This is part two of satsangs with Mohanji held in Mookambika in 2019 on Karma and other related topics.
Question: Please shed some light on lineage karma. How can we sort this out?
Mohanji: Well, lineage karma is: let me put it this way. Who owns your body? Who is the owner of your body? Do you take care of your parents so much? Who owns your body? Who is “I”? Who moves the body, and then what happens to the body? How long will you own it? After that, what happens? The body is still there for some more time.
Audience: Wait for another birth or another desire.
Mohanji: So, there’s continuity there.
Audience: Continuity is there.
Mohanji: Is there?
Audience: Yes
Mohanji: How?
Audience: The soul remains, then “I” remains.
Mohanji: Yes, “I.” There’s continuity, but the body doesn’t have continuity. That’s why my question. Who owns the body? Elements are conglomerated to create the body. But who actually owns it? Soul? No. How does lineage own it? The lineage owns the body.
Audience: Since the body is required for the lineage to move on, if there’s no body, how would the lineage move ahead?
Lineage Karma
Mohanji: Lineage owns the body. Give me a direct answer. This is interesting, right? Because this is one of the fundamentals in karma. If you understand this, you understand karma better.
Audience: The physical body is impermanent. So, I guess there’s not really any ownership. It’s for that particular time. It’s just an embodiment of the soul, and when that period is over…
Mohanji: That’s what he said. Soul occupies it, uses it, and moves on to another body. That’s absolutely true. But I’m asking the question – the body is not continuous. That means another body is taken by the soul. So, who owns that body while it’s on?
So, where has it taken from? It doesn’t happen like that right? You had parents, and they had parents. So, that’s my question. Isn’t that lineage? Part of lineage? Leasing – that part I understood. It’s leased to a karmic composition. That’s okay. But then, who does the body belong to? Consciousness?
Audience: The body belongs to the Lord. He only blessed us with a body so that we can realise Him in our own kaal (time) on dharti (earth).
Mohanji: Anybody has a proper answer – direct answer?
Audience: Ancestors
Mohanji: That’s why I am saying lineage. You know, when the sperm meets the egg, i.e., before your body is formed, there are a set of structural pranas entering the system. Understand this clearly. When the sperm meets the egg and gets fertilised, which will create a body eventually, at that point in time, there are a set of structural pranas; they say about five, but I don’t count the number. Five structural pranas enter the system.
One major structural prana is called Dhananjaya. Dhananjaya prana enters your system before your body is formed and exits your system when full decomposition happens. That is about 16, 18, or 20 days after your death. Dhananjaya prana is a direct link to your lineage.
The soul enters your system only when there’s a vessel to work on. The soul, along with the constitution, duration, with its vasanas – inclinations, desires, destiny – Prarabdha, all this together enters your system only when it’s ready for action when you have a vessel.
Prarabhda Karma
In other words, when a plot of land is bought, you can’t stay there without a house. That plot belongs to somebody. It belongs to the lineage. Then a house is built on the plot. That house belongs to the lineage that’s the body. Then a tenant comes and takes over, paying rent. Paying rent is what? Rent here is the lineage karma that enters your system along with your personal karma, which is Prarabdha or unfulfilled desires.
Your unfulfilled desires, plus the unfulfilled desires of the generations, enters your system – each person. This mix together is what you experience in life. So, the house belongs to the owner. The land belongs to the owner. The tenant occupies it at some time. Well, the person leases the house from some time till some time. It can exercise only during that time. The moment it leaves the body, the house again goes back to the lineage. So, the real owner of our body is the lineage. We belong to the lineage.
This is why it was well defined that a child should take care of the parents. Parents should take care of their parents and children. Putra (children) dharma, Pitra (parents) dharma, all these are defined, connected to the alignment of the lineage. Is this clear? Do you have clarity?
So, when does Dhananjaya leave you? Only when the body is fully decomposed and clear that this body can’t be used again. So, the lineage continues, and all the good and bad things that are done within the family have a root in our life also. It’s not necessarily all in one person but distributed over many. So, we all have something to do with everything that our family has done.
Selfless service
Why does every religion, every path talk about helping the helpless, feeding the poor, serve the hungry, feed the hungry? We always say that. What happens in that? This is all helping the lineage karma more than your personal karma because it dilutes the whole path. In case you’ve done great things in a lifetime, you can actually see that reflected in your children. You’ve done great work, so many good things in life. The next generation and the generations to come will start becoming prosperous because they are not inheriting so much weight.
Imagine we’ve had destructive people in our family, and they’ve done enough damage because some people have power but don’t have maturity. So, they don’t know how to use the power. They use power negatively. When they use power negatively, it affects not only them but also the next generations. That’s why Meerabai talks about abusing the Guru etc.
