MAN CAN ACHIEVE WHATEVER Man can achieve anything the mind is capable of thinking. This is a very common law, a very elementary law that if you keep thinking of a certain object, you can materialise the object. We are not talking of magical voodoo; that is nonsense. But if you have a burning desire to achieve a specific goal and think about it positively, you can achieve whatever your thought commands you to achieve. Any person can make a resolution that in five years, I am going to be a millionaire, and he will be a millionaire! Firstly, that burning desire to achieve is needed. Secondly, the proper planning should go behind it. The planning should be such that at the end of one year, I must reach a certain level; at the end of the second year, I must reach this level; third year, that level; fourth that level, and within the fifth year, I am a millionaire. That is something different from daydreaming. You can daydream, and in fact, most people daydream about things – wishful thinking, I am this, I am that. But here we are talking about solid, concrete thoughts where there is a determination to achieve something, and you are capable of achieving anything your heart desires. When you associate this thought with meditation, your meditational practices will make your thoughts more potent. That same power can be misused; it can be abused. This is the thing which is happening in many movements I have seen and studied that teach this principle of how the power of the mind can be used to achieve one’s goal. They show you how to achieve this power. But then, this power can be misused if you are working on the mind level only. By studying these systems, you might gain greater power of the mind, which means that you are using a more significant section of the mind, and therefore the mind becomes more powerful. In your mind, you might have the destruction of another or covetousness, or you might have a terrific amount of negativity in your mind. By using that greater power, you could bring that negativity into reality. You can harm people and destroy people. All this is possible. THERE HAS TO BE A COMBINATION OF MIND, HEART AND GRACE All these different mental systems work on the mind level only. The difference in our system is that every time you sit down to practice, as the awareness of the mind becomes more significant, the heart opens up simultaneously, and greater love flows. You put one of our meditators, a regular meditator, among those from other organisations, and they will look like robots. You will point out very quickly, without difficulty, the person who meditates in our system. You will see the love radiating, the love just flowing from the person. And, because that heart has opened, you would become incapable of projecting that negativity. You will project only love more and more powerfully as you become more regular and more established in your meditation. Through our simple practices, the mind and the heart are opened, and when the mind and the heart are opened, they cannot remain empty. It becomes filled with Grace, the Grace of Divinity. We call it Gurushakti. How can you go wrong? What else do you need in life? What do you need? You need to love, and if you want to become lovable, become loving first. For if you are loving, automatically you become lovable. You have a magnetic pull. Your very presence creates an atmosphere. You must have experienced this many times. You go into a certain home, and things are so gloomy because of all the negativity in the home – the atmosphere. You wish you could just leave immediately. Then you might be in another dismal company, and a person with that love and positivity walks in, and the whole atmosphere is changed, just because of that one person, and a joyousness sort of descends. That is the difference between the systems of yoga, or whatever you wish to call it, that works on the mind only. It has to have a combination of mind, heart, and Grace, for, without that, nothing is achieved which is worthwhile achieving. If you want to attain extensive wealth, you do not need heart there; you can acquire extensive wealth with the mind. But are you going to be happy? I would still like to meet a happy millionaire, and I have known many! Because his mind and soul are in those millions and how to accumulate more and more, and the more his mind is involved in that, the closer his heart becomes, and he does not know what happiness is. Yet, I have been in a hut and sat down on the floor, breaking bread with very poor people. (A chapati made of raw flour, the Indian corn, about a quarter, half an inch thick – with a bit of yoghurt and a chilli). I would sit and eat their food with them and break their bread, and there was so much joy and happiness and so much love. It is so tangible; you could feel it as a solid object. What great joy, what great happiness! And after lunch, the peasant picks up his plough on his shoulder and goes back to the fields. What great joy. One has found contentment in that chapati and a little yoghurt and the chilli. Another man has seen all the discontent in the universe despite owning millions. IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO OPEN THE HEART Do you see how important it is to open the heart? And every great teacher in the past has taught this message. What did Jesus teach? He taught nothing else but love. What did Buddha teach? Nothing else but love. What did Krishna teach? Nothing else but love. The emphasis was not on the mind. It is good to develop the mind. Why
Infinite Purity: Seeing Beyond the Illusion of Opposites
