RETURNING TO THE SELF ALL CONDITIONS ARE BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE TOTAL CULTURAL KARMA If one of you desires to become wealthy, it is not only your inner desire that motivates you to do so, but there are also outside forces influencing you and strengthening that desire within you. This is because when you walk around, you see material prosperity everywhere. Thought forces are floating around you all the time, that you also want to be like that. Now, a different force has taken place. There is a certain force, and sometimes it acts very abruptly. Some countries, for example, have become very permissive, to the point of being permissive with things that you would not find in other places. Like pre-teen porn and what have you, things I have heard and read sets my hair on edge. So, what have you attracted? You have attracted an extreme fundamentalist government now, have you not? All extremes are bad, but by reaching one extreme, you automatically draw the other extreme, where a total moralist government has come in. You have attracted that by having gone so far in the other direction. And this is necessary. It is a very good thing that has happened. If the government continues to fulfill its promises, this will help bring the country to a middle ground where it is neither too permissive nor too fundamentalist. The admixture of the two can lead this civilization and culture to greater and greater spiritual heights. Likewise, in every civilization, these things are necessary. Dictatorships develop in the world for several reasons, where the entire culture requires a harsh reality check very quickly. So, all conditions everywhere are brought about by the total cultural karma of that particular country. IN ACTIVITY BUT NOT IN ACTION Many times, people have asked me, and they say, “In India, you have all these yogis sitting up there in the Himalayas and meditating, and you have such holy men. Why do you have all these problems in India?” I say, “What holy men are you talking about, and how many are there? You only hear these stories. You are very, very backward. You are talking of two, three, four, five thousand years ago, not today.” Yes, we have a lot of these so-called yogis sitting there in the Himalayas. We have a lot of them, but are they real yogis, or are they escapists who cannot face the problems of the world, so they escape, people who do not want to take action? Yet they are full of activity. Their minds are chattering away all the time inactivity. They are in activity but not in action. Action is a spontaneous act, while activity is something that you are compelled to do. IN INDIA, THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION, CIVILIZATION HAS GONE, ONLY THE CRADLE IS LEFT People ask me why there are so many problems in India. You have all these floods and famines and riots, people killing each other by the hundreds because of so-called religion, Hindu, Moslem. Why, if it is such a spiritual country, can it not generate a karmic atmosphere of peace? So, I tell them that India is not what you imagine it to be. You would find a few holy people because, in some past ages, people were oriented towards a spiritual way of life, so there is some essence left, but most of it is covered up by extreme materiality. When I was in India about fifteen or eighteen months ago, I found that, from the rickshaw driver to the cabinet level, everyone was corrupt. The rickshaw boy will try to get a rupee or two extra out of you, and so would a cabinet minister try to get a few million out of you if they can. Corruption, corruption, corruption! There is no honesty left. No sincerity left. India, the cradle of civilization, as I often say, civilization is gone; only the cradle remains. That is why all these calamities are drawn upon you. That is why collective karma brings about all these calamities. So, you have these holy places of pilgrimage. I have been to Benares, which is supposed to be the sacred city. I do not know what is so holy about it. Benares is renowned for producing the finest saris in all of India. These are called Banarasi Saree. But you go into a sari shop, and “Oh, just let me show you the factory, this, that the other…” And can they catch you, oh boy! Something that you can find in an ordinary shop for fifty rupees will cost you five hundred rupees there. Where is the holiness? You have a little guide taking you around those dirty, narrow lanes. They have never heard of hygiene, and you are swindled from left, right, and center. Where is the holiness? So, I say India deserves all this that is happening to it. Let more floods come. Let there be more famine; perhaps that is what you need to learn faster. That is why India also required a dictatorship in the form of Indira Gandhi when she was first elected. It was a must, for there comes a time when even the most cultured of societies required to be controlled by an iron hand. These are all the contributing factors of civilizations rising and falling, cultures rising and falling; because when a certain height is reached in a particular field, then a significant amount of ego develops that “We have done this,” things become too easy for people. And how will they pass their time? They are going to pass their time in decadence. WHEN THINGS BECOME TOO EASY, A SOCIETY BECOMES DECADENT That is how all the permissiveness in America has developed, and, of course, it has spread to other countries, such as England and Germany, and many other places. It has flowed over. Because things are too easy, people must remain active. They do not want action, but they must be
The New Ascent: From Outer Achievement to Inner Realization
Compassion, Eternal, Force, Happiness, Karma, Kindness, Love, Mind, Philosophy, Religion, Self, Spiritual, Spirituality
TURNING INWARD FOR PROGRESS CYCLES OF CIVILIZATION If you study history, you will find that at specific periods, India was at the forefront, and then its civilization and culture waned, and it moved on further to the West as the sunset. Then, Greece emerged, and Egypt experienced a resurgence of its culture. It moved to England and America, and now, today, Japan is the most significant focal point on Earth (considered in the 1980s). There are many factors that contribute to a specific country reaching a certain level of development. It is a process of ages, and yet the certain focal point of development does not come from within itself. There are many contributing factors of surrounding countries. For example, during the time 2000 years ago, when the Middle East was at its height, it never reached that height on its own. However, being at the crossroads of world trade, many cultures were brought together. There are only three cultures in the world that have contributed to the so-called progress of the world: India, China, and Greece. Those are the only three cultures, and what the West has received are its philosophies and various theologies, metaphysics, and so on, which originated in Greece and were transmitted to the West. It is said that all this stemmed from India, where certain cultures went to Greece and others to the East, including China and Japan. This is, of course, what the Indians would like to claim. But the question is, can