When you abuse or talk badly about a Master, it not only affects you, but it affects your own coming generations, also you for about 80,000 lifetimes. That deep it goes. Overall all these things are connected to lineage karma. So, lineage karma is a very, very important thing.
How do you tackle lineage karma? One of the Homas we are doing now also pertains to lineage, to cleanse the path. How do you tackle this on a daily basis? Very simple words: be good; do good.Through good actions, thoughts, words, automatically you’ll experience lightness in the whole structure. Through selflessness, you can actually reduce your weight, just by being selfless. Reduce your weight. By being more selfish, greedy, aggressive, accumulation-oriented, you add more weight because you can own nothing on earth.
Whatever you came with, that you take. What did you come with? Only the unfulfilled desires. If they are completed now, it’s well and good. If you didn’t complete them, you’d have to come back again to complete them. You didn’t bring even a penny when you came, so you take not even a penny from here – nothing you take.
This must be very clear. Lineage has leased the body to this particular constitution called soul connected to the Prarabdha karma – destiny path, and for how long it takes, no problem. You can take for so many years – for as much as you need the body. That’s how much you can keep the body. Then, once that set of desires is completed, you can’t lease it further. Exercising this thing on every species, we totally alienate ourselves, segregate ourselves; we separate ourselves.
So, what has come to humankind? Overpopulation and religious concepts, where God is outside of us, and we have to find a God outside of us, and a God looking at you and deciding whether you’re a good or bad boy. All these things are extensions of imagination. While the God particle is sitting inside us, that’s the element that’s inherent in every creation. Instead of finding it, it’s easier to use the senses and go outside. That’s the easy method.
God Particle
If I tell you that you bring all your senses inside, to bring your mind, intellect, and ego inside and find God within, you wouldn’t be interested. But that’s the truth. We like to go to different Gurus, different programmes, different things in search of the permanent. Do you get the permanent there? Why don’t you get the permanent? Because this is a waking state exercise. When you’re awake, you have a world outside. When you sleep, you don’t have that world outside.
When you sleep, you are totally detached from that world outside. You only have a world inside, but that’s not interesting for us. When we say, meditate, connect to ourselves, connect to the inner core, this is all good but not easy because we are externally oriented – spontaneously external, outside. It’s not interesting. Then what do we do? We just stay outside.
Then there are a lot of practices for it. This course, another course, third course, fourth course, so that people are happy to do courses and believe they are spiritual. Course after course – amazing. “I’ve done 15 courses, so I must be great.” But nothing has happened on the vibratory level. This is something which we must understand.
Path of liberation
In the path of Shiva, the path of liberation, there’s no-nonsense, no beating around the bush. You’ve to find yourself in this life. You must find yourself in this life, which you can only find if you look inside. You cannot find yourself unless in the mirror if you look outside. You can only find your own image, but not you if you look outside. All the things that are outside of you are all temporary because only when you wake up, you have them.
Even relationships, relations, places, possessions, positions, everything – you’ve them only when you are awake. Even when you are awake, how much of that do you see? How much of that do you accept? How much of that gives you happiness? It’s all question marks. There’s no guarantee.
So, it’s important to understand that happiness is an inside story that’s rooted in acceptance. Acceptance gives you happiness if you have a stable level of acceptance of yourself, not of other beings. I’m not talking about some things which you experience when you’re awake, in your waking state. I’m talking about accepting yourself as you are all the time.
From there, you find that in the search to find happiness, there’s no need to go outside. There’s nothing outside to find. Then you start settling inside. That’s the only settling possible – real settling down. Where do you settle down? You can talk about any country to settle down, but there you keep the body for some time, that’s all.
At the time of death, does it matter which country you are in? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters at the time of death. So, settling down has to be inside. Then, the advantage is it gives you immortality. You aren’t dying. That’s a better idea, right? You aren’t dying. Otherwise, you are dying every day.
You miss something, don’t have something, you feel that you should have, but you don’t have, and denial, deprivation, all these things kill you every day. Instead, you are happy with yourself, accepting yourself, exploring your inside, and start looking at every aspect of yourself. Finally, you’ll find yourself and you settle down.
How do you feel? What’s your opinion Mamu? (Some incoherent audio…) Then it must be true.
This is something that we must digest and understand. Lifetimes get wasted this way. Searching, searching, searching, and not finding. Anger, hatred, jealousy – all these emotions. So many problems and conflicts, and then lifetimes get wasted. We miss lifetimes.
When we approach a Master or God for something, for a purpose, we don’t connect to the person. You are actually connecting conditionally. When you conditionally connect, you only see differences. You like it if you get it; you don’t like it if you don’t get it. Instead, if you connect to the consciousness, one connection is enough for the sake of alignment. You’ll be aligned, and you’ll be stable. You’ll be powerful.