MAN SEE THINGS TO BE IMPURE BECAUSE HIS MIND IS LIMITED The Absolute is forever a pure entity, and being a pure entity, it is always a simple entity. All the relativity that we perceive around us is always very complex. The primal simplicity has become complex, and it is because of the complexity that we have forgotten how to recognize the simplicity. Why, wherefore, and how has the simplicity become a complexity. This has been a philosophical question that has been 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. 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. Infinite existence does not need to progress from A, B, C to Z; it is a continued existence, and all the A, B, C, D, E, F, G exists at the same time, and when it exists at the same time, then there is no space and 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 sections one sees one at a time are not perfect because if you put five people together and even though 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 fragmentary, and that is why the mind cannot see the whole. Because it cannot see the whole, it sees part, which is logical, and all the problems and all the incongruities, all the problems and all the inconsistencies and all those things that seem impure, we see to be impure because of our limited vision. EVERYTHING IS PURE 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 object 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, Christ. When the greatest sinner like Mary Magdalene, the prostitute, came to the Lord Jesus Christ, he saw the inner essence of purity in Mary. He said, “I forgive you, my daughter, but sin no more.” Be your authentic, pure Self and discard this limited view that your mind and body have 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 what is pure, we have to have that total developed awareness, which is achieved through meditation. RELATIVE LIFE ALWAYS HAS ITS OPPOSITES I will give you an example; we can take the analogy of the sun. Through the heat of the sun, water vaporizes into the sky. The same water vapour raised by the sun becomes condensed, and when it becomes condensed, it forms a cloud. The sun is not affected, yet the shadow formed by the sun is obscuring the sun and down here on earth, we find it dark. The pure sun has been the cause of creating the cloud, and that cloud has produced darkness, and this is the process of nature. 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. When we see the light and darkness, we look at the pair of opposites, and everything in the relative sphere of life always has its negatives. Pain – pleasure, light – darkness, black-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 at the other end. Goodness at one end and badness at the other because one cannot exist without the other. Through understanding and realizations, 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 middle, the ends do not affect us; we are in the middle. If you take a stick and try to put the end of it on your finger, it cannot balance, it falls, but if you put the middle of the stick on your finger, it stays in balance. It is, therefore, a practical demonstration. GOING BEYOND THE LAW OF OPPOSITES In our lives, the same thing happens through our spiritual practices; we leave the ends of the polarity and come to the centre, and when we come to the centre, it means that we are coming to the centre of ourselves and the centre of ourselves is forever pure. This means that we go beyond the law of opposites, and when we go beyond the law of opposites and reach the centre, there is no pleasure and no pain, no black, no white, no light, no darkness. Only Bliss and joy, which wells up from within, remains. Pleasure and pain are transient
The Nature of Dreams: How Past Existences Shape Our Dreams
WHAT IS A DREAM? Modern psychologists, especially the Freudian school, will tell you that a dream expresses a suppressed desire, which is not the complete truth. Some dreams could express a hidden desire, but not necessarily. Dreams originate from the subconscious mind. Erroneously, psychologists will tell you the same thing, but they have never, ever troubled to analyze what the subconscious mind is. What is the extent of the subconscious mind? They have only gone just a little bit deeper than the 10% conscious mind, so they have gone down to 30% of man’s consciousness. Seventy per cent still remains unanalyzed, and the 10% of analysis done of the dream state is not yet complete. They are primarily presumptions and suppositions. Why should man want to express his suppressed desires in the dream state? And who says that that is the only way of expressing one’s desires? And who says, in the first place, that there is a suppression of appetite? How do we know that that very desire is expressed in the waking state of life in a different form? These are questions that psychologists must study. Dreams typically have their origin in far, far deeper layers of the so-called subconscious than what is imagined. We had repeatedly said that the mind’s extent is as vast as the entire universe, and every experience gained from the primal atom, from the time of the Big Bang explosion when you were propelled forth as that minuscule atom. All the experiences gained from that stage, right through to mineral, plant, animal, and then to man, exist in the mind. Call it subconscious, call it conscious, whatever you wish to call it, but all those experiences remain in the mind, and those experiences cannot be destroyed; they are not destructible. A thought is usually translated through words or symbols. In a dream, one symbolizes a thought that is deep within oneself. The thought, not being conscious, or the thought not being brought about by effort, necessarily must be triggered off by a samskara which means an impression. So, this impression is in the mind. WHAT IS AN IMPRESSION The impression is not the experience. Let us say that someone cooks a very hot curry, and you visit the person’s home. Even if you do not like hot curry, because of your gentlemanly nature, your courtesy, you are obliged to sit and eat the curry. You are eating this food, and it is burning your mouth. The picture left, the impression that will be left, would not be of the varieties of the curries you have eaten – it could be bean curry, okra curry, mixed curried casserole, one of the dahls, whatever it could be. The impression that would remain would not be what that meal constituted. But the impression that would remain in the mind would be that pungency, that strongness, that burning sensation. That is an impression. Although the mind contains every existence that we have lived through in its totality, that which comes to the fore and that which formulates our future life and our actions, that which formulates what we are today is because of the impressions that are there. That is an impression. With this meal, the impression would be of this hotness. This hotness can be experienced in the waking state of life, where you might be in a desert, and you will experience