cultures arise simultaneously at various places, or do they have to follow a linear pattern? Cultures could rise simultaneously. If we study the Inca civilization, it was a highly advanced civilization that existed at that time. The world as we know it today was not the structure of the world some thousands of years ago. For example, India was located right alongside South Africa. When the incredible explosion occurred, the force of Atlantis’ destruction pushed that portion of land or broke it off and forced it northward. The impact was so significant that it pushed up the Himalayas, and it is believed by many today that part of Atlantis is under the Himalayas. But when it comes to the rise and fall of a particular civilization, what could be the cause of it? When a civilization rises, it rises because, as I said, contributory factors of other civilizations that preceded it and that are alongside it, and the people in that particular sphere would gather. Civilizations are not composed of a large number of people. There are very few people whose driving force propels them to put forward such advanced ideas that they automatically find a following, which in turn uplifts people in a certain way, what we call civilization. To be honest, there is no such thing as civilization. It is all barbarism in a more refined form. HOW DO WE MEASURE CIVILIZATION? A civilized person is a person who would have within him all the great virtues of kindness and compassion and sympathy and love, that is a civilized person. But how many are there? Therefore, I say they are rather barbaric, and what we regard to be civilization is just the surface value or technological development that we see, and we call them civilized. You find people who eat with their hands while others eat with knives and forks. Can we say that people who sit on the ground and eat with their hands are less civilized than those who sit at a table with a knife and fork? They are not. So, the upsurgence of civilization is a fallacy. This world has been as it has been for thousands of years, and we measure civilization only by a different way of living; yet, fundamentally, it is the same form of life that has been lived all along. Customs change, and we call it civilization. We call that civilization, and then again, civilization is measured by technological processes, by technology. A person flies in an airplane, so he is civilized, more civilized than a person who travels with a donkey cart, and yet that person traveling with a donkey cart could be more civilized. He is more human. Civilization should be measured by how human you are. We do not want to make people into gods; it is not necessary. However, we need to transform people into human beings who understand the value of humanity, and that is the ultimate test of a civilized person. WHEN CIVILIZATION FORGETS HUMANITY When technological progress is made in certain countries at a specific period due to factors that have contributed from outside sources, such as other countries, it will lead these people to a different standard of living. Not a higher standard of living, but a different standard of living which could make things easier for the five senses or where less labor is involved in achieving or doing something, then we say it is a civilized country. In my opinion, all the various highly technological countries, such as America, England, Germany, and France, are they truly civilized? No. I find them more barbaric than very, very backward countries. Traveling around the villages of India, for example, or perhaps in some of the backwoods here in America itself, where people are filled with love, you are made to feel you are loved. But in so-called modern civilized countries, what you find is: what can I get out of it? Is that a human being? It is an animal because that is what animals want. I am feeling hungry, so I have to go and get some food. That is the basis of it all. Civilized countries today do not base their civilizations on eternal truths like love, charity, compassion, sympathy, and similar values. No. All these countries are based on economics: everything done in the so-called societies, nations, and communities is entirely based on economics, and economics has become the norm. The stronger, the more powerful a country is economically,
Surrender is the Culmination of Spiritual Practices: Surrender is a Happening
Acceptance, Awareness, Buddha, Christ, Compassion, Conscious Mind, Devotion, Divine, Eternal, Evolution, Force, Freedom, God, Guru, Heart, Humility, Integration, Kindness, Krishna, Law of opposites, Love, Love thy neighbour as thyself, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Oneness, Path, Philosophy, Purity, Relationships, Relative World, Self, Soul, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Master, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Surrender, Unfoldment, Universe
WHAT IS TRUE SURRENDER? From the time of birth, every person is committed to something. When he is conscious of his commitment, that very commitment establishes itself in his little conscious mind, and as he gets older with a greater understanding, the commitment becomes stronger. But what is the nature of commitment? You are committed to your husband or your wife. In what sense are you committed? You are committed to love. You are committed to protecting. You are committed to being together. So why are there conflicts? Are these the qualities of genuine commitment? Genuine commitment is synonymous with the word surrender, for commitment can never exist without surrender. What does one surrender oneself to? Do you surrender yourself to the object of your love? No, that is only the side effect. You surrender to yourself. What do we mean when we say, “You surrender to yourself”? Which self? You are a compilation of many layers, and there are many selves within yourself. You have your physical, mental, and, of course, the eternal Spiritual Self. So, where do we start in self-surrender? Some schools of thought would say you start with the physical self, which the mental self would empower. But when it is empowered by the cognitive self, which governs your act of surrendering of mind, which reflects in bodily action of surrender, it is still not true surrender because you are forming specific patterns in your mind. And when patterns are formed in the mind, know that those patterns can change. So, for the moment, you might feel surrendered to some idea, and that idea starts in your mind, so your mind creates the idea or ideal, and if your mind makes it, then it is subject to change. What validity is there in the mental idea? The idea is a thought, and what validity is there in thought? Today, you might feel committed to something you like or love. Tomorrow, circumstances might happen where you do not think that fondness or that love for that ideal, and then your ideals would change. It changes because it has been an ideal. The secret of self-surrender is not the ideal of an idea or the ideal of an object but that which is within which requires no surrender. ONLY A FREE MIND CAN COGNISE FREEDOM There is not a question of surrender. This is what theology says: “Surrender yourself to man or God or some ideal.” But all theologies are trying to put