should we live poisoned lives and get our minds entwined in those difficulties all the time? This comes through understanding; understandings are, of course, realisations, and a realisation is knowledge gained and assimilated. And when it is assimilated, when it forms part and parcel of the entire process of our mind and body, then it is called assimilation. Then you have digested it, for assimilation will have no digestion. It is only when food is not well assimilated into the system that you have indigestion.

The Gardener’s Wisdom: Loving Without Judgment or Expectation

Attitude, Bible, Buddha, Christ, Divinity, Ego, Evolution, Evolve, Faith, Force, God, Guru, Heart, Krishna, Law of Nature, Laws, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Mental Patternings, Mind, Path, Relationships, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Teacher, Spirituality, Strength, The Abstract, Wisdom

LIKES AND DISLIKES ARE MATTERS OF THE MIND A true guru never worries about people’s likes or dislikes. The only thing he is concerned about is how much he loves. For him, likes or dislikes do not matter at all. As you would read in the Bible, the gardener sows seeds. Some seeds fall on the fertile ground where they bear fruit. Some fall on barren ground where they do not, and some on the rocks which the birds of the air pick up. But the gardener’s duty must plant, and whoever is ready to receive will receive. The force will come into the hearts of those who are ever prepared. Likes and dislikes are matters of the mind. Anyone’s likes and dislikes depend upon his background, evolutionary standard, and upbringing, and many factors are involved in that. You see this every day in human relationships. Two men meet one girl, and one man would love the girl very much, while the other man would not. The girl is the same, and the same applies either way. So, to like someone or not like someone is an entirely individual thing. But the more you evolve, the more you will start loving the guru and everything else. As you begin developing a greater insight, which is also dependent upon you, you will love your guru more and more, not because of the guru himself, but because of your standard of evolution. I would love a murderer, a thief, or a saint in equal measure because I do not look at his exterior. A murderer could be a very, very highly spiritual person, and yet because of the force of circumstances, something that might have happened for that moment in his mind, he might have committed something which we would call a vile deed. Therefore, forget to love the guru. Do what the Bible says, “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” and who is your neighbour, not only the one that lives next door to you but the entire world population; they are your neighbours. And that is the principle behind Ahimsa or non-violence. Disliking someone is an act of the vilest form of violence, and who does it harm more? It is not the object of your dislike, but it harms you more because you go nitpicking and fault-finding to dislike someone. TRUE MASTERS DO NOT CARE FOR PUBLIC OPINION OR NAME OR FAME You cannot dislike someone if you do not find faults. So, you are going out finding faults, and what right does anyone have to find faults in anyone else? Are you so faultless that you would find fault amongst others? Did Jesus not say, “Those of you who are sinless, cast the first stone.” If you look for perfection, first become perfect, and then you will find perfection in everything else, and no one that is an embodied being could be one hundred percent perfect. They could be ninety eight percent perfect, including all the greatest Masters like Krishna, Christ, Buddha, and the lot. Because if you are one hundred percent perfect, your body will disintegrate. If you are one hundred percent perfect, you will not be able to eat or drink water, and you will not be able to go to the loo because your body will not function. So, the highest perfection of the highest Master is only up to ninety eight percent. But if you look at history. Look at all the great men; you will know this very well. Even Jesus was the most despised man of his time. His people did not like him. The Romans did not want him, the Sanhedrins and the Zealots, and the crowd did not like him; no one liked him. Even his own closest disciples, the twelve. The one he said, “You will deny me three times before the cock crows.” And the other one gave him away, and when he was in trouble, the ten ran away. But the true Masters, they do not care at all. They do not care about any public opinion, name, or fame. Because as soon as they want and hanker after name and fame, they build up an ego, and to think of “me and mine” is the greatest obstacle one could ever find. They always think of others. LIKES AND DISLIKES ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN In history, you will find people like Ramakrishna, an incredible Sage, one of the most remarkable men who walked this earth at the turn of the century. He had cancer. He had throat cancer. Ramana Maharshi, great Sage, his name you must have heard, also suffered from cancer of the stomach. Vivekananda suffered severely from asthma. Rama Tirtha was a very, very sickly man, and so was Buddha, and Jesus was a frail, sickly man also. Why? The story that physicians heal themselves first is false. The Physician who heals himself first is more interested in himself, while these great Masters do not care about themselves because their minds are always for others. Their love is not flowing for themselves, but their passion is flowing for the benefit of humanity, for the upliftment of humanity. This Ramakrishna we spoke about, he said, “If there is only one man I could take to self-realisation, then my mission in life has been fulfilled.” Because it is the path of heroes – it is a path where you go beyond likes and dislikes. They are two sides of the same coin, like the hate/love relationship. There is an excellent dividing line; only the man of intense spiritual force could keep love as love and not cross that thin dividing line of hate. Naturally, disliking involves hating. “I do not like this about that, so I hate that.” There is an element of hate there. Once you have these elements, your spiritual progress stops. You have a guru; he might be a very, very ugly man. Are you looking at his face? Or have