intense heat. That heat you experience through the environment will associate itself with the heat that you felt inside. The heat in the environment will become hotter for you. It has its correlation with heat and hotness, and thereby, that impression can be eradicated or lived out, but in a different form. That heat of the desert had nothing to do with the curry, yet it has been re-experienced. The outer heat has been enhanced or made hotter by the inner heat, which the association of ideas causes. Heat is heat. IS IT NECESSARY TO INTERPRET A DREAM? You have these little books sold in the shops where you are going overseas if you dream of water. If you dream of death, this and that will be the answer. If you dream of fire, this is the interpretation. Of course, that is all rubbish! We know that. Because a dream is a composite story. I want you to get this very, very clear. We understand that a dream is a combined story. A dream might contain the elements of various experiences and not necessarily of one experience. You dream of Auntie Matilda, who has passed away. It is not necessarily Auntie Matilda that is the main factor in the dream. Still, Auntie Matilda is just an association of the beautiful experience you had doing “Waltzing Matilda.” That is a waltz, a dance. You enjoyed the dance; you enjoyed the music of “Waltzing Matilda.” So here is an association of ideas, opposite, something you enjoyed (doing that waltz), and it is associated with Auntie Matilda, that has passed away. So, a dream is a composite story, and the dream can draw forth elements from various experiences and not necessarily of this life only. A dream might be a composite story that would get together experiences of this life or of many other lives, many instances all brought together and thrown into this pot, and the soup that comes out is the dream. Now, how does one interpret a dream? Or is it necessary to interpret a dream? BEYOND THE MIND IS A FACTOR THAT KEEPS US SANE Many people say they do not dream. Psychologists will tell you that they do. They might not recollect the dream when they wake up because what has been dreamt has not been strong enough for them to remember it. Therefore, the dream is forgotten when waking up. But tests have been made in laboratories where it has been found that everyone dreams. Because although the conscious mind is put to rest or given rest by going
Transcending Good and Bad: The Journey to Inner Peace and Stillness
GOOD AND BAD VS. TOTAL STILLNESS In the relative field of life there are always opposing forces. The greater the spirituality that comes in this world, the greater the resistance. The purpose of great resistance is to make you push harder. Even spiritual masters can also take a nap sometimes – they too have to make an effort to be alert all the time to carry out their work, their dharma. Where I live in South Africa, you will always find that if you have six or seven days of sunshine, you can be sure that you will have rain, because the sun has evaporated enough water to form clouds, which have to form clouds, which have to be dispersed in the form of rain. In the relative world there will always be this expansion and contraction. There will always be this push and pull, and resistance will always be there. In the face of this, how must we act? Various moral laws are necessary, for one purpose only, to bring about a certain stability in society so that society can run smoothly. (This, of course, is an assumption, because I have seen no society in the world anywhere that really runs smoothly). The greatest moralists are the greatest sinners in the world. Those that preach morality know more about immorality than you and I know. What brings them to the idea of certain kinds of immorality? They make it their business to know what immorality is all about. If their minds were pure enough, then those thoughts would not even exist for them. It is always the one side that brings on the other side. We are involved in the law of opposites all the time. You have a high one week; the next week you will see there is a low. How then, does a person proceed? He has to bring about a balance: to accept that which is good, and to accept that which is so-called bad. When you rise above both, you are in the state of balance where there is no such thing as good or bad. FINDING THE BALANCE BEYOND POLARITIES Until you have risen above them, the denial of good or bad could be like James Bond’s 007 – a license to kill; that is wrong. But when the human being has risen above the polarities, then all actions, good or bad, are non-binding to him. He knows their apparent goodness or badness to be just judgments of others, projections of the minds of others. He is unaffected. His actions do not create any samskaras or any bondage whatsoever. What the human being is trying to find is total stillness. Goodness produces motion and badness also produces motion – so both are bondage. When it comes to goodness, if you force yourself to be good, what are you achieving? Do you think you are achieving a great deal? No. A bit, yes; it gives you a little satisfaction of the mind – because good and bad are products of the mind, nothing more. Doing good acts, while having a good motivation, which is also a product of the mind, brings about a certain amount of mental peace. This is your reward. The motivation has to be correct; the motivation has to be good; the action does not matter, and even once the motivation is good, it will still create a samskara, an impression of the mind, which will have to be worked out. But in working out that samskara, there is far greater pleasure than with any action not harmonious with nature. For an action not condusive to the flow of nature also creates an impression in the mind, a samskara; and working that out will cause pain. You are still in the relative field of the mind with pleasure and pain – still involved in the law of opposites. With spiritual practices and meditation, one transcends the law of opposites; but one cannot live in the transcendental state all the time. That state is an energizing field that one contacts, just as when your battery starts running down you plug it in the socket to recharge it. That is what happens. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: “From Darkness to Light.”
