LET GO AND SEE HOW MUCH HAPPIER YOU WILL BECOME
It is hard to forget the mind. Thoughts emerge and shift like a merry-go-round. At one moment, you are thinking about supper, then a comment someone made, then the kids, and perhaps somewhere else. Nothing wrong—it is the nature of the mind. Let it happen, but remember you are not causing it.
As a bystander, simply observe, letting go of attachment, and mental burdens will dissolve. There is nothing in the world you can truly hold onto: a dress is worn and gone, children grow up and leave, and even you must eventually part. Let go, and happiness follows. If someone throws words that hurt, let them keep their burden; by letting go, you become resilient. Letting go of identity and turbulent thoughts unveils stillness. When this stillness expands, nothing can disturb or harm you.
THE WORLD IS GOVERNED BY NAME AND FORM
I recently met someone upset about names. “My daughter dislikes this name, my son dislikes that name.” Why worry? A rose is a rose. The important thing is to give love. Names are irrelevant. The Self matters. Call me Gururaj or Joe; I am still me.
The world is governed by name and form. A gold necklace, bracelet, or bangle—all are gold at their core. We focus on form and name, forgetting essence. Enjoy the pleasures of objects, but remember their true value. Melting them proves their worth is the same. Fixation on names and forms distracts from inner stillness, a quietness found in the heart.
WHEN WE ARE MIXED UP IN TRIVIALITIES IT ROBS US OF THE STILNESS OF OURSELVES
Most of our thinking dwells on trivialities—research shows that 90% lacks substance. This thought turbulence causes mental unrest. At least sleep offers an escape from the swirl of trivial thoughts.
Examine yourself. How many times a day do you have an original thought or a creative thought? Most days, none; some days, some. Is it not a loss of valuable energy, and not only that, but mixed up in triviality, it robs us of the stillness of ourselves, and when we are robbed of the stillness of ourselves, our souls carry forth all those impressions to the deeper levels of the subconscious.
People open their wardrobes and go through several outfits before choosing, wasting energy and creating confusion. Why not decide before opening the wardrobe? Just go for what you already chose. Avoid unnecessary choices and save mental energy.
SHEDDING TRIVIALITIES FOR INNER STILLNESS
These examples apply to daily life. What drives those decisions? Ego makes you believe you will look better in one suit than another. It is imagination. You doubt the choice, then someone compliments your suit.
At the airport in Victoria, I met a beloved who said, “You look dapper in a western suit, charcoal grey with a reddish tie.” No. I am me. That is the realisation needed. Did Jesus or Buddha worry about loincloths? They were unconcerned with appearance. Outward looks are ego. The real self shines through, even in rags.
We waste time on trivialities governed by the mind, losing our inherent stillness. Redirecting the mind toward creative, meaningful thoughts helps regain this stillness. When the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious merge, stillness is realised. There, you discover the essence.
IF YOU CAN STAND APART IN THE STILLNESS, ALL DECISIONS WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT
It is good to be childlike, not childish. Like children, adults waste time picking and discarding items. Life could be more productive with originality and purposefulness. Most decisions are made by subconscious habits; conflict occurs when subconscious and conscious minds clash, even over simple choices.
I know, since my very young days, I have always been involved in social work before I did my present work. Although being a director of twenty-eight companies, there was not a single day when I was not involved in social work, social upliftment. In meetings, a question comes up, and within two seconds I know what the solution should be, but in the meeting it would take two hours because everyone has to say something, and then after two hours of debate they would come back to the decision I made in those two seconds. And most of you who are involved in meetings and things know about that. What a waste of valuable time! And those two hours wasted there, I could have seen a few patients and helped a few people in trouble. But of course, that is how the world goes. Let the world go to hell, but you should not. You have come to this one decision and act upon it, and that does not mean to be impulsive, for the mind is only an impulse, nothing else.
These thought formations in the mind create impulses, and you get overridden by them, but if you can stand apart in that stillness, those impulses will not affect your personality, your soul. And then all decisions would always be right. And this is one problem people always have: shall I take the high road or the low road?
SPIRITUAL PRACTICES TRANSFORM THE PERSONALITY
When one engages in Spiritual Practices, one subdues all the conflicts of the mind and reaches the heart, which goes beyond the personality to the realm of stillness. You see how simple it is. So simple to talk about, but it takes some effort to do; once you get into it, the effort becomes effortless. You start a new job, and at first there is so much effort to orient yourself to it, but afterwards it just becomes routine, natural, and the same goes for meditation. When you start meditating, you say “Oh, I have not got time and this and that and that and that”, which is absolutely false. If you have time to go to the toilet, you have time to meditate, and there is nothing wrong with meditating in the toilet. So that is a very lame excuse.
With meditation, we quieten the mind. We learn to become observers of the mind and its workings. And when we become observers and set ourselves apart from the mind, we reach that intuitive level akin to stillness, and then everything you do is just right. I could give you so many examples, and it happens a hundred times a day. Vidya is with me, and of course, she travels around with me quite a lot, and this morning she was going to run up to Chetan for something she wanted to ask him. So I said, “No, no, no, do not go up, that is alright. Why run up the stairs and down again and all that?” And here, one minute later, Chetan appears with the things that I wanted. Like that, in so many things all the time, I could give you a hundred instances. Because you learn to act from the inner intuitive level.
You learn to act from the right hemisphere of the brain, which is so close to the stillness of the heart and not from the left hemisphere, which is so filled with turbulence and analysis. Those are our troubles, really speaking, for inherently everyone is still, and because the mind is not combined with the heart, the soul or the personality of man is created. So, to change the soul, to change the personality, one has to combine the mind with the heart through Spiritual Practices to find that stillness. Do you see the process?
SPIRITUAL PRACTICES ARE THE DETERGENT THAT WILL CLEAN UP THE MESS THAT WE HAVE MADE FOR OURSELVES
Why do you want to find stillness? Why do you want to find God? Because everyone wants to experience calm, peace, and happiness. People talk of hell; there is no such thing as hell. What the hell is that turbulence in your mind at the moment? That is hell. Like someone was saying, “Guruji, I am definitely going to heaven,” and I said, “Oh, how do you know?” He said, “Well, I am having hell here, so I cannot go to another hell; I must go to heaven.” So, we create our own hells. We create our own personalities, and yet underlying it all is that beautiful Divine stillness.
So, it is not Divinity that creates all the displeasures and the hells and the turmoil and the turbulences, but we create it ourselves by our karmas. If we do not take hold of it through our Meditations and Spiritual Practices, we will create more and more karma, and by creating more and more karma, we will embed more and more Samskaras in our subconscious mind, which will manifest in some way or the other.
Every displeasure or wrong thought in your mind is not lost; it is registered, and it will manifest itself in some way. Sometimes with mental disturbance, sometimes with physical disturbances and sometimes with relationships, communication, and all that goes as far as the world is concerned. So, we cannot actively control that. We cannot, but the only way to get control of that is by Spiritual Practices. You have got to rub away the Samskaras through Spiritual Practices.
For example, the child has taken some paint – I saw this on a TV ad about some cleaner, where the child gets his hand full of jam and rubs it on the wall. So, the mother comes along with this detergent and wipes it off. So spiritual practices are the detergent that will clean up the mess that we made ourselves. We are really all messed up, you know, which is not necessary. I share my joy with you, I share my peace with you. Listen, do something about it if you can; it is for your own benefit and mine, too. And how do I benefit, that I am doing my mission for which I have been sent to be amongst you all.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang CAN 1985 – 07