Breaking the Cycle: The Interplay Between Karma and Free Will

Conscious Mind, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Evolution, Force, Free Will, God, Grace, Karma, Light, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Path, Self, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Subconscious, Surrender

KARMA AND FREE WILL Karma has been produced because of free will. Divine Will does not produce any Karma, for Divine Will is non-binding. But free will can be binding, and there can be good Karma and bad Karma. They are binding because all Karma has nothing to do with the Spiritual Self of man, and Karma only has to do with man’s mental self. If a person murders, is it his Karma to murder? It depends on who is killing. If a lion kills a man, then it is not Karma of the lion because that is its duty, its natural way. It is forced by the processes of nature to kill to eat. No lion ever kills anyone for the fun of it. It would kill a deer or anything, for self-sustenance, for food. Man does not do that. By committing that very act, he is adding to his Karma. But what were the conditions before he did that? The murder is not because of past Karma but because of past mental conditioning, and that mental conditioning was brought about because of his past Karma. So, who laid the egg? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? So, everything is Karma, and everything is not Karma. Free will means that you have thought power, and because of that thought power, you have the freedom to do what you like. That is free will. You decide on something, good or bad, and you do it; you do it because of free will. Karma does condition free will. For it is because of your past experiences in life and in previous lives that you can think in a particular manner. If your experiences and conditionings in life were such that it would make you think of doing good work today, of helping people, constructive work, then you would be doing productive work spontaneously. But if your condition is such that you do destructive things, then that is done spontaneously. THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND CONTAINS ALL THOUGHT PATTERNS AND EXPERIENCES Many a murderer does not do that because they want to do it. There is a compulsion in them, a need, for some personal gain, or this act is performed to satisfy a mental aberration. This imbalance in the subconscious mind comes to the fore in the conscious mind, making him perform this action, although the conscious mind will argue the pros and cons. The conscious mind will stop him from committing a specific act, but the conditionings of the subconscious will override the conscious thinking, and he will do that. He is to blame, not because of his conscious self because his conscious self is in conflict, but he is to be blamed for his subconscious self, which contains the seed and force to override the conscious pros and cons and make him perform the act. The subconscious levels that are there contain all these thought patterns and experiences. He might have had some experience where he was hurt or even killed, and then the subconscious that lingers on after the body has been discarded wanted revenge, and that very sense that is born within this pattern is what we know as a compulsion. If he does not commit that act, he can go insane, and most of these killers are, in reality, psychopaths. If he consciously curbs it, he will suffer repressions within himself, which will drive him insane. This is where the conscious mind can do something, although forced by this inner compulsion. When the conscious mind argues the pros and cons of some wilful act, which we call free will, that person needs help, not to alter his subconscious mind, but to strengthen the excellent thought in his conscious mind so that that person himself can get that good thought deeper down and alter the subconscious pattern. Then he will not kill, and I believe that many people with these tendencies should not be jailed but should be treated. KARMA IS A WINDING UP THAT NEEDS TO BE UNWINDED What is free will’s relation to Karma? You cannot alter your Karma with free will, for what you have sown, you will have to reap. But you can put the same momentum in a different direction. That same force that is there, within the subconscious, can very consciously be diverted into another channel, and for this, great understanding is required. That means that we are not changing our Karma, but we are changing the direction of our Karma. Karma is only a winding up that has to be unwound. How it is to be done is the question. How do we unwind the Karmic debts so that we do not suffer the consequences so much? I have said in some talk somewhere that if you kill ten people, it will not mean you will have to be killed ten times. Use your free will and conscious analytical powers, and save eleven lives. Then the debt of killing the ten people will be rubbed off. A balance is performed. No particular Karmas will have its effect; no cause will have its impact similarly. Your free will can change the outcome differently. And yet, the momentum, the force of Karma, will not be lost. It will be there, but by free will, by gaining the understanding we have spoken about, we alter the course of that Karma, which could be progressive for us. Evolutionary-wise, it could be progressive. THE FORCE OF FREE WILL CAN CHANGE THE COURSE OF KARMA Difficulties also have specific Karmic values, which is why man has been given the thinking mind. We are talking of the average man, not the aberrant mind that cannot think right. By the force of his free will, the average man changes the course of his Karma. There are so many ways this understanding can be gained; knowledge can be acquired by good advice from those who know. It has to be convincing for the mind to be pleased. That