The Secret of Happiness: Quieting the Mind and Embracing Bliss
HUMAN BEINGS REQUIRE SOME DISCIPLINE All of us seek the secret of happiness. Who in this world wants suffering? Certain sects in the Hindu religion, the Islamic religion, the Buddhist religion, and Christianity go through various penances and make their bodies suffer. In India, I have seen certain so-called Yogis that would stand on one foot for Kingdom to come and think that they would reach enlightenment by doing that penance. I have seen others in India who would stare into the sun until they became blind, and of course, in the Christian religion, we have penances too. I believe in one thing no amount of penance can lead you to enlightenment, and if you overdo it too, it will lead you to disillusionment. A certain amount of penance is necessary for one purpose only: to discipline oneself. Because human beings require some discipline, and by having some discipline, you do not go wild; that is the whole purpose behind it. We are like horses, and disciplines are the reins. You allow the horses to run, but the reins control the horses in what path to go and not run wild. We must have a certain amount of discipline but not extreme penances that make us suffer, which could often become fanaticism. For example, the Hindu Swamis preach celibacy; it is a form of penance. They say you sublimate your sexual energies and turn them into Ojas. This Sanskrit word means light, but that is impossible, scientifically impossible, and in every mystical way, it is impossible. They say it is a certain kind of suffering you have brought upon yourself. But that causes a lot of repressions and inhibitions. You are stopping something natural, so why go through penances. STRENGTHEN YOURSELF TO AVOID SUFFERING Everything must have its natural course, and it is not necessary to inflict any misery or suffering upon us. If suffering comes to us without our doing, then what. There is only one way. You cannot change the man that makes you suffer. But you can change yourself and gain inner strength that whatever is inflicted upon you will run off you like water off a duck’s back. There is a secret to how to avoid suffering. There you strengthen yourself, and you strengthen yourself with spiritual practices, which is a way of finding happiness. As you proceed away from misery, more and more and more happiness comes, and when more and more happiness comes, the misery starts diminishing and leads to happiness. By instilling a more significant thought, a better thought, a more substantial thought in one’s mind, the pain will disappear because nobody willfully wants to be miserable. THE GIVER IS ALWAYS THE RECEIVER You do find some religions with fanatical ideas that want you to go through penances, as I told you; you stand and just stare at the sun for months and months and months until you become blind. What use are you to the world if you do that? It would be straightforward for me, for example, to go and sit in a Himalayan cave and meditate all the time, but then what use am I going to be to my people around the world. Let me be up and about and work to do something good, which should be the aim of all. Because the more you do good for others, the more will rebound on you. The giver is always the receiver. You do one little good, and that goodwill rebounds on you ten times. Look at the mental peace you get. You do some good service to someone, and you will find much more at peace. But let that come as a service without any motivation, that “Oh, for this organisation or for that church or that synagogue, I go around with the collection box, and they will put in this and that.” Fine. I am doing good. I may myself be good. But the motivation must not be ego. Because once the ego-self is involved, then you are thinking of yourself. You are not selfless, and no amount of good will be of any value if it is not selfless. It must be a total giving of oneself; body, mind and spirit whatever little service can be done in life with complete sincerity. THE WIDOWS MIGHT Look at the time when Jesus lived. You know the story of the widow’s might. She just had one little coin; that was all the poor widow had, and she gave it. Yet, those that were rich gave thousands and thousands, but Jesus said that the widow’s might was more critical and of far greater value than all the thousands that they provided. For here was real giving, her last. I will tell you this story of myself; I arrived in South Africa penniless. I qualified as an accountant before I came to South Africa. Any professional person will tell you that it is a challenging job to build a practice; it could be a medical practice, an accountancy practise or a legal practice. It takes time to build up your practice, get more and more clients, and expand. I had just started, and I did not know anyone. I did not have a car or anything, so one day, I was standing at a bus stop, and I had about three miles to go to reach where I lived with some people, and I had sixpence. It was pounds, shillings, and pence in South Africa at that time. Today it is the rand and cents. So, I had sixpence in my pocket, and I was at the bus stop waiting for the bus. A woman came up to me, it was freezing, and she had a baby in her arms, and she said, “Sir, could you help me with the bus fare”. I looked at her and gave her the sixpence I had, the only sixpence I had. “Take it, take it”, and I walked for three, four miles
Gurushakti: The Eternal Channel of Divine Grace