(Here is the continuation of the satsang after a break)
Mohanji: Good evening. I’ll take your questions.
Greenwood: We have a couple of questions. The first question relating to before is:
Question: How can we protect ourselves in 5G network environment?
Mohanji : The best way to protect ourselves is not to have 5G, but it also depends on the governments, the various decision-making bodies. One thing is that we have, in fact, destroyed the earth so much with our intelligence already. The ecosystem is totally destroyed. So many things are affected, which is visible in our daily lives. Most psychosomatic diseases are caused by radiation of some kind.
So, it’s not that anybody is immune. All the birds, animals, fishes, people – we are all affected by one species called the human species. Understand this clearly, so that you will get a lot of answers.
There are numerous places where life can exist, not just on earth. The earth is a very small space, very small. There are so many spaces in the world where life happens. Life can exist not necessarily in the format which earth has, like a physical format where elements are conglomerated, the matter is created, the matter is maintained with energy induced. This is our life. This is not the only way life can exist, but it is also one of the ways where life can exist.
We call the creator – Brahma. Brahma is not just a creator. He’s not getting down and creating. He has many beings. Imagine that Brahma is a human being for the sake of understanding. Actually, Brahma is a state of consciousness. There are numerous people, his children, who can be creators, like Agastya. The father of Agastya is Brahma.
There are so many beings. Father is Brahma. So, basically, they all have the power of creation. They can create. The creation is always based on not disturbing the environment of creation.
Destroying or disturbing the environment of creation is not acceptable. Basically, that means you don’t cut the branch you are sitting on. For that, you need good awareness – a good level of awareness. You need a level of awareness where you’ll leave the space undisturbed while you are creating. There are many so-called Prajapatis and people who have the power to create.
Here there are two aspects to it. One is creating a mould – a particular form or format. Second is the ability to infuse energy in such a format so that it is called alive. You make it alive, just like we do Pranapathistha to an idol (inviting a deity to reside in the idol).
Pranapathistha does not make an idol work in the format which it can work in a human or an animal format or any other species. So, they found earth as a beautiful platform for creation. It’s almost like a good canvas for a painter. Earth is a very beautiful place for creation where the matter and the elements are almost in equilibrium. Earth, water, fire, space – all these things are in a reasonably good equilibrium here.
Various beings decided that we would create various things. That’s why we see all these varieties. Numerous creations happen on this plane, and the auto mode is that they all have a survival instinct. They are all on a self-sustainable method. That’s how these creations are. They can all exist by themselves. That’s why when you look at nature, you can see that format at work.
There are numerous deer who need to eat grass all the time. Every day it needs to eat. Then some people created a carnivorous animal just to contain this species so that it doesn’t exceed a certain limit. Like that, if you look, every creation has a hierarchical kind of structure. That’s all within the framework of nature. That means that the canvas is never disturbed, and they all operate on instinct.
The basic instinct is the survival instinct. Its major expression is food and sexuality. This is all fine. Every species has it, and they operate in that mode – beautiful, perfect. Each being sustains the other, or there’s a cycle of sustenance – a cycle of their format that moves on.
Awareness
Then came the human species. The human species has one capacity – the awareness aspect. For all other species, the awareness aspect is connected to the survival instinct. They are integrated into survival instinct. But, for humans, awareness is segregated. It can take you to dimensions of happiness. This means happiness for instinct is available to materials for survival. That’s a habit. But for humans, happiness is not just the availability of materials for survival. They need much more. They started exploring various dimensions of basic instinct itself.
Survival Instinct
The basic instinct is a survival instinct which is food. We have many, many varieties of possibilities of food. This is one example. This means human beings started using intelligence and imagination more than instinct. We started using imagination and intelligence for our expression or experience of the earth much more than instinct. Unfortunately, we also started considering instinct as something inferior, which you can’t avoid. Then what do you do? You hide. Hiding, suppression means suffering – one fundamental mistake.
Secondly, we decided that when we start using imagination and intelligence, we have the supremacy. Supremacy means, by using intelligence and imagination, we can rule over species, rule over the earth. Then we started having control over materials, possessions, positions – so many different controls.
Then the de-railing started. We lost touch with ourselves. We were in an imaginary world and decided that we needed a lot of things for our existence, our survival. We need a lot of materials, possessions, and positions for our existence. We also started believing that we have the right over other species, which is not true.
Earth is the same for every species. We don’t have special rights. But, because we have intelligence and imagination, we have the ability to cut ourselves off from the world. And then we place ourselves in cubicles. We segregate ourselves, and then we start a connection to our own physical form. That happens when you reach a certain level.
