Kailash, Sanatana Dharma, Naag Devas, Family deity
Namaste everyone!
A very warm welcome to all of you.
It gives me immense joy to be with all of you today.
Today you get to see the second part of my conversation with Mohanji. Go ahead, soak in the wisdom.
Kailash
Q: Father, I would like you to talk to us about the glory of Kailash Mansarovar, and what happens to humans who undertake this holy pilgrimage? If you could elaborate on this?
Mohanji: All these great locations, power centers of the world have transformative effect. We go to such locations for the sake of transformation. Transformation simply means more silence inside, fewer thoughts, less desires. So a place like Kailash is about stillness. In fact, Kailash is stillness. Kailash means stillness. Stillness means, it is the state of the Supreme Consciousness. Still, yet fully active, fully intelligent, and fully vibrant. When you have such a power center, many beings get attracted to that center, for their own transformation, personal transformation. Through personal transformation, when a lot of people are personally transformed, when they are not greedy anymore, when they have shed all their lower vasanas, gravitational vasanas, inclinations and tendencies, they become lighter, and then they start becoming brighter. So, a place like Kailash is a symbol or is symbolic of your own inner possibility; the possibility of inner stillness. Inner stillness means when there are no thoughts inside; you’re absolutely still then. When there are thoughts inside, you are always vibrating. You are changing, you are shifting. But that changeless state is Kailash. When you go to a place of that nature, you should go with full awareness; awareness that this is what you’re coming here for. This means you realize that you are coming here to transform. Once you transform internally, your life changes, and that reflects in the society outside. But not everybody goes to any place with full awareness. We go to samadhis of great masters, expecting something, praying, “Let me get married or let me have a child”, or things like that. This is the level of operation of the human mind. But Kailash Mansarovar has the effect of transforming you. There you don’t need to take any more births; forget about desires, you don’t need any more births! So that level is possible with Kailash.
Not only Kailash Mansarovar, there are many power centers. These are places which have high energy conglomeration. There are many centers like that, and that can transform people. See, the main thing you can see in the transformation is overwhelming compassion, kindness. You can’t hurt anybody, you can’t even think about shedding blood, no murder of any kind. People have shifted to become vegan, because of the inner shift within. The inner shift. This can happen, the big inner shift. People have reduced the quantity of consumption; sometimes they eat only one time a day; not because somebody told them; it won’t work that way. It should come from within. So less consumption means you are not utilizing more resources from earth, and you are giving back more to the earth. That shift happens. Otherwise, we are asking for more and more from earth. We have a voracious appetite. We need more. We take more and we consume more. And we don’t care about how the earth will be after our death. That will change to compassion, where we will receive less; we will take less from earth; but we would want to give more to earth. With different people the shift differs. We cannot say this would be it; but some shift will happen when inner stability settles within.
Yes, I have always felt this Baba. Twice that I went to Kailash, I felt that I have been twice reborn. It’s a new birth, after coming back.
Mohanji: We are reborn every day. When we get out of the deep sleep, we are reborn. The only difference between death and deep sleep is that, with the deep sleep we come back to the same body. With death, we come back in another body. That’s the only difference. So we are reborn every day.
Power Centres on the Earth
Q:Baba would you like to name a few more other powerful spiritual energy centers on earth?
Mohanji: There are many. Char Dhaams, they are all energy centers in India. Then there are the Jyotirlingas; they’re all energy centers. All the Shakthipeeths are energy centers. There are many outside: Machu Picchu is a very good energy center. We have Sedona, in Arizona, USA, it is an energy center, beautiful energy center. There are so many. But, see, it’s not essential to go to all these places. If you go to a place with awareness, it makes a difference. We go to these places so that it accents our evolution to levitation. It accents, provided you spend sufficient time to feel it. I always tell people, ”Go to a place to feel the place, not to see the place.” Many people go to those places, to take a picture against the backdrop, and post it on Instagram. I mean that’s okay. That’s one more wish list item checked. But that’s not the real reason for going to such places, right? It is to transform oneself.
Naag Devas
Interviewer: Yes Baba. Kindly tell us the role of Naag Devas on Earth? Are they still actively guiding humans? How does it work?