you into a groove, a particular line of thought, a specific patterning, and all patternings are not freedom. But patternings are the basis of all bondage. So, you get out of a particular bondage and enter into another bondage. True surrender is free. In surrendering, the leading quality that should be within you is total freedom, and this totality of liberty can never be gained until we reach the inner self, the true, unchanging self. And when we get the accurate, unchanging self, our minds and bodies become so saturated by its force that the mind also starts feeling free. For whom cognises freedom, or what cognises bondage? It is only the mind. But what level of the mind cognises what? That is the question. It could only be a free mind that could recognise freedom. A mind bound by various conditions or patterns can never realise this freedom. SURRENDER CAN ONLY TAKE EFFECT FROM A STABLE STANDPOINT By bringing the mind into more significant turbulence through various forms of analysis, multiple forms of intellectualisation, and various forms of rationalisation, surrender would not be possible. Rationalisation and intellectualisation are directly opposite of surrender. Surrender is unconditional, while rationalisation is conditional. Today, you might follow a particular philosophy which becomes your ideal, and tomorrow, you might find something different, something better. You might have been using “Palmolive” soap all of your life and found that to be the best, and then one day you discover “Body Dust”, which you would find to be better. So, the ideals change because you are changing. So, the whole point is missed in surrendering. The approach is deep within ourselves, where you are forever free, and surrendering can only take effect from a stable standpoint. That stableness is achieved through meditation and spiritual practices. As you become more and more stable and integrated within yourself, surrendering does not become an object of thought but a spontaneous act. It just flows from your body, mind and spirit. There are no obstacles. There are no hindrances. There are no rationalisations, and there are no intellectualisations. TO FIND ONESELF IS TO SURRENDER TO ONESELF “I love my guru because he is a nice chap.” As soon as you say that you do not love your guru, you say, “My wife, she is so beautiful, and she is this and that,” there is no love and neither surrender. So, the object at first could attract our attention. It could be attractive in some form with a certain amount of mental and physical compatibility. But these compatibilities do not remain forever. The man might go through some illness whereby physical compatibility is gone. Or the woman might go through specific mental traumas so that mental compatibility is gone. So, what you feel today to be compatible is a fixture of your mind. It belongs to the fiction department. But we take it to be so real, and the reason why we take it to be so real is that we base all our experiences upon what the mind dictates to us. Not a pure, unconditioned mind but a conditioned mind, and whatever a conditioned mind dictates can never be lasting. So, until man realises or learns the value of the unchanging, stable inner self, he will forever be conditioned, and his surrender will be conditioned. I love my guru because I might find stability within myself through him. This is very partly true because there is a condition. There is a motive. There is
The Only Reality: Discovering the Divine Within
Attachment, Bliss, Conscious Mind, Consciousness, Divinity, Ego, Force, God, Guru, Happiness, I am That I am, Joy, Kingdom of Heaven within, Law of opposites, Light, Love, Mind, Non-Attachment, Oneness, Path, Samskaras, Self, Spiritual Practices, Subconscious, Superconscious, Unfoldment, Universal, Universe, Yahweh
HOW REAL IS REALITY? People usually try to project themselves into things they are not, and when one projects oneself into something which one is not, one lives in a false world or unreality. You always find that every man thinks he is more handsome than he is, and every woman thinks more pretty than she is; we have made or created an image of ourselves, and what reality is there in an image? Image is imaginary, and most people imagine themselves to be what they are not; his imagination can be used for personal upliftment, for life is nothing else but this instant we are at about. The real am-ness is within you; therein lies total reality. One has to go beyond the imagined reality to reach that total reality. Imagined reality is conceptional, while total reality is experiential. When you can really and truly experience yourself as you are, you will find that vastness where you transcend all limitations. You transcend the limits of your body; you transcend the limitations of your mind. And in image making, the central letter there is the “M.” image making the “M” in “I-ma-ginary.” In the authentic self, you have the “A” before the “M,” not the “M” or “A” image. And when one realises the “A” before the “M”, you are, and you would find such a beautitude in this realisation. You would discover total bliss, ecstasy, and joy, which is proof enough to tell you that you are not finding that total joy or bliss because you are imagining. You are image-making. While the real “I” within us has no images, it is formless, immortal. But in creating the images, we develop a form simultaneously; we are bringing that formless reality within everyone into imagined unreality. ANYTHING YOU PICTURE TO BE REAL WILL BE A REALITY TO YOU Now, look at the process. So, you are lost, totally lost. And no one could tell me that they do not feel themselves to be lost. Sometimes, you feel so lost that you become lonely and not alone. There is a significant difference between being alone and being lonely. Loneliness has a need, while aloneness subsists with itself. It is non-dependent. It does not need any crutches. Meanwhile, the imagined self, the so-called false reality, will always need crutches. So, you become dependent instead of independent, and we see in people’s daily lives that there is some kind of crutch that everyone carries. It could be a physical crutch, or it could be primarily a mental crutch. When we have these mental crutches on which we depend, life becomes a phenomenon, and when you proceed with this phenomenon, you land up in greater and greater unreality. The process is not to go outward to that which is unreal; the process is to go inward, where we find actual reality. It is an indescribable experience. We seem to think that everything in this world is real. Because we picture it as accurate, anything you picture to be genuine will become a reality. But remember, it is a false reality. THE GREATEST QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF: “WHO AM I?” So, we proceed from darkness into light, from mortality to immortality. It is all dark here, while in there, it is all light, shimmering, glowing. And life becomes different when the light is brought forward and that inner reality is realised. Then it assumes the quality of reality, and then only, and never before then. You are all sitting here. Are you genuine? Everyone will say “yes.” I say, “No,” you are not real. You have emphasised the surface waves, forgetting