The phenomenon of Sai Baba – 2

A Satsang with Mohanji from ‘The Love of Shirdi Sai Baba’ disciples

Importance of Nama Japa

Q. Can you explain the importance of Nama Japa and reading Baba’s Sai Satcharitra?

Mohanji: Alignment! When you chant a name, I mean even just chant Sai, Sai, Sai, it aligns you. It brings your energy to yourself; the scattered mind comes back to you. All these things are for bringing the scattered mind, which is usually always scattered in the past and the future, to you and bringing you to yourself. When you are completely within you, you are very powerful with no loss of energy.

But regarding reading Sai Satcharita, the life story of Baba, first of all, you start by connecting to him deeply. Whenever you read the story of somebody, you feel that you were there at that time. That’s the delusion many people carry – they kind of project themselves or superimpose themselves in that time and say, “I’m so-and-so”, but that delusion will not fetch us anything. 

We need to know that when we connect and experience, there will be a lot of lightness happening within. Ego drops, and we will feel much lighter, much milder, and we will be activated to do various good works in the world. That’s exactly what we should do. 

We should work in the name of Baba, serve in the name of Baba and unconditionally too. We can’t really serve in order to get some name or fame, or accolade. We do; we give what we can, continuously and consistently. 

But when you chant the nama/name, this is about frequency. Even your own name is a frequency. Mohanji is a frequency, and Tejinder is a frequency. Everything has a frequency. When the frequency of your name is aligned to your personal frequency, that’s called a good name and a good connection. 

That’s why many people recommend names based on the frequency. We are an operating frequency – individual, unique, authentic. Name is also frequency. When the name aligns with the operating frequency, you become more connected to yourself. 

Likewise, when you keep on chanting Sai’s name – Sai, Sai – what happens is that alignment happens. You feel completely aligned, and with that alignment, you can be much more effective. Don’t judge, don’t criticize, don’t compare, don’t gossip, don’t analyze too much. Instead, feel. You know, some of the best things in life are feelings. Your body talks to you through feelings. When you feel thirsty, it’s a feeling. When you’re hungry, it’s a feeling. The body talks to you through feelings.

 Likewise, the soul also talks to you through feelings, but you can’t listen to it. You’ve got to go into deep inner silence. Inner silence simply means no thoughts. In the no-thought state, you feel the vibration or the murmur of the Om within. If you listen to that all the time, you become that. 

So when you listen to the Sai mantra, it’s not about multiple chants. Please don’t be deluded like that. Not that you have 1000 different chants each day. Instead, have one chant that you’re using to connect each day.

Recently someone showed me a board/slate. Shirdi Sai Baba appeared to him and wrote ‘Om Sai Naathaya Namah’ eleven times on that board. I have always said that ‘Om Sai Naathaya Namah’ is very close to my heart. 

If you keep on chanting, ‘Om Sai Naathaya Namah’, feeling that mantra inside, you finally start connecting to the Consciousness called Baba. Baba has said, “I speak to you. I work for you, even from my grave. My bones will speak to you. I will answer your questions. I will work with you. I’ll support you and protect you.” He does that.

Thus, the mantra is alignment. Mantras are frequencies; frequencies are for alignment, and alignment stabilizes you. When you have stability, you have a complete life. The net result is contentment and fulfillment. 

Otherwise, it’s always insecurity, lack of fulfillment, and lack of contentment. Finally, life has been lived, but you wouldn’t know what you had been doing on earth! Most people are like headless chickens – they don’t know what they’re doing on earth, and they do bizarre things just to fulfil their desires, vasanas (inclinations or tendencies). Finally, there are a lot of regrets and guilt; sometimes, you feel life has been wasted. These are all unnecessary things. You don’t have to go like this.

If you know where you’re connecting, you must have consistency. This is very important – please remember, if you’re inconsistent, nobody can give you anything. Grace cannot come if you’re inconsistent – if you’re not focused, like if the mind takes you to many forms: today I am worshipping this and tomorrow worshipping that. 

There is a major story about two enlightened masters. Actually, one person is very evolved, and he is a Sanskrit pundit; he knows all the pujas. The other one is a carpenter. So the carpenter came to see the scholar. Standing outside of the house, he asked, “Can I meet the scholar?” He was told. “Oh, he’s doing the puja of Ganesha”. 

Then later, he was doing the puja of Devi (Goddess), then Krishna, and so on. By noon time, he had done puja of many different deities. During all that time, the carpenter had been digging holes. Whenever they say, “Oh, he’s doing this puja”, he would dig a hole. And then for the next puja, another hole and so on. So there were about 15 holes that he dug, and all were shallow because, by that time, another puja had started. 