So, why I am giving this example now is that some people who are absentminded will decide that they are realised. They say that this is okay because I am self-realised; I don’t have much consciousness of the body. “Easy way out.” So, this is the point.
Question: When you were just talking about the lineage karma, like for a girl who gets married and goes to another family, so how does that work? Does she carry the lineage for both the families? Or is it that she leaves the lineage of the family where she’s born and she carries the burden of the family that she’s married into.
Mohanji: Fundamentally, your own lineage is responsible for your life till the end. Marriage is something that happens in the middle. But karmically, we say that the physical is mixing. When you marry somebody, karmas get mixed. So, your ownership shifts. It’s almost like selling a house. But it doesn’t mean that where you came from is affected.
When you shift the house or sell the house, then ownership changes, then the other person is responsible. In a way, because marriage is a “joining together,” the lineage karma is predominant where you joined into. That way, it happens, but you have to be responsible in a larger perspective.
You are born, so this means that you have to take care of your mother and father if they need your help. It isn’t that I married somebody else so now I don’t like to take care of you. That’s not a good idea. The best way and this has been said in many, many scriptures, is that God comes to you when you look after your family well.You take care of your parents well.
Story of Pandharpur – so when you take care of your parents very well, the Lord comes to see you. This is told so much because it is a responsibility.When you take care of your parents very well, the whole lineage is happy.
So, Pratyaksha – what you have in front, that’s your parents. Then it is your children. So, look after them. This doesn’t mean that you pamper your children and handicap them. They become dependent on you and don’t know what to you. That’s not what I mean. You have to be very practical and stable and give them power and energy, stability. That’s exactly what it is.
Question: This is related to the karmic rebirth that we were discussing. As we discussed, you said that once we are content with the desires that we have, we won’t have rebirth. Then again, there’s karma with what we do. There are good and bad actions. So for both of them, we get some kind of reward or something. We need to be in life again. So, if someone does good, they have to be born anyways. What is the desire and karma which we need to get away from so that we don’t have to take a rebirth?
Mohanji: You are absolutely right. Good actions will bring you good results, and you have to experience them also. Bad actions will give you bad results, and you have to experience. So, this keeps going.
What is Lord Krishna talking about it in Bhagwad Gita? He says that “if you do not have ownership of action, and if you just perform it as a duty and not be interested or attached to the results of the action, you do not have its karma.” When you do the right action, you do it with complete detachment – surrender. I am only performing it within my capacity, within my premises. This means, in my space and time, and I leave it to you. It doesn’t matter whatever the results are.
Ownership
Karma is always connected to the ownership of action. “If you do not have ownership of action – I own it, me and my causes karma. Me and my”. But, if “me and my” are absent, then the karmic binding is also absent. So, Masters, after liberation, after getting enlightenment, or after attaining high levels of Samadhi, will still perform.
But they don’t have an attachment to action. They don’t have an agenda or a plan. So how do they work? They work as things come. They do what they have to do as things flow. They don’t do anything to canvass or guide or mislead or do anything for their purpose. In that bargain, there’s no ownership. This is the point.
Ownership is something that we need to always remember. How much more ownership you have, that much more you are prone to karmic baggage.
Bhavani, how’s your jet lag? You know, I came from Europe on 25th. I was in Bangalore the night of the 25th and the 26th. But there were a lot of people, so there was no rest. I went to Jammu on the morning of the 27th. I returned on the 28th from Jammu to Bangalore, took a car, went to Thiruvannamalai. I reached Thiruvannamalai at 4 am in the morning. I then went and registered a property and immediately went to Chennai, flew to Delhi, reached Delhi at 3 am in the morning.
There was a continuous activity for a tour. Then I flew to Jammu and back to Goa. The next day I went to some places in Goa and came back the same night. The next day I flew to Mumbai and went directly to Shirdi. “I have to tell you this because it’ll solve your jet lag.” I spent two nights in Shirdi, and that night we were in Dwarkamai. We didn’t sleep. The next day I had darshan and returned to Mumbai. The next day I flew back to Jammu, then I came to Mumbai, and then I came here.
Jet lag is something that, if you decide to entertain, will stay with you. If you decide that you have better things to do, then it won’t be with you. Now you see how much jet lag you have. This is something that the mind is asking you. I never ever had the luxury of jet lag. You know how many times I come to America. I fly to one place; the next day there’s a programme. These people don’t give me the luxury of relaxation. The next day is a programme; something is going on each time.