the depths within you, the depths of the ocean, which are calm, blissful, and joyful. One has to dive deep within oneself through our spiritual practices to find the real me. And when you discover the real me, the question, “Who am I?” will cease immediately. The most significant question a person can ask himself is, “Who am I?” And it is the most challenging question to answer. No one can tell you who you are. It is by self-inquiry only, through the imaginary mind, that one reaches a certain level where you have a glimpse of who you are. And then you jump, you leap into the unknown, for the unknown is what you are. When we use the word “unknown,” we mean it is not conceptual. It can be experienced. For example, this little thing, say sugar, you can analyse sugar, take it to the laboratory, and find out all its components. But by doing that, you are not knowing the sweetness of sugar. You have to taste the sugar, which means experiencing the sugar and its sweetness. Then only will the question cease, “Who am I?” The way to start knowing who you are is to move away from the little self. Moving away from the little self means you become an observer of the little self. So here, reality is observing unreality, the play of life, for life is nothing but a play. You sit in the audience and see the actors doing their play. It could be Macbeth or Hamlet or whatever. How much do you identify yourself with what is happening on the stage? I was in show business for over 20 years, and if there is a tearjerker, as we call films, that brings tears to your eyes, you will find so many hankies drawn from their pockets and wiping their eyes. They have become involved in the play, yet the person in the audience who is crying knows it is just a play enacted. It is not the actor, but it is just the acting. And yet you start crying. TO BE IN THE WORLD AND YET NOT OF THE WORLD That is what is happening in daily life. You become so involved in this unreality, and being involved in this unreality, you get all kinds of different feelings and emotions. You suffer pains and
Overcoming Weakness: The Inner Path to Strength
Acceptance, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Ego, Force, God, Grace, Guru, Humility, Joy, Meditation, Mind, Philosophy, Scriptures, Self, Spirit, Spiritual, Spiritual Force, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Surrender, Universe
DO GOOD, BE GOOD A way to gain discipline would be through devotion and surrender. That devotion takes the form that, “Not my will but Thy will be done,” and when man fully appreciates and says, “Thy will be done,” surrender to that will come spontaneously. That is one way of self-discipline. Because the emphasis or importance is not put upon our little self, but the emphasis and importance are put upon the big self. That is one way. Then, there would be another way where you are not concerned about whether there is divinity. You are not worried about all the various heavens the scriptures talk about. Your principle in life would be, “Do good, be good.” To do that, one has to exercise conscious effort because doing good does not always come spontaneously because, as we have said before, we are a product of conditioning. So, we have to repattern our minds. Man is usually a creature of habit; most things we do are without thinking and just an automatic reflex created by habit. These habits have to be changed, and that requires effort. In doing good and being good, effort is required; very consciously, we curb what we would typically do. A Chinese proverb says, “Before you say an angry word, roll your tongue nine times in the mouth.” Because by the time you roll the tongue nine times in the mouth, your anger is gone, and you will not say those angry words. So, in effortful living, where we consciously try to do good and be good, follow the precepts of morality and ethics, and live that kind of life, you do not need to believe in anything. THE GREATEST DIFFICULTY IS TO ACCEPT OUR WEAKNESSES OURSELVES What shall we do when we recognise our weaknesses? That question would be difficult to answer because one has to describe the weakness specifically, and by knowing the specific weakness, a specific method of overcoming the weakness can be given. It is like going to a doctor and saying, “I am sick,” which would make it difficult for the doctor. But if you tell the doctor, “I have got a stomachache or a headache or a footache,” the doctor will know exactly what kind of medicine to give and for what purpose. But we can talk of weaknesses in general. Weakness does not allow us to cope adequately in life, and when we cannot cope adequately in life, it means that instead of running on four pistons, our motor car runs on three pistons. It is straightforward to say that if the one piston of the vehicle is not working, fix it up. But how to fix it? That is the real question. When our weaknesses are brought face to face in front of us through our meditational practices, and it could be any weakness, then half the cure is done. Any Doctor will tell you that proper diagnosis is half the cure. By facing our weakness honestly and sincerely, we are halfway to overcoming it. It does require some courage to look at ourselves squarely in the mirror. Meditation and spiritual practices give us courage and strength, which is the primary purpose of meditation and many other purposes. When we face the weakness, there is a cognition of the weakness. That means that our minds have started acknowledging and accepting our weaknesses. I have been doing a lot of work in various kinds of hospitals. Hospitals treat cardiac and nervous troubles and all types of rehabilitation programmes, and by teaching them the proper forms of meditation, a more fantastic calmness dawns on them. This calmness gives them a greater chance of evaluating their weakness. The most significant difficulty one finds, even after knowing the weakness, is accepting it ourselves. I am referring primarily to the work I have been doing with alcoholics. The biggest problem I have with alcoholics is to make them admit that “I am an alcoholic.” Once the man sincerely acknowledged that the person must accept the first and second points that “I am not capable on my own to deal with my problem.” NOT MY WILL, BUT THY WILL BE DONE It means, firstly, acceptance and, secondly, admitting that I am too weak to do it on my own. We have only used the alcoholic as an example, but the same two principles apply to every weakness. So, when these two principles are accepted, when we accept the weakness and admit that “I am not capable of handling it myself,” then because of that sincerity, the power of Grace automatically dawns upon us. When that power of Grace dawns upon us, it acts as medicine. So, accepting, admitting and being able to use the power of Grace helps us immensely, but the most incredible realisation it brings to us is to feel a confident presence that I am walking through life, and I am not walking alone; my hand is held by the hand of superior power. That means there is a Spiritual Force, a spiritual energy; you can call it God. That Spiritual Force is with me, and when we come to these realisations, we do not feel alone, and because we do not feel alone, we find the strength. But to admit to ourselves and accept to ourselves that I am not alone, there is another quality that develops: self-surrender. We surrender ourselves to this higher power, and then we can honestly say, “Not my will be done, but Thy will be done.” And when His will is done, the weaknesses disappear. IT IS ONLY WHEN WE FEEL HUMBLE THAT WE ALSO GAIN STRENGTH When people pray, they are always doing business with God. They do business. They say, “If my son passes the examination, I will give 10 pounds to charity. It means, “Lord, you do first, then I pay.” No, it must be the other way round. “I will do my charity, and lord, you be the judge to
