Patterns

We have patterns, right? Repetitive patterns. Some people say, “I’ve never experienced happiness in life.” Or some people say, “I’m continuously going through the same situations, one after the other.” Patterns – where do patterns come from? How do patterns happen in our life? Why are we discussing this? If you know how patterns happen, if you diagnose them well, you can come out of it. If you don’t know the patterns, if you don’t know how they are structured, you cannot come out of them. That’s why we are trying to understand patterns.

Suppression

One is suppression, a very common subject. We often suppress emotions and feelings – thinking what society will think about us. Sometimes we do not even take a step forward towards the fulfilment of a desire because we are afraid of failure.

“What will society think?”

The moment you start being afraid of society, you stop doing the right action. This is important to understand. Suppression is a huge thing. Suppose I wanted to say something to somebody. I had a genuine urge to speak to a person. Suddenly a thought comes: “What if this person doesn’t like it?” Then what happens? I don’t speak. I keep quiet. The point is suppressed. Many of us couldn’t speak when we were children because we were afraid of our father, mother, teachers, or society.

(Mohanji points to his throat – ) It got stuck here; our expressions reached only up to here. It didn’t come out. And this happened often. Later on, what happens? You get married, or you have a life in society. Again, you’re in the office; you want to speak something, (again Mohanji points to his throat) – it comes here but it doesn’t come out.

What happens then?

Suppression leads to suffocation. When you cannot speak what you want to speak at the right time, you cannot speak at all. And then you do not have that experience.

Experience

Please understand: what is the reason for Life? Experience is the primary reason for existence. We go to various countries, various places …. ”what are all these places and countries, who are the people, what is the culture, what are the situations there?” All that is for experience. You’re not taking this country home, right? (Mohanji is speaking in Turkey.) When you go from here, you can’t take Turkey with you. You can probably take some things with you from Turkey which will remind you of Turkey. This is how Life is. We only carry experiences with us, which in turn become memories. And sometimes some experiences don’t stay as memories.

Expression

Suppression- is a major cause for most of the complexes, fears, phobias, and character traits. We have suppressed a lot of stuff in life, and we still do. What’s the other side of suppression? Expression – it’s the right thing to do. You have to train yourself to express yourself so that you start uncoiling. You start releasing; you start becoming lighter to a level where you are empty. Nothing is suppressed. Some people tell me, “Mohanji, some of my thoughts are very dirty.” So, I always ask them, “Who decides this?” It is we who keep certain boundaries for our thoughts.

But we are not like that – we are not to be fit, to be confined into cages. In life, you cannot be thinking in terms of boundaries or cages. This isn’t our style or our culture. We cannot be caged.

But what happens? We start thinking, “This is okay, this is not okay. This is moral, and this is immoral, this is fine, this is a sin”. Like that, everything is A or B, categorised. The moment you start categorising, suppression automatically happens.

I don’t mean that you can kill somebody and say, “I expressed my feelings.” Don’t do that because that person also has a right to live. That’s a different story. But when you have to say something, you can say it in the right way without hurting people, without being rude, but without storing feelings. You are not a garbage can, please remember.

We restrict the movements of our children with do’s and don’ts, and finally, our children may hate us. Many times that’s why children hate their parents. Why? Because they get only boundaries, walls, do’s and don’ts. But life isn’t like that. Life is about experiences and expressions. Not suppression. Suppression is death; expression is life. This is very important.

Comparisons and competitions

Then come comparisons and competitions, which are actually again a diversion into the negative. Why do we compare ourselves with another person? It’s not that the whole world will like you anyway, even if you express yourself to your grandest possibility. There’s no guarantee that everybody will like you. Some people will not like you. Some people will dislike you. But is it a problem? That’s how the world is. The world cannot appreciate everything.

We have numerous countries, colours, cultures, religions, languages. Everything is suitable for somebody, not everybody. This is the reality. So, what’s the right way to do it? Experience it, respect and appreciate it: “I may not like this thing. But it’s okay; somebody else is fine with it.” This is very important.

Resistance

Resistance means I want things to happen in a particular order. If I don’t get that in that mode, I resist. When you resist, what happens? It stays, it persists, it doesn’t go away. Whatever you resist in life, stays. It doesn’t go away. So when you are resisting all the time, you are in a conflict mode. You’re never happy. Now with resistance after resistance, what happens?

The more you resist something, you develop fears. Fears of it happening in your life. And it will happen. People have fears – various kinds of fears, and they do materialise; they do happen. Why? Because we’ve resisted them enough. But instead, you must accept them – “okay, this is happening.” You’ve got to look into the eyes of fear. Then the fear disappears.

There’s no option of fear in the life of a brave man. Why should you be afraid? Face it. Situations bring different propositions. Face them, handle them and dissolve them.

Acceptance vs Prejudice

So, resistance is something that causes patterns. What you resist becomes your pattern. And that you can see in various people’s lives in psychology. Some people say: “I have tremendous fear; I can’t sleep. I don’t like some people”.

And we also have prejudices, tremendous kinds of prejudices. And all that comes from resistance. If you have acceptance, you won’t have prejudices. We don’t have to like everybody, and everybody doesn’t have to like us. The option of likes and dislikes – let it remain as part of duality.

But please remember, we are not paying their bills, nor are they paying our bills. Everybody has the right to existence, and we must respect that. All beings born on earth have their space, their relevance, and their existence. Whether we like it or not, they’ll be there, and they’ll definitely start expressing what they are, whether we like it or not.

All people.

It’s not just people. It’s all beings: beings of the sky, water, and earth have the same relevance. Whether they are of different religions, different castes, country, culture, colour, they have the same relevance. Nobody is higher, nobody is lower, nobody is perfect, nor is anybody imperfect. Everybody is as they are.

For more information, visit www.mohanji.org