I was in Europe for two months – eight countries. There were many, many programs back to back. I’m not complaining, but what I am saying is that we have a duration of existence from birth till death. I believe that we have no time for these kinds of things. How much time do we spend sleeping and being a slave to the mind thinking, “Oh, I am not well today, I am worried.” Instead, if you decide to get up and run, then life will run with you. I think this is worth it. I think it’s gone now. This is my cure for jet lag. It’s the truth.
Question: Mohanji, I remember you telling me years ago that I’ve come with tons of Prarabdha karma, which at that point in time was not very motivating for me. What I wanted to ask you was, through my years with you and you mentioned earlier, I know you told me this personally to try and fulfil my desires consciously and with awareness whenever I get the opportunity so that it doesn’t bother me again.
I’ve also noticed simultaneously that you’ve gifted me with a certain level, I would say, of detachment (for want of a better word). But I don’t feel the need to exercise, let’s say an action to fulfil that desire.
Mohanji: The most important thing is spontaneity. When you are pressured for an action, it’s definitely not a good idea. Pressure also has resistance. Pressure is because of resistance. What’s the right action? An action that’s effortless – spontaneous action, which makes you feel bright and light. That’s the right action.
Be natural
When there’s pressure, even if I say to you to do this Sadhana, if it’s not suitable to you, if you are struggling with it, it’s not yours. So, be spontaneous. Be natural, and that’s it. I never judge you in life, right? I took you as you are. Why? There’s no right for me to judge another. Everybody is a karmic being. All are karmic beings.They all go through their set of karma.
Number one: It’s not our job to judge another.
Number two: As long as you have a driving force as karma or inclination, let’s say Vasana – inclination, that’s what you are. We are a bundle of inclinations, tendencies, and we cannot change them. That’s it. We are driven by tendencies and inclinations. We operate only as per our inclinations. Likes and dislikes are part of it. So, we operate that way. Be spontaneous and keep moving. Please understand that nowhere can you be stagnated.
Stagnation means denial of something. It means you are stopping there because of whatever reasons, mostly analysis. Then that action gets postponed for another time. That means it’s asking for its fulfilment. So, what’s best? Go through the process with awareness, that’s all. Finish – just flow.
Question: Is it possible for a human being not to do any karma to avoid its results so that I need not take a rebirth? Is it possible?
Mohanji: Karma itself is the cause of rebirth. This body is because of unfulfilled desires. In general terms, I am saying this just for the sake of understanding. There are so many things which you wanted to experience with this body, so you took birth. Imagine you do not go ahead with it.
Due to whatever reason, you suppress it, and you don’t proceed with its completion. Imagine if it happened like that. What does that mean? That means you’ve completely wasted this life, and you are asking for repetition. That’s the pattern that Duggal was talking about.
Acceptance
When you do the healings for Mai Tri etc., you can see patterns repeated again and again. That’s because each time, there’s no full acceptance. Living life with acceptance is the remedy. Whatever is happening at a given point in time to a given person is based on karma. It’s based on unfulfilled desires. It’s something which is not fulfilled at another time.
So, you can’t postpone it and say that it’s done now. You can’t suppress it and decide it’ll not come back again. So, everything is a flow. You’ve to accept and appreciate. Okay, this is the situation, and this is how it is. Let me handle it.
The more resistance there is, the more postponement it carries. If you resist something, it’s shifted to another time. If you accept it, it gets finished at that time. So, when you practice acceptance for every situation, good or bad, it goes away. But the more you resist, the more the memory stays, the deeper the impression. Most of our memories are connected to something which we did not approve of. Correct? Sometimes we don’t even think about what we have approved.
Imagine that somebody insulted you. You’ll remember that. “Oh, that man insulted me at this time.” That’ll be staying in mind. If somebody said that you are a great personality and I really love you, that you may forget. That’s okay. I deserve appreciation, but we also do not deserve criticism. Whenever there’s criticism, we tend to reject it.
We tend to reject the man who criticised us. Whatever the reason for that, it’s a different story. This is exactly how our constitution works. It’s important to accept everything. What I normally do when people appreciate me is, “you are amazing.” I don’t get carried away. They say you are amazing; you are an elephant; God; whatever. I consider them all as flowers and put them at the feet of the tradition.
Some people criticise me. “You are a devil. You are not good. Ever since I met you, my life has been miserable.” I take that also as flowers and put it at the feet of the tradition so that I don’t own anything. Whether it’s praise or criticism, both are the same. You can’t expect that everybody will like you. Every situation will be likeable; we cannot expect that.
Expectations
There’ll be good and bad. There’ll be ups and downs. What we have to do is, okay, this is what it is, accept it and move on. Expectation is a very big problem. Most of the time, most of the disappointments are caused by expectations.When you’ve fewer expectations, you also have fewer disappointments. When you have fewer disappointments, you’ve lesser anger and hatred.You have lesser revenge, a mind for revenge. When you have a lot of expectations, there’ll be a lot of disappointments which corresponds to anger, hatred, jealousy, all those things.