There Are No Obstacles: How the Spirit Transcends All Barriers
THE WORKING OF THE SPIRITUAL FORCE You do not need an outside force to activate your Spiritual Self, for the Kingdom of Heaven is within yourself all the time, and that is the force we have to realize through our spiritual practices. When this realization dawns, we recognize that the Spirit is always within us. The mechanics of that spiritual force work in different ways – firstly, it works in the purity you develop within you; then, it works in the way of your lifestyle. Then it also works in the knowledge, the Jnana, you gain. And it also develops in the Bhakti, the devotion you develop within yourself. These are the simple principles of the mechanical workings of the spiritual force. But this might just not be understood. So, we must go into greater detail. When understanding develops, the awareness develops. When devotion develops, the Heart opens up. When Karma develops to its highest degree of purity, all actions become pure. And all this leads to the royal path of Raja Yoga, which is me. When you have developed to a certain degree, you will find progress in life, leading you further into more excellent and more significant progress until you reach the goal for which your life has been meant. EVERYTHING IN LIFE IS COMPOSED OF THE SYMPHONY OF DIVINITY The goal is to go through all these aspects through the various vicissitudes of life. The water of the river flows, but do you know how many rocks, stones, logs, and other things it has to flow over? That flowing over is the difficulties you find in life. Those are the miseries because you think only of the rocks, stones, and boulders and logs instead of the freshness of the water. So, where is your attention now? I tell you where, do you want to hear it? Your tension is in your backside because the backside bumps in the river of life. But raise your head to the heavens and see the eternity, the vastness of the blue skies. Let your concentration be there and admire the blue days. Some days it will be cloudy, some days it will be sunny. So, what is the difference between the sun and the clouds? Because it is the sun that has produced the clouds. Do you see the combination that exists between sun and clouds? You worry and worry and worry and go into misery because you do not discriminate between the clouds and the sun when the clouds and the sun are one. Have you ever thought the clouds are nothing else but one? One has created the other, and the other has created the one. When you realize the oneness between the clouds and the sun, you will understand that everything in life comprises the Symphony of Divinity. And when this is realized, you will find nothing ugly. THERE ARE NO OBSTACLES The secret of life is to find Divinity in everything. There is nothing in this world that is ugly. Everything is beautiful, depending on what attitude you develop. So, on the spiritual path, there might be obstacles that you might feel, but the obstacles are no obstacles at all because the Spirit, being Divine, would be devoid of all challenges. The obstacles are created by your wrong thinking, way of life, Jnana, the wrong way of life, action, Karma and wrong devotion to wrong objects, Bhakti, and all these things constitute the misery of your life. When you find the simple secrets, they are not too difficult, at least for me. When you find the secrets of these simple principles, then your life can be so, so, so happy. Is that not what you want? So, your husband, or boyfriend or whatever, I do not know, smacked you last week, and he was very angry with you. Now, ask yourself why he was angry and why he slapped me. Have you ever thought that I might have done something wrong so that my woman slapped me? Here comes self-analysis, and self-analysis means not being judgmental. So, he slapped me. I must think, why did he slap me? Is it because of some Karma that I did, perhaps voluntarily? Or involuntarily, or by just impulsion? Then, you will find that I deserved to be smacked. We say we are sensible, but remember there are other parts to it: sense, common sense and nonsense. Which is most important? Sense, common sense, or nonsense? Nonsense because sense involves the mind. So, let us get away from the mind; it is nonsense, but let us get to the Heart, which makes the most incredible sense because the feelings of the Heart transmute themselves to the mind to give you good sense. So many things happen in life, and we are all grown-up people. Many things happen to people because they work on common sense, but let us have good sense. Good sense removes all the obstacles on the spiritual path, and good sense not only removes the barriers on the spiritual path but also gives you a better understanding of life. A better understanding, not only of yourself, but of your beloved ones, your environment, everything. So, get away from sense and common sense and nonsense, and develop good sense through your spiritual practices, which will remove all the obstacles in your spiritual path. And when those obstacles are removed, you will feel like a better person. I promise you that. That is the secret of life, for you can only develop in life by destroying the obstacles. If you have a thorn in your foot or a pebble in your shoe, will you limp around with that stone? No, you pull off your shoe and throw away the pebble or stone or whatever is there, and you will walk comfortably. Is that not what you want, to walk through life comfortably? It is all so, so simple? INVEST WITHIN YOUR SPIRITUAL SELF Why can people not understand the
Work for the Sake of Work: The Spiritual Power of Selfless Action
Attachment, Attitude, Awareness, Devotion, Divine, Divinity, Ego, Eternal, Evolution, God, Integration, Joy, Law of Nature, Love, Manifestation, Meditation, Mind, Path, Relationships, Religion, Self, Self Discovery, Self-Realization, Spiritual, Spiritual Path, Spiritual Practices, Surrender, Tranquillity, Unfoldment