Then the scholar came out and said, “Why have you got a lot of holes on the ground?” The carpenter said, “You did so many pujas.” The scholar said, “Oh, I’m appeasing everybody.” Then the carpenter said, ‘I don’t think so because you didn’t give enough time to penetrate into any of the deities you are worshipping! What you did was you dug a hole which is very shallow, many times. But if you had been digging one hole all the way, you could have found water.”

Consistency, Conviction and Connection

So this is important to understand. Consistency is very important. If you’re not consistent, then don’t blame other people. Don’t blame masters, don’t blame anybody because it doesn’t work that way. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and day-after, you should be firm and stable, despite the fluctuations of life.

Secondly, conviction – you should believe in what you’re connecting to. If you don’t believe in what you’re connecting to, you don’t connect at all. If there is no conviction, there is no proper connection. 

The third aspect is to connect without expectation. Don’t connect conditionally. If you are conditionally connecting, then it cannot last long; it may not last long. Your conditional connections are all transactional, will stay for some time, and will disappear after a while. It’s important that you have a consistent connection with conviction unconditionally. If that happens, then saburi is automatic. 

Patience becomes automatic. The connection becomes strong, and faith will also strengthen. When you have deep faith, you can’t have fear. Fear is the opposite of faith. If you go to the bottom of it, most of your fears are because you don’t have faith.

I’m not saying you don’t have faith – the faith is shallow; it’s not deep. So faith should be very deep, and whatever happens in life, surrender. I always do that; when good things happen in my life, I surrender to the feet of Consciousness. When bad things are happening, I surrender to the feet of Consciousness. I move like a witness. 

Some people have respected me for some time; some people respect me for much time, all the time. Some people disrespect me and respect me. Alternatively, all these I’ve experienced. Nothing affects me because there’s no point in getting affected by the fluctuations of minds. There’s no point because that simply says that we are insecure. 

If at all we are dependent on somebody’s like or dislike for our life, we will always have insufficiency. Love doesn’t come that way. All you can do is give love. Don’t worry about making love. If it comes, that’s good, and if it doesn’t come, then no problem. When you are unconditionally able to share your time, your energy, and your presence, then you can live like a powerful emperor. Powerful because your expectation level is very low. So it’s easy to stabilize. 

The more expectations you have from the world, especially if you engage in gossiping, criticizing, judging, scandalizing, and character assassinating, it can be very, very dangerous. They all come back to you in a much larger quantity, so better not to get involved with any of this. Instead, go to compassion, kindness, non-violence, selflessness, unconditional love etc. That will stabilize you and always keeps you stable on earth.

Saburi – Patience

Q: Why is patience or saburi so difficult, and how can I practically develop my patience? 

Mohanji:  In today’s time – the direct answer is the Android phone! You want everything yesterday (impatience). And we are in a fast-track world; we are addicted to moving images; things have to change. Otherwise, we feel insecure. Why we have more memory loss in these times is because of overloading information into our brains. Earlier it was not so – we have too much information today. We can’t digest all of it; it’s not humanly possible. And most of the information we don’t even really need; it only has entertainment value or a disturbing value.

The images that come are pretty horrible and very painful to watch. Like one person was beheaded in Udaipur recently, unbelievably bad. It was terrible, and people are sharing it all over. These are the kinds of things that come to your desk, to your phone, to you. What happens then? Our mind gets contaminated. You know, we start thinking that the world is bad – we see it as having atrocities and injustice. 

But what you should do is connect to good news and good things and also stabilize yourself. Whatever destabilizes you (I didn’t say that you should be an escapist and run away from reality, that’s not what I meant), you discard that and use what stabilizes you so that your stability is always there. 

Secondly, saburi is a byproduct. Saboori is a byproduct when you know who you’re connecting to when you know there is an energy inside your body. Understand this clearly. 

Our body is made out of two parts. The gross – is the physical part, and the subtle is the energetic part. When the energy and the gross come together, we call it life. When the energy separates from this gross, we call it death. So life and death are just different alignments. But that’s how it is. When the energy part leaves the body, we call it a dead body, but when the energy part enters the body, we call it life. 

That’s why most people in the world remember the birth of children, and then what they remember is death. While living, people ignore people and treat them as a nuisance. But we all remember births, we celebrate births, and we mourn deaths – that’s our normal thing. 

But while living, if we can’t do much, there is no use. While living, if you cannot share, if you cannot love, if you cannot accept, there’s no use. You should know what you are: your two parts. That you are gross and subtle together; they’ve come together, and we call it life. While living, we need to know where they have come from or what it consists of – energy, imperishable energy, unbound by time. That understanding should happen, and also, you look at masters or people who have stabilized themselves in that energy. 

As I told you, it doesn’t happen overnight. I took six-seven years of constant practice every day, between 3 am, and 8 am, consistently connecting to myself to destroy this thing called Mohanji. It took a long while, yet society still recognizes you as your personality. But that doesn’t matter. If you don’t recognize yourself as only the personality, then it’s okay. So, it takes time. 