The root cause of most of our suffering is expectations. As Ramana Maharshi said, he had cancer. He said, “I have pain because I have cancer. I have a body. I am experiencing pain, but I have no suffering because I am not resisting it.” Only when you resist something, you suffer. If you’re not resisting, can you suffer? Resistance always gives pressure, suffering because we are constantly resisting so many things in life. In the bargain, we end up suffering too much. You know, we have problems with people, situations, materials, environment. So many different things, isn’t it? So, this is exactly how life works.
(Mohanji makes a reference to a story of a donkey and asks the audience if they read it. He then requests someone from the audience to read it out loud.)
A story read by a member of the audience:
A donkey was tied to a tree. A demon came and untied it. The donkey ran into the fields and destroyed the crops.The farmer’s wife saw this and shot the donkey dead. The donkey’s owner was upset, so he shot the farmer’s wife. The farmer came back to see his wife dead. He went and shot the donkey’s owner.
Then the wife of the owner of the donkey asked her sons to go and burn the house of the farmer. The boys went late in the evening and carried out their mother’s orders happily, assuming that the farmer too would have been burnt with the house. Sadly, for them, it wasn’t that.
So, the farmer came back and shot the wife and the two sons of the owner of the donkey. Remorseful, the farmer asks the demon, “Why did all this have to happen?” So, the demon says, “I did nothing. I only released the donkey, but all of you reacted, overreacted, and released the inner devil.” Did you get it? So the devil doesn’t do anything but wake up by triggering the ego in you that turns into evil intent and goes harming others.
So, the next time before replying, responding, reporting, rebuking, or avenging revenge, stop and think; be careful. Many a time, what the devil does is it just releases the donkey within us.
Mohanji: How was that?This is not mine.Somebody sent it to me, and I really liked it. So, I sent it to Kamath. I can’t remember it by heart. Do you want to read the whole thing again? We can read it again. It’s a good story. (Mohanji then asks Preeti to stand up and explain so that everybody understands it. Preeti then explains the story mentioned above).
This story is very interesting and important. I’ve experienced that many times. I think some of these people who walked with me know. Some people who walked with me moved with me. They rose with me and evolved with me.
Suddenly somebody would say something; then they would depart for apparently no reason. Absolutely no reason, but somebody said something. They chose to listen to the person, not their own experience. This is the same story. You know, people forget their own experience, and they decide to detach. I’ve experienced this many times.
So, what can you do there? You fill up when they are available, and then you don’t have to do anything when they leave. That’s all; nothing else you can do. But this is how the mind works. It catches onto something negative. It marries it, and then it completely discards its own experience. You know, we have a choice to respond and not react. But, we choose to react.
Response means intellect is at work. React means ego is at work. So, you have a choice in any given situation to stay with your intellect. If intellect is in charge, you’ll never be experiencing regrets. If the ego is in charge, you’ll have a stream of regrets, lots of regrets.
If intellect is in charge, you’ll not have regrets because intellect will say, “respond.” There’s no need to shout. There’s no need to react. You are peaceful. So, when you don’t react and only respond in life, it means you are watching it. You are expressing, responding. You’re not emotional about something. Emotion is again like glue; it sticks. If somebody abuses you, you’ll remember. If somebody praises you, you may not remember.
So, if intellect is in charge, in life, you’ll have no regrets. If the ego is in charge in your life, it’ll be regret after regret, then guilt, and various things. A kind of rebelliousness is driven by this ego. “Hey, you are doing something great; destroy that.”
Everything has a price to pay. Nothing is free. Sometimes the price is very high. It’s like gambling. You borrowed money and gambled. Then you’ve to pay back the borrowed money plus the loss that happened in the gambling. It’s like, okay, tomorrow I might win. You won’t because you are operating from the level of the ego. When you operate from the level of the ego, victory is very difficult. In the feast of the ego, everyone goes home hungry. Simple.
Question: Mohanji, this is about Masters. You mentioned Masters are basically the light, and the light goes to the darkness. So, my question is: Sometimes in life, you do have several Masters, and without any disrespect, sometimes you reach a point of stagnancy where you are not really able to go inward. Then there comes another light that beckons you. It’s no disrespect, but it could be that you found another Master. Maybe that light is beckoning you to do something further.
The question is: Is it okay? People say you have too many Masters. Sometimes you go from Master to Master, but I have that thing that something is beckoning you. You are looking for something bigger which you aren’t finding.