THE VALUE OF GOOD INTENTIONS? Most people have good intentions, but the question is, what is behind the good intentions? What is the motivation for the work that one wants to do? I have encountered people who would join various organisations and societies and do excellent work. Yet, that fantastic work brings no spiritual gain because the intention, the motivation, is for self-aggrandisement. It is for ego fulfilment, saying, “I did this, and I did that.” The very moment you think that you have done a good deed, then that deed is valueless as far as your Spiritual Self is concerned. As far as spiritual unfoldment is concerned, it holds no value whatsoever because one works or does things for the sake of the work or the sake of doing it and not for the reward. Many people with good intentions and doing good work want a reward to have the recognition that they did so and so. It has some limited value but does not have the spiritual value we are after. I remember an instance where I was involved in building a community centre which comprised a temple, a school and a hall. So, this person approached me and said, “I would like to give fifty thousand pounds to the organisation.” I said, “Very good. That is very generous and kind of you.” But then he said, “There is one condition. I want a plaque put up, saying that so much was donated by so and so in memory of his mother and father.” So, I said, “No, I am very sorry. We do not need your fifty thousand pounds. We are not here to boost your ego.” He is a multi-millionaire, so fifty thousand pounds means nothing to him. “The very deed you are doing, you want to perpetuate the memory of your deed. You are not being charitable; you are trying to buy a memory so that after you pass away, the memory will still linger when people say, Ah, Mr So and So donated this and that.” GOOD WORKS HAVE TO BE DONE FOR THE SAKE OF DOING IT It is the same thing with everything else regarding good works. It has to be done for the sake of doing it and not necessarily as a duty, because duty too has strings attached, that I have to do this duty and you force yourself to do that duty. There should be no force and neither any compulsion in the act. It has to be a spontaneous giving where you just do. The Bhagavad Gita tells you that your job is to do the work; you are not entitled to the results thereof. So, when we do any kind of work without any idea of any return, that is when the entire return is given to you. It gives you a far greater awareness and a deeper insight into life. It gives you an insight into yourself because that is an unfoldment. It is straightforward to say, “work for the sake of work,” but the person who can work is necessarily highly integrated. For example, I always tell teachers in our organisation that when you teach, remember you benefit more. The analogy I love to use is this: when you water the garden, even before the water reaches the flowers, the water cleans the hose first. You see the great benefits of this total dedication and unselfishness. What do we mean by dedication? Dedication, in essence, contains a devotion, for if there is no devotion, there can be no dedication, and if there is no dedication, there is no commitment. What are you committed to? You are committed to yourself. And when you feel that you are committed to yourself, that you are responsible for yourself, that you are responsible for your evolution, then all your actions would be spontaneous. So have the motivation because no one in this mundane world could be entirely desireless. So, have desire, but that desire should be towards self-unfoldment, which means becoming closer to God or Divinity. That is a divine desire, and as one progresses on the spiritual path, even that desire disappears. Because when you become one with Divinity, there is no question of desire anymore, for Divinity is desireless. DIVINE WILL IS THE WILL OF NATURE Divine Will is a phrase so misunderstood. Divinity does not will anything. “Let Thy will be done” is a common saying. Will in itself implies a thought process. Without thought, you cannot will, which is more for the human mind than the Divine mind. So, what do we mean by Divine Will? It means that within the laws of nature, things have to function in a certain way. It is the law of nature that water will run down the hill and not up the mountain. The law of nature states that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It is the mechanism of the world’s functioning. It is the mechanism of the laws of nature, which is will, which is Divine Will that was not created or pre-meditated but came about as a manifestation. If you plant onions, you will not expect potatoes to grow, yet if you think Divine Will is so powerful, that can be changed. You can plant potato seeds, and onions will grow because we have given so much emphasis and power to the Divine Will, a miraculous power that does not operate miraculously. That, too, is bound within the laws of nature, for that which we understand as that Supreme Will is only nature’s will and not God’s. For that Divine essence is beyond all thought. It does not think. It is a neutral energy; as I would always say, it is like electricity that could be used in a stove to produce heat or in a refrigerator to produce coldness. So, man with good intentions would say, “I am acting within Supreme Will, Divine Will”. What he means is
Divine Decisions: Guided from Within
Acceptance, Attitude, Belief, Conscious Mind, Divine, Divinity, Effort, Eternal, Eternity, Evolution, Faith, Force, God, Grace, Gurushakti, Happiness, Integration, Joy, Karma, Kingdom of Heaven within, Law of Nature, Manifestation, Meditation, Mental Patternings, Mind, Omnipresent, Path, Peace, Samskaras, Self, Spirit, Spiritual Practices, Strength, Subconscious, Superconscious, Surrender, Universe
WITH PROPER EFFORT, ANY CHOICE CAN BE SUCCESSFUL Many people have beliefs in omens, and omens are superstitions. They are creations of your mind. You would find that if a cat sneezes in some countries, they would say rain will come. If a cat sneezes in China, they say it is bad luck. So, omens are never to be relied upon. They make no sense whatsoever, and as far as choices are concerned, omens are never to be considered. But man is put into a dilemma when faced with two propositions: what shall I decide upon? He comes to a fork in the road. Shall I take the left, or shall I take the right? What would be the significant factor he could rely upon in making the right choice? What does man do? He sets his mind to work. He analyses the pros and cons of which direction to take. But how valid is his analysis? That is the question. When man thinks, that thought will be guided by his personal experiences, conditionings and patternings, and how accurate his patternings are. Man may go through false experiences in life. Then, the analysis, too, could become false. In other words, it means that his decision there could be biased. Shall I take the left or the right? It is based upon insecurity, and all insecurities are based upon fear, which comes from a lack of confidence. So here we have three factors: fear, insecurity, and lack of confidence. There is another aspect. If a person has studied the map well before embarking on a journey and knows his subject well, the decisions will come automatically. However, there is a particular element of bias in it. But then there are situations where no experience could help one to choose. You meet a person who gives you a business proposition. You do not know the person too well, so you have to decide whether this business proposition will be dependent upon him for its success or will it be dependent upon you for success. The choice is a thing that every person worries about in their daily life, and you can rest assured that the more you worry about the choice, the more wrong the choice can be. There is a difference between contemplation