Mohanji: In the Sanatana Dharma principle, Sanatana Dharma is the essence of co-existence; essence of creation, essence of maintenance, essence of dissolution and an essence of co-existence – this is Sanatana Dharma in nutshell. According to Sanatana dharma principles – all the beings of the earth, all the beings of nature have frequency, vibration, relevance and interaction. Look at all the animals which are associated with our deities: lion, rat, swan, peacock, snake… all these beings are given respect. We respect them, because they are associated with the deities. Indirectly we are respecting those aspects of nature; we see it in the Dasha avatars of Lord Vishnu – Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha; all of them have their respect, their relevance; we respect them; we revere them, because ecology should be maintained. According to astrology, various trees are connected to various stars, birds connected to stars and animals connected to stars. They say, if you protect the animal, the bird and the tree connected to your star, it will stabilize you. Indirectly what are they saying is – you’re interconnected, you’re connected to one another. So when you protect them, when you worship them and you respect them, your life is enhanced. You will strike a balance inside. We are not just individuals walking in a concrete jungle. We are spiritual beings; we have taken birth in an environment which has spirituality. This awareness should be given to people all the time. This awareness is essential. So, that is why we have in our system, where we respect every being which is living, walking, crawling, swimming, inanimate, animate, everything is respected.
For example, consider the Shiva linga – Why that particular form? That is the form which can contain, store and maintain energy for a long duration of time. That is why all the atomic reservoirs of the world are in the shape of the Shiva Linga. Why it is not square, circle, triangle or rectangle? It is not because this is the only form which can store and maintain energy of a certain nature – a powerful energy for a period of time. We understood this centuries ago.
Thousands of years ago we understood and said, “Everybody should exist, coexist. Everybody should be happy and peaceful” Sarva Bhavantu Sukhinah –May all the beings be happy, may all the beings be peaceful. This is exactly the reason why we do not harm any being. We do not kill any being. We should not kill any being, because they all are connected to us. When you kill a being, it’s like chopping a hand because they are connected to us. So why we propagate Ahimsa as Parmodharma (paramo means topmost, ultimate, or supreme, and dharma means duty) . We say this because it is essential for our well-being. For well- being to happen, we should co-exist, we should connect to every being, we should love every being, respect every being. That is why we worship. When you respect, you don’t kill.
Sanatana dharma created a structure where we respect all beings. Regarding snakes , there is a world of snakes. It’s not snakes actually. There are so many lokas. There are planets which are visible to eyes right? There are various frequencies in this world in this universe. In the created universe -created universe means manifested universe. There are various frequencies. Some are visible with naked eyes, human eyes, some are invisible, but they exist. There are numerous frequencies, numerous beings operating in numerous frequencies in the universe.
One such world we call as the Naga loka. Naga loka does not mean that they are snakes in the form. Why we call Naga loka, is because they when they appear in earth, they look like snakes. When they appear on earth, they look like snakes, huge snakes. Why are they here as snakes, you may ask; it is just for protection; people will not go and touch snakes. They take that form so that they are protected. They are highly evolved beings; you can call them aliens, in our terrestrial term. Various beings have come to earth, because earth is a plane where life can happen, as we see.
Many beings are curious. Then we have a type of animal which we call human beings, who can actually attain the highest possibility of human existence; that means Realization of God. This (the earth) is a very interesting location for all these experiences. So, many of these beings do come, they do interact and they do guide people. But we have one good quality – thanklessness, ingratitude. So what did we do? We attacked them, killed them and we made a lot of mess for them. And what is the result? If you destroy the environment, what is the result? Sickness is the main result. We become sick.
If you destroy the connection to the Source, what happens? Confusion, alienation, depression. This is what happens when we disconnected from those people. The whole structure of Brahma-Vishnu- Shiva that means Creation – Maintenance – Dissolution was explained to us in that detail, by these people, who appear as snakes. Around the neck of Shiva, you can see snakes. Maha Vishnu is lying on a serpent. That serpent is a symbolic representation of infinity, which cannot be defined. Ananta is infinity. Maha Vishnu is lying on Ananta. Maha Vishnu is lying on Ananta, means He is lying on Infinity, which means He is fathomless. He can’t be measured. He is existing in Cosmic Consciousness, in the Ridhambara buddhi and beyond, the intellect, which is vast and all encompassing.
Then Lakshmi is at His feet; that means the material aspect is at the feet of the Supreme Consciousness. When you enter Maha Vishnu, the stature of Maha Vishnu, when you enter into that frequency, wealth comes to you. That is also an antidote for poverty. Poverty is coming to you because you are disconnected. When you are deeply connected to Supreme Consciousness, wealth is coming to you; wealth will come to you. Lakshmi has to reach you. When you are completely disconnected, you are your ego material, your mind, then, no Lakshmi can come to you because your frequency is so low. That is the secret of poverty or richness. Everything is within our system. Naaga loka does exist. Naagas do exist. They are not snakes, but they appear as snakes here, so that they can stay away from people.