Mohanji: Understood. I’ll answer that. Usually, this is a pattern. A pattern where you are expecting something to come from outside, but this is a waking state exercise. Understand that you have an equal dream state and a deep sleep state where none of these things have validity.
During the waking state, we are in a movement of conquest or connecting on a certain level. So, we are moving towards something, connecting with something, expecting something. Those expectations, even in spiritual practice, sometimes certain expectations don’t give results immediately. It may take time. This is one aspect – immediate results are not possible.
The second aspect is we are evolving. With each lifetime, we are evolving. Patterns are continuing. Patterns of dependency on the outside world are also continuing. That’s why we see various Masters. Otherwise, there are no various Masters. There’s only one Master, and that Master sits within you. He is already awakened. So, the maximum any teacher or any Master can tell you is “Tat tvam asi.” You are that. Whatever you are looking for is you.
I always say this, “You can have a million questions, but I’ll give you the answer now.” YOU. You can have any number of questions; the answer is already ready. YOU. Then we go to various places, people, practices imagining that this will help. It’ll help, provided each step is one more step inside. It’ll help. Everything will help provided every step is walking inside to the level where – how do you know the result? Silence from thought is called Samadhi. That means less TPS, which his thoughts per second.
When you are walking inside, each step is entering into more and more silence, and then the external world becomes insignificant. Then you know you are progressing. Otherwise, these Masters are only when you are awake, and you are able to connect with your mind, intellect, ego, or senses, or what you see. That may or may not be good for you. We don’t know because it’s all difficult to say.
I would say that nothing is by accident; everything has a reason. There must have been a connection. Again, that connection got repeated. Don’t look at it as good or bad. It’s neither good nor bad. So, this is exactly the point.
What you need to understand is that whether there was a Master or not at any given point in time, you existed. You existed in your full capacity always, whether the mind appreciated it or not. The mind may not have appreciated it, but you’ve existed in your whole capacity. This means that whatever there is, whatever is required to find yourself, is already there. Nobody can take it away. Nobody can diminish you nor raise you.
Now, what does the Master do? Like a mirror, show yourself to you and say this is you or as a road sign. I used to go to the Himalayas very often in the early 2000s, and I used to feel good. When I had a holiday, I was almost proud that I was going to the Himalayas. The pride means I thought that I was doing something great.
But later on, I realised that I was getting nothing from it – nothing. When I came back and joined my work, I was back to square one. So, what was this exercise all about? I didn’t realise it initially and had to go through the process. You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you can actually find the prince.
You have to go through certain processes. Then, I realised these trips were an ego exercise. Of course, the intention was pure. There’s no question of intention. You are not after anything selfish. You have a deep urge to find yourself. That’s okay. But, is this exercise helping me find myself or settling for an artificial feeling of comfort? The answer was – it was an artificial feeling of happiness. This wasn’t true because happiness which is not permanent, isn’t yours.
Then I was sitting down and meditating. I had a three-bedroom villa. I had made one room as a cave. I was sitting there meditating. I realised that I didn’t want to fake it anymore. It has to be real. It must be real. So, what is real? That’s the time when I decided in the middle of all actions; there was a space of inaction because it’s not easy. I didn’t tell anybody what I was practicing. I was just connecting to myself and going into the core of every thought.
Thus, not getting attached to any thought. No ownership, no ego kind of state, and then deeper and deeper into layers of silence. Out of all this, meditations came. Whatever I have given to the world has all come out of these exercises. Kriya came all those things.
So, this was happening, and at the same time, in those days, I met various saints and spiritual people. Many times, I only heard opinions that were impractical for me to practice in my life, so I discarded them. We must dare to discard something which we cannot use. There’s no point in keeping it inside, and it becomes dirty. Let me throw it away later. Instead, don’t even bring it home. If something isn’t suitable for you, dare to discard it. This is better.
It went on like that. I settled down in silence, and then all these communions started. When you are in a certain frequency, you start connecting to people of those frequencies. People may not even understand you, recognise you, accept you. But, you start connecting to certain frequencies which are suitable for you. Thus, I started connecting. That’s how I had communion with Babaji. I had communions with various Masters on various levels. The result is my literature.
I never studied anything. I never studied Smritis, Shrutis, Puranas, Vedas, Upanishads – nothing. All this I am talking about is from me – what I’ve experienced and what comes through me. So, you have to stabilise in one platform for you to jump. That foothold should be there. That foothold and the best foothold is silence.
If you find a Master who has attained that foothold, then don’t leave. What else? Where’ll you go? If you’ve not found it, find yourself. This was what I did. I didn’t go chasing any Guru because I wasn’t sure. In fact, some of them really took me for a ride also. That also was beautiful. I appreciate that experience because I realised that it wasn’t real. So, I have no regrets. Of course, some time was wasted.