and worrying about that. Contemplation comes from a cool-headedness, which will give you a calculated risk. So, in all things of life, be it marriage, business, and everything, you are there to take a risk, but a calculated risk. Why think only in terms of the success that choice might bring? Though man desires success, why not think of it as an adventure? Why only worry about whether it will be successful or unsuccessful? And why do choices become difficult? It is because all choices are based on mundane things, wanting maximum returns. Sometimes with work and sometimes without work, like putting ten dollars on a horse; wanting to gain five hundred dollars, you choose a horse. How valid is that trying to get something for nothing? Any choice you make, the left or right road, can become successful if proper effort is put into it. WITH PROPER INTEGRATION, CHOICES BECOME CHOICELESS You can turn back if you find the path thorny and go the other way, but the adventure is in man’s spirit. Life itself is an adventure. The path to Divinity is an adventure. It is a discovery, and therein lies the joy of discovering oneself. The purpose should be that through the path, how much will I find out about myself, and how much potential do I have in mundane things? That should be the first thought, not the idea of what will be chosen. In marriage, a boy meets a girl, they seem to fall in love, and then they choose to marry. If it does not work out. Whose fault is it? It is not because of the imperfect choice but our imperfections that make it not work out. Everything can fail because we have not gained a certain amount of integration. Without integration, the wisest choice, the surest path, can also fail. So, spiritual practices and meditation become essential because, with proper integration within oneself, you can never make a wrong choice. Then, the choice becomes choiceless, and you spontaneously do the right things at the right time. Here in the West, we have one divorce in every three marriages. In the East, although they do not have a romance period, boy sees girl, girl sees boy, it looks all right, and the parents arrange the marriage. This is still happening even in modern India today, and yet the divorce rate is one in ten thousand. Because they have been taught, they are brought up in a particular culture where acceptance becomes the primary factor. With acceptance, there is a surrender, not a fatalistic surrender, but a surrender in the form of acceptance that my wife is such or my husband is such, but I accept that. And by that acceptance, one develops a beautiful kind of humility, and that humility is the most significant force on Earth that could draw the required grace to you. So that choice which might have seemed wrong becomes right. That choice that was seemingly wrong becomes the right choice. That choice finds the right voice – that inner voice. TRUE DECISIONS COME FROM WITHIN So valid decisions, true choices, are not necessarily from the mind. They come from within. We have the ability. Meditators have the know-how to tap the inner resources, and by tapping the inner resources through spiritual practices, all they do will be right and conducive to their evolution. This does not mean it will have immediate results, but it has long-term benefits that are far more beneficial than immediate temporary ones. One thing to remember is that the laws of nature are forever supporting you on the right path. It never leads you astray unless you close your eyes and
Choiceless Choices: He Chooses, I Flow
DIVINITY IS AN ENERGY AND HAS NO WILL In the largest sense, there is nothing else that exists but divine will. Man tends to narrow down the vastness of divine will to their own will, which consists of nothing else but their egos! The ego says, “I do this, and I do that,” yet it does nothing at all. For how could the ego function at all without that energizing force that is there of divine will? The concept of Divine Will is a misnomer; it is a fallacy. Divinity has no will at all. Divinity is an energy. But where the will comes in is in manifestation, for as every kind of energy, that energy has to express itself in some way or the other, and that energy expresses itself in manifestation. This manifestation, in turn, is what has created you and your very existence; your very creation is nothing else but a manifestation. DIVINE WILL CONSISTS OF MOTION, BUT IN UNDERLYING MOTION, THERE IS STILLNESS What is manifestation? Manifestation is the relativity of life from its grossest level to its highest level. Yet it remains manifestation, which that energy empowers. This manifestation is called Divine Will. When we say, “Thy will be done,” what does it mean? That means, may the totality of manifestation cooperate with me. Let me not fragment it or cut it into pieces by my little self. We try to gather the pieces that we have cut up into the totality of manifestation so that we can merge into manifestation itself. The totality of manifestation. This mergence is the first step that will take place for you to become one with the energy. Manifestation is like waves on the ocean, rising and falling, rising and falling, rising and falling. But yet, what creates those waves? That is the question. The creation of those waves is because of the energy currents that flow deeper down in the ocean, and that is the energy man has to reach to become Divinity itself and not the will. So here is a process of elimination all the time, where you go from your ego will to divine will, and then you merge away into that infinite energy because divine will is not limitless. It has its limitations. It is limited to the structure of this universe, while the energy that we talk about, the impersonal God, if you wish to call it that, is beyond this universe. Yet, it penetrates every atom of the universe. Thus, through this penetration of energy, we find the entire universe functioning. Because the very act of functioning is a process, it is constantly filled with motion. Nothing can exist in this universe without motion. Everything is moving. Even as we sit in this room, we are hurtling through space at thousands of miles per minute. You take the example of light: it moves a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second. Everything is moving. You think you are sitting still there; no, you are moving. Every cell in your body is in motion. Otherwise, you would not be sitting here. Otherwise, you would not exist; you would disintegrate. So, divine will consists of motion. But, underlying this motion, there is the stillness that man has to reach and will reach in time to come. And achieving that stillness, you will become part of the motion that controls this entire universe and still be apart from it. You become the observer of the motion, and in that observation, you will find that stillness, and yet, you are involved in the motion of divine will. DIVINE WILL DOES NOT CHOOSE FOR YOU; YOUR EGO CHOOSES FOR YOU When it comes to choices, who chooses for you? Your ego chooses. Because the ego is patterned, and according to its patterning, it makes its choice. You are fond of mountains, or someone is fond of the sea. Because you are used to mountains, you are attracted to the mountains, and if