Once you know you are the Consciousness that’s operating in all forms, all beings, you don’t feel the separation. When you don’t feel separation, surrender happens, or patience happens because you’re watching the show. You’re not the show itself. You’re watching the show, where it’s like watching a feature film on the screen. You know, you go through the emotions of the film, but you’re not part of the film. Like that, you are watching/witnessing life as it evolves and it moves, but at the same time, you are accepting everything. 

When acceptance rises, saburi rises, patience rises. When acceptance reduces, patience also is lost. Mostly, it is resistance that causes impatience. And what part of you is responsible for this impatience – mind level, emotional level or analytical, intellectual level?

Always remember that there are three types of intellect in people.

The first is the intellect which processes acquired knowledge – that’s what most people in the world use. They collect information from outside, they process it, they think it’s their own, and they live life.

Another type of people uses their intelligence. So they are logical-minded people. Using a lot of logical mind/ logical intellect/ activity, they can discover things. These are all the scientists, all the great legends – they created their own paths in life. 

Then there’s a third type of people who operate from awareness. They operate from Cosmic Consciousness; this is strengthened by awareness. It’s neither by logic nor by acquired information; it’s awareness. When awareness stabilizes, you go into deep silence. In deep silence, all you have is patience. Only at the mind level, are you impatient. At the deep consciousness level, you can never be impatient. 

Thus your effort should be to connect to Sai Consciousness, deeper and deeper and deeper, and you attain that Sai Consciousness. When I say Sai Consciousness, it’s the same as the Consciousness of the universe. But we connect to Sai Baba as our father/Master/Guru. So that Consciousness is available in that form. 

That form is not the only form in which that Consciousness can operate. It can operate in any form. So you need to recognize this form as all forms. 

Q: Brilliant, thank you very much, Mohanji!

Mohanji’s message

Q: Mohanji, is there a message you want to share with Baba devotees around the world today? Is there something you’d like to share that you haven’t shared?

Mohanji:  Unless Baba comes into your heart, you don’t have him. You know, Sai should exist in your heart. Don’t chase people who are connected to Baba; you should connect to Baba in the heart. 

You know there are so many people out there in the world; they’re all connected to Baba. But they are not higher than you, lower than you or even equal to you; all are unique! You are a unique creation and one of the expressions of Baba; please remember this. Never ever compare; never criticize. 

And don’t think you are from another planet. You are here now; you have a body; you are from here. So, do this life. I said ‘do’ – ‘do’ means do this life very well, with awareness. Don’t be deluded with forms. Always look at Consciousness at work. Don’t be affected by the world outside. Don’t be affected by the world inside. 

Always give, and share. Everybody has some strength. Sometimes you have time; sometimes you have power, or you have money. Whatever you have in abundance, share it without expectation so that you live Baba’s teachings. 

Baba is us. Sai Baba lives through us. And in every atom, Baba responds to us. We need to understand this very clearly. As I said earlier, nobody is higher; nobody is lower. All are Baba, and in front of Baba, there are no hierarchies. Nobody is better connected or worse connected. That’s up to you. 

When you have no separation from Baba, you are better connected. When you have separation, which is mind or ego, then you’re less connected. That’s individualistic. But for Baba, it is not like that – He is like the Sun. A true master is like the Sun; his nature is light and heat. Whether you take the light and heat or not, he will give light and heat. 

Every guru is a Presence; every god is a Presence. The presence activates. A guru’s job is to be available to activate. What I do in the world is activation – activation just by my presence. Every person is like that. There is no agenda, no plan. Being available is the only thing. So you can be complete and full, which you deserve to have. It’s your birthright. 

Don’t get deluded by the mind’s games, the different forms and different things. It is just entertainment for the mind. But the mind never dies with it. When the mind always entertains you, you cannot come out of it. It’s like one feature film after another feature film, but at the end of the day, you feel miserable, or you feel nothing has been achieved. 

It’s important that all the time, you should be connecting to Consciousness. Witness the feature film knowing fully well that you are neither the role nor are you the actor. And you can choose to be a witness to the show. Be Baba always. Show it to the world that you care for the world. Always, always practice non-violence in thoughts, expressions, and actions. Emotions are all nonsense. Consciousness is real. Consciousness never discriminates. Remember this. 

Q:  Mohanji, Thank you. I love you. I thank you for this; and it’s been a really powerful Satsang, and I am certain that there are Sai devotees around the world who have really found the benefit from today. So thank you for your precious time today, and before we leave every week, Mohanji, we always do Baba’s arati. Please join us for Baba’s arati and then the closing prayers.

Click here to read part 1 of the satsang.
Click here to view the interview on Facebook.

Transcribed by Padmini Ravikumar
Proofread by Geeta Iyer & Rekha Murali