Sometimes, some people try to bind you with fears. I discard fears right away. I believe in fearlessness. If you’ve found yourself, you can’t sit with fear. You can’t have fears. Fears will not be able to come. Fear is darkness. You are light. So, you can’t have fears. Fear and light cannot be together.
Everything is good. I’ve no regrets. I’ve no disappointments in people. Another thing is that when you start operating at certain levels, you become bright. People start recognising you. That means connecting to you.
Some people will say to you that you look beautiful or you are radiant. We would like to be with you. Some of them are only there to create a nuisance, but you’ve to handle them. For me, after establishing for many months, for many years in silence, going out into the world and speaking was extreme violence to my state, which I’ve earned the hard way by practicing – a lot of practice, tons of it. Once you stabilise, you won’t leave it.
Then another truth happened. There’s nothing you can own, even your silence. That’s the truth. Even your silence isn’t yours. There’s nothing called okay, now it’s fine. Then you go and speak, still being in silence. It’s an interesting journey, and sooner or later you’ll reach there.
But understand this big business that means flexibility is the name of the game extreme flexibility, just like water. As the water flows, that’s the way we flow. Nothing you can pre-plan; nothing you can bind yourself to, or you cannot determine that this is how I’ll work. No way. As it flows, it flows.
That’s why I said sometimes I become surprised when people come with expectations that with one touch, you reach heaven. Another thing is that sometimes people come with certain kinds of prejudices, concepts, and they want me to conform with them, which I cannot. These are individual opinions.
The world is only opinions. The world is filled with the opinions of people. It’s up to us to buy them or not. Just like we go to the supermarket, we can’t buy all the stuff sitting in there, right? We don’t have to, and we can’t because we’ll only buy what we can use. The second is that we blame other people for our destiny. How can they be responsible?
There are so many such unnecessary nuisances. We’ve to put them all away, and then what you have on your table is basic, simple you. That’s the only you. When you marry that you – that person which you’ve found within, you’ve found everything. You’ve found the microcosm and the macrocosm and the macrocosm in the microcosm. You’ve found everything. This is exactly the story. Various Masters is an illusion. Fundamentally there are various forms, but you are the Master.
Don’t look at me as a Guru or a Master. What am I when I’m playing with Mila? I’m not a Master; I’m her father. When I’m walking on the street or on the beach in my bermudas, what Guru? We are all the same. There are so many people out there. Everything is relative; all things are relative. You perform a role, and that role gives you a certain recognition, that’s all. If you consistently perform a certain role, then you are identified based on that consistency. Isn’t it? That’s how we call Masters, etc.
But, there are some people very insecure, whom I’ve seen in the Himalayas also. They are very attached to their form, their garb. That’s many times insecurity. Let’s leave it, okay that’s fine because that’s their level of evolution which they probably wanted to experience or connect. We can’t do anything. That’s not our problem.
What we should do is accept ourselves one hundred percent. I believe that if I cannot accept my weaknesses, I’m a hypocrite. We have weaknesses; why not? We should have weaknesses. We should have failures. Failures help us understand the truth. It’s not only success that tells you the truth. Failures tell the truth better because they remind you very constantly, ‘don’t fall again.’ So, we can fail. We can be a failure. People can call us failures; it doesn’t matter.
Nobody can decide who we are because we are a unique creation. Nobody can own you or disown you. You are what you are. The point I am saying is that if you’ve actually found yourself, you’ve found all the Masters. Yogananda said this beautifully, ‘If you consider me as your Guru, understand I am all Gurus. Look no further.’
Why did he say that? Because concentration isn’t the best if you’re scattered. Nobody takes responsibility for you because you’re going from one place to the other. You’re carrying the cup everywhere. A cup has a capacity. Even if everybody has something to pour, they won’t pour because there’s no capacity.
Instead, you are standing in one line. Eventually, you’ll get your cup full. This is the core of spirituality. Stay in one line, stay steady, and it’s not about practices. It’s about connection. The highest is achieved through integration more than practices. Practices help alignment, discipline. But, what actually takes you higher? It’s what you’re connected to.
If you’re connected to supreme consciousness, you’ll reach supreme consciousness. You experience that fully. If you’re connected to a person, you’ll be in that mode. So, what exactly are you connected to, that’s what you become. That’s why I’m saying it’s important to integrate consistently. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, day after, you should be connected the same way. The mind will fluctuate; it doesn’t matter. Leave the mind, but the connection should remain. Then, elevation is guaranteed. You’ve to reach that level. There’s no other way.
Transcribed by Shamim Gany
Proofread by Yogesh Pandit