you are fond of the sea, you are attracted to the sea. But man can combine within himself the mountains and the sea together. What is the difference between the mountain and the sea? You would have just as much ozone up in the hills, the mountains, as you would have at the seaside. What is the difference between the molecular structure between the mountain and the sea? None whatsoever. And where did the mountain come from? It was an eruption in the sea that caused the mountain to rise. In my younger days, I used to love mountaineering, and on the mountains, I used to find sea shells. So, did the mountain not rise from the sea itself? So why do I discriminate between the mountain and the sea? If I could bring myself to find the oneness of everything, the mountain and the sea and the land in between them, then I comply with divine will. Therefore, choices are made based on your preferences, and these preferences are influenced by preconditioning. That is why you choose the mountain or you choose the sea. So, choices are made because of your ego self, and your ego self is nothing else but thought formation. The process is simple. You inform the formation. When you can do that, you will learn to observe yourself and the various methods of the mind that lead you to certain kinds of choices. You have a two-week vacation. Are you planning to visit New York or Los Angeles? How does that choice come about? You may have read some articles about New York, which has attracted you to the city. You want to see the Empire State Building, or perhaps you have read articles about California’s 17-mile drive. Therefore, you are attracted to that. The choice is a matter of conditioning that repeats itself. Divine will does not choose for you. It is your ego self that decides, and the ego self, as I have said before, is nothing
Awakening to Your Divine Nature: Beyond the Drama of the Mind
AWAKENING TO YOUR DIVINE NATURE Do we live only for our five physical senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling? Is that the meaning of life, or is there a higher meaning? Happiness can only be found if you strive for the higher meaning of life. You are Divine. You imagine yourself to be non-Divine, and that causes you the miseries of life. But if you think, “I am born in the image of God; I am that Divinity,” then all miseries will disappear. Nothing can affect you if you can only reset from the externalities of life and bring yourself into the internality. Affectation is a product of your mind, and your mind as everyone else’s in the world, ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine percent is affected by the mind. Are you ruling your mind, or is your mind ruling you? If you say to yourself, “I am feeling sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick,” you will feel sick. But if you say to yourself, “I am well,” you will find that energy welling up within you because your mind is the greatest obstacle to your misery, and it is the most significant help to your development and non-misery. ACCEPTANCE BRINGS FREEDOM Misery means that you feel uncomfortable within yourself, and conflicting thoughts fly through your mind, thoughts where one thought conflicts with the other and causes friction that makes you feel miserable. But if you eliminate conflict, it is natural and logical that you will feel non-conflict. The secret to non-conflict is not controlling the mind. The more you try to control your mind, the greater the conflict will occur because you are pressurizing a non-conflicting force against a conflicting force, and because of these two opposites, you create greater conflict. But if we can allow our minds just to flow. Someone has said a bad word to me; how will I accept those words? How will I allow what this someone has said to me or anyone else has said to me? Whose business is it? It is my business because I am the one who is allowing myself to be affected. You go out now, and you find it to be cold. Who is feeling cold? Not the weather. You are feeling chilly. If you go outside and if it is warm, you will feel warm. So why not treat the mind similarly, where you could say to yourself, “Ah, it is cold. Why not? Let it be cold.” If it is raining, why not let it rain? Does that rain not give us food, flowers, and beauty? If it is so hot, can we not just think that the food, flowers, and everything grows because of the heat? Is it not the heat and the rain that sustains life to its fullest? So, whose fault is it? Here is something I am going to tell you which is revolutionary. It is not your fault, nor the fault of the weather, the environment, or anything else. The fault lies in the patterning of your mind. If your mind can be patterned in the way of total acceptance, whatever befalls you, then the mind will unconditionally accept the patterns because the mind becomes unpatterned. You walk out of this room and put on your jersey and coat, which is cold outside. You are going to feel cold outside. But if your mind says, “Oh well, if it is cold outside, so what.” It is also part of nature as you are a part of nature. Because nature can only interact with nature, nature can never interact with anything which is not natural. So, if you have the attitude of saying, “Ah, it is going to be cold when I walk outside. So what!” There is always a remedy for it. I will have a hot cup of coffee or a scotch. Your whole attitude will change, and that cold you will find outside will not be felt because your attitude has changed and is not discordant with natural laws. So, when you develop the acceptance of your environment, life becomes happier. Your attitude influences everything in your life. I have known of a person who was in a wheelchair, suffering so many diseases, and yet this lady, who must be about sixty years old, was the happiest person I have found in the world because she accepted her condition. She received her position. She accepted the Serenity Prayer, “Let me accept the things that I cannot change and change the things which I can change.” FINDING STRENGTH THROUGH SIMPLICITY AND AWARENESS Many things in our lives can be changed. You study your work situations, you study whatever you want to study in every aspect of your life, and if you can look at it from a positive angle, you will find that everything can be changed immediately. What you need are very, very simple principles. We are one family. I am not apart from you, and you are not apart from me. The same Spirit creates us, and the same Spirit flows through us all. So, when people talk to me about misery, I say it is not necessary to suffer misery. You can be so happy, and the principles are so simple. That is the tragedy that I feel and suffer for, that the principles are so simple, and people just do not do it. If you only meditate, quiet the mind, and become the observer of these thoughts that flow through your mind, the mind could never be empty. Observe them as they play on the cinema screen; do not allow them to affect you. Because whatever is happening on the cinema’s screen, you cannot influence it; you are sitting in the audience. Things are happening. You watch it, yet you know that what you see on the screen is not reality. It is a play. So, if it is just a play, why should it allow