Family Deity
Interviewer: Baba, what is the significance of family deity? How important in today’s times, you know in modern days, how important it is for people to acknowledge and revere the family deity?
Mohanji: There is no modern day or past day. Relevance remains the same. Our awareness is the difference. In modern day, we have more materialistic awareness, less metaphysical awareness. But earlier there was more metaphysical awareness, probably that’s the difference. But family deity is just like the guest who you are invited to your home. Some of your ancestors decided to bring a deity; which means they brought a frequency and an energy into your house, for the sake of worshiping, with one contract, “I worship you, I revere you, I take care of you, please take care of us.“ That’s the deal. So they brought this deity home. In the Western countries, there are Patron saints. Patron saints are similar; they bring the energy of a saint into the house and they honor them; the saint takes care of them. Like that, we have family deities, Kul Devetas in our house. Then they made temples, they had worship and the family was flourishing at that time. As I said in the beginning, everything that rises will also fall. The family deities were really happy when they were taken care of. It’s like the guest of the house. You bring the guest to the house and you ‘re all eating food, but the guest is starving. What will the guests say? They will run away.
Interviewer: So bad.
Mohanji: Similarly, the coming generations did not feel the importance of the family deity and did not take proper care. There are two ways you can take care. Either, you worship as it used to be before; second possibility is that you bring this deity to a temple, where there is already a worship practice set up and merge the deity with that temple. Both are okay.
But some people, because of lack of awareness, do nothing. They neither worship nor do they bring the deity to a temple, where there is worship. You can pay some money for maintenance. However, both are not done. Then what do you see in the household: energy shifts, mental disorders, various problems connected to being a family. When a family has taken a vow to take care of something, the family is responsible. Everybody in the family is responsible. This is the important.
For this, you have suggested Baba (which I do almost with every meal, from the time that I learned it from you) wherein you said that before we eat, we can offer the food to Ganesha, to our family deity….. Would you like to share that ?
Mohanji: No, you say what you do.
Interviewer: So what I do is what I’ve learnt from you. You suggested it to us. You said that it would be wise if before every the meal we offer the meal mentally from our heart. We offer the meal first to Ganesha. Then we can offer it to our family deity; we can offer it to the form of God with whom we feel really connected to. We can offer it to our gurus. We can offer it to our Pitra Devas and to the final absolute stillness.
Mohanji: It’s a good idea, because many of us do not know our family, original family location, family diet etc. That’s when I suggested this and it’s really having a remarkable effect in people’s lives. I always say -start with Lord Ganesha, because Ganesha is the Supreme Unmanifested form of Lord Shiva, son of Shiva. There are two aspects to Shiva: one is the manifested aspect and the other is the Supreme Unmanifested aspect. The Unmanifested aspect is much larger. That is why Ganesha has a huge body. The Unmanifested aspect has huge consciousness, huge intellect, big brain. That is why it has the elephant head. So first we give it to the Unmanifested aspect, which is our original aspect. So we offer to Lord Ganesha, then to the family deities, our guests whom our ancestors have invited home, then the ancestors themselves, then favorite deities whom you like in this life, next to gurus, personal deities and so on. Also to snake deities – the Naag Devatas. Naag Devatas represent wisdom, as well continuity of existence, continuity of good fortune, family, children, continuity, all those things.
108 Chants
Interviewer: Baba would you tell us the significance of mantras and why do we chant them 108 times?
Mohanji: Well, 108 times is like scratching the surface. You should chant much more; for mantra siddhi, you need to chant much more; 108 is simply like a smelling or tasting. Instead of not chanting at all, 108 is okay. Mantras are frequencies. They are vibrations, frequencies. When you constantly chant a mantra inside, it’s 80 percent inside and 20 percent outside; that’s what is said, or 90 percent inside and 10 percent outside; it helps your alignment. You are aligned when you chant mantra. So when you constantly chant, when you are aligned, your energy and aura is powerful. It’s as if you increase your immunity from the wears and tears of life. When you are constantly chanting a mantra or connecting to a Master and chanting a mantra, your focus is on the Master. You chant a mantra like Hanumanji did. He focused on Ram and chanted ,”Ram, Ram, Ram”; so He became so powerful; Ashta siddhis and Nava niddhis happened in Him.