Letting Go of Guilt: Choosing Joy and Living in the Present

Acceptance, Attitude, Belief, Ego, Eternal, Eternity, Evolution, Happiness, Joy, Karma, Love, Mental Patternings, Mind, Omnipresent, Religion, Samskaras, Self, Spiritual Path

DO NOT FEEL GUILTY We do not need to bother ourselves about past experiences and past karma. The most incredible disease man suffers today is the sense of guilt, which is the cause of most mental and physical ailments, for the mind translates into its physical equivalent, the sense of guilt. What are you guilty about? Why create greater and greater conflicts in your mind about what has happened in the past or might happen in the future? The past is gone. Some seeds have been sown, and who knows if they will grow. There might be a drought. Create the drought. Create the drought by just working and not thinking of what the future will bring or what the past has formulated for the future. Whatever has been done in the past, why feel guilty about it? How do you know you have done it? Are you sure that the real you have performed a specific action? No. You have not performed any action. You are not the doer. You are just an instrument. The Great Doer knows why your little ego had to go through these processes; therefore, we stop condemning ourselves. We stop condemning ourselves, and when we stop condemning ourselves, we stop blaming others. When we stop condemning ourselves, we do not feel guilty. The past is the past, which was regulated within this process of evolution. Whatever you did, whatever happened, had to happen, and you did not make it happen. You were instrumental in the happening, but a greater will made it happen; a will being far more significant than what you think is your little egoistic will. LET GO OF THE IDEA OF DOING In that state, there is no karma. I once told you the story of Milarepa. When Milarepa, the great Tibetan yogi, was a young man, he said, “I did black deeds and then when I got more knowledge, I did white deeds. But now I have risen above both. I do no deeds.” And that area of no deeds is the greatest action, the greatest inaction in action, because the whole idea of doing is gone. “I do” has disappeared, and it is just done. That is how you clean off the slate of those experiences and samskaras. You do not do. It is just done. You do not record. That machine records; you only fiddle with the knobs. Suppose life is lived like that. We just do. I am speaking to you. Do you think I am doing anything? I am doing nothing; I am just sitting here enjoying myself, that is all. You might say, “Oh, Gururaj is lecturing. He is working.” No, I am not. I am having fun. I shut off the mind, let the inner Self flow, and look at the beauty of the flow. Look at the music of the bubbling brook that passes through this voice, the symphony, the melody. Listen carefully. It is not only the words. For who is uttering the words? Not I. I am just an instrument. All I have learned is how to tune this instrument to the greater I, to the real I, and let Him do the bloody work. Why must I work? Because He flows through me, I still enjoy. That is my little fun. My little fun in this vast ecstasy of life. THE MIND OF MAN IS RUNNING IN GROOVES That is how we get rid of all these samskaras. Never be bothered; never feel guilty. You have harmed no one in your life, and no one has ever hurt you. I am putting forward a lot of new thoughts to you. Man’s mind is running in grooves, which must be altered, for in ages to come, that will be the salvation and consolation for man. In Indian villages with no tarred roads, you have these dirt tracks, and the ox carts go through them all the time, creating these grooves. The ox pulls the cart, and the driver can sleep because the wheels run in the grooves. We have to put a stone in the track so the driver wakes up when the wheel hits it and jolts it. We have to wake up. We have to wake up because we are sleeping with fallacious beliefs. Sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty; what for! Is that the hope for man, or is that condemnation of man? The more guilty you feel, the more miserable you will feel. Who else could be the doer if He is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent? He is the doer; he does. The various mixtures and admixtures of the material you are made of, which includes the mind and the body, have formed specific patterns that make you experience life in a certain way. But if you do not experience life as the doer, if you have that idea, then whatever experiences you go through will not add to your karma. It will not, and that is how the ego is clarified. That is how this most significant disease in the world, guilt, can be eliminated. Do not feel guilty; that is the only way you will find the truth. Because guilt is like a whirlpool, you are always caught up in it. “I have done this, oh God. I have done this.” LIVE HAPPILY AND BE OF GOOD CHEER The organized religions came in, including all the theologies: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, the lot, the works, and what did they do? When they could not capture us with love, they tried to hold us in fear – eternal damnation. It is not valid, and there can never be eternal damnation. If there were eternal damnation, then the Eternal God would also be damned, for there is only one eternity. Live happily. Be of good cheer. Forget those samskaras. Forget those experiences, although they might be regulating your life today. Accept what is today and act accordingly. To make your flow smoother, put in changes

Knowing God by Knowing Thyself: A Journey Toward the Infinite

Bliss, Buddha, Christ, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Duality, Evolution, Evolve, God, Happiness, Harmony, I and my Father are one, Impressions, Integration, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Krishna, Love, Manifestation, Manifestor, Meditation, Mind, Path, Peace, Purity, Relative World, Religion, Scriptures, Self, Separation, Spirit, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Universal, Universe, Wisdom, Yoga

WHAT IS GOD? Everyone and everything are Divine; what man observes is just the manifestation of the Manifestor. Because man functions only with his five senses, and the five senses are very limited because we usually use only a tiny fraction of our minds. The fraction is so small that Einstein, regarded as a genius, only used eight percent of his mind. The mind has three levels; the conscious level that makes you think; the subconscious level, which contains all your past impressions and then you have the superconscious level of the mind, which is the Universal Mind, and every person has the ability, through spiritual practices, to reach the Universal Mind or the superconscious level of the mind. There is only one mind, but because of our past experiences, actions, and deeds, good or bad, we have compartmentalised ourselves, which made us believe that we are individuals. It is like you take a plastic bag of water from the river and you put it in the middle of the river. The water in the pack is the same as in the river. But the sheath gives it individuality, and then as more and more experiences are gained, you add more and more sheaths to this bag until the water in the bag is not seen, and you forget your true nature, which is Divine, because functioning with the five senses you do not see that inner self of you. Does the Scriptures not say, and I would repeat this a million times repeatedly, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven within, and all else shall be added unto thee.” That Kingdom of Heaven within is that Divine indefinable energy. I can talk to you about God; I can show you the path towards God, and I can show you that I have travelled that path and known God and have become one with Him. But you cannot explain it. You cannot explain it because the explanation is typically from the conscious level of the mind, where the left hemisphere of your brain is functioning, and the left hemisphere is primarily analytical. How can you, with a finite mind, analyse that which is infinite? Divinity or God is usually expressed as He, but speaking, it is neither a He nor a She. I call it “IT.” It is a very subtle energy. BY SERVING-MAN, YOU ARE SERVING GOD The knowledge of Divinity can only come about experientially. But to get that experience, a lot of preparation is required, and one does prepare oneself by meditating, searching within, spiritual practices, self-analysis, weighing the pros and cons of how we live our lives, moral values, the dos and don’ts to a great extent. Then you reach the pure stage where you, as the pure one, merge away into purity which we call God. People can have that experience in this lifetime if they are diligent enough. If they are not, they would naturally go through all the sufferings that life holds for them. As I have said before in some talk somewhere around the world, there should be no suffering, and you will have no sorrow if you make your life an offering. What do you offer yourself? You show yourself to service humanity, for that is the most authentic reflection of God on this earth in its present stage of evolution. By service to man, you would be serving God. Therefore, there is no differentiation; you can see the Divinity in others if you first see the Divinity in yourself. The analogy I always like to use is – I could explain honey’s texture, send it to a laboratory and have the chemical analysis etc., but you still know nothing about honey. Your knowledge of honey will be peripheral. But when you taste the honey, then only would you see the sweetness of honey. What is the sense of having a jar of honey on your shelf if you do not partake of it, eat it, taste it, and see how beautiful and sweet it is? That very honey, that very Divine energy there, sweetens your life? In that integration, you will find harmony. You are harmonising your exterior self with your inner self so that you function in totality, the body and the mind and that Spiritual Force within functions in totality. MAN KNOW THYSELF, AND YOU WILL KNOW GOD In my younger days, I have been trampling around all the Himalayas, going to various caves and ashrams and meeting multiple Gurus. I learned a bit from everyone until I found my Guru, Swami Parvitranandaji. You get a lot of so-called bogus Gurus because no man should ever speak of Divinity if he has not experienced Divinity himself, and he has no right to do that. For example, University Professors have studied every philosophy in the world to become a professor, yet they are more muddled up than all of you sitting here. That mental analysis and gaining knowledge is not enough; what man has to achieve is through learning, analysis and enquiry, you gain wisdom. There is a significant difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is a mental acquisition, while wisdom is not only knowledge but also experience combined. Man wants to find God because he wants to feel happy, and all the theologies of the world have taught that it is only through Divinity that you can achieve that peace. Therefore, we find our theologies saying, “Man know thyself.” No religion says “Man knows God” because you cannot know Him. Know thyself, and automatically you will know Divinity, then you could genuinely use the words of our Lord Jesus that “I and my Father are one.” FROM DUALISM THROUGH QUALIFIED DUALISM TO MONISM You proceed from duality, from the “I and Thou” concept, reach a qualified non-dualism, and then get non-dualism in its entirety. Jesus used to preach duality to the peasants who could not understand him well. He used to say, “Pray to Thy Father in

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