WHAT IS GURUSHAKTI? Gurushakti is a universal force that is existent everywhere, and it is eternal. Through the practices that we do, we draw that Shakti unto ourselves. Shakti means energy, and you would know what guru means. So, the energy which the guru imparts is called Gurushakti. You will find that there is the energy of electricity in a river. Still, to capture the energy in the running water, you need a hydropower plant to capture this energy and transmit it to the generator. It is not the generator that gives the energy on its own. Still, the generator converts the energy of the running water so that the conversion of this energy into electricity goes through all the pipes, and that is why you have light in this room. If man is evolved enough, he could draw this energy from the river himself, but if he is not evolved enough, he uses the generator’s power. GURUSHAKTI CAN ALSO BE CALLED GRACE There are many bogus gurus in the world, but a true guru has acquired the ability to make himself into a channel through which, like the generator, the energy flows and is directed to the people. Gurushakti can also be called Grace. Grace is a word very hard to define, but we can use an analogy here. For example, when we plant a seed to grow a flower, for the flower to grow, so many qualities are needed; it requires the minerals in the ground, and it needs water, light, and heat. We know that if the plant is given too much water or too much heat or fertiliser, it can die and yet when the flower grows, what quality is there, what is there that gives that plant good things in its proper proportion? Just the right amount of water, the right minerals from the ground, the right amount of light and heat. There is a power of coordination, and this power of coordination is Grace. THE TRUE GURU IS NOTHING BUT A CHANNEL As we said before, Gurushakti or Grace is forever existent, and the good guru is nothing but a channel, and yet he is a most ordinary man; when he is thirsty, he will drink water, and when he is hungry, he will eat food, and he also has to go to the loo. He is so very, very ordinary. You could compare him with a flute, a piece of wood, a flute through which Divinity blows so that we all can enjoy this beautiful music. The guru who imparts this Gurushakti is only like the generator. He does not manufacture the energy, but it flows through him because he is a channel. A HUMAN BEING NEEDS A HUMAN IMPULSE As a human being, one needs the human impulse to impart it because, as we said, this energy embraced is abstract. This abstract energy has to be concretised, and who else could concretise it better for the human being than another human being. The true guru has experienced life, and perhaps not only one life. Reaching the oneness and communion with Divinity must be the process of many, many lifetimes. And having experienced this communion, he can go back into his previous lives and know the lessons he has learnt, and knowing all the mistakes that were made, he is in a position to advise others not to make those same mistakes. Or, as the saying goes, no saint did not have a past, and there is no sinner with no future. So, every saint has had a history, and every sinner has a lot. THE QUALITIES OF A GOOD DISCIPLE A good guru will intuitively know the sufferings of mankind even without a word being spoken. Through the power and Grace of Divinity, he delves deeply into the human soul of the true disciple. So, two qualities are required: a good guru and a good disciple. The qualities of a good disciple are acceptance, openness, love and devotion, and through these few capacities, which everyone has, you draw this Grace or this Gurushakti to yourself. This Gurushakti is like a well from which you can draw as much water as possible. As the Bhagavad Gita says, if you take a thimble, you can only get a thimble full of water. If you take a one-litre jug, you get one litre of water, and if you take a 50-litre jar, you will get 50 litres of water. So how much you will draw of Gurushakti depends upon you. The greater love and open-mindedness you have, the more regular you are in your practices, and the more you draw from Gurushakti. These are the principles of Gurushakti, and this is nothing new; it has been demonstrated repeatedly by true masters throughout your lives. CONSCIOUS EFFORT IS REQUIRED If you are born with a hole in the bucket, then remember you created the hole. Every person is responsible for himself, and Divinity is a neutral quality. So whatever position we are put in is a creation of ourselves, but there is no hope lost because if you had the ability to create a hole, then be sure to know that you also can mend the hole. So, find ways and means to repair the hole, and your bucket shall never leak. The ways and means of mending the hole are by doing one’s meditation and personally prescribed practices as given to you by your guru, and secondly by self-help. That meditation is effortless, one hour a day, half an hour in the morning, half an hour in the evening, but what about the other 23 hours? Are you just going to sleep? Some effort is required during the waking state of life. If you are unemployed, it will not help you sit at home waiting for a job to come to you; you have to look for it. So, an effort is required. If a man is a drunkard, an alcoholic if he does
Beyond the Myths: The True Essence of Heaven and Hell