These are all potential from Lord Ram. But Ram never used them. Ram lived an ordinary life. But connecting to Ram, Hanumanji used them. This is what happens when you are fully aligned or focused on the Supreme Consciousness, like Ram and you are chanting the mantra, automatically you become very powerful. Powerful means your immunity increases and your aura becomes stronger. This is possible with mantras. Mantras are frequencies and if you connect to it and chant it continuously and consistently, it stabilizes you; you get mantra siddhis.
Would you also please shed some light on rituals like havans and specific pujas to certain deities, and actions like annandan? How does it help a human being ? What is the significance ?
Mohanji: How many hours do we have this interview? It’s such a vast question. It will take at least four hours to complete.
Interviewer: Okay, fine. Then Baba I’ll take another day from you then for this specific topic.
Mohanji: Well I’ll tell you one thing. Rituals are for yourself. Everything is for yourself. What is the purpose of all these activities is to connect yourself with yourself. All the deities, 330 million deities are inside us; 330 million deities of the Sanatana dharma tradition are dimensions which are possible of the Supreme Consciousness. They are all inside us. Because inside us we have various frequencies, and which frequency is predominant in you -that is you. That is what people conceive or perceive as you. This is exactly how we work. So a person who of very sattvic nature will worship in the sattvic way. A person of rajasic nature will have that kind of worship. A person of tamasic nature will worship in that way.
This is how all these worship methods are configured. Now, all the rituals connected to these worships are for the sake of activating that aspect within you. So if you broadly specify the havans and pujas and all the things which you just now said, they all have their distinct effect in that particular mode. One cannot be swapped onto another. A temple has a particular idol, idol representing an ideal and a particular method of worship to create and keep the energy in the idol , which will transmit to the worshipper, the energy. Means there’s an energy exchange happening when you go to the temple. Each deity has a potential. The deity is installed in the temple, prana is infused into it, so that the energy exchange can take place, and puja vidhis or the methods followed are to maintain it. Usually saying, broadly speaking, the energy exchange is between 8 seconds to 40 seconds, depending on the intensity created in the idol deity. Our temples are definitely not places of prayers, they are places of transformation. We have created temples in that way . That is why it’s very, very relevant. We must preserve our temples, because they are all places of positive transformation. This is why we must take interest in our temples, take care of our temples, maintain them so that so many people will get cleansed from within. What do you get cleansed from ? It is from the base emotions like just such as kaama, krodha, lobha, moha, madha, matsarya and such emotions to compassion, kindness, unconditional love, selflessness. They are daya, karuna, bhakti, and all those things. They come because from there by through purification. All the rituals are connected to inner purification. All the temples are for inner purification, rejuvenation, transformation, regeneration and all the activities are individualistic. That is why we have such a big variety. It is needed, because all of us are individuals. If we do not connect to a suitable deity, we can’t transform ourselves. We can’t get transformed. That is why.
If you connect to a deity, because there is no other possibility, stagnation is the result. Like for example, a rajasic person connects to a taamasic method, he will not have transformation. As you are, you should connect. What you are, that’s exactly how it should be. So the aspect within you, which is like some people worship Shiva, some people worship Vishnu, some people worship Shakti, some people worship Hanumanji, some people worship Sai Baba.. Various people worship various deities, because of their orientation, their disposition, how they are, because we are unique creations. It is as simple as that.
Interviewer: Baba, what is the importance of rudraksha beads? Why we do wear that, and why it is that generally saints and sages always wear rudraksha beads?
Mohanji: Rudraksha is a stabilizer. The energy, the frequency is more stable nature. Like tulsi plant. Tulsi plant has a great aura. We consider the tulsi plant as connected to Lord Krishna, who had great aura. When you bring tulsi plant and you consume, it really enhances your aura. When you wear the mala, when you when offer this to the deities, it enhances the aura. Likewise, rudraksha has a stabilizing stillness energy connected to Shiva . But we should know about all this. Otherwise, lot of people wear rudraksha and go to toilet, and you know various things. You should be refraining from eating meat, taking it to toilet and when we need to wear only is only during Sadhana, meditations, prayers etc… If that happens, it stabilizes, it enhances our efforts. That’s why. These materials enhance our efforts for higher elevation.
Interviewer: Okay
Mohanji: I wish great success to your video YouTube channel. I wish you great success!
Interviewer: Thank you very much Baba!
Mohanji: Thank you for interviewing me.
My love to all those who are listening to us or seeing us.
Thank you very much.
Interviewer: Anjali Kanwar
Transcribed by Nada Rakovic
Proofread by Vidya Rajagopalan