HEAVEN AND HELL Heaven is precisely 5.000 million miles, 3 yards and 2 feet away from here. I am joking; you know that. It is not only Christianity that believes in heaven and hell; the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Christians, the Daoists, and Islam. They are not teaching the original teachings; they are putting more emphasis on evil. By focusing on evil and subjecting you to eternal damnation, they hold a stick over your head. When they could not keep an organised church with love and understanding, they devised the method of frightening you, which is why I am here to change these misconceptions. Because if God is love and a God of justice and compassion, He will not put you to eternal damnation, and heaven and hell are all in your mind. When you indulge in the grosser surface levels of life, like the turbulent waves on the ocean and your boat is tossed up and down. That is hell. You dive deep into the sea and find quietness and peace there, heaven. So, hell and heaven are here and not somewhere up in the sky or below the earth. Heaven and hell are in the Heart. As we live our lives, we can create heaven and hell for us, which is why the Almighty has given us free will. HEAVEN AND HELL ARE HERE Every cell in your body is pulsating in a system, and wherever there is a system, there is cohesion, and that very cohesion is love. You are made of love, and when all the dirt in the mind is removed, you start feeling that love vibrating in you for yourself and others, and that is heaven, and all those around you become angels, for you see Divinity in them also. So, hell and heaven are here. The Bible or the Vedas of the Hindus we have today are not the original as they were composed; they are severely edited. This editing was done by the fathers that founded the churches. Then church became so organised that today it has become a business, and that is why instead of the churches becoming full, they are becoming emptier. Because the people that teach in the churches, the temples, and the synagogues do not know what they are talking about because real knowledge and wisdom come from experience, not from book knowledge. Anyone can go to a theological college for three or four years and become a church minister, but the real three or four years or ten years or ten lifetimes for studies must be in the subject of experience. I will never speak to you of God if I have not experienced God, and if I do that, I am the world’s greatest hypocrite. Most of the priests we have today are hypocrites, and I challenge all of them, including every guru, on any platform anywhere in the world. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang ES 1980 – 03
The Power of Non-Attachment: A Journey Toward Inner Joy
WANT VERSUS NEED The difference between want and need is that a need stems from something deep within ourselves. A need is something that would add to one’s evolution. A need is something that would aid one’s unfoldment. That is a need, and those needs are fulfilled in various ways. It could be fulfilled with growing pains, for example. A child needs to grow up, and in his need, he might feel all these growing pains. A child needs to learn to walk, and it will fall and hurt itself so many times before the child walks. A man has needs for one thing, primarily to find the joy and happiness that is latent within him. That is his primary need. He tries to translate the need into wants by his thought forces and patternings. He thinks he wants half a dozen Cadillacs, a mansion with 20 rooms, or some big business or job to fulfil the need. The mind creates all these wants, and as we have said many times, the mind is nothing but a set of patterns. So instead of flowing with your real inner self, with your real need, you are flowing with patterns. You are flowing on the surface where no depth is felt and where those wants become needless. We drift from one polarity to the other all the time. We create wants. Show me any want that a man would want that is totally valid. You want a vacation. Where is the greatest vacation that you would find? By going to Hawaii or the Bermudas or Barbados, Cape Town, South Africa? Would you find your needs there? Or is it just an imaginary thing you have created that you now want? There could be nothing wrong with the want, but you have to pay an excellent price for it, and I do not mean the cost of air tickets. With that want, there is selfishness involved. The selfishness in the sense that it would make you happier, but it does not. For example, whenever you go on a holiday, remember you will need a holiday after the holiday. Because nobody knows how to go for a holiday. This can be a holiday, a holy day, coming to a course where everything is still, quiet, where you listen to some teachings and do your meditations. The distinction lies in wants and needs. The mind creates desires, and they could be very fictional because you always want more and more and more. If you have a million, you will want two million; if you have two, you will want five. It is a never-ending process producing unhappiness. There are real wants in life, and the real want is joy, which is a need also. Here you use want differently: you combine the want with the need. You need love, and because you need love, you will make plans; you will devise ways to fulfil that need in a wanting, longing manner. You will devise strategies as far as your mind is concerned to fulfil legitimate wants. You want to eat food, and I would rather say I need food than I want food. WANTS ARE MAKINGS OF THE MIND There is a fine distinction between want and need. Need is what primarily is required for sustaining you in this little body and allowing it to express itself in total accordance and concordance with natural laws, and those needs will always be fulfilled. They will always be fulfilled. Because needs are genuine; wants are artificial. I can do without going to Hawaii. I can do without going to Barbados. It is not a need; it is a want, a fixture of my imagination that I will feel so much better by going there. No. That feeling of that goodness is there inside. Try this sometime. Go and see an excellent show that you have heard so much about, but go in a bad mood, and you will not enjoy the show. You will not enjoy the finest musical. But go there with a beautiful frame of mind, and that which is not so good will seem better to you. So, wants are the making of the mind, and the more the mind indulges in wants, the more wants will be created. It is insatiable that could never be satisfied. THE TRUE NEED OF MAN IS TO FIND HIS INNER SELF The true need of man is to find his inner self so that his life can be harmonious. The true need of man is to love and to be loved. That is a need, and that opens up his inner self. The true need of man is to be able to think clearly, to know what discrimination is; that is a true need for man as far as the mind is concerned. And a true need for man is to have his three meals a day and a place to rest his head. That is a need of the body. So, the Spiritual Self is accompanied by some requirements; needs accompany the mental self and the physical body. Therefore, they are valid. MAN HAS TO GO BEYOND CRAVINGS When we come to wants, it is “I want that, I want that,” and it only proves that you are still a young child, growing up but emotionally immature, and the greatest need in life is to find maturity. Because everyone is wanting, wanting, wanting, and all this wanting to be put together in this world is creating all the frictions in this world as well as within yourself. By wanting, you also mean possession; you want to possess. That is a want also. You need some possessions, by all means, but the mind has a habit of exaggerating those wants into kinds of possessions. You wear a one-carat diamond; you get tired of it, then it must be a two-carat diamond. Those are wants, and wants are associated with cravings. And that is the thing that
Beyond the Ego: Finding Freedom and Joy in Selflessness
HOW DO WE USE CONSCIOUSNESS? Your mind has a memory box that covers the entire universe. Every experience in the universe is there in your mind, which you can tap upon and use. By will we mean not only the conscious will by which we think that this is light, and this is a glass, and this is a table, not that will, but that will which like the drop of water has merged into the ocean of the Divine will and when I am merged into the Divine will the discrimination between chairs and table and me. You just cease because I would see beyond the outer form of things. I would see into its very structure, and by visiting into its very structure, I would find that all is but one, and I am none different from the tiny ant that crawls on the floor. It is the same life force that is there. In the process of evolution, I might have developed a more significant amount of consciousness. But how much is that consciousness helping me? That is the main question. Am I using that consciousness in a negative way, or am I using that consciousness in a positive way? You are conscious of a sharp blade; give that to a loafer, and he will go and kill someone with it but give the same blade to a surgeon, and he will save someone’s life with it. The matter is the same. The knife or the blade is the same, but how are we using it? That is the question. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE Because of past experiences, our minds tend always look at the negative side of things. We look at the painful negative side but never at the pleasurable side of things, and we do not do that. Our minds have become patterned and habituated by the forces we have created within ourselves. This law that says, “whatever you sow you will reap,” can be transcended to a higher level, where you can plant potatoes and say, “look, I want onions to grow,” it will grow because you have known the sameness, the same light, the same energy, that is in the potato is in the onion. Your little will or little consciousness is so powerful if combined with Divine will or Divine consciousness that there is no such thing as impossible or impossibility. You can plant potatoes and have onions to grow. GOING BEYOND THE EGO Our main problem is that little ego-self and how to preserve the ego-self. In trying to keep the ego-self, you are only creating greater and greater misery for yourself. This misery for yourself comes from bondage because you are so attached to the little ego self that you are bound by it, while the path to Divinity should bring about freedom, freedom from one’s thoughts, freedom from the idea of possession, all kinds of attachment. If you are non-attached to things, it does not mean that you discard the world. As they say, “In the world but yet not of the world.” When you are not of the world, you can enjoy what is in the world and how beautiful it is. You can never enjoy what is in the world until you go beyond it. Because once you are in the world, you will be in that whirlpool all the time, and you will just shift around energies. Today you are so happy; tomorrow, the opposite occurs. It is the same energy, and it fluctuates up and down because all energy has motion. It is like a pendulum; when it swings to the left, it must swing to the right by its momentum. But there is one beautiful factor when that pendulum swings to the right; it has that moment’s pause before it swings to the left and that moment’s hesitation is what we have to capture. Despite the motion from left to right, that pause gives it the momentum, and if the man can live in that pause, you have known eternity. WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FUNCTION WITHOUT A SLIGHT SENSE OF EGO SELF We cannot control the ego-self; no one can. Even the most realised man, including Krishna, Christ, Buddha, everyone, will always have two percent ego in him because without that two percent of “I-ness,” he will not be able to live in the world. He will just disintegrate; he will not be able to do any of his biological functions. He would not be able to eat; he would not be able to take a bath and things like that. That two percent of “I-ness” will remain before the drop of water sinks into the ocean, and that two percent of that individual drop will disappear when it merges into the ocean, and there is no ego-self left. There is no small I left but the big “I” of the Universe, the big “I” not only of the Universe but the big “I” of that Divine Force, that Divine Energy, only that is left, and from there you view the entire universe. BEING NON-ATTACHED, YOU ARE BEYOND HURT You view the entire motion of how the universe is functioning. We do not pursue engendering or keeping up the little ego-self. The more we can get away from the ego-self, the greater happiness will we have? This does not mean that you must not look after your family; you do not need to throw them away or go to live in the forest or jungles. It does not mean that. Live in beautiful mansions and have half a dozen motor cars or whatever you want to do. Buy lovely diamonds, do whatever you want to. But you are not attached to it, and when you find that non-attachment to it, then nothing can hurt you. Because you are non-attached, you are beyond hurt. Using an analogy – your little child falls down the stairs, you will be hurt because the child has
Spirituality in Daily Life: Bridging the Spiritual and Material Worlds
START SPIRITUAL EDUCATION WHEN THE CHILD IS SMALL Expressing a spiritual life to the young is very beautiful and necessary in this world. Do not start universities, where spiritual education is given like some organizations are doing because when you reach a certain age, your mind is so set. But start spiritual education when the child is small, starting in primary school. That is the time when spiritual knowledge is to be given so that they could be moulded, to grow up in that. I have found that in homes with meditators, where good tapes are played all the time, the children listen, and you will be surprised how perceptive children are. Although they might not be able to verbalize it, they feel that there is something good, and if they are nurtured and brought up in that kind of atmosphere, juvenile delinquency would be so, so much lessened. PEACE IS ONLY FOUND IN AN INWARD SEARCH Technological progress has been so fast today in all countries, including America, England, and everywhere. The intellects have become more and more developed. Despite the technological developments, they have searched outwardly, for they suffer dissatisfaction within themselves. They have not the peace. They could run multi-billion-dollar corporations, and yet they find an emptiness. They have gone to the highest intellectual and technological development limit and cannot find the answer there. The only way they can go is inward instead of outward. Therefore, there is a great interest in spiritual matters today, finding the Kingdom of Heaven within. There is a significant surge in that direction which is an excellent sign. Unfortunately, many of my fellow citizens have come along and misused the privileges given to them. Instead of converting the outward seekers, they became seekers of power and wealth. That is a tragedy, and when I meet some of these guys at times, I give them a piece of my mind because I am afraid of nothing and no one. It could be the highest lord of the land, and if I want to say something, I say it openly and clearly and in no uncertain terms. So that is a tragedy. But those that do understand might be performing some little good work. Anyone on the spiritual path should be encouraged to find himself. By finding himself, his life will become more peaceful, which is what we want. “The peace that passeth all understanding.” We need this integration; the mind and body have been led so far outward. It is about time that more and more people like you would make a right-about turn and start going inward. For only there is peace to be found. A millionaire might become a multi-millionaire, and one might become a billionaire. But what has he gained as far as his peace is concerned? THE SOUL OF MAN CAN NEVER BE LOST Therefore, the scriptures would say, “What is the use of gaining the world and losing your soul?” And souls are being lost. They are not lost; we say these words figuratively and not to be taken in its literal sense because the soul of men can never be lost. But it can be entangled with these total materialistic, unbalanced desires. MATERIAL VS SPIRITUAL I am not against materialism. But what I would like to see is that spirituality is infused into materiality so that which is material becomes spiritual, and that which is spiritual becomes material. It is a continuum, and it is oneness. Although we have two eyes, we close one eye and just look at the material part. Let us open the other eye and see the spiritual aspect as well. We find the two eyes adequately focused, and in that proper focusing, the spirituality and materiality are infused. We need materiality. Because if I have not fifty cents, fifty-six cents, I cannot go to buy a loaf of bread in my pocket. And I need the sustenance, and that is material. If you walk outside, God’s air is free, but we are paying for it in taxes. We cannot escape materiality. This body is material – it is flesh and bone, but the spiritual side of man can be deeply infused in that materiality so that it functions holistically and in wholeness. That is healing. To be healed is to become whole. If we think about it, it is beautiful really. It is beautiful. And it is not an impossibility. It is within the reach of everyone, and it is just by directing one’s attention. IT IS SO SIMPLE With spiritual practices, you will find that we will see lesser and lesser faults in things and the more significant good in things. That is practical infusion in practical daily living. Then we stop being judgmental. “Judge ye not that ye be judged.” “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” “Do unto others as you expect to be done unto you.” These injunctions become realities, not just words on the printed page, which we want. It is so simple, and you do not need to make it complex. A simple understanding of what life is all about, and if you know life, you know love. And if you know love, you know laughter which is joy